As an unbeliever I always struggled between the apparent controversy of God’s kindness and his justice. How can God be both loving and just at the same time? How can he love justice and sinners or sinners and justice without compromising one or the other? It is because of this that I always enjoy watching these twin themes chase themselves around in culture and literature. In the classic Les Miserables Victor Hugo does just that with the law (Javert) and the kindness shown by Jean Val-Jean to Fantine. He can’t stand it.
Those who say, ‘That blackguard of a Javert!’ would be in the right. Mr. Mayor, I do not desire that you should treat me kindly; your kindness roused sufficient bad blood in me when it was directed to others. I want none of it for myself. The kindness which consists in upholding a woman of the town against a citizen, the police agent against the mayor, the man who is down against the man who is up in the world, is what I call false kindness. That is the sort of kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just. Come! if you had been what I thought you, I should not have been kind to you, not I! You would have seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. When I have subdued malefactors, when I have proceeded with vigor against rascals, I have often said to myself, ‘If you flinch, if I ever catch you in fault, you may rest at your ease!’ I have flinched, I have caught myself in a fault. So much the worse! Come, discharged, cashiered, expelled! That is well. I have arms. I will till the soil; it makes no difference to me. Mr. Mayor, the good of the service demands an example.
It is only in and through the gospel where God can be the just and the justifier (Rom. 3.26). These two truths are not at war but at peace. As Psalm 85 rejoices, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. (Ps. 85.10)