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Chapter 3

God the Just Judge

God sits on a throne. The Bible pictures him this way multiple times—in the Psalms, Isaiah, Revelation, even the Gospels.¹³ Thrones conjure images of kingship in our minds, but most of us know more about kings from fairy-tale picture books than from personal experience. Our inner child says that a king wears a crown and a red robe with ermine lining. He has big gold rings and feasts sumptuously every day. We might even think he’s like a president, handing down orders and appointing people to important positions. But kingship is different from presidency, even in the case of JFK’s “Camelot.” In theory, the king holds all power. In the American system, power is divided into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. However, in an absolute monarchy, all power is contained in one person. The king is legislator, executive, and judge.

We see the judicial role of the ancient Israelite king in the story about Solomon judging between two women who both claim the same baby as their own (1 Kgs 3:16-28).¹⁴ They bring their case before Solomon, and he famously offers to have the baby sliced in half and divided between the women. The true mother reacts with horror and offers to give the baby to the other woman. Solomon thus reveals who the true mother is and restores the baby to her. The story is meant to demonstrate Solomon’s wisdom, but it also shows something else—that the king was not only the chief executive, but he was the chief judge of the system of justice. Ideally, a complex or hard-fought case could eventually be appealed from a local official to the king himself. Now, exactly how efficiently or perfectly this system of appeal worked is not our concern here.¹⁵ The point is that the king operated as a judge, and the throne is not just a symbol of executive power or regal pomp, but a symbol for the king’s judicial authority.

At the end of time, after God has completed all of his judicial work, we won’t be able to say, “That’s not fair!” about anything in the universe.

In our culture, the bench on which the judge sits symbolizes his authority. We often hear talk of “the bench” as in when a judge invites lawyers to “approach the bench” or when newspapers discuss new judicial appointments. (The bar, on the other hand, divides the area where the lawyers, jury, and parties to the case sit from the seats for the general public.) Nowadays, most judges sit on a nice leather office chair, rather than a stiff bench, but the point is that the place where the judge sits stands for the judge’s power. In the Bible, God’s throne indicates his kingly judicial authority, his power as the final arbitrator of all cases.

Hope in Judgment

Now this concept of God as the final judge of all things can prompt either hope or despair. On earth, many cases are left unsolved, many injustices are never righted, many times justice is left unserved or incompletely served. But if, ultimately, the one being in (or above) the universe with total power also will act as a perfect judge, we have hope that all of the injustices in our world will someday be “put to rights.” And all of the incomplete ministrations of human, earthly justice will be brought to completion in God’s eternal, perfect justice. At the end of time, after God has completed all of his judicial work, we won’t be able to say, “That’s not fair!” about anything in the universe. This is a great hope! However, the despair I mentioned might jump up in our hearts if we find ourselves on the wrong side of God’s ultimate justice. If we have hidden sins, secret crimes, everything we have done will eventually come to light before the all-knowing God, and we’ll be judged not according to how people saw us, but according to who we really are and what we have really done.¹⁶ That can be kind of scary, but there is no reason to despair since God offers us a possibility of redemption and hope, but more on that later.

Even the Caesar of the Roman Empire would judge cases. Emperor Claudius was famous for spending much of his time adjudicating cases personally.¹⁷ Even St. Paul, when he is on trial in the book of Acts (25:11), appeals his case to Caesar. Tradition has it that Nero initially dismissed his case,¹⁸ but later, when Paul was arrested again, the emperor had him executed.¹⁹ Thus even Caesar, as the monarch of a political system switching from democracy to dictatorship, acted with judicial authority. He was not only the supreme executive of Rome, but the supreme judge.

The beauty of this divine justice is that it is perfect. No stone will be left unturned. No evidence will be left out. No one will walk away complaining about an unjust verdict or a biased judge.

Human judges like Caesar or Solomon must always base their decisions on the testimony of witnesses, the evidence of objects and documents, and their own horse-sense wisdom. This last element is often the most important. Robots wouldn’t make very good judges since they can’t read people, rely on experience, or develop shrewd judgment the same way people can. Human justice is not mechanistic but always has the X factor of human subjectivity. For example, a judge can decide that leniency is to be pursued in a case where the defendant has committed her first crime and has children to care for, but strictness is the order of the day when the defendant has a long rap sheet and needs to be taught a lesson.

Divine justice is different. Since God is all-knowing he does not need to rely on the faulty memories of human witnesses or the difficult-to-decipher physical evidence. Rather, he can know absolutely what a person has done and what their intentions were. His wisdom is complete. His judgment is always on target. He says, “I know your works” (Rv 2:2), and the Bible also teaches that “before him no creature is hidden” (Heb 4:13). Again, this omniscience can be either frightening or relieving. While we talk about having to “give an account” to God, his all-seeing knowledge does not need our help. He will know what we’re going to say before it comes out of our mouth. The beauty of this divine justice is that it is perfect. No stone will be left unturned. No evidence will be left out. No one will walk away complaining about an unjust verdict or a biased judge. Instead, when we walk away from the divine “bench” or throne, we will all be satisfied with the result.

King David and Divine Justice

One biblical example of divine justice will help us think through the judicial power behind God’s throne: the story of David. David was the first great king of Israel. He firmly established the throne, fought off Israel’s enemies and was “a man after God’s own heart” (see 1 Sm 13:14). He was brave and just, holy and devout. It seemed that everything in his life was going right; he was destined to be a hero for God’s people! Yet even in the best of persons, sometimes things go awry. One year, during his reign as king, David sits out the battle season (2 Sm 11). Instead of going out with his courageous army, he stays at home at his palace. Then as he strolls along the roof of his palace, which overlooks the regular homes below, he notices a lovely naked woman bathing in her backyard. Desire consumes him. He acts before he thinks. He summons her and sleeps with her. He abuses his kingly authority, his appointment by God, the trust placed in him as king, by taking advantage of a woman with no royal status or political importance. Her husband was a soldier, out to battle with David’s army (absent David). When the woman, Bathsheba, tells David that she has become pregnant by him, he is horrified and tries to cover his tracks.

He invites Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, back from the battlefront. He asks him questions about the battle and suggests he go home and pay a visit to his wife. But Uriah can’t stand the thought of going home when his comrades are camping out and fighting a battle, so he sleeps in the barracks at the palace. When David invites him back and plies him with wine, Uriah still refuses to go home. David feels backed into a corner—his sin will be a public scandal if there is no denying the child is his—so he sends Uriah back to the battlefront. Devilishly, he sends a sealed message with Uriah to the commander at the front. The message is Uriah’s death warrant: it asks the commander to put Uriah’s unit in an untenable position in the battle and then draw back so that Uriah will be killed. In one fell swoop, David breaks a bunch of the Ten Commandments: he covets his neighbor’s wife, steals her, commits adultery, lies about his actions, murders, and dishonors God. Even though previously he had been so faithful to God, his sins are egregious. They demand justice. They require punishment.

However, being the king and chief judge has its perks. It is easy to be above the law. No one has judicial power over you. David sits on his royal throne untouched, that is, until God intervenes. The Lord sends Nathan the prophet to confront David.

Even though Nathan is a prophet of God, he must watch his steps before the king, especially one who has just murdered an innocent servant. Because of this, Nathan comes before David and simply tells a story. The story goes something like this: There was a rich man and a poor man. The rich man had a big house, lots of money, and lots of sheep and goats. The poor man had a little house and just one little lamb that he loved so dearly that it slept in his bed every night as a beloved pet. One day, the rich man had an out-of-town visitor, and he wanted to lay a big feast before him. But instead of using one of his own sheep, he went next door to the poor man’s house, took away the beloved pet lamb, and slaughtered it to feed to his guest. This vicious thief’s dinner roused David’s ire, and he cried out, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die!” (2 Sm 12:5). With powerful poetic irony, David thus calls down a curse upon himself. To add icing on the cake and seal David’s guilt, Nathan points his finger at David and says, “You are the man!” (2 Sm 12:7).

I can imagine David’s face turning white as a sheet as the full realization of what has just happened strikes him. “If Nathan knows, everyone knows. I just cursed the man in the name of the Lord, but I am the man!” The judgment has been pronounced. David realizes that his toxic sins would be justly punished by death. The prophet lists David’s sins in detail and announces his punishment, yet Nathan actually has some good news: “you shall not die.” But it is worth looking in detail at what the punishment will be:

“Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.” (2 Sm 12:10-14)

In the drama of the story, David fasts and prays for the life of the baby born from the adulterous union, but it eventually dies of illness. After the baby’s death, David responds: “Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sm 12:23).

The Punishment of David

Interestingly, the Lord forgives David but still punishes him. Many preachers use a baseball analogy to explain this one. If you’re in the backyard and hit a ball through your neighbor’s window, the neighbor might forgive you, but someone still needs to pay for the window. Here, the same principle is in play. David has broken his covenant with the Lord, “despised” him by his sinful actions. His violation of Bathsheba, his murder of Uriah, and his duplicity all need to be addressed and punished even though the Lord “has put away” his sin. The Lord does not inflict the death penalty on David but does punish him. Now David’s punishment bears some parsing. To me, it looks as if we actually have three distinct punishments: (1) the “sword” will afflict his descendants; (2) his wives will be publicly ravished by his “neighbor”; (3) the baby Bathsheba bore him will die. The weird thing about these punishments from a modern perspective is that none of them afflict David as an individual. Nothing touches him bodily, so we might think: “That’s unfair! All these other people get punished for David’s personal sin. How about David? Why doesn’t he get sick and die?” However, this observation overlooks the interpersonal connectedness of the ancient world and of traditional cultures today.

In these cultures, children and descendants are of paramount importance. They are the future. To harm my children, to afflict them in any way does more damage to me than to harm my body. Even in modern cultures, to threaten someone’s children is to threaten him or her. One needs only to think of action movies in which a child is held for ransom or a spy’s children are kidnapped in order to force an adult to fork over cash or otherwise capitulate. But in David’s case, the Lord’s “sword” threat is especially ominous. Just a few chapters earlier, the Lord had promised that David’s descendants would have an everlasting throne, but now they will have an everlasting sword. This raises a question: Does God want David to be afflicted? I think the answer is no, but David and his descendants will be afflicted as the due punishment, the logical outworking, even the natural consequence of David’s sin. In the same way that a person’s vices—whether smoking, drinking, drug use, et cetera—can harm his or her children, David’s sins will harm his family tree in a grievous way. In fact, as we read through the rest of Samuel and Kings, we see that indeed the sword does not leave David’s royal heirs alone.

David’s punishment bears some parsing. To me, it looks like we actually have three distinct punishments: (1) the “sword” will afflict his descendants; (2) his wives will be publicly ravished by his “neighbor”; (3) the baby Bathsheba bore him will die.

David’s traditional ancient culture included a powerful honor/shame system. In such a culture, to be able to live with honor is more important than to live at all. If a rival publicly humiliates David by ravishing his wives on the palace rooftop, the shame would be unbearable. Indeed, later in his reign, David is forced to flee from Jerusalem when one of his sons usurps the throne. Absalom’s coup is supported by the majority of the people, and as part of his takeover, Absalom publicly goes into a tent to sleep with the ten concubines David had left in the palace when he fled (2 Sm 15:16 and 16:22). On the one hand, Absalom’s despicable act would be part of any throne takeover in a kingdom where the king kept a harem—the possession of the king’s wives and concubines would signify kingship, and the king’s marriages represented diplomatic alliances—so it is a specifically political act, a royal marriage to the former king’s consorts. Similarly, David had taken Saul’s wives when he became king (2 Sm 12:8). On the other hand, we can see in Absalom’s political act a fulfillment of Nathan’s prediction of divine punishment. Indeed, at the instigation of Bathsheba’s grandfather, Ahithophel, David’s courtesans are publicly ravished on the same roof from which he first lusted after Bathsheba.²⁰ The repugnance and poetic justice of it are startling, but the punishment fits the crime. David stole Uriah’s wife, and now his concubines are stolen from him. While it is horrifying to our sensibilities, these women would have been subject to whichever claimant to the throne controlled the palace. For all they knew, Absalom would be their king and husband for the rest of their lives. The punishment, the embarrassment, and the shame fall on David. The women themselves are not punished, but transferred from one claimant to another, albeit unjustly.²¹ In fact, when David returns, he sets these concubines aside and does not have relations with them again (2 Sm 20:3).

Last, the baby who is the result of David’s union with Bathsheba is clearly not at fault. Yet his father’s sin brings death upon him. Here, our gut jumps up to say: “Hey! It’s not the baby’s fault. Why punish the baby?” But primarily, David is being punished for his sin. He will not get to enjoy this child, for the child is taken away. If death were the end of the story, this would have an unbearable finality to it, yet notice David’s words about the child: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sm 12:23). David recognizes that in death he will meet his child. While the child suffers death as a result of his father’s sin, in the ultimate course of God’s justice and mercy, death is not the end.

David’s story teaches us a few things about God. God reigns not just as an executive, but as a judge. He sees all that we do and justly determines what we deserve. Sadly, the consequences of our sins and offenses against God are not confined to us as individuals. We are all connected for good or for ill. When we act rightly, love others, and obey God’s law, our lives are blessings to our family and friends, but when we do evil and break God’s commandments, our lives become the opposite. Our sins and failings bring down evil consequences on those around us, including our children. David’s sin harms not only himself, but his whole family tree. Even though God “puts away” his sin, in justice the punishment must be administered. David, his family, and his nation suffer because of his evil choices. Punishment is not silly or random; rather it restores the order of justice. God teaches us that punishment reveals something about who we are, about who he is, and about how the universe works. In fact, we’ll see that God’s justice teaches us by design. He intends to reveal himself through his intervention in human history.