God as Judge

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God as Judge - What does it mean?

J.I Packer, in his book Knowing God, instructs his readers on the characteristics of God as a judge. The following points are excerpts from his book. Readers who are interested in this subject would benefit from reading Packer’s entire chapter, God the Judge.

1. The judge is a person with authority. In the Bible world, the king was always the supreme judge, because his was the supreme ruling authority. It is on that basis, according to the Bible, that God is judge of his world. As our Maker, he owns us, and as our Owner, he has the right to dispose of us. He has, therefore, a right to make laws for us and to reward us according to whether or not we keep them.
   
   
2. The judge is a person identified with what is good and right. The modern idea that a judge should be cold and dispassionate has no place in the Bible. The biblical judge is expected to love justice and fair play and to loathe all ill treatment of one person by another.
   
   
3. The judge is a person of wisdom, to discern truth. In the biblical setting, the judge’s first task is to ascertain the facts in the case that is before him. There is no jury; it is his responsibility, and his alone, to question, and cross-examine, and detect lies and pierce through evasions and establish how matters really stand. When the Bible pictures God judging, it emphasizes his omniscience and wisdom as the searcher of hearts and the finder of facts. Nothing can escape him; we may fool men, but we cannot fool God. He knows us, and judges us, as we really are.
   
   
4. The judge is a person of power to execute sentence. The modern judge does no more than pronounce the sentence; another department of the judicial executive then carries it out. The same was true in the ancient world. But God is his own executioner. As he legislates and sentences, so he punishes. All judicial functions coalesce him.

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