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Love and Justice Meet

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane . . . And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.  Matthew 26: 36-37

 

Gethsemane means "an oil press." When olives are harvested, they are squeezed under an enormous revolving stone that mashes the fruit to pulp and recovers the valuable oil.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the wheel of humiliation and death would squeeze Jesus to the point of His greatest agony, so He pleaded with His Father for release--but only if it were the Almighty's will.

God did not grant release, for there was no other way for our just and loving God to deal with our sins. Sin must be punished. If God were simply to forgive our sins without judging them, then there would be no justice, no accountability for wrongdoing, God would not be truly holy and just.

But if God were simply to judge us for our sins as we deserve, there would be no hope of salvation for any of us. His love would have failed to provide what we need.

The cross was the only way to resolve the problem of sin. At the cross God's love and justice came together. Jesus took the punishment we deserved, and now we are clothed in His perfect righteousness.

From, HOPE for Each Day: Morning & Evening Devotions, by Billy Graham.