God will judge.

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

Ecclesiastes 3:17

Solomon looked at the ways in which human beings attempted to judge themselves and provide justice and he was profoundly disappointed (Ecclesiastes 3:16). The place where justice was to be found was still run by wicked sinners. And even the most humanly righteous acts were tainted by sin. It is impossible for human beings to be holy and just in the way that God is holy and just. Our “righteousness” is unholy and our “justice” is flawed.

What was true in Solomon’s scene is still true in every human culture. We are a world of injustice and wrong every place we may look. We can enact laws and build courthouses and create enforcement, but once any sinful human being enters the system it gets flawed and broken immediately. We can have high principles of law but they will fail when we realize that we are, as humans, innately twisted to be lawbreakers. Human judges will occasionally live above the law and break it. Human lawmakers may exempt themselves from the laws they pass. Enforcement personnel may sometimes cross the line into criminality themselves. Sin warps justice.

But God knows where we warp it. He will be the Judge. Every action of pretentiousness on my part is exposed by a holy God. Every sinful “holier-than-thou” motive withers in my heart at the light of my perfect Savior. My every hurtful word is judged by the Living Word. My attempts to cheat my way through life will be shown for the fraud of self-deception that they are. Jesus brings it all out. Thank God that His Word shows me what I am. Praise Him that His Spirit convicts my heart. I know that Jesus is both my Savior and my Judge, and when by faith I trust in Him, I am viewed as perfect in Christ! “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy…” James 4:12. Jesus… You are my perfect Savior, my Lawgiver, and my Judge!