(092)- THE UNJUST JUDGE

 

Unjust judges are cruel, liars, thieves, unmerciful, wicked and inhuman. Judges have to be just. Among men, if a judge is human and practices some injustice, he is liable to have his diploma discredited. There are some unjust judges among men, but the Supreme Judge is just, and his name is God the Father.

If he is God, he has to be just. If he is not just, he is not God, but an impostor, because, if God did an injustice, he would be like men. The apostle Paul declares: “…may God be found true, though every men be found a liar” (Rom.3:4).

In the Old Testament we read many passages that reveal that Jehovah is the judge of this world. Jephthah, the Gileadite, before he went to war against the sons of Ammon, who were threatening Israel, said: “I therefore have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me; may Jehovah, the Judge, judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon” (Judg.11:27). In the Psalm 94:1-2we read: “O Jehovah, God of vengeance; God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; render recompense to the proud.” The prophet Isaiah declares, “For Jehovah is our judge, Jehovah is our lawgiver, Jehovah is our king” (Is.33:22). The prophet Jeremiah confirms, saying, “But, O Jehovah of hosts, who judges righteously, who tries the feelings and the heart, let me see Thy vengeance on them” (Jer.11:20). Jeremiah ends this text by saying, “…therefore, thus says Jehovah of hosts, ‘Behold, I am about to punish them! The young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters will die by famine; and a remnant will not be left to them, for I will bring disaster…’” (Jer.11:22-23). A righteous judge does not go about taking vengeance as criminals do, and does not condemn innocent children to die of hunger. A righteous judge applies the law on the guilty, and not on the innocent.

Let us read the law of Jehovah concerning adultery: “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Lev.20:10). “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel” (Deut.22:22). And the death was done by stoning, and this law continued to be valid until the days of Jesus Christ, that is, sixteen thousand years later, for John tells us how Jesus did not condemn the woman that was about to be stoned (John 8:1-11). Jesus was not one with Jehovah, but one with the Father.

Let us analyze David’s adultery: David had a valiant soldier; so valiant that he was one of the thirty-seven, as 2 Sam.23:8-39 tells us. Uriah is mentioned in the last verse—39. Uriah’s wife, named Bathsheba, was bathing by the palace’s side, and David saw her naked, and liked her beauty. Uriah lived by the palace’s side, and we can infer that he was one of David’s intimate friends. David sent for the beautiful Batesheba. His men admonished him saying, “Bathsheba is the wife of Uriah”. David, blind by his desire, lay with the wife of one of his most intimate valiant men, which risked his life to preserve the life of the king. Bathseba conceived and David devised a plan so that Uriah would be considered the father of the child, and Bathsheba agreed with it all. They brought Uriah from the battle, and David granted to him that he went to his home to spend the night with his wife. Uriah lay down at the door of the royal house and did not go to his own home. When they told this to David, he sent someone to make him drunk, so that he would go in and sleep with his wife, but Uriah did not went into his house. David told Joab, his captain, to take Uriah to the heat of the battle and to leave him there. So Uriah the Hittite died, betrayed by the one whom he defended. David, victorious, brought Bathsheba to his palace and shamelessly married her. This is all registered in 2 Samuel 11.

Jehovah, the righteous judge, sends the seer Nathan to declare to David the consequences of his perverted act, for sex is capable of perverting even the man who had a heart like the heart of God.

Nathan dictates the sentence: “‘Why have you despised the word of Jehovah by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. 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’… ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your companion, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed you did this secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun’” (2 Sam.12:9-12). David, hearing these words, confessed, contrite, his sins, and Nathan said, “Jehovah also has taken away your sin” (2 Sam.12:13). Jehovah did not consider the adultery of David, who was guilty of it, but killed the child, who was an innocent victim of the just judge. Let us register the text: “However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die”.  Then Jehovah struck the child that Uriah’s widow had borne to David (2 Sam.12:14-15). This attitude of Jehovah was not just, as the law of Jehovah himself was that the adulterer should be stoned. David, though, was predestined and anointed by Jehovah; and these were protected. The law was to be applied to the less lucky ones—things of the “just judge”.

Bathsheba was an adulteress and should also be stoned to death, as it had been with all adulterers, for 1,600 years. Jehovah, the just judge, preserved the adulteress Bathsheba, and allowed the illegal and unjust death of Uriah, the loyal and faithful man, who, incited by David to lie with his wife, answered, “The arc and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary sgelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing” (2 Sam.11:11). The husband rejects to lie with his wife because of his fidelity to the king and is condemned, while the wolf, which devours the man’s house in his absence, is forgiven? A god who protects the guilty and condemns to death the just and innocent ones does not deserve to be honored as God. This unjust judge, nevertheless, went further yet: he took the ten concubines of David and handed them to Absalom, a treacherous and dissolute son. As proof, simply read 2 Sam.12:11; 16:22.23. One may ask what the concubines of David had to do with his sin, to be dishonored in public?(2 Sam.20:3).

Absalom acted badly by sheer vengeance, for Ammon, David’s first-born, violated his sister Tamar. Tamar was a pure and virtuous girl, but fell victim of the vengeance of the unjust judge of this world (2 Sam.13:1-22).

Jehovah, the just judge, chose Solomon to rule in the place of David. Solomon, though, was the tenth in the royal hierarchy. The legal heir to the throne was Adonijah, son of Haggith, the fourth in the lineage of David (1 Chr.3:1-5). Six heirs to the throne were left behind in order that Solomon, the man who would divide the throne of Israel in the future, could come to the throne. The law of the first-born given by Jehovah (Deut.21:15-17) worsened the problem, since this law assured the rights of the first-born. Jehovah, the just judge, ignored his own laws, nullifying them by unjustly setting Solomon on the throne. Solomon killed his brother Adonijah; he was, therefore, a fratricide (1 Kings 2:23-24).

Jesus Christ, when he saves men, he makes them first-born. Yes, all of them will be first-born of the Father, for they will all have the same crowns, and will become, by grace, just like Christ (Rom.8:29; Heb.12:22-23).

 

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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