O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence” and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. [ESV]
If God is all-righteous and all-powerful, how is it conceivable that injustice persists in our world? Does it not belittle the righteous name of God for his creation to rebel against him? And does it not further belittle his name that he—if even for a moment—appears impotent to eradicate such gross injustice?
These are the very real and very weighty questions with which Habakkuk was wrestling as he beheld the corruption that plagued the southern kingdom of Judah in the 7th century BC. The northern kingdom of Israel had already gone into captivity at the hands of Assyria, and the southern kingdom seemed well on its way to a similar fate. But where was the LORD in all this? And where is the LORD in our day when the poor are oppressed, when the unborn are annihilated, when the faithful spouse is betrayed, and when the spiritually hungry are fed lies? I offer three replies:
The LORD will absolutely vindicate his name and his renown when he comes to judge the living and the dead. Let there be no doubt—he will indeed execute perfect and complete judgment on the unrighteous in accordance with the measure that they have defied his most holy and absolutely awesome name. Just as he wrought judgment on the likes of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, vengeance is his and he will repay. It would be horrendously unrighteous of him not to do so.
The LORD is vindicating his name and renown in the judgment he currently executes in the world. Our natural inclination is to think that an all-righteous and all-powerful God would eliminate injustice immediately. However, such a response would actually be more a demonstration of his mercy than it would be of his justice. His justice says that if men live in unrighteousness, his wrath will be demonstrated by actually giving them over to their evil ways, further exacerbating the presence of unrighteousness (see Romans 1:18-25). It is only just that God withhold his goodness and uprightness from a human race that sees fit to turn away from that very goodness. Thanks be to God that he broke into our vicious downward spiral of evil to extend to us his grace in the person of Jesus Christ. Which brings me to my third reply…
The LORD has gloriously vindicated his name and renown through the cross of Jesus Christ. To be honest, we can only appreciate this fully once we have, along with Habakkuk, wrestled through the soul-wrenching nature of injustice. Not the soul-wrenching pain that we endure because we are victims of injustice but the soul-wrenching pain that we feel when we understand the weight of the heinous affronts we ourselves have made against our most holy God. At the cross—in the same instant of time—we see manifested the unimaginable depravity and injustice that billows forth from our hearts and the infinite mercy and justice of God as the Son absorbs the Father’s wrath in our stead. With all of the injustices in the history of the world condensed down into a single moment and a single offense at the cross, Christ Jesus forever proclaimed that God is most assuredly all-righteous and all-powerful!
That God is able to take all the injustices of our lives and our world and use them to accentuate the utterly magnificent nature of his justice is remarkable. It is why he is worthy of our worship, worthy of our surrender, and worthy of our trust. Trust when we experience the pain of suffering, sickness, and death. Trust when we see the Word of God disdained in our culture or ignored in the church. Trust when his already-sealed victory seems but a fading wish. Let us therefore stand in awe of our Righteous Judge and exercise our faith in him!
