October 31st of this year will be the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. It was on that day in 1517 that Martin Luther, a relatively unknown monk in Germany, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. That document of protest began what became the Reformation, rescuing and reclaiming the biblical gospel from what had become of it in the medieval church.

But it was actually two years later, while studying, he had what is called his “Tower Experience.” In some ways, this Tower Experience was even more important to the Reformation than his 95 Theses. This is where Luther came to understand the meaning of the words, “the just shall live by faith.”

He wrote, ‘I had conceived a burning desire to understand what Paul meant in his Letter to the Romans, but thus far there had stood in my way, not the cold blood around my heart, but that one word which is in chapter one: “The justice of God is revealed in it.” I hated that word, “justice of God,”… that justice by which God is just and by which he punishes sinners and the unjust… But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn’t be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said, “Isn’t it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?” This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly badgered St. Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant.”

Luther wrestled with the idea of God’s justice, until at last his eyes fell on the surrounding words ‘the just shall live by faith.’ He began to realise that the justice, or righteousness of God, is in fact given to people as a gift, the gift of faith. Christ’s life and death satisfies God’s justice, and it is given to men by faith. Luther wrote, “I all at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I exalted this sweetest word of mine, “the justice of God,” with as much love as before I had hated it with hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise.”

I don’t know how many people have come to love the words ‘justice of God’ as Luther did. Today, the justice of God is often that which people seem to hate most about God. How often have you heard someone say, “I can’t believe that a loving God would send anyone to Hell”? When someone says that, they are saying something similar to what Luther felt before his conversion. ‘It is wrong of God to punish people; He should save everyone!’ Another version of despising God’s justice is to claim that it is faulty. You will hear someone say, “If God exists, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why do corrupt and powerful people get away with it? Why is there war and genocide? Why are people abused and victimised? Why do good, decent people suffer?” And this shows man’s hypocrisy, because when there is a promise of future justice, they say God should not punish, but when there is seemingly an absence of present justice they say God should punish. God is simultaneously too severe and too lenient, too harsh, and too soft, but what it amounts to is the idea that God is unjust.

This worldview couldn’t be further away than the worldview of the Bible. There we find, from Genesis to Revelation, God’s justice praised, loved, admired, adored, expected, hoped for and trusted in.

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, And govern the nations on earth. Selah (Ps. 67:4)

Arise, O God, judge the earth; For You shall inherit all nations. (Ps. 82:8)

Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the LORD. For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth. (Ps. 96:12-13)

This extends all the way to the New Testament, to the last book of the Bible.

And I heard another from the altar saying, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.” (Rev. 16:7)

What was in the minds of the biblical writers that is so different to the modern idea of God’s justice? What did they know about God’s justice that made it such a desirable, admirable attribute, whereas today it is frowned upon?

When the Bible speaks of God’s justice, it also means His righteousness. In fact, in both Hebrew and Greek, there is only one word, which ends up translated either justice or righteousness in English. But they mean exactly the same thing in the original. Justice, righteousness refers to that in God which perfectly judges between good and evil, and perfectly rewards the one and punishes the other. Within God, His righteousness is that He perfectly loves what ought to be loved, and hates what ought to be hated.

External to God, it means that God calls for, and enforces conformity to His internal righteousness. He is the Lawgiver, and He tells all His moral creatures: this is what is pure, true, upright, beautiful, good, praiseworthy. Love this, obey this, believe it and pursue it. This is what is defiling, impure, evil, corrupting, ugly, and contemptible. Flee this, refuse it, reject it, turn from it, don’t believe it, utterly deaden yourself to it. And then with those two sides, God calls for moral equity. If you pursue the good, He rewards. If you pursue the evil, He punishes. For the upright, God is a rewarder. For the evil, God is an Avenging Enemy, bringing severity and wrathful retribution.

We will study this attribute today through an unlikely account, the story of Esther. We could have turned to other accounts of God’s justice. We could have looked at the book of Revelation, as God judges the world for its sins. We could have looked at God judging the world in the Flood, or judging the Canaanites with Israel, or judging Ahab and Jezebel for their sin against Naboth, or judging Israel with the captivity. We could even have studied instances of judgement in the New Testament: Herod giving his speech, Ananias and Saphira, the Corinthians. But while those accounts show us the reality of God dramatically judging, the book of Esther is in some ways even more comforting. Esther is the only book of the Bible in which the name of God does not appear at all. (Song of Solomon has a disputed passage in 8:6). God’s name is missing from the book, but His presence and His actions are all too evident. Esther is a gripping account of how God’s silent, invisible providence works out His justice.

And that’s so much of what we need. As we struggle with seeing oppression, crime, abuse, growing wickedness, increasing corruption, we might wonder if God’s justice is all something that will only happen in the future. But Esther teaches us that God’s justice is working behind the scenes, imperceptibly, until its results become clear.

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves of the scene in Esther. It takes place in Persia, not in Israel. The city of Shushan or Susa, in modern day Iran, is where this happens. Israel has been in captivity in Babylon, which has since been taken over by Persia. This happens in between the time when the Temple was rebuilt, and the time when Nehemiah returned to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It is around 483 B.C., the Persian king is Xerxes I, also called Ahaseurus. His son will be the king that employs Nehemiah as his cupbearer. So this is after Daniel has died, but before Nehemiah has been born. Though some Jews returned in the first return to Israel, many thousands have remained. In this story, Mordecai, and his younger cousin Hadassah, or in Persian, Esther are the focus. Mordecai actually raised his younger cousin when she was orphaned.

In chapter 1 and 2 we have a pretty sordid scene. King Ahaseurus wants to show off his beautiful wife, Vashti at a special celebration. She refuses to appear, so the king passes a law about wives and husbands, and deposes her. Tradition says she was executed. Ahaseurus then wants a queen as beautiful as Vashti, so a kind of Miss Universe contest of Persia takes place. And in God’s providence, Esther is chosen above all the other women, and is crowned queen. But all along, Mordecai has told Esther to keep her Jewish ethnicity secret.

The drama really begins in chapter 3.

Esther 3:1 After these things King Ahaseurus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him.

Now there is something significant here which we can miss. Haman is said here to be an Agagite. Now the word Agag takes us back to the time of King Saul, when King Agag was brought into his presence. Saul was given a mandate from God to destroy the Amalekites. The Amalekite people had attacked Israel under Moses from the rear, when they were travelling from Egypt, and had not yet even reached Mount Sinai. God placed them under a ban, which is to say that they would not be spared. If you remember, when Saul attacked the Amalekites, he did not carry out the assignment fully, but kept many of the goods, and spared king Agag. Samuel had to finish what Saul did not, and here we have one of Agag’s descendants.

Amalek represents pure anti-Semitism. As one Jewish writer put it: “The very essence of Amalek is hatred of Israel; without prospect of self-gain; hatred without cause or motive; hatred for the sake of hatred alone; a hatred which never ceases.” But sadly, this evildoer is promoted to second-in-command of the kingdom.

And all the king’s servants who were within the king’s gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow or pay homage.

Then the king’s servants who were within the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king’s command?”

Now it happened, when they spoke to him daily and he would not listen to them, that they told it to Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s words would stand; for Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.

When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him homage, Haman was filled with wrath.

We don’t know why Mordecai refused to bow – whether Mordecai saw this as a kind of false worship, or whether he simply saw Haman as an evildoer unworthy of his honour. But whatever the case, look how deep his malice went.

But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai. Instead, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahaseurus– the people of Mordecai.

In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur (that is, the lot), before Haman to determine the day and the month, until it fell on the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.

So Haman goes to king Ahaseurus and lies about the Jewish people, saying they are different and disobedient, and calling for a royal decree to destroy them altogether. Foolishly, the king signs the decree, and in Persian law, a royal decree could not be revoked.

And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions.

A copy of the document was to be issued as law in every province, being published for all people, that they should be ready for that day.

The couriers went out, hastened by the king’s command; and the decree was proclaimed in Shushan the citadel. So the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed.

So the scene has been set regarding the evil side of the equation, and the good side.

Haman is a proud, murderous, arrogant ruler, who uses his oppressive power to destroy those he does not like. Mordecai is a faithful, devoted Jew, who has mercifully raised his orphaned cousin, faithfully served the king, and looks out for the wellbeing of others.

So even though God’s name has not been written down here, this is the first principle of God’s justice.

God knows precisely what everyone has done, and what everyone deserves

At this moment, God knows who Haman is, what he is doing, what he is trying to do. He has seen every arrogance, every lie, every murderous thought, and every murderous act.

At this moment, God knows who Mordecai is. He knows that Mordecai once foiled a plot to murder the king, but was not rewarded for it. He knows Mordecai has given up much of his life to raise his cousin. He knows Mordecai is being faithful to God’s law by not bowing to one of Israel’s sworn enemies.

The limitation of human justice is that we do not know what has been done, nor do we know what is in anyone’s heart. Our law system requires witnesses and evidence, because humans lie and hide what they have done. Sometimes justice is miscarried because we don’t know what happened. We convict the wrong person because of the false accusation of another. Or, the true criminal goes unpunished. Sometimes we give a penalty too light for the offence, or sometimes too severe.

But with God, because He is omniscient, and all-wise, He knows everything that has been done.

And He not only knows what has been done, He knows the motives of those who did them. We’re always pleading in our defence, “That’s not what I meant” or “I never meant to do wrong” but God knows exactly what we meant. In fact, He knows it better than we do, because we can deceive ourselves.

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good. (Prov. 15:3)

for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. (1 Chr. 28:9)

With that perfect knowledge of what has happened, He also has perfect understanding of what it deserves. The Bible calls God the Lawgiver. He does not set arbitrary laws; He established right and wrong out of His holy character. Abraham said, “Shall not the judge of the Earth do right?” Psalm 19:9 tells us that God’s judgements are ‘true and righteous altogether.”

God knew Haman and Mordecai, and knew exactly what they deserved. Now in chapters 4 and 5, we have the heroic action of Esther. Mordecai tells Esther that she needs to use her God-given position to save the Jewish people from Haman’s evil plot. So, risking her life, she enters the king’s presence uninvited. The king stretches out the royal sceptre and allows her in, and she requests that he and Haman come to a special banquet prepared for them.

They do, and at the banquet, the king again asks what Esther’s request is. Esther asks them to come back the following night for a second banquet.

So Haman went out that day joyful and with a glad heart; but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, and that he did not stand or tremble before him, he was filled with indignation against Mordecai.

Nevertheless Haman restrained himself and went home, and he sent and called for his friends and his wife Zeresh.

Then Haman told them of his great riches, the multitude of his children, everything in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and servants of the king.

Moreover Haman said, “Besides, Queen Esther invited no one but me to come in with the king to the banquet that she prepared; and tomorrow I am again invited by her, along with the king.

“Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”

Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows be made, fifty cubits high, and in the morning suggest to the king that Mordecai be hanged on it; then go merrily with the king to the banquet.” And the thing pleased Haman; so he had the gallows made. (Est. 5:9-14)

Now if we simply take a snapshot of the scene here at the end of chapter 5, everything looks unfair. The evil Haman is wealthy, successful, praised, and is the king’s favourite. The Jews are a hair’s breadth away from being unfairly exterminated, and Mordecai is about to be hanged on a gallows by evil Haman. If you pause the book of Esther at the end of chapter 5, you will say, “unfair! Evil is prospering. Evil is being rewarded and promoted. Good is being persecuted, punished and hunted down.”

But that is the second truth of God’s justice.

God’s justice cannot be properly seen at any moment in time

The only way to see if justice has been done is to see how the Judge concludes the court-case. But when it comes to human history, God’s gavel will only go down at the very end – the Great White Throne Judgement recorded in Revelation 20. Many believers in history have wrestled with what seems like injustice. Psalm 73 was Asaph struggling with why the wicked seem to be at ease, and die in luxury and go unpunished, while the righteous struggle and sacrifice and suffer. But Asaph was illuminated when he went to worship and got a glimpse of eternity, and wrote,

Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. (Ps. 73:18)

He saw that from the perspective of a human lifespan, things are not just. But from the perspective of eternity, they are completely just. The same theme is echoed through the Psalms, in Ecclesiastes, in New Testament books such as 1 Peter, 2 Thessalonians, James. They say, believer, a snapshot judgement of life right now will give you the wrong idea. You will think that there is injustice. But in God’s universe, there is no injustice. There is only incomplete justice. Just as it appears at the end of chapter 5.

But take note of what begins to happen in chapter 6.

Esther 6:1 That night the king could not sleep. So one was commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king.

And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.

Then the king said, “What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” And the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”

So the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to suggest that the king hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.

The king’s servants said to him, “Haman is there, standing in the court.” And the king said, “Let him come in.”

So Haman came in, and the king asked him, “What shall be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?” Now Haman thought in his heart, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?”

And Haman answered the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor,

“let a royal robe be brought which the king has worn, and a horse on which the king has ridden, which has a royal crest placed on its head.

“Then let this robe and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that he may array the man whom the king delights to honor. Then parade him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him:`Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!'”

Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry, take the robe and the horse, as you have suggested, and do so for Mordecai the Jew who sits within the king’s gate! Leave nothing undone of all that you have spoken.”

So Haman took the robe and the horse, arrayed Mordecai and led him on horseback through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!”

Afterward Mordecai went back to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered.

When Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him but will surely fall before him.”

While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs came, and hastened to bring Haman to the banquet which Esther had prepared. (Est. 6:1-14)

What has begun to happen is the beginning of what is called poetic justice. The very night of the first banquet, the king is awake and asks his courtiers to read to him. And of all the records to be chosen, it is the one that records Mordecai’s unrewarded action. And of all the moments to enter the court, it is this moment when Haman enters the court. And with his inflated arrogance, he is certain that the king is speaking of him in the third person when he says, “What should be done for the one the king wants to honour”, and then describes everything he would want done for himself. But we try to picture his face, when the king orders him to do that for his mortal enemy, Mordecai. And we try to imagine Haman walking ahead of that horse, crying out “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!” God has begun to reward righteousness, and He is not only rewarding it, he is rewarding it through the evildoer who wanted to destroy him.

But it will get better. That night, the second banquet takes place with Haman, the king and Esther, and again, the king asks Esther what her request is. Now Esther reveals that an enemy has marked her and her people out for destruction. When the king asks who this enemy is, Esther says “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman!” So Haman was terrified before the king and queen. (Est. 7:6)

The king gets up in a perplexed rage- his right-hand man trying to kill his beloved queen. Now, never in a million years did Haman think that his plan to destroy Mordecai would end up affecting the queen herself. Mordecai’s decision to have Esther keep her ethnicity secret has paid huge dividends.

Haman is plummeting from second-in-command to life in danger. And in his impulsiveness, he begs for mercy, tripping, and falling on top of Esther.

When the king returned from the palace garden to the place of the banquet of wine, Haman had fallen across the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he also assault the queen while I am in the house?” As the word left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.

Now Harbonah, one of the eunuchs, said to the king, “Look! The gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good on the king’s behalf, is standing at the house of Haman.” Then the king said, “Hang him on it!”

So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath subsided. (Est. 7:8-10)

Haman caught in his own trap, as Scripture says, the wicked fall into the pit they have dug for others. But the justice went further.

Esther again risked her life to go into the king’s presence to request that the edict against the Jews be rescinded. The king replied that it could not, but Mordecai and Esther could write their own.

By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their lives– to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them, both little children and women, and to plunder their possessions,

on one day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.

A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province and published for all people, so that the Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.

The couriers who rode on royal horses went out, hastened and pressed on by the king’s command. And the decree was issued in Shushan the citadel.

So Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, with a great crown of gold and a garment of fine linen and purple; and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad.

The Jews had light and gladness, joy and honor.

And in every province and city, wherever the king’s command and decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a holiday. Then many of the people of the land became Jews, because fear of the Jews fell upon them. (Est. 8:11-17)

Chapter nine records the three times that the Jewish people defended themselves. So by the end of the book of Esther we have Mordecai honoured, wicked Haman executed, and an evil plot against the Jews turned around to become an act in favour of the Jews. What does all this say?

God’s justice perfectly vindicates good, and perfectly punishes evil

Sometimes God allows the good to be its own reward, and sometimes He rewards it on top of itself. Sometimes He rewards it in this life, and sometimes it awaits the next. But He never fails to vindicate and reward that which He loves.

On the other hand, God perfectly punishes evil. God does not try to reform or rehabilitate evil. God penalises it. He punishes it. He exacts retribution on it. He must do this because it is what the sin deserves. God’s anger, God’s severity is the flip side of His holy love. He hates what is corrupt, destructive and polluting. He hates the ‘inequity’ of sin, so He gives it what it deserves. If He were indifferent to sin, that would be a sin. But God cannot sin, so God cannot be indifferent to sin.

God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day. (Ps. 7:11)

Sometimes God allows the sin to be much of its own punishment. Sometimes He punishes sin with its own consequences in this life. Sometimes He punishes it with the eternal punishment of separation from His presence in hell. There, the thieves will rob each other, the murderers can do eternal violence to one another, the revilers and gossips can be reviled, the liars can be deceived, the perverts will themselves be violated, and all idolaters can experience the horrific thirst that idolatry brings. There men who loved darkness rather than light can have it forever, there those who cared nothing about displeasing God will be surrounded by His displeasure. There, God’s justice is complete, far more complete than even the story of Esther can illustrate.

But amazingly, those in Heaven are there both justly and unjustly. There are not there because they are just in themselves. If God were to mark their iniquities, who should stand? But God judged the only innocent Man who has ever lived, the only just and righteous Man, and treated Him as if He were a sinner. All who join themselves to Him, who trust in Him, submit to Him, Jesus the Messiah, are declared just in God’s sight – they are justified, if we had such a word in English – righteousified. And so, everyone in Heaven is justly there, not by their own works, but by Christ’s.

Christ came to Earth, according to Romans 3:26

to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3:26)

And so, from the vantage point of Heaven, the scales of justice are perfectly balanced because of two places: Calvary, and Hell. If a single sin remained unpunished, or if a single righteous work remained unrewarded, God would not be just.

But He is.

But the book of Ecclesiastes ends with these comforting words:

For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil. (Eccl. 12:14)