August 14. God forgives and is still just.

Nathan the prophet comes to David after his adultery and murder and says,

The Lord has taken away your sin. You shall not die.

Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born

to you shall die.

2 Samuel 12, 13, and 14.

This is outrageous. Uriah is dead. Batshiba is raped. The baby will die. And Nathan says,

the Lord has put away your sin. Just like that. David committed adultery. He ordered murder. He lied. He despised the word of the Lord,

2 Samuel 12, 9. He scorned God and the Lord simply put away his sin. What kind of righteous judge is God?

You don't just pass over rape and murder and lying.

Righteous judges don't do that.

This was one of Paul's greatest theological problems, very different from the ones people struggle with today.

How can God forgive sin and still be righteous?

Here is what Paul said in Romans 3, 25, and 26, God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received

by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the

justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

In other words, the outrage that we feel when God seems to simply pass over David's

sin would be good outrage if God were simply sweeping David's sin under the rug.

He's not.

God sees, from the time of David, down the centuries to the death of his son, Jesus Christ,

who would die in David's place so that David's faith in God's mercy and God's future redeeming

...