The irony, for us, is that many people now assume that God’s ‘justice’ and God’s ‘love’ are radically different (supposing, for instance, that God’s justice would make him punish us but that his love would find a way not to do so after all); whereas in the Old Testament the two go closely together. When the Bible speaks of God’s justice, it is talking about the creator’s utter determination, faced with his creation in a mess, to put it all right. When it speaks of God’s love, it is talking about the creator entering into a ‘covenant’, a close personal relationship, with his people – as the
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