So much depends on where you are born, and to whom.
So much depends on your state of health.
So much depends on how much money you have...

There are many injustices in the world; people treat others unjustly.

If there is injustice there must also be justice, or we wouldn’t know what injustice was.

Although people say, ‘There’s no justice in this world’, it would be a terrible thing to believe that there was no such thing as justice.

If there is justice, it is either man-made, that is, we make up our own rules for what is just and what is not, or else justice comes from outside of ourselves.

Most of us believe that justice belongs to us all as human beings; that it is unjust to kill or harm someone else, or to discriminate against others because they belong to a different race, or to have one law for the rich and another for the poor. We don’t believe we need to prove these things. We believe it is part of being human to recognise their truth.

If justice comes from outside us and there are standards of justice which all ought to keep, where does it come from? There must be a perfectly just being who has put the sense of justice into our minds and consciences.

This is God. It would be a terrible thing to believe in an unjust, unfair God, but the Bible asserts that God is righteous and just.

To Abraham this was a fundamental truth about God: "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25).

This was how Moses thought of God: "He is the rock, his way is perfect; for all his works are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is he." (Deuteronomy 32:4).

David said the same: "For the LORD is righteous, he loves righteousness; his countenance beholds the upright." (Psalm 11:7).

Much more importantly God says that he is just: "And there is no other God besides me, a just God and a saviour, there is none besides me." (Isaiah 45:21).

God made people in his own image, just and upright, but we have all turned to our own way. This is put simply in Ecclesiastes 7:29: "God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." ‘Schemes’ here refers to all sorts of dishonest ways of getting what we want.

Isaiah 53:6 says, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way."

God’s purpose and desire for us is that we should live justly: "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." ( Micah 6:8).

In order to show us what is just God has given us laws. These are for our good, and the more his laws were kept, the better the world would be. In the Old Testament God gave ten commandments to Israel. Here are some of them:

You shall have no other gods before me
Honour your father and mother
You shall not murder
You shall not commit adultery
You shall not steal
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour
(Exodus 20:3,12-16).

It is not difficult to see how much unhappiness and division in society would be prevented if these commandments were kept. "All your commandments are righteousness." (Psalm 119:172).

God holds us responsible for the way we live: "For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

God as the just judge has appointed a day for judgment: "[God] has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man [Jesus] whom he has ordained." (Acts 17:31). Everyone will be judged absolutely fairly. Notice how it says, 'in righteousness'.

"In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality." (Acts 10:34). God knows all circumstances; he knows our hearts, motives, desires, intentions; he knows our secrets: …in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ (Romans 2:16).

Everyone will receive exactly what they deserve: "And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more." (Luke 12:47,48).

What verdict can we expect if we are judged by strict justice? Is justice all we can hope for?

"A just God and a saviour… Look to me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth." (Isaiah 45:21).