You be the judge. It is the middle of World War II. Hitler is captured and brought into your courtroom. The evidence against him comes in, horror upon horror. You hear about the gas chambers. You hear about people forced to dig their own graves and then gunned down into them.

You hear about starving children dragged screaming from their parents, only to watch them mutilated by German soldiers. You see photographs of open sores, bloated corpses, vacant eyes. You are the judge. What sentence are you going to pronounce?

Wait a minute now! Be sure you do the loving thing! Do you want to gain a reputation as a harsh, angry judge? If you decide that Hitler needs to be punished, won’t that drag you down to his level?

A concept talked about quite a lot in recent times-is that God is a God of love and therefore wouldn’t hurt anybody. It denounces as pagan the thought that Christ’s death was necessary. It says,

“God is not an angry God, needing to be appeased. He is not a God of judgment. What appears to be divine judgment is simply the result of our own poor choices. It wouldn’t be the loving thing for God to bring destruction and death.”

Perhaps Hitler is an extreme example. Let’s try one from the Old Testament. The children of Israel have been having a party. They’ve taken advantage of the fact that Moses was out of town and Aaron was in charge. With his help, they’ve constructed a golden calf, and just at the height of the celebration, Moses returns unexpectedly. Do you remember the result? The ones who repented were forced to drink their idol, and the ones who didn’t repent were killed.

Sounds pretty harsh. Did God do the loving thing in that situation?

“It was the mercy of God that thousands should suffer, to prevent the necessity of visiting judgments upon millions. In order to save the many, He must punish the few. Furthermore, as the people had cast off their allegiance to God, they had forfeited the divine protection, and, deprived of their defense, the whole nation was exposed to the power of their enemies. Had not the evil been promptly put away, they would soon have fallen a prey to their numerous and powerful foes. It was necessary for the good of Israel, and also as a lesson to all succeeding generations, that crime should be promptly punished. And it was no less a mercy to the sinners themselves that they should be cut short in their evil course. Had their life been spared, the same spirit that led them to rebel against God would have been manifested in hatred and strife among themselves, and they would eventually have destroyed one another. It was in love to the world, in love to Israel, and even to the transgressors, that crime was punished with swift and terrible severity.” - Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 325, 326.

Sin is never for free. Sin brings death, and it is not possible to simply cancel the consequences.

In one way only can justice deal with the reality of sin, and that is if another takes the penalty.

“Christ died for our sins according to the scripture.” 1 Corinthians 15:3.

That is the simple statement of the Bible truth on the subject. Isaiah 53:5 says,

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.”

Justice is just as loving as is mercy. If your boy is beating on your girl, you don’t love either your boy or your girl unless you do something to stop it. The death of Christ in behalf of those who will accept His sacrifice, and the ultimate punishment of the ones who do not accept in the lake of fire, is the most loving thing the Judge of the universe can do in the face of the awfulness of sin. The death of Christ and the final punishment of the wicked reveals His love as much as does His mercy extended to the repenting sinner.

True love must find justice and mercy combined.