GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 30 ~ ~ Matthew 5:43-47 ~ ~ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors, do they not do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles, do they not do the same?”
Continuing with excerpts form John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”
(Still speaking of justice in the actions of believers and unbelievers)
But there is a sense in which God does delight in the just balances and honest weights of unbelievers, namely, when he looks at their honesty and justice as fragments of his own divine work expressing a vestige of his own upright image.
This seems to be implied in Proverbs 1:11: “ A just balance and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are his work.”
I think this means that wherever you find just scales and a bag of honest weight, you find the work of God. Justice is God’s creation. Honesty is God’s design. Integrity is the work of God—even in unbelievers—just like their head and heart and hands and feet are his work.
Theologians call this common grace. It isn’t saving grace. It doesn’t get a person to heaven. It is the same grace that makes the sun come up every day on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:43-47 and Matthew 22:10)
It is the grace that keeps a society from sinking into anarchy. When God sees the work of his own common grace holding the world back from premature ruin, and giving at least some outward expression to his purposes of justice and honesty, he delights in what he sees.
The honesty and justice of unbelievers is like a seashell washed up on the beach. There’s no life in it. But it does have a kind of beauty. There is some sturdiness to it and symmetry and order. Life is more enjoyable because this shell exists. It has its uses; you could plant a flower in it, or you could use it to stud your rock wall, or you could teach things from it at school—like the fact that this shell took its form from life.
So it is with the integrity of unbelievers. It is the leftover shell of holiness, the vestige of the image of God, the residue of something glorious and beautiful in the heart of God. It is the very work of his grace preserving and keeping this fallen humanity back from the precipice of anarchy and chaos. When God looks on the honesty and justice of his unbelieving and rebellious creatures IN THIS WAY, he delights in their justice and takes pleasure in their honesty. It is the work of his own hands, and the gift of his common grace.