Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness
And thy law is the truth (Psa 119.142).

The doctrine of the sovereignty of God entails recognizing him as King over all, for a “sovereign” by definition is a supreme ruler. He is a king in his person (office), and he rules as a king (function).

One word characterizes God and his reign more than any other, and that is “righteousness.” He is just in himself and all his ways are justice.

In the human and temporal realm with earthly rulers and their governments, to be “just” involves conformity to a perfect standard. When human laws take into account the relevant ethical considerations, not robbing citizens of their God-given liberties, while rewarding good-doers appropriately and punishing evildoers with a fitting retribution, proportionately to the nature and circumstances of their crimes, we say such a government is good and right. When “rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil,” when they praise those who do that which is good,” when they “execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” and “beareth not the sword in vain,” then they are functioning as “God’s ministers, attending upon this very thing” (cf. Rom 13.1-6).

But to what standard shall we compare God’s and his government for an evaluation? There is nothing higher or even equal to these! God is his own standard. His works are the epitome of righteousness. Righteousness has characterized God from eternity.

This comes to the core concern of the psalmist in our text. The Authorized Version is an accurate and faithful rendering, and this alternate is helpful:

Your justice endures,
and your law is reliable.¹

Technical notes in the margin say on the first line, “Heb. your justice [is] justice forever,” and on the second, “Or, truth.”

This seems to be a general observation on the government of God without reference to any specific situation. The God of the Bible is a God of perfect justice. He is righteous and always does what is praiseworthy and according to the facts of each case, the reality. He is not and cannot be bribed. He cannot fail to apprehend the rebels of his kingdom and bring them to the just punishment of their misdeeds. His law is a perfect standard of right and wrong, and it cannot be that he would ever twist it for the sake of any accommodation to other considerations, nor to leave its promised blessings finally undelivered, nor its threatened curses unsatisfied.

These traits of God and principles of his government are all confessed by faith. The way things actually are in the world, and even what we observe in our own personal experience, in many particulars seem to be inconsistent with all this. If God is just, then why do the wicked prosper? How is it that often the most morally upright suffer terrible persecutions, while the most morally objectionable rise to positions of power and influence? Does not God see the old man being mugged in the dark alley by hoodlums who take his money and leave him half dead? Does not God care about the little, vulnerable children being exploited by murderous molesters for a few minutes of perverted gratification? Or the godly Christian young person who strives for integrity and excellence in her life and then is by-passed in her application to a prestigious school because, secretly, the admissions official considers her fanatically religious? How could there possibly be a just God ruling over all, and at the same time a Hitler and a holocaust?

Philosophical relief may seem to come in a couple different ways—first, from atheistic nihilism that denies God’s existence and asserts that life is chaotic meaninglessness. But this raises greater problems that it solves, besides its most objectionable and colossal irreverence. For example, how could there be any such thing as virtue and justice if there were no God who is its standard? And what would be the incentive to practice unselfish benevolence toward our neighbors, instead of becoming completely amoral and pursuing self-centered gratification?

Second, the philosophical tension may seem to be eased by denying God’s omniscience (knowing all things) and his omnipotence (having all power). According to this misguided scheme, God is a well-meaning Deity but is not perhaps aware of all the injustice in the world, or if he knows, just cannot do anything about it. He is like a white-haired, weak, elderly old king, having long ago lost his ability to inspire fear in his enemies, or to restrain them from their insubordinate exploits. But how then could his law be true, when it threatens terrible judgments upon lawbreakers? And how could the Author be God if his law were not true? Further, it is hard to see how anyone could even have affection for a “God” like that, much less worship him in reverence and awe. Besides, this theology is grossly faulty, not at all according to Scripture.

The psalmist’s approach here is completely different. He takes the long view of things, adopting an eternal perspective. “Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,” or “Your justice endures.” Whereas human governments may achieve a measure of justice in the temporal realm, all earthly kingdoms only last for a little while with much unfinished business as far as justice is concerned. Even when the best men rule, not all the evildoers are caught and punished, and not all the sentences are perfectly commensurate with the crimes committed. But in God’s kingdom, his perfect righteousness shall shine finally and forever. All sins and every sin against his “reliable law” will have its perfectly corresponding penalty meted out to the full extent that justice requires.

But not now. The mercy of God has temporarily granted a reprieve even to the worst offenders, as the Lord is incomprehensibly patient and longsuffering. Many of the wicked perpetrators have been objects of his eternal, electing love from before the foundation of the world, and in his time he will bring them to repentance and faith, forgiving all their sins and transforming them into the righteous servants he always intended them to be. Many of their victims as well are objects of God’s special, electing love, and the Lord uses even their trials and persecutions to promote their ultimate salvation from sin.

Further, all the while the Lord is taking note of every single sin committed by the reprobate, for which they shall give an account and receive their sentence on Judgment Day. There, before that great white throne, the dead, small and great, shall stand before God, and the books shall be opened, and the dead shall be judged out of those things which will be written in the books, according to their works (Rev 20.11-15). On that last day, not one remaining infraction against any of the Ten Commandments shall go uncondemned, or any guilty ones go unpunished. Every idolatrous thought and deed, every unscriptural approach to worship, every sinful swear word and every false profession, every Sabbath day profaned, every expression of disrespect against divinely-appointed authority figures like father and mother, every malicious intent and act, every solitary lustful thought and deed, each and every theft and lie, and any and all covetous motions of the heart, shall be accursed forever, and those who have lived in these sins!

And then, finally, God’s righteousness shall be seen by all creation to be an everlasting righteousness, and his law to be the reliable truth that it is.

One may object, “But what about the sins committed by all the real Christians who pass through Judgment Day unscathed into the eternal inheritance of the new creation? Doesn’t God pass over their transgressions and guilt then?”

No, not at all, because they will be justly and triumphantly declared righteous in Christ. His law-keeping life and penalty-paying death and victory-declaring resurrection is theirs by grace. Jesus Christ already merited eternal life on their behalf by his life, and suffered all the just punishments for their sins when he died upon the cross under the Father’s righteously-incensed wrath in their place!

In the new creation, the very presence of former sinners around the throne of the glorified Savior, with Calvary’s scars in his hands and side, will bear witness, even more gloriously than eternal hellfire, that God’s righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and his law is the truth! And “then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt 13.43). “The righteous” will be those who are righteous in Christ and were finally made perfectly righteous inside and out by the Spirit.

“Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev 14.12). A strong confidence in God’s perfect and enduring righteousness and his praiseworthy law strengthens believers suffering unjustly to persevere as God’s servants, resisting temptation to revenge, and awaiting patiently the cosmic vindication that will come to themselves and their glorious God. The Lord grant us this very same assurance of his glorious and enduring righteousness! Amen.

Notes:

1. New English Translation.