“Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known”(Matt. 10:26).

Looking around at the world, we shouldn’t have a problem understanding the idea of judgment and condemnation. One doesn’t have to be a believing Christian to realize that something is radically wrong with humanity. Who can’t see what a royal mess, even disaster, we’ve made of things? Maybe we cry so hard at birth because, instinctively, we know what’s coming. “I cried when I was born and every day shows why,” a poet wrote. Who can’t relate? Who hasn’t himself or herself been the victim of just how greedy, selfish, and mean people can be? Or who hasn’t at some point been the greedy, selfish, and mean one?

Thus, if God is just, and if justice were His only major attribute, who among us would stand before Him? If the Lord knows even our secret things, our secret deeds (Eccles. 12:14) (much less what we have done in public), what chance would even the godliest among us have on the day of judgment, when all these things will be revealed?

Fortunately, though, our God is also a God of grace. The whole plan of salvation was established so that every human being could, ideally, be spared the condemnation that God’s justice would demand. Without grace, we’d all be consumed by God’s justice. Our only hope, then, standing before a just God, is grace.

Read the first angel’s message in Revelation 14:6, 7. How do these verses reveal the link between God’s justice and His grace? How do they also parallel what we saw in Genesis 3 and how it showed the relationship between grace and judgment?  

How interesting that before the warning that the “hour of His judgment has come” (NKJV), the angel is proclaiming the “everlasting gospel.” It has to be that way, otherwise the judgment would condemn all humanity. No one would have a chance because all have sinned, all have violated God’s law. Here, among the last warning message to the world, God’s grace is proclaimed. Otherwise, judgment would condemn everyone, without exception. Without grace, what message would we have for the world other than that God is going to destroy us all and there’s no hope of escape? Fortunately, the message we have has the “everlasting gospel” as its foundation.

What role are you playing in helping spread this message of judgment and grace to others? What more could you do to help spread it because, most likely, you could be doing more, right? Right?   

Think about this: before sin, there was no need of grace because there was nothing to forgive, nothing to pardon, nothing to cover. It’s the same with judgment. Before sin, there was nothing to judge, nothing to condemn, nothing to be punished. Both grace and judgment arise, at least in a human context, only because of humanity’s sin.

Read Genesis 3, the account of the Fall. In what ways are both themes, that of judgment and grace, revealed?  

Satan succeeded in bringing sin into the world, changing everything as a result. Immediately, though, the Lord entered, calling out “Where are you?” This question doesn’t have to be seen as condemnatory; it was more an invitation to come to Him, the One who created and loved them. It was a call to turn away from their deceiver and to return to their Maker.

Notice, too, what happens. The first few lines from the mouth of God in this fallen world are questions (see Gen. 3: 9, 11, 13). Then the first thing God says after He’s done questioning is to declare His judgment against the serpent. But next, in verse 15, even amid His judgment against the serpent, what does God say?

Verse 15 is the first gospel promise. As soon as He declares His judgment against the serpent, He then immediately gives the first message of grace, of redemption, of salvation for humanity. And only then, only after that gospel promise, does He start declaring His judgments against the woman and the man. Though they fell, the first things God gives them are hope and grace—the grace that forms the background against which judgment is to unfold. Thus, even before judgment, the promise of grace is given for those who will accept it.

It’s too late for Satan; his destruction is assured. But there, even amid the judgments passed on to the man and the woman, God makes His grace known.

At the beginning of fallen human history, then, a relationship between sin, judgment, and God’s grace emerges. Though God must judge and condemn sin, the promise of grace is always there, always present, always available for those who will claim it for themselves.

In what ways might the Lord be saying to you, “Where are you?” What are you doing that, perhaps, is causing you to hide from Him? Why is understanding grace a crucial first step in heeding His call to draw near to Him and away from the deceiver?