“For there is nothing hidden
that will not be disclosed,
and nothing concealed
that will not be known or brought out into the open.”
— Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in Luke 8:17
Justice is balance and it is the perfect equilibrium of all things. The facts of our faith in the Lord—in the revealed word of God, e.g., Luke 8:17—testify to the principle that everything will soon be revealed for what it was, is, and will be.
This ought to give us a great deal of comfort, on the one hand, and it should motivate great introspection in each of us, on the other hand. As it is in this life, those who do the latter often find it impossible to do the former, because they’re the ones who don’t abuse but receive it instead.
Those who abuse in the first instance, and then compound that abuse by denying wrongdoing or avoiding accountability or by not being held to account, have offended not only those they abused, but they have offended God more; by hurting a person God loves, by not owning up to it and compounding the abuse into the folds of trauma, and by the testimony of a lie before Whom nobody should (or can) lie.
In short, those who commit all sorts of crimes against other human beings are culpable of much worse than merely offending us mere mortals. Much, much worse, and the whole earth has no measure for how much worse.
When we can’t hold them to account, and others can’t hold them to account, we transfer their portion of the debt they owe us to God.
In all reality, however, because of the mercy that’s been poured out to us all through the Cross, they owe us nothing. This is such a freeing reality. It’s easy to forgive anyone anything when we know that God catches up with us all, eventually. That the offence they committed, that hasn’t been repented of, was and is a much more direct transgression against God than anyone else, ever.
Interestingly, even though those who transgress us owe us nothing, their way back to the favour of God is through repentance, which means their owning of their wrong, apology, including the seeking of forgiveness. Reconciliation is the entire purpose of the Kingdom of God.
There are no secrets. All will be revealed, and it’s infinitely better to account for all of our personal wrongdoing, as we can, while we can. There’s no pity for the person, who, by the Testimony of Life that all can see, either agrees that God sees and knows all or denies it and lives contravening God’s universal laws in blatantly tragic arrogance.
But peace follows the person who has faith in what is bound to happen. Theirs is wisdom.
Nobody’s getting away with anything.
When we truly face this truth in the context of our own lives, we suddenly see the wisdom of getting the log out of our own eye (Matthew 7:3-5), for we’ll only be held to account for those things we did.
God’s timing may be very inconvenient for any who have a claim that they ought to be ‘blessed’ more than they presently are, but God owes nobody an explanation for why their life is how it is (see Job 41:11), and yet God’s timing is perfect—but we can only see that from the view of hindsight.
Humanity’s sole task in the realm of abuse and trauma is to trust that God sees all and God judges all.
And if we’re called to kindly assist a person see the truth, so far as that depends on us, they’re loved to the extent that they’re held to account and are given the opportunity at repentance BEFORE they meet God.
Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash
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