Is God Fair? Maybe Not, but He's Right...

How often have you heard about or maybe been personally involved in a situation that made you say, “That’s really unfair! This shouldn’t have happened to me or him or her.”?

When God Isn’t Fair
In a parable He shared with his disciples, Jesus seemed to suggest the very notion the Heavenly Father does not always deal with his children in a way that seem equitable. In Matthew 20, Jesus paints a picture of the Kingdom of God that looks and sounds so blatantly unjust that were it a reality today, most Christians would scream out at the injustice. The ACLU would probably get involved and sue. But, amazingly, Jesus used this as a picture of how God deals with His children.

Jesus tells the story of a farmer, who represents God. Needing to harvest a record setting crop in his vineyard, he goes into the marketplace and hires a crew of laborers. He promises them a fair day’s wage.

Later in the day, he realizes he’ll need more help. So he again goes to the marketplace and hires a few more men looking for work.

He does this several more times and hires his last crew with just an hour of harvesting remaining. But at the end of the day, the owner of the vineyard gave each worker the same pay, regardless of how long they worked.

In our world this seems extremely unfair. But, when we look at this story through the “glasses” of grace, instead of the unbending scales of justice, we begin to understand the difference between our thinking and God’s. “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine." (Isaiah 55:8) Jesus made the careful, firm argument that what is fair to man isn’t always right in the eyes of God.

You and I would say those who worked the hardest and longest should be paid or rewarded more. But Jesus saw it differently. Those ungrateful workers might have well been unemployed if not for the opportunity given them by the owner of the vineyard.

Is it their right to question his generosity? Weren’t they paid their promised wage? We would scream at the injustice, but we’d be wrong. This parable illustrates the major theme of Scriptures: God’s grace. Just like the workers waiting for work in the marketplace, we were all in a position of need. They were looking for a job, but we are looking for mercy.

The owner of the vineyard wasn’t concerned with how long the workers were unemployed—He only knew they needed a job. Similarly, God doesn’t see the amount of sin we carry. In His eyes, we are all sinners in need of salvation. We are all in need of grace.

The Heart of God Revealed At the Cross
Random tragedy and heartbreak seem to point to a God who is either detached from humanity or has no control over the world. However, the true heart of God is revealed at the spectacle that took place 2,000 years ago on a hill called Calvary.

First, God’s is very just. And from the Garden of Eden (where He gave Adam and Eve one simple instruction or law) to the present day (we wanted more rules so he gave us the Ten Commandments), all men have sinned and violated God’s law. This is sin. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (Romans 3:23). No matter how small, this sin has a penalty—death, separation from God forever (Romans 6:23 says “the wages (payment) of sin is death”).

Yet, while the cross reveals God’s justice, it also reveals His great love. God sent His son, Jesus to take the punishment for man’s sin because man couldn’t possibly redeem himself. (2 Cor 5:21). This was the greatest act of love (John 3:16).

This was the greatest agony for the heart of a holy God wasn’t watching his Son beaten to a pulp and crucified; it was in the knowledge that His perfect Son would take on all the sin of mankind from the beginning of time to the end.

These actions seem to very fair. Why should Jesus have to pay for sins he didn’t commit? The crucifixion was the greatest injustice in the history of the world. And yet, it was allowed by God for the payment of our sin.

What Do We Deserve?
So in light of the cross, what really do we deserve? Anyone who has been redeemed (saved) by God can no longer view themselves as having been treated unfairly by God. The gift salvation through His son was both a gift we never deserved and yet a terrible injustice paid for our debts. The reality is that we are not owed anything by God. Instead we owe Him a debt of love we can never repay.

Grace gives us the proper perspective on life’s seeming injustices. As hard as it is to imagine, the most tragedy-struck Christian has tasted overwhelming amounts of God’s grace. More than any of us deserve.

So if we were to be completely honest, we wouldn’t want God to be fair. If He was, then He wouldn’t have sent Jesus to pay for our sins and we would be bound for a hopeless eternity. And He wouldn’t walk beside us daily, giving us strength. He wouldn’t extend His hand of forgiveness when we fail.

Instead, we should be glad we serve a God who is right.

Because we’re not getting what we deserve. Nobody who walks this earth is. Instead, we’re getting something far greater. His grace.

So, Is God Fair?
So, when we look at some of things that have happened in our lives or in lives of others, maybe we can’t say that God has been “fair” in our sense of the word. But, if we could even come close to seeing the ‘big picture”, He has always been right. And we shouldn’t blame God for the trials that we go through but we need to praise God for walking with us through those dark valleys and giving the grace to carry on.

Sadly, many Christians in America, walk around feeling as though they’ve been cheated. They ask questions like, “Why can’t I be healthy like others?” or “Why does God allow him or her to be married?” or “Why couldn’t have I been born into a wealthy family?”

Unfortunately, the church itself has become an unwitting accomplice in this unbiblical thought process. We’ve tried to market Christianity as the better alternative, where life will be more successful. And sometimes this may be true, but we must realize that Christianity is not about benefiting and taking and getting more of what we want out of a supernatural, vending-machine God. It’s about worshipping a God who has given us far more grace than we deserve. It’s about following the example of Jesus in sacrificing for the good of others.

We should view everything we’ve got in life as a gift from God, not complain when things don’t go our way.

Because thankfully, we don’t have a God who is fair, but a Heavenly Father who is always right.