Wednesday, December 18: “What Kind of Judge?”

2 Peter 2: 9: “The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.”

John warned that the Messiah would bring separation between wheat and chaff; a warning that Jesus repeated (Matthew 10: 34). In the judgment of separation, God is the only judge; a God bringing discipline that leads to salvation. As Hebrews tells us, we come to “God, the judge of all” (Hebrews 12: 23), repeating the declaration of the psalmist that “God Himself is judge” (Psalm 50: 6). Do we take for ourselves this role that belongs to God alone, becoming judges with evil motives? (James 2: 4)