The Good News Of Judgment
The prophecies that promise the Messiah aren’t just words of hope. They are also pronouncements of judgment. Both then and now, sin and injustice wreck havoc in the world around us. Judgment is coming, yes – but not to ruin us. God’s justice restores.
As we walk through the Christian year together, each season will be accompanied by a guiding question – a question to wrestle with, pray through, and bring to God. During the season of Advent, as we give our attention to our longing for a Savior, we’re asking together: “What are we waiting for?”
1. Isaiah says a “shoot” will grow from the stump of Jesse—a sign of new life coming from something that looked dead. Where do you see God bringing hope, healing, or new beginnings in places that seem broken or “cut down”? How does this shape the way you think about God’s judgment?
2. Isaiah 11:3–4 says God’s King will judge with fairness—especially defending the poor and the vulnerable. Why do you think God’s judgment focuses on restoring what’s been hurt or wronged, not just punishing what’s evil? How might that kind of judgment change the way we see people and situations in our own lives?
1. Where in my life do I feel worn out, broken, or “cut down,” and how might God be inviting new life to grow there?
2. In what ways might God be calling me to change my own heart or actions so that I reflect His justice and care in my everyday relationships?
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Isaiah 11:1-4a NIV
They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.
1 Samuel 8:5-7
When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.
1 Samuel 8:18 NIV
The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
2 Samuel 7:11b-13 NIV
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
Isaiah 11:1 NIV
“God’s justice is a saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the Creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation and whose justice is designed not simply to restore balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place.”
— N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
Malachi 3:2-3a NIV
“The Judge confronts us. But it is not as we feared. The face of the Judge is marked with infinite compassion and infinite suffering. His hands and feet are torn by spikes driven in by violent blows. His brow is pierced by the crown of thorns, and his expression bears the tokens of utmost humiliation. The judgment has already happened. It has taken place in his own body. The Son of God has borne it all himself. The Judge who is to come has given himself to be judged in our place.”
— Fleming Rutledge, Advent
This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
1 John 4:17 NIV