Friends of The Scotsman: Putin tramples Ukraine but judgment will come - Gavin Matthews

The war in Ukraine, which many on both sides of the conflict assumed would only last a matter of weeks, has just entered its second tragic year. When the Russian army first invaded the country, many predicted rapid regime change and the installation of a Kremlin-friendly regime in Ukraine which would make Vladimir Putin feel safer in his borders, push back Western influence, rebuild the Russian empire and secure Putin’s legacy as a ‘Vladimir the Great’ figure.

The latest estimates are that the year-long conflict has resulted in 30,000 civilian deaths and 100,000 military casualties. This is alongside the devastation caused to infrastructure and economy, and the refugee crisis spreading in all directions.

In the face of such evil, we are right to ask questions like “Why?”, “Is there any justice?”, and “Do evil people get away with their crimes?” Many of us take such questions to politicians, governments, war crimes tribunals or the UN. This is right – and a matter of utmost importance. But others take their questions higher and don’t merely ask “Why?”, but address those questions to God. And the Bible suggests that God welcomes such questions.

Alongside offering us someone to take our questions and pain to, the God described in the Bible also assures us that ultimately, no matter what people get away with now, justice will be done. In the Bible, God says “It is mine to avenge; I will repay”, and if those words are true, victims can look forward to justice while tyrants should quake in fear. Certainly such truths were hugely comforting to the people in Bible times, as they endured wars, invasions and displacement. Indeed, the life of Jesus is set against the backdrop of Roman occupation of his country.

Gavin Matthews of Solas

However, the flip-side of the hope that God is the judge of humanity is that if he weighs some of us in his scales of justice, he weighs all of us. It’s not that those with power like Presidents, Prime Ministers or First Ministers (or would-be First Ministers!) are tested, while the rest of us are overlooked. God is radically egalitarian in his promise to examine all our lives and pronounce justice. We might not be Putins: we’re passive, liberal minded folks far too busy virtue-signalling on social media to invade countries, after all. Yet equally, which of us, had we had Putin’s life and unparalleled power, can know what evil we might have been capable of? The troubling question isn’t “Am I better than Putin?” but rather, “What does God see when he examines my heart with his exacting standards?” I am certainly not alone in sensing that such a critique would be disturbing.

Fascinatingly, Jesus reserved his sternest warnings of divine censure for the religious. Jesus made it clear that no amount of pious activity could compensate for wrongdoing, for a heart inclined to evil sitting in church is no more righteous than one in a palace or parliament. Bishops blessing tanks heading for Donbass are held to the same account as Field Marshalls in Moscow; the same account as you and I.

Yet just as God reserves the right to judge all people, so he also has the authority to forgive them. The Bible’s incredible message is that if we renounce our evil and turn to God, our wrongdoing can be wiped out. Jesus’ death on the cross is understood by Christians as God paying the price for our wrongdoing, setting us free by taking our judgment upon himself. When God looks at this broken world in love, it moves Him to stand with the sinned-against as the judge and to reach out to the wrongdoer as forgiver – a forgiveness he offers to us all.

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