I wonder if you have ever thought about the opposite of grace? We all know (I suspect) that grace is unmerited favour despite what we deserve. It is more than just unmerited favour because you can put your favour on someone who hasn’t done anything warranting your ire. Grace is unmerited favour in the face of what we deserve. God shows his grace towards us by showing us unmerited favour in the face of the wrath and judgement we deserve by nature.

What, then, is the opposite of grace? Some would argue it is judgement. After all, if we don’t have God’s grace on us, we stand under his wrath. We will face his condemnation. But that is really the result of not receiving God’s grace. Or, more accurately, the result of our own sin. It isn’t the opposite of grace, just what results if we don’t receive God’s grace.

Look again at our definition above. God’s grace is his unmerited favour in the face of what we actually deserve. If we do not have God’s unmerited favour in the face of what we deserve, we must have God’s wrath in line with what we do deserve. Grace is undeserved so what happens apart from grace is entirely and properly deserved.

Now, what do we call it when people get exactly what they deserve, whether it is a punishment for evil they have done or it is rewards and acclaim for great things they have done? What is that called? If you get what you deserve, if you are rightly punished or rewarded based on what you have done, we call it justice. When we get what we rightly deserve – whether for good or evil – it is just. Justice is concerned specifically with what is right and deserved. That is why we often talk about “just deserts”. It is what the rightly deserve.

Which means the opposite of grace is not punishment, but justice. Punishment is what results when we get what we deserve. But we are punished for our sin because that is entirely just. We avoid sin’s penalty that should rightly be ours when we are in receipt of God’s grace, his unmerited favour in spite of what we deserve. Justice is the inverse of grace.

That is why it is impossible for grace to result from justice. Grace, by definition, is unjust. It is not giving us what we deserve, but giving us the opposite. It is why just grace is an oxymoron. If God puts his grace upon us justly then he is giving us what we deserve. But we do not deserve God’s good favour, that is what grace is! If we deserve it, it is justice. If we don’t deserve it, and it is the opposite of what we deserve, then it is grace.

God punishes sin in Christ to satisfy his justice – his wrath is ultimate poured out against sin – and his grace his bestowed on those on whom he delights to have mercy. God – as Paul puts it – is both just and justifier. He satisfies his justice by punishing sin in Christ and then justifies his people by lavishing his grace on them, redeeming them from sin, placating God’s wrath and adopting them as his own in Christ.

But if you haven’t got grace, you have got justice. If you have justice, you have not grace. But God satisfies his justice in Christ, raised him from the dead for our justification and lavishes his grace on his people in Christ.