“That's not fair!”

We’ve heard it; we’ve said it. We are hearing it again in our modern culture and perhaps still saying it ourselves. The good news is that people have been saying it for thousands of years before us, because it is recorded in the book of Ezekiel.

Yet the...people say, “The way of the Lord is not fair.” But it is their way which is not fair! (Ezekiel 33:17)

The people had a problem with what God was saying, and what He was doing. Earlier in the chapter, God was revealing His grace through the prophet Ezekiel. It went like this:

When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die. Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die’' if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live (Ezekiel 33:13-16).

God’s ways of grace can be rough on people’s pride. In truth, most people would rather God be like the god of Islam, which teaches that God simply adds all the good and bad deeds of our lives up, and if our good deeds exceed our bad deeds, we have his favor. This comes out in sayings like, “Well, I just try to live by the Ten Commandments and be a good person.” 

God’s revelation in Scripture is that He is not like the god of Islam. Rather, He is a God of judgment and grace:  judgment on the pride of man’s ways, but grace upon the humble and repentant. I would rather live under God’s grace than to shake my fist at Him and say, “That’s not fair.”