The Harp of God: Proof Conclusive That Millions Now Living Will Never Die. J. F. Rutherford

String 2: Justice Manifested

       Table of Contents

      [39]One of the divine attributes is justice. "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne." (Psalm 89:14) Divine wisdom devised the great divine program or plan. Divine justice must perform its part in harmony with the other divine attributes. God's law must be unchangeable. Being unchangeable, his creatures can have absolute confidence and faith in him, that he always does exactly as he says. A violation of Jehovah's law must be followed by punishment in the exercise of justice. The prerogative of justice is to see that the law is enforced. The manifestation of justice magnifies the name and the dignity of Jehovah. Without the manifestation of justice it would have been impossible for Jehovah so fully to manifest his love toward man in providing for his redemption and subsequent blessing. When one understands the office of justice and why it was manifested, he rejoices. A failure to understand and appreciate the divine attributes makes it impossible for one properly to appreciate Jehovah's goodness and loving kindness to mankind. Jehovah is too good to be unjust. He is too wise to make a mistake; he is too loving to be unkind; and his power is always exercised in such a way that ultimate good may result.

[40]The manifestation of justice is one of the strings upon the harp of God; but we must see and appreciate it in order to understand the beauty and harmony it brings when used in connection with the other springs.

[41]Good and evil are antagonistic principles or rules of action. Good is the law or rule of action by which God is always governed. Evil becomes active only when some creature of Jehovah violates his law. God made man a free moral agent. He did not compel him to do or not to do certain things. He told man that if he did certain things he would be blessed; and that if he did other things contrary to divine law he would suffer punishment; and the punishment prescribed was death. Mother Eve was deceived by Satan, the devil, and thereby induced to violate the law of God. Father Adam, seeing that his companion and helpmate had violated the law and judging that she must die, preferred to join her in the transgression and die with her. (1 Timothy 2:14) It will be of interest here to examine the circumstances leading up to the violation of the law of God and to see why his justice toward man was manifested in sentencing him to death.

[42]All dominion rightly belongs to Jehovah. He had given man dominion over the things of earth. Lucifer observed Adam and Eve, the perfect ones, in Eden; and knowing that they were endowed with authority from Jehovah to multiply and fill the earth, he conceived the thought in his own heart or mind that he should have a dominion of his own, and that he could have this by separating man from God and by inducing him to come under his (Satan's) dominion. The prophet Isaiah gives us some light upon this subject when he says: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit"—Isaiah 14:12–15.

[43]Thus we see that Satan had an ambitious desire to be like the Most High. God manifested his justice toward Lucifer by expelling him from his presence and has decreed that he shall be ultimately destroyed. (Ezekiel 28:14–18; Hebrews 2:14) When Lucifer was expelled from the presence of Jehovah because of his wickedness, he thereafter was and is known by the names of dragon, that old serpent, the devil, and Satan. (Revelation 12:9) In Genesis 3 he is spoken of as the serpent. The name dragon means devourer; Satan means adversary; devil means slanderer; while serpent means deceiver; and all these names indicate the characteristics of Satan, the evil one.

[44]According to the Genesis account, the old serpent, the devil, deceived Eve in this manner: As we have heretofore observed, Jehovah had told Adam and Eve that they must not eat of a certain tree in Eden, known as the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Appearing to mother Eve in the capacity of a serpent, a deceiver, the devil said to her in effect: 'Hath God said that ye shall not eat of every tree in Eden?' To this question Eve responded: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die". The old serpent, the devil, replied: "Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil". In other words, he told Eve that Jehovah was trying to keep her and her husband in ignorance and thus take advantage of them. Doubtless the devil himself ate of the fruit in the presence of Eve and then deliberately lied to her by saying: "Ye shall not surely die"—God knows that you will not die. And by this means he induced mother Eve to eat of the fruit—which was a violation of God's law. We know that Satan is a liar, because Jesus said of him: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."—John 8:44.

[45]The fact that Eve was deceived and thereby induced to violate the law of God in no wise changed the law or affected its enforcement. Adam deliberately ate of the fruit and he was also in the transgression. —1 Timothy 2:14.

[46]After they had violated Jehovah's law, Adam and Eve hid amongst the trees in Eden. Jehovah spoke to Adam and asked: "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" Adam responded that Eve had given him the fruit to eat; and Eve said that the serpent had deceived her. They both stood before Jehovah and confessed their guilt. The majesty of the law of Jehovah must be upheld. His law being unchangeable (Hebrews 6:18), there remained nothing to do but to enforce that law. Then Jehovah pronounced his judgment against them, the record of which reads: "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,"—Genesis 3:16–19.

[47]Thus the perfect man forfeited his life. He had been endowed with perfection of home, liberty, peace, happiness, and life everlasting on earth. Now he must die and return to the dust from whence he was taken. God did not put him to death immediately, but permitted him to have 930 years of experience that he might learn the baneful effects of sin. Eden contained perfect