Does God Deal With All Alike?

Jun 21, 2016
Thomas Watson, from “A Body of Divinity”

We read in Job 8:3, “Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?”
How can it square with God’s justice, that all men being “equally guilty by nature, that He should pass by one and, save another? Why does He not deal with all alike? Romans 9:14 asks—and answers—the question”Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid”

God is not bound to give account of His actions to His creatures. If one may say to a king, “What doest thou?” as we read in Ecclesiastes 8:4, how much less to God? It is sufficient to say that God is Lord paramount; He has sovereign power over His creatures, therefore He can do no injustice.
God has liberty in His own heart, to save one, and not another; and His justice is not at all impeached or blemished. If two men owe you money, you may, without any injustice, remit the debt to one, and exact it of the other. If two criminals are condemned to die, the king may pardon the one and not the other. He is not unjust if he lets one suffer, because he offended the law; nor if he saves the other, because he makes use of His prerogative as king.
Though some are saved and others perish, yet there is no unrighteousness in God; because, whoever perishes, his destruction is of himself. Hosea 13:9 declares, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself’.

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