God is just. The Bible is clear about that, and God's absolutely just nature is one of the many attributes that makes Him God. But then the question arises: If God is just, then why does injustice happen to good people?
Innocent people are losing property, resources and even their own lives to unjust people, and God allows it to happen. If God is just, then why does this happen? One person in the Bible who questioned God's just nature is Job. Many of us think that Job was a perfect man who had no doubts, but that's not true. Job lived an upright life and it brought him to question why God would allow such suffering and pain to come to him. Job then goes to say "I am innocent, but God denies me justice" (NIV, Job 34:5).
God then shows up to Job to remind him that nothing is as simple as it seems, rebukes Job, telling Job the complexities that this world exists in and invites the upright man to trust His ways instead. God never reveals to Job the reason for his suffering, but he trusts God anyway and God—by His sweet grace—restores Job's treasures even greater than before.
Questioning God's justice under the evidence of good people suffering is built on faulty assumptions. The first assumption is that there's such a thing as an innocent person. While some people may be less harmful than others by civil standards, the Bible tells us in Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (ESV).
If we were to ask God for justice, then none of us would stand upright and we would all be on our way to eternal separation from God in Hell. Instead, God gives us grace, allowing us to experience His redemptive work through Jesus Christ, and while— yes—we will experience temporary pain here on earth, the day will come when we will stand before the throne of God justified not by our works but by His finished work on the cross.
The second assumption we make is not necessarily completely wrong, but it can be wrong in certain situations; it is the assumption that all pain is inflicted as payment for justice. While most pain and suffering comes because of sin in this world and sin in our life, it is brought at a level that is not fatal but actually stings us to a point that it teaches us to say no to sin the next time around. We call this discipline.
And Hebrews 12:6 reminds us, "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives" (ESV). God's discipline comes not out of injustice, but out of overflowing grace, mercy and love for us.
God is just; we are not. The suffering we experience is but a shaving of what we really deserve, but because God is loving and merciful, He gave us Jesus to receive our true just portion so that we would be justified and could now receive His beautiful reward instead of our ugly punishment.
