Publisher’s Pen: Justice or Grace

illustration by Viktor Miller-Gausa

Dale Mason
Publisher

If you’ve followed this column long enough, you may remember the time I wrote about the drunk driver who veered into my lane and came at me head-on at about 50 miles per hour. I was a 17-year-old basketball player simply returning home from an after-game date when my car was struck so suddenly. Firefighters cut me from the wreckage. I don’t remember any of it, but in the ambulance, my heart stopped. After several seconds, it simply restarted. I didn’t die because God wasn’t through with me yet.

Did I get justice? No, but I got grace.

Later that same schoolyear, another 17-year-old (I will call him Johnny), a baseball player who lived nearby, also came home from a date. There was an argument, and Johnny killed his parents and brother that night using both a gun and a knife. My high school’s business law class attended part of Johnny’s trial. He was convicted for all three murders and sentenced to life without parole.

Johnny, too, got grace.

In Genesis 9:6, God specifically states, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Biblical justice in Johnny’s case required death. However, he has lived for decades by God’s grace. Johnny had been on my heart over the years, so finally, a few years ago, I contacted this stranger. It was awkward. We corresponded for a time until he stopped replying. Sadly, he showed no remorse. I continue to pray that God would soften his heart and grant him repentance.

You and I are no better than Johnny. We are sinners, but if we’ve received Jesus, we are saved by grace. By God’s grace, I graduated, married, and had several children, who have each had several children. I’ve traveled extensively since my near-fatal crash. Johnny traveled with a high security transport from Central Illinois to a maximum security prison cell.

Both Johnny and I are alive only by the grace of God. But neither of us will experience the unfathomable future joy of heaven without the sin-covering blood of Jesus. Pray for Johnny. And when you get to page 42 in this issue of Answers, consider the beauty of real, true justice—and grace.