Lady Justice is a famous statue that is found in, or near, legal courts all around the world. She is usually shown blindfolded in Roman garb, with a sword in one hand and a set of balancing scales in the other. She stands as a symbol of justice. The sword stands for the authority of the king or the government to punish. The scales picture the careful weighing of the evidence, and the blindfold means that justice should be decided without any bias or prejudice.

Some historians trace the origins of Lady Justice back to the Goddess Maat in ancient Egypt. There are carvings where she was portrayed as weighing a deceased person’s heart on one side of the scale against the “feather of truth” on the other side of the scale in order to determine their eternal state.

When a society is trying to determine the innocence or guilt of an accused person, the ideas behind Lady Justice are noble and good. I’m sure we would all agree that any punishment should be fair and unbiased. In an ideal world, a person’s wealth or status in society wouldn’t have anything to do with a legal verdict either.

I assume that Lady Justice has helped make popular the idea that God holds some type of scales in heaven. You’ve heard the theory. God puts our good deeds on one side and our bad deeds on the other side, and we just cross our fingers and hope that the good deeds win out.

Those bad deeds are called sins—almost everybody admits they’ve done them. Nobody’s perfect, right?  Since we are all in this together, everyone is guilty to some degree. That thought makes it easy to assume that God (who is loving after all) “understands” and doesn’t expect any of us to be perfect. God just wants to encourage us do our best and be good.

That seems to make some logical sense to us, but do Lady Justice’s standards also apply when it comes to God’s holiness and our sins?

For starters, what does God says about our sin problem? Get ready for a shock. God’s acceptable standard is much higher than we tend to think. “Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written,

[see Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:7] ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16).

Jesus emphasized that truth when a strict religious leader came and posed this question to Him: “‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, [see Deuteronomy 6:5] ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:36–39).

Is there anyone out there who claims to always put God first (love Him) “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”? God says that none of us measure up: “as it is written, [see Psalm 14:1-3 & 53:1-3] ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one’”  (Romans 3:10–12).

If absolute perfection is God’s standard, and none of us come even close to measuring up, then what does He think of those who don’t reach that standard? Here we have some more shocking news, but stick with me, because in a minute I’m going to share some glorious good news that you don’t want to miss. But first, some more bad news.

God hates ALL sin: “…You hate all who do iniquity” (Psalm 5:5). God sees our sin as an assault on His nature, as well as open rebellion against His goodness. That is why “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…” (Romans 1:18).

Now, please don’t miss this really good news. Jesus came from heaven to endure the wrath of God against your sin FOR you! “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4–5).

When the Apostle Paul was writing in the Bible to Christians, he reminded them  that we “once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3–7).

When you are willing to turn from your sin and give your life to Christ, He is “… able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24).

I am so glad that the balance scales of Lady Justice won’t determine my eternal fate. I need God’s grace, not Lady Justice.