Psalm 62:11-12
God has spoken plainly, and I have heard it many times: Power, O God, belongs to you; unfailing love, O Lord, is yours. Surely you judge all people according to what they have done. (NLT)
In the same breath, David talks about God's love and his judgment of everyone according to what they have done.
How does that fit, we ask? I think a key to David's thinking is found three Psalms earlier in Psalm 58.
Here, as David often did, he is talking against evil men. But this time he explains in a different way what he means by evil men. They are ones who both do evil (we all have by God's standard) and have stopped their ears and don't want to hear the truth:
v4-5 ...they are like cobras that refuse to listen, ignoring the tunes of the snake charmers, no matter how skillfully they play.
So why is God loving when he will someday punish sinners? According to verse 10 it is for those who have been made good in God's eyes:
v10 The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged.
Haven't you ever seen or heard of some injustice and hoped that someday wrong will be made right, or at least punished? Don't we rejoice when justice prevails and evil men are brought down, never to perpetrate evil again? Those feelings reflect (albeit imperfectly) God's character of goodness within us.
But the other reason is that David wants God's name made great throughout God's creation:
v11 Then at last everyone will say, "There truly is a reward for those who live for God; surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth."
So, there's some food for thought. God's love and goodness mandates his punishing of all sin. Our sin (every single little one of them) will either be paid for by us, or it will be paid for by Christ. The choice is up to us (in many respects), but it must be paid for so that after the judgment day, none of us will ever perpetrate evil on anyone ever again.
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