It's true that God is loving but the greater truth is that God *is* love; love is the substance of God. It's also true that God is just but justice is *not* the substance of God. Justice is one of the outworkings of God's love, subordinate to God's nature. That means something.

Not least because while we are made in God's image, to reflect his nature, we are not (as such) made of the substance of love ourselves. Accordingly, all our considerations of justice are not filtered by the same lens as they are for God.

I am often accused of remaking God's love into something that I find palatable. I may, at times, be guilty of this. But I think the far more disturbing point that as humans, we are intrinsically very likely to reinterpret God's justice in light of what we find palatable and fair.

And that is going to have devastating consequences.

"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."
-Matthew 5:43-45