‘Yet the children of your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not equal (fairly weighed).'
This sums up man's attitude. They cannot bear that a sinner can suddenly become acceptable to God. They cannot bear that one who has struggled to be righteous, building up merit, can ‘lose' the benefit of it. They think that it is not fair. For they believe that God should give a man what he deserves. And they are confident that somehow they can earn merit with God to put in the scales to balance out any wrong they do. Thus to suggest that a sinful man can suddenly be put on a par with ‘the righteous' is something that they cannot stomach.
They think that such a man ought to go through a long probation, build up merit to put in the scales against his former wickedness, and even then not catch up with the righteous. He must always be second best. Their view is that there is a medium level, and those who go above it are righteous, and those who go below it are sinful, and the only way that a sinful man can become righteous is by catching up by great effort and getting above the line.
But God tells us that there is only one level, and all go below it. For the truth is, of course, that we deserve nothing from God. ‘All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags' (Isaiah 64:6). When we are righteous in our living we are only doing what we ought to do (Luke 17:10). We earn no merit. And when we sin we cancel out the fact that we have not sinned before (James 2:10-11; Galatians 3:10). And we have all sinned. It would have been no use Adam in the Garden pleading that he had only sinned once, for without the mercy of God his one sin condemned him forever. It was only because God came to him in mercy that he could begin again and not die. And so it is with us all.
Thus it was in this case. Repentance towards God and looking to Him for mercy was alone the way by which any, whether rated as righteous or unrighteous, could find favour with Him. The righteous found favour because he was looking towards God and making the necessary offering for sin, not because he was ‘righteous'. The unrighteous could find immediate favour when he turned from his sins, looked towards God, made the necessary offering for sin, and began to walk as God would have him walk. Thus both were in the same position, acceptable to God because they walked in the mercy of God. But let them turn from that in attitude of heart and mind and they were no longer acceptable.