Tag: biblical justice

Justice and Mercy and the Faithfulness of God

God waits to be gracious

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Isaiah says. “[T]he Lord waits to be gracious to you.” He desires and longs to be gracious. In modern vernacular, we might say that God cannot wait to be gracious to us! 

We may think that God exalts Himself in showing judgment. We might imagine Jesus coming on a white horse judging and making war in righteousness with a sword coming from his mouth as the supreme exaltation of God. (Revelation 19-11-16) But, God doesn’t exalt Himself in showing Judgment. He exalts Himself in showing mercy.

God is God. He could judge the world at any time. He could utterly overwhelm us with presence and power right now. He could wipe humankind off the face of the earth in a moment, but He doesn’t do that.

God waits to be gracious to us, and He exalts Himself by showing mercy. God’s greatness is seen most authentically in showing mercy.

This is because God is a God of justice. We might be tempted to think that justice is the opposite of mercy, but justice turns out to be wrapped up in mercy. The greatest expression of God’s justice is on display in God showing mercy.

Justice, then, is not in opposition to mercy; justice and mercy are not opposites. They are brothers. Justice and mercy are mutually dependent on each other. One does not exist without the other.

For this reason, James says, “Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has not shown mercy.” James 2:13 We might think we want judgment to come, but it’s justice with mercy that we want and need. If think we do justice without showing mercy, we are do neither, and neither justice nor mercy will be done. 

Mercy triumphs over judgment, according to James. That means that mercy is God’s ultimate goal. Not judgment, but mercy

As Christians, we should know this. Jesus came not to condemn, but to save. He is the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 in search of the one, lost sheep. Jesus came not for the righteous but for this sick with sin. He came not to judge but to save.

Jesus warned the Pharisees about heaping heavy, cumbersome loads on other people’s shoulders. (Matthew 23:4) He warned them about shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. (Matt. 23:13) And, he warned them about neglecting the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. (Matt. 23:23)

Justice is not justice without mercy. God is just, merciful and faithful. So, we wait – so we trust – in Him. He who is merciful and just is faithful and just to forgive us when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9) because God waits to gracious.

We should wait always to be gracious and merciful because God is merciful in His justice with us.

A Christian Lawyer’s Thoughts on Rights, Law & Justice: the Orientation of a Believer

Biblical justice for the common person is more about what you do than about how you are treated

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We live in a world punctuated with individual rights and laws that allow redress for nearly every possible wrong that might be conceived under the sun. American litigiousness is notorious, perhaps, because of this expansive construct of individual rights.  

Laws are intended to set parameters on human activity according to a basic set of societal values that are calculated to promote human flourishing. When we feel we have been unjustly or unfairly treated, we have the authority granted by our laws to assert our rights to obtain justice.

We roll our eyes at the frivolous lawsuits held up for the amazement and ridicule of a curious public, but many real injustices and real wrongs still occur in our modern world. People are still people, and we don’t always do right be each other.

Actual malicious intention is exhibited in the never ending scams perpetrated on elders and other unsuspecting victims. They get more and more sophisticated as time goes by. These scams target the most vulnerable people in our community, and these scammers intentionally rob people of millions (maybe even billions) of dollars every year.

People also do wrong against others less intentionally. Either through negligence (not caring enough to protect others from our actions or failures to act) or through protecting ourselves to the detriment of others. Injustices and wrongs are a part of every day life, unfortunately.

The legal systems of civilized societies exist to provide recourse in a controlled way that preserves order and achieves some measure of justice, however slowly those wheels turn. The alternative is the wild west where justice happens as quickly as a finger on a trigger or the time it takes to tie a noose. Such “justice” is often little more than a power wielded by the strong over the weak.

We are sometimes conflicted by these things, especially in the circumstances of egregious injustice. Hitler is the ultimate example. We want justice to be swift and unforgiving. We are willing to forgo the protocols intended to safeguard our system of justice when we feel the ends justify the means.

We would never want to be on the other side of that equation, though, especially if we didn’t do it! Beyond that, I like to say that no person really wants justice when we stand before God, because God’s strict justice would be unrelenting and unforgiving. It allows for no mercy, when what we really want (and need) from God is His mercy!

Fortunately, we have a God who is merciful and slow to anger. (Exodus 34:6) He is “compassionate and gracious … and abounding in mercy.” (Psalm 103-8) God desires to be merciful to us rather than to demand our sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), and He desire us “to act justly and to love mercy”. (Micah 6:8)

When we think of justice, we might immediately think of criminal justice and the punishment for committing crimes. We might immediately think of God’s justice and punishment for unrepentant sinners.

Biblical justice, however, focuses more on doing right by people (acting justly), and it is intimately connected to loving mercy. In the biblical system of justice, judgment without mercy is meted out only to the one who has shown no mercy (James 2:13), and that should change the way we view justice.

Continue reading “A Christian Lawyer’s Thoughts on Rights, Law & Justice: the Orientation of a Believer” →

Distinguishing Biblical Justice from Social Justice I

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Self portrait of beautiful girl in shanty town.

As Board member of the predominantly evangelical ministry, Administer Justice, a faith-based legal aid organization, I am concerned for Justice. That’s what the ministry is about.

Some skepticism is apparent among evangelicals and other conservative (or orthodox) Christians, however, about the biblical propriety of justice. To be more accurate, the concerns lie with the idea and movement that is labeled “social justice”, but the caution bleeds over into a focus on justice, itself.

Forgetting, for the moment, that a form of justice has been promoted that is divorced and disassociated from orthodox, conservative Christianity, is there any question that our God is a just God.

“His work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4)

“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” (Psalm 89:14).

God is intimately and preeminently concerned about justice and expects us to “do justice”.

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and please the widow’s cause,” (Isaiah 1:17)

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

And this biblical sense of justice isn’t just limited to the exhortations of prophets in the Old Testament. Jesus was very clear in His view of justice when he said,

“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others….” (Luke 11:42)

Lest we risk being counted among the Pharisees, we need to take his words to heart. We should not neglect to do justice. We should get about doing the justice God commands us to do.[i]

At the same time, the phrase, “social justice”, carries with it connotations that we rightfully consider with caution. Though we can agree on many of the evils that are the targets of social justice – hunger, poverty, human trafficking, abuse of the elderly and so on – there are some key differences we should recognize between mere “social justice” and biblical justice.

For one thing, secular social justice focuses only on the here and now; whereas biblical justice focuses both on the here and now and eternity. The secular notion of social justice that is based on “civil rights” and “human dignity” has its roots in the idea that all people are made in the image of God, but it has been severed from those roots.

Social justice divorced from the idea of a just God is “grounded” in a currently persuasive social construct created by people that is not rooted to an eternal or timeless truth. That means there is no assurance that the same construct will continue to be persuasive in 500 years, or 100 years, or even 50 years.

But it goes deeper than that. I am not going to attempt a definitive treatise of the differences. I am going to highlight some basic differences with the help of J. Warner Wallace[ii] with the hope of bringing a little clarity that will help Christians take seriously God’s call for us to do justice without getting “off the path” into the secular weeds.

Continue reading “Distinguishing Biblical Justice from Social Justice I” →