God has woven the need for justice into the very fabric of creation. Like all ideals however, justice has its greatest value when it is lived out in daily life. Justice is not served only when it suits our whim, and otherwise is cast aside like a used cloth until it fits our purposes again. Justice is a consistent banner that should fly at the top of our flag pole along with truth, and mercy. In many cases the pursuit of justice comes at a price, and each individual needs to determine whether he or she will pay that price. Like honesty’s clarion call, the shofar is blowing in another type of clarion call for justice. Can you hear them?
The call for justice, i believe, resonates across the universe as a universal cry to God for deliverance; a call against the outbreak of sin which kills every bit of matter in the universe due to invasive evil, dishonesty, deceit, and a whole string of really really bad choices. Friends, many of us treat sin as its own beginning and end, but God sees it as sin being the end point not the beginning. It begins with wrongness of character, iniquity, which finds a reason to transgress God’s standards and statutes, transgression, and when iniquity and transgression have done their work, sin is the result.
The plague of sin infected people from birth to expiration date, or from our beginning to the end – every rock, memory, tree, concept and idea, due to sin, are destined to fade and die because of the plague of sin. i believe our true hearts desire is for all things to be made right again, as they were in the beginning – in the beginning, before the decimating disease of sin infected all creation, there was no such thing as death and decay, hatred, lies, deceit or dishonesty. Jesus Christ redeemed fallen man, He balanced our books for those who will believe. Justice, was done, once and for all, when Jesus made a way for all to be reconciled who would believe and call on His name in their day of trouble.
i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts.
This evening, i’ve decided to begin the discussion concerning the weighty subject of justice. No small topic indeed. i must admit right here and now, it was hard for me. i found myself often being angry because the more i dug into what God intends concerning justice and how my nation actually plays it out is truly an ugly contrast. i did the best i could to present the topic of justice as balanced as possible, but on the heals of that let me add that the aberration of justice in our land is a stench in the nostrils of the Father. With that said, let’s forge ahead.
Man is characterized by his God given ability to contrast and compare, to analyze and understand. God given understanding comes through a right relationship with God, and by that right relationship, by that ability to contrast and compare, righteous justice is done. Our right relationship with the Lord is the door, the point, and the connection to differentiate and separate things in our decision making machine within us, joining spirit and matter. Justice.
As in our conversation of honesty from last week, a very similar question about this also, how do we speak of justice without discussing injustice also? Honesty, truth, and justice are of the same spirit, the same God-DNA, and it’s impossible to have truth without honesty, or justice without truth. It simply can’t be done.
As i made an attempt to write about justice, i realized how much a part of injustice is constituted by deceitful contrasts, dishonest comparisons, and twisted thinking; i thought about how injustice is so often overshadowed by a mouth which speaks one thing while the heart is inclined in another direction. And from the last program, the Hebrew for “deceit” literally means to “steal away the mind” in the sense of saying one thing with our mouth, when we really mean something else in our heart.
Also, it occurs to me that even habitual liars hate being lied to, but if we despise lies and deceit in our society as we say we do, why do we so often tolerate it from our own leadership with seeming indifference? And you know, i think that same leadership sort of counts on us being indifferent, and that’s not good.
Are we, at our core, a just people? Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.” Are we, the church, are we “just” in our heart, do we give right of way to our neighbor? We say we live by faith, but if we are not just, and doing justice, how far will our faith go? From God’s perspective though, being “straight” or “just” should be the pattern of our lives. We are to be the people who are trained by grace and live in patterns of grace, but also the people who walk straight and live in patterns of justice. From Leviticus the Lord commands us to use right weights and measures, and it was a big deal. The Lord said we are to judge righteously according to the truth not showing partiality or bias. And i’ve gotta tell you, righteousness is only gained through conformity to standards set out in the word of God and we only conform by the blood of Jesus. Remember, “righteous” is a legal term defining our right standing with God by the sacrifice of Jesus. Justice is exacted freely and never ever ever has an eye on gain or wealth. Whether by nations or individuals, righteous conduct can only be gotten by, metaphorically, plowing up fallow ground, sowing in faith in Christ, and reaping the mercy of God. And right there is another pattern which holds hands with justice, sowing righteousness and harvesting mercy.
So, let me ask then, How do you think God views us who say we have faith but do not do right justice? Our government and judicial institutions are absolutely rife with justice for money, and it is a stench in the nostrils of the Father. Friends, to rule on behalf of the wicked for a price is perversion of righteousness, for it takes away the righteousness, the decency and Godlikeness of the righteous.
Do we walk in the ways of the Lord? Hosea 14:8-9 The Lord says, “I will answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me.Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is able to distinguish and understand? Let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right; The just walk in them…” If we as a nation, are not living out a just life because we are just people in right relationship with the Lord, are we walking, as a people, in the rightness and justice of God? No.
Speaking of justice and judgment – are we willing to gather to ourselves the judgement of God? If we didn’t have His judgment, blessing and reproof, we would still be blind and dead in sin. He alone is the only one with a circumspect view of every man and can rightly weigh each person’s life. God is straightforward and is the personification of justice. In fact some scholars believe one of the Hebrew names for the Lord, “Adonai” is derived from a root word which means “to judge”, meaning that in the middle of the Name of the Lord, is the concept and action of righteous judgment.
Isaiah 26:7, “The way of the just is straightforwardness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just.”
Augustine said, “If a man has no order within himself, then there is certainly no justice in an assembly made up of such men.” Oh man!
To further paraphrase, in order for real justice, for righteous justice to happen, it must first begin within ourselves, meaning we must be in subjection to God. Only when this order-of-things prevails in ourselves, can we act justly to others, being consistent and repeatable.
A nation with no justice is a nation who is smeared with the refuse of shame.
Denying our neighbor justice is the same as putting them to shame, and chances are good that if we put our neighbor to shame, then we ourselves are probably clothed in shame also in some fashion or another. Just like war begins inside a man’s heart long before it extends to the world around him, justice begins inside a man’s heart long before it extends to the world around him.
We, as people, are a social bunch, but for true justice to happen in our society, we must first be part of the society formed with God, a just and God-centered society lived through our being rightly related to God. In that just and right relationship comes harmony, unity, internal and social peace.
Does our nation possess those things? If you believe we do not, then what’s at the core of that lack? And i know, it’s easy to just say, “Our nation needs Jesus”, that’s true of course, but i mean something closer to home. If our nation doesn’t possess harmony, unity, internal and social peace, then i must also conclude we as individuals don’t posses them nearly like we think. Afterall, we ARE our nation, and our nation is us. We can’t keep blaming things on the infamous “they”, when “they” is really “us”.
Job 34:17 “Can he who hates justice govern?” Consequently, there can be no right justice without Christ. i know maybe i’ve said this too often, but i think it bears repeating until it sinks in – a nation with no justice is a nation with no peace, and without Christ there can be no justice nor peace.
The classical definition of justice was to “render to each his due,” interestingly, there are those who would say there should be no violence in doing justice. But, in the course of justice, certain people need to be “punished with a certain kind of harshness.” It’s not that punishment shouldn’t happen within the enactment of justice, but more what we cannot do is return evil for evil with a desire for vengeance.
From the book, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagan, written by St. Augustine, “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? Without justice, those criminal gangs are a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by an agreement like a corporation, in which the spoils are divided according to their agreed on portions.”
Injustice is injustice whether the unjust are paupers or kings. Much of our leadership today is very unjust, but because they are large and we are small, they seem to see themselves above the law. When they act like that they are called government officials, but when we act like that we are called criminals.
Here’s a great little story about a pirate who had been captured and was taken to be judged in front of Alexander the Great. As the story goes, the pirate knew he was about to die, so he just spoke his mind. The king asked the fellow, “What is your big idea of trying to dominate the seas?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “My idea is the same as yours, dominating the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor.” Do you see the injustice of tyrants in that? Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice, Who uses his neighbor’s service without wages And gives him nothing for his work...”
The Lord wants justice and righteousness, literally, to cascade through our lives like a strong and powerful river. Justice is not something the Lord wants to wash through us only when it’s convenient, similar to a fair-weather friend which is like a ditch that only runs full during the rainy season.
What we do in our relationship with God is what we do in our relations with our neighbor – we cannot love God if we do not also love our neighbor. Luke 10:27 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.‘”
If we, as a nation, will not practice justice and righteousness in our courts of law, our national devotion to Christ has fallen short. Notice i didn’t say, “can not” but “will not”, which means much of our leadership, on some level, is probably aware of the need for right relationship with God; they are aware of the need for truth and justice, and it’s not that they can’t come into right relationship with God, but they won’t. Our leadership lives in what i call a “momentary truth”, in other words, what is true for today, may not be true tomorrow. It is a life of “mobile boundaries”.
Right relationship with God is the cornerstone to doing justice, and as we’ve said, a nation with no justice is a nation with no peace, and a nation with no peace is a nation who lacks right relationship with God.
God Himself is at the nuclear core of everyone, we were made in His image, He has enabled everything that is, to be. We need to see God’s intent and His action, the two go hand in hand. In Genesis 1:26 we see the Lord’s intent, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...” and then in Genesis 1:27 we see His action, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”
We often speak of justice, but increasingly, we never seem to get around to taking action and doing justice. In other words, our intentions are good but if we don’t take any action then we’ve done nothing more than think about it. This is the crux of the big deal written about in James 2, if you say you have faith, then show me your works. Like saying, you’ve told me all about your intent, now show me the results of you taking action on your intentions.
Mary Clark, in her paper concerning Justice, writes that, “justice is one of the four main forms of loving God. When we are rightly related to God, we are rightly related to ourselves and to the world around us.”
From that we could conclude, that a nation that is wrongly related to itself, as seen by it’s lack of justice, is a nation that is wrongly related to God. People with a God-relationship, who’s heart is willing to pay the price of justice, has in it’s pockets not only harmony, but unity. Unfortunately, most of us want harmony but we can’t seem to agree on our means of unity. Hear this: Justice prepares us for the vision of God.
If you’ve got Jesus in your heart, then by the very nature of Him, you have what it takes to be put into action. Here’s a challenging question: Are we willing to pay the price of seeing justice done?
The origination of the word “dynamo” is the Greek word, “dunamis” the same word we get our English word “dynamite” from. Love and compassion should be the dynamo, or “dynamite” of justice for without love and compassion, justice is just law without mercy.
When we do justice out of the Love of God and compassion, we are accomplishing the commandments of God, for Love, as it’s written in Romans13:9-10, is the fulfillment of the Law. “… and whatever other commandment there may be, is summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
As believers, we need to understand that justice is one of the main safeguards of order, peace, and progress. With even scales and balances righteous justice equally favors all and does not press excessively on anyone. Rightly done, justice gives our leadership enough authority to do its legitimate end, while it effectually bars the road to tyranny and violence.
Psalm 50:16-17, “But to the wicked, God says: “What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you.”
i’m always amazed to hear people, who disdain the Lord to His face and who don’t even like to have a thought of Him in their mind, when it suits them, suddenly decide to use His name to get justice for themselves. The world hates His instruction, and they throw His words to the ground when it suits them. They pick up His statutes, and handle His covenant when it suits them. It’s always according to a worldly agenda that is all about themselves. To quote Job 34:17 again, “Can he who hates justice govern?” If our leadership has thrown God’s love and words behind them, and mingled righteousness with rebellion, deceit, and dishonesty, again, can those people who hate justice actually govern? If preferential treatment is given to the wealthy, but the poor are cast into prison without much more than a smattering of a trial, is that justice?
i knew a man who had poor boundaries, but his wife was constantly pushing and manipulating, emotionally leveraging everything about their lives in her favor. One day, he lost control, he blew up and got violent, though not doing her any physical harm. The next thing he knew he was in court, did a little jail time, took mandated anger management classes and paid fines with money he didn’t have. The reality is the angry person was his wife, not him.
True, he had boundary problems, but was he truly the violent one? When it all goes to court, all the court saw was another angry man, only assessing the facts, not the truth. Did they really do justice? Did they simply leverage the facts in order to get a conviction? Did the wife feel justified because it was mercy for her and justice for him? Too many attorneys do the right thing only when they’re paid enough; too many prosecutors leverage the facts in excess in order to get a conviction, and too many defenders leverage the facts by omission to get an acquittal, but it seems no one is really interested in the truth, and finding the balance point of justice.
It begins with a right relationship with God. Like all ideals however, justice has value only when it is lived out in daily life. In many cases the pursuit of justice comes at a price, and each individual needs to determine whether he or she will pay that price. Are you willing to pay the price for justice? Think about it.
Honesty is like a clear ringing bell set high on a hill. Similarly, justice is a clear sounding trumpet that needs desperately to be heard. 1 Corinthians 14:7-8 “… how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?”
Jesus is calling us to stand firm in His Name. Standing firm, means a posture that is not in repose, or at it’s leisure. That’s “standing firm”, not “sitting down to fold your hands”. Get up! Take action. It’s not enough to just be on the path, we must move our feet.
i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts.
The Lord knows your name, so go with confidence this week, doing justice in your house and your community, in the name of the Lord for the cause of Love – it’s the right thing to do. Amen!