The justice, or justness, of God is a controversial topic. That’s because for a lot of Christians this is their favorite attribute of His. They like it better than His graciousness and His love. They figure in this world, there are a whole lot of behinds that need kicking, and they love to imagine God doing the kicking. These are the folks who will say, “Yes, God is love, but God is also just.” That “but” in the sentence is their way of saying, “Love is patient, but at some point that patience is gonna run out, and God is gonna open up a can of whoop-ass on those people I don’t like… because they’re evildoers; yeah, that’s why I don’t like them.”
For such people, “justice” isn’t too far different from vengeance. Some of them will insist, at least, that there be some due process: The cops and the courts should sort this stuff out, rather than rounding up a posse and going after them Batman-style. But “justice” is usually about seeing the wicked getting what’s coming to them.
It is based on the assumption that we, at least, are not wicked. Which is a false assumption.
Humans are not just.
Pardon me while I preach the dictionary a bit. The adjective just means “based on, or behaving according to, what is morally right and fair.”
Human nature is not to do what is morally right and fair. It is to punish evildoers. Not because they’re evil, but because they hurt us, and we want revenge.
Most of the time that revenge would be death. Insult a man’s honor, and he’ll try to kill you for it. In the past, people dueled; even those who believed in law and order would fight a duel for honor’s sake. In the present, gang members won’t bother to duel; they’ll just shoot you. Is death an appropriate response to an insult? You’ll find a lot of people who argue, convincingly, that it certainly is.
The most common argument for extreme responses is that it’ll prevent such behavior in the future—if you can get caned for littering, you definitely won’t litter, and if you can get executed for going too far in your speech, you’ll definitely keep your mouth shut.
Except we Christians are a glaring example of how that’s not true. Jesus was executed for not keeping His mouth shut. So were lots of us. So we still are. Scary punishments don’t stop the determined human will. Never have. We’ll preach Jesus and dare people to kill us for it. The injustice of the situation automatically puts us in the right, and people will do anything when they believe they’re right.
Well, in order to stay in the right, yet also punish evildoers to the degree that our human nature wants, our society has come up with our “justice system,” which is based on the principles of reciprocity—you need to pay society back—plus punitive damages, which is the extra money or time that you ought to pay so that you’ve learned your lesson. Damages all depend on what our lawmakers have set as the minimum sentence, and what our judges and juries decide to add to that.
Reciprocity is the limit God sets on our behavior in the scriptures: “Your rule should be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (Dt 19.21) Evildoers should “get what’s coming to them,” and they deserve to experience the evil they’ve done to others. When they steal, they deserve to have stuff taken away from them. When they murder, they deserve the death penalty.
The only area where we practice true reciprocity is when we execute murderers. All other crimes get reciprocity plus punitive damages: Steal a thousand dollars—which should take you a month to earn back—and you don’t just get a month in prison: Unless you can afford a good attorney, you’ll serve at least three months. Accidentally poison someone, and the jury may force you to pay their hospital bills—and on top of that, fine you millions of dollars in punitive damages, depending on how vengeful they feel.
We can argue the merits and flaws of our justice system; we can point out how it’s considerably better than that of certain other countries. But it, because we’re used to it, has become our standard of justice. We define what is “just” by how much socially acceptable vengeance we can add, after the criminal pays back what is owed, if that’s possible.
So when your average person insists that they “want justice,” they might mean that they want what’s coming to them. But they don’t only mean that. They mean that, on top of getting what they have due, that somebody needs to pay for the crime of depriving them. Someone needs to pay punitive damages. Someone needs to suffer consequences. If nobody does, and “they just get away with this,” it means that justice—following society’s definition—has not been done.
God is not just.
Now. Reciprocity is God’s idea; before He gave the whole eye-for-eye command, humans would naturally respond with death. Knock my eye out; you’re dead. Cain’s descendant Lamech is a good example of this.
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
listen to me, you wives of Lamech.
I have killed a man who attacked me,
a young man who wounded me.
If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times,
then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times!
—Lamech, Genesis 4.23-24 NLT
Lamech comes across as a jerk, but he’s a typical jerk. We all know of people who boast that they exacted an unequal revenge for a smaller slight. Some of us, like me, did it ourselves. God said “Eye for eye” in order to stop this sort of behavior. Reciprocity limits revenge before it escalates to an unending cycle of death and destruction—you know, the usual result.
Lamech refers to his ancestor Cain. You likely know that story: Cain and Abel, brothers and worshipers of God, brought Him some offerings that reflected their respective trades: Cain the farmer gave grain; Abel the shepherd gave a sheep. God rejected Cain’s offering for some unknown reason. (Various ignorant Christians have taught it’s because Cain didn’t offer a sheep; I suppose they never read the commands about grain offerings.) Cain, in anger, took it out on Abel and murdered him. God’s response was to ban Cain from farming. Not to kill him. In fact, anyone who executed Cain for murder would be punished for doing so. (Ge 4.2-16)
Yep, the God who demanded reciprocity doesn’t practice it Himself. His usual behavior? Forgiveness. Generosity.
Look at how Jesus describes God’s Kingdom.
The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Once there was a man who went out early in the morning to hire some men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them the regular wage, a silver coin a day, and sent them to work in his vineyard.
He went out again to the marketplace at nine o’clock and saw some men standing there doing nothing, so he told them, “You also go and work in the vineyard, and I will pay you a fair wage.” So they went. Then at twelve o’clock and again at three o’clock he did the same thing.
It was nearly five o’clock when he went to the marketplace and saw some other men still standing there. “Why are you wasting the whole day here doing nothing?” he asked them.
“No one hired us,” they answered.
“Well, then, you go and work in the vineyard,” he told them.
When evening came, the owner told his foreman, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with those who were hired last and ending with those who were hired first.” The men who had begun to work at five o’clock were paid a silver coin each. So when the men who were the first to be hired came to be paid, they thought they would get more; but they too were given a silver coin each.
They took their money and started grumbling against the employer. “These men who were hired last worked only one hour,” they said, “while we put up with a whole day’s work in the hot sun—yet you paid them the same as you paid us!”
“Listen, friend,” the owner answered one of them, “I have not cheated you. After all, you agreed to do a day’s work for one silver coin. Now take your pay and go home. I want to give this man who was hired last as much as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do as I wish with my own money? Or are you jealous because I am generous?”
So those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last. —Jesus, Matthew 20.1-16 GNB
Was the vineyard owner fair? Of course not.
He didn’t cheat his workers; some got what they deserved. But clearly others did not get what they deserved. He was generous. Too generous, in their minds. And that is the character of God. He is generous. His sense of justice is regularly outweighed, and overwhelmed, by His grace.
Those who like to say, “God is love, but God is just,” not only follow the wrong definition of justice; even if they followed the right one they’d be wrong. God is not just. If God were just, every single human on the planet should be erased from existence, as God wipes the slate clean and starts over with a new Adam and Eve, and a new earth. If God were just, His justice would not allow Him to pay the penalty for our sins Himself; we would have to work them off. Somehow. Maybe by a system of infinite death and reincarnation, until we finally get one of our lifetimes right, if that’s even possible. That’s right: If God were just, He’d probably look like Brahman.
What about the scriptures that describe God as just? Out-of-date translation. The words they use don’t actually mean just. Tsaddíq (Dt 32.4) or díkaios (Ro 1.17, Ga 3.11) mean the same thing: right-thinking, righteous, correct, or orthodox. It does not mean that God is fair, but that God is good. His way is the correct way. “Just” might have meant “correct” 400 years ago, when the King James Version was translated, but not today.
Likewise the words for “justice,” which are either tsaddíq and its adjective tsdaqáh, or mishpát, a ruling—which, coming from God, is going to be correct. And gracious.
It is God’s goodness that makes Him a righteous judge at the End. (2Ti 4.8) But it is also this goodness that makes Him an extremely unfair and biased judge. His followers are His favorites, and thanks to Jesus, our judge is going to dismiss the many, many charges we have against us. Is that fair? Is that right? Don’t we deserve punishment? Of course we do. But Jesus is our advocate, and the judge is in His pocket. Thank God He isn’t just.
Christians and social justice.
Some years ago a talk show host created a stir by telling his followers that “social justice” is liberal-speak for socialism, and that if your church teaches that Christians ought to seek justice in our society, you need to leave those churches.
Of course he got a lot of backlash from Christians. Seeking justice—true justice, what’s correct, or what’s morally right and fair, and not the vengeance-based version that our society teaches—is one of God’s commands.
You must not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you are called to testify in a dispute, do not be swayed by the crowd to twist justice.
—The LORD, Exodus 23.2 NLT
Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor or being partial to the rich and powerful. Always judge people fairly.
—The LORD, Leviticus 19.15 NLT
You must never twist justice or show partiality. Never accept a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and corrupt the decisions of the godly. Let true justice prevail, so you may live and occupy the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
—Moses, Deuteronomy 16.19-20 NLT
The Levites will shout to all the people of Israel: … “Cursed is anyone who denies justice to foreigners, orphans, or widows.” And all the people will reply, “Amen.”
—Moses, Deuteronomy 27.14, 19 NLT
Throughout the bible, there are cries for the people to stop doing evil and to do what is right. In some bibles “right” gets translated “just”—justice is after all the morally right thing. The Law set the tone for the Hebrews to determine what was right, but the people weren’t following the Law, and the weak and needy were getting shafted. And the same is true in our society: People are taking advantage of loopholes in our laws, or are altering the laws to suit them, and likewise shaft the poor and needy. We Christians are obligated to defend them and uphold our laws, and get rid of any laws that grant special privileges to one class or one group of people. Laws must equally apply to everyone.
But that’s the bare minimum of what we Christians are obligated to do. Reciprocity is the ground floor of our responsibility. We’re Christians. We look to Jesus, not the Law, to define what is morally right. If Jesus goes beyond the Law, so do we.
And Jesus’s instructions are to love one another, love our neighbors, and love our enemies: We’re to want their best, rather than long for their destruction. We’re forbidden revenge. We’re to forgive criminals regardless of whether they’re repentant, or remorseful, or have paid back what is owed, or somehow otherwise merit our forgiveness. We’re to love them as Christ loves us, and gave His life to make up for our own criminal behavior against God.
Is that reciprocity? Absolutely not. Nor is it just. It is actually unjust. Jesus expects us to put aside any rights or claims we have, take a loss, and live with that. We can set things right for others, but we have no business setting things right for ourselves. We don’t live by reciprocity, but grace. We forgive for the sake of the Kingdom.
This is the complete opposite of the way most Americans think. As a result, despite how many Christian teach it, more won’t believe it. We much prefer to believe in a wrathful, vengeful God that will take our side and smite our enemies. And clearly some of us will even go on TV and tell people that any other belief isn’t Christian.
But social justice, properly defined, is taking God’s grace and applying it to our society. It’s defending the defenseless, even when they’re undeserving. It’s opposing the powerful when they do evil. It’s spreading the love of God and the thinking of the Kingdom. And if any church doesn’t teach that, you need to leave those churches.