Last Sunday, I spoke about how the gospel shapes us for justice and mercy. I am aware that in certain religions circles “justice” is a loaded term, thought to be something only for liberals and hippies. However, “justice” is a biblical word. In fact, it is in every part of the Bible. Whether you’re in the Law, Psalms, Proverbs, Prophets, Gospels, or Epistles, it is there.
In my Sunday sermon, we looked primarily at Isaiah 58:5-10. But here is a quick rundown of some other biblical references to justice.
Exodus 23:2, “Do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd..”
Exodus 23:5-7, “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.”
Leviticus 19:15, ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”
Deuteronomy 16:20, “Follow justice and justice alone…”
Deuteronomy 24:17, “Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice..”
Deuteronomy 27:19, “Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow.”
Psalm 140:12, “I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”
Proverbs 29:7, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”
Isaiah 1:17, “…learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
Isaiah 10:1-3, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people…
Hosea 12:5, “But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.”
Amos 5:24, “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
Micah 6:8, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Zechariah 7:8-10, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.”
Matthew 23:23, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
Not only do we get a sense of how important justice is to God by the frequency by which the concept appears, but we also get a sense of how passionate God is for justice by looking at the language, the force of the language that He uses when He talks about it.
Justice matters to God!
4 Comments
In defense of those of us from “certain religious circles,” I would submit that it’s not “justice” per se that conservative Christians express concern about – indeed, we all recognize this as a core biblical principle.
Rather, it’s the so called “social justice” movement, which comes in both secular and religious flavors, but either way is fundamentally rooted in secular humanism (speaking broadly of course, as that term has evolved over the years). Many of us feel the so-called Emergent Church movement epitomizes a contemporary effort to infiltrate the Evangelical community with such a worldview – albeit fashionably cloaked in the brilliantly ambiguous language of “justice.”
Notably, all types of Christians (and good people of all faiths and of no faith) do agree with secular humanists on many things – for what person with a conscience doesn’t want to reduce human suffering? On other matters, we must candidly acknowledge that the Humanists’ goals and/or preferred means for achieving them may not overlap as much with Christian values. In any event, I believe a key Christian calling is that we go beyond the popular consensus causes – embracing the politically incorrect ones just as faithfully.
Ken,
Very well said. You have expressed some of the thoughts that crossed my mind immediately upon reading this blog post. I think justice is a “loaded” term when it is tacked onto an ever-increasing list of causes that may have no connection to God’s Word. For example, I recently read an e-mail circulating amongst a group of young Ward couples which advocated “social justice”, “economic justice”, and “spiritual justice” (I don’t think I even want to know what “spiritual justice” is).
Let’s take “economic justice” as an example. I believe it is a grave injustice for the government to take a higher percentage of one person’s income (the fruits of their God given vocation) than it takes from others simply because that person has higher earnings. Liberals, including many in the evangelical left (Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, etc.) and the Emergent Church, would unfortunately embrace such a redistribution of wealth as “economic justice”. I believe that this view is actually in opposition to what is clearly revealed in God’s Word (see 2 Thes. 3:10, for example) . If that puts me in “certain religious circles”, so be it. I just really wonder where we are headed here…..
Good points, Mark. While I would concede that there is certainly room for Christians to differ on the particulars of taxation or welfare policy, etc., the overarching fact remains that personal responsibility and private property are core Christian values (albeit more notably Protestant, with only fringe exception…) which ought not be dismissed for the sake of cultural appeasement. And on a utilitarian note, these virtues have profoundly *raised* people’s standard of living far more than any alternative (manifesting the notion that God’s ways tend to have practical benefits as well as moral ones).
I also think that the P.C. tendency of blurring traditional distinctions between “justice” and charity/compassion/etc. does a disservice to the traditional sense of justice that Christians have historically embraced: concerns like imprisonment of the innocent, acquittal of the guilty, corruption, unjustified violence, religious persecution, abortion (yes, broad Christian consensus on this one goes back all 2,000 years!), etc. Ironically, Christian jurists had long struggled with balancing the dual-mandate of justice and mercy/compassion; but now, it often seems we simply relabel the latter as “justice” – or worse, inject some unbiblical causes there to boot – and neglect *actual* justice.
Great points, Ken. The “social justice” movement of the 1970s picked up the ministry of care for the poor, but at the expense of the ministry of the word. It emphasized the gospel as good deeds, and demphasized the gospel as good news. I am hopeful that today’s young christians will not make the same mistake. We must reject any gospel not centered on the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The only unique thing we have to offer the world is Jesus.