What is Justice?
In 1963 Bob Dylan famously sang,
“The line it is drawn, The curse it is cast, The slow one now, Will later be fast, As the present now, Will later be past, The order is rapidly fadin’, And the first one now, Will later be last, For the times they are a-changin’”
He wrote The Times They Are A Changin to be an anthem for change during the Civil Rights movement…a song that called for justice. Even though that was almost 60 years ago now the song still resonates. In fact, Rolling Stone in the early 2000s said that it is one of the greatest songs of all time. It still resonates, and always will, because the cry for justice is something that every generation understands. The desire for change…the longing for all the wrongs to be made right…for injustice to be stopped. Every generation knows injustice, and cries out for the times to change.
Our time is no different. We live in a time when there is more wealth in the world than ever before…almlost $500 trillion according to UBS. Wealth is growing, things should be good, right? Or at least better? Well, we also live in a time when the gap between the wealthy and poor has grown wider and wider. The top 18% of wealthy people in the world own over 87% of the wealth in the world. That is staggering. And that’s only a financial picture of the state of our world. We also live in a time when, according to the Walk Free Foundation, “there are more slaves on earth today than we’ve [ever] had in human history.” This includes “people threatened or coerced into roles as domestic workers, on construction sites and farms, in clandestine factories and [of course] in the sex trade.” In addition to slavery there is racism, sexism, age-ism, and more. Justice is not a simple issue…it’s not a one-dimensional issue. It is multi-faceted and complex.
We live in a world where more and more people have a voice or have an avenue for making their voice heard…this is largely thanks to the internet and social media. The world has shrunk, and now we hear from people that 100 years ago we would have barely known existed. As a result, we are more aware of injustice than we ever were before. In general, much of the injustices in our world are summed up as forms of oppression. And the call for justice in our world is usually along the lines of raising up the oppressed and bringing down the oppressor. You can hear it in Dylan’s lyrics: “The slow one now will later be fast, as the present now will later be past. The order is rapidly fadin, and the first one now will later be last.” It’s this idea of correcting the imbalance.
This desire for justice is good. In fact, it is one of the promises to us in our faith…that God will make things right one day. It’s the reason that so many who suffered under slavery in our country’s history became Christians…because of what we hear in passages like Micah 6:8, that God desires justice and kindness. And what we hear from James, that God is for the orphan and the widow. God is for the lowest of society…those without rights…who are even forgotten by society. Scripture tells us that God is on their side and that one day all of these wrongs will be made right. As the prophet Joel wrote, “[The Lord] will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten… [He says,] ’You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame’” (2:26-26). God promises restoration of what was lost…justice. This is amazingly good news for those who have no power, no resources, no ability to defend themselves or to change their situation. The abused child, the sex slave, the migrant, the unborn baby and so many more. The promise of justice is desperately needed.
The problem with our sense of justice is that is always partial. We usually want partial justice. I’m sure you’ve all seen a statue or some depiction of Lady Justice. She is often shown standing blindfolded and holding a scale in one hand and a sword in the other. The scale symbolizes keeping things in balance…a goal of fairness. The sword symbolizes the penalty of the law against injustice…there is punishment for injustice. And her blindfold shows she has no partiality…the principle that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power, or other status. All good things.
Interestingly, when you start to get into real issues of injustice and listen to our ideas of what would make it right, the emphasis is usually on the sword. We don’t just want the imbalance to be corrected. We would really like the scales to be tipped in our favor for a little while. We want the other side to be punished. We want them to have a taste of their own medicine…we want them to have to suffer like we did…in other words we want revenge. We want retribution. Just think of any Charles Bronson movie…you remember Death Wish. It gives a clear picture of what our sense of justice usually is.
But it’s really only partial justice because it won’t really solve the pain we have suffered. It won’t really make-up for the loss that we’ve experienced. Our understanding of justice is never the full picture because we always focus in on the symptom - slavery, poverty, abuse, assault, rape, inequality, pollution, racism, prejudice, bigotry, etc. which we have established are all indeed horrible and should be stopped. BUT they are only the symptoms. They are only the surface of what is really going on. True injustice lies in our hearts, in our sin.
Remember the story of Isaiah when he is in the temple? And all of sudden he has a vision of being before the Lord seated high on the throne in heaven with the train of his robe filling the temple, and the Lord was surrounded by the Seraphim who were praising him saying, ““Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the whole earth shook at sound of the Seraphim’s voice. Isaiah sees this and says, “Woe is me! For I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for [my] eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (6:5). Isaiah realizes where real injustice lies. He is in the presence of God himself…he is in the presence of true justice, true righteousness, true goodness, and he says, “I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips and live among people of unclean lips.”
For there to be true justice on earth something must be done about our sin. When we, who were graciously created by God, given life and a world to live in and enjoy, when we rejected him as our God. When we said we want to be gods for ourselves. This was the ultimate act of injustice out of which all others flow. We rejected love in that moment, we rejected life, and we set ourselves against God and against each other. That was the moment when real oppression entered the world…the oppression of our own souls by our unquenchable thirst for our own glory at the expense of everyone and everything else. This is the true poverty of humanity…the poverty of our souls.
For there to be any justice that sin must be corrected…that wrong by us against God must be righted. And when you go there, no one is innocent (Psalm 53, Rom. 3:9-20). Remember the blindfold on Lady Justice…there is NO impartiality. No one is immune from the long arm of the law. Now the picture of justice is even more complicated in our world because we are all victims and victimizers. We have been born into this injustice before we do a single thing…we are both suffering under our sin and the sin of others (victims) we cannot escape it, we have no power to stop it, we are oppressed by it…AND we are responsible for our sin, we are guilty, we are the ones who reject God and our neighbor, we don’t love the way that we should (victimizers).
None of us want that kind of justice, none of us want the sword coming down on us because none of us would survive it. It would be the flood in Genesis, but without the ark. No rescue. No one spared. In the face of this truth we all cry out with Isaiah…I am ruined! Woe to me! I am a person of unclean lips and live amongst a people of unclean lips. Where is there any hope for sinners before a just God?
It’s right here, at the cross. This is where true justice occurred. This is where Jesus, the Son of God, paid the penalty for our sin. This is where every wrong is made right. This is where oppression is ended for us forever, where we are saved from ourselves…right here. Without the cross any attempt for justice in this world is going to be partial, incomplete, and ultimately unsatisfying. Charles Bronson had to keep on making Death Wish movies because revenge never actually works…it never actually brings justice…it never actually brings peace.
Jesus is the only one that brings justice. He is the only one that could…because on the cross he brought an end to sin. He put sin to death in his body. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: “He was made to be sin, who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God” (v.21). He became our sin…that original injustice and all of the subsequent injustices we have caused and ever will…he took all of it…he became it, so that he could bring it to its end in his own death. And in so doing he fulfilled the demand of the law. The law has no one left to accuse because sin is dead in Jesus. He suffered the sword of Lady Justice for you and me.
And the mind-bending reality of this is the fact that this single true act of justice…was also completely unjust at the same time. Jesus was innocent. The only person to ever to live on this earth who was truly innocent. “He knew no sin.” He was condemned under the law as cursed for you and me, but he was guiltless. This is where we see the completely radical nature of God’s grace for us. Jesus’ death on the cross, the innocent Son of God, the Creator of all things, the spotless Lamb, the One who gave the law to Moses in the first place, HIS death on the cross for the guilty breaks the whole legal system. He reveals it to be inadequate, defunct really.
The law can’t continue to stand when it accuses and condemns its own LORD to death. The legal system breaks. God operates outside of the law when he saves us through Jesus Christ. Paul proclaims this awesome news in Romans 3 when he says,
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, [outside of the law] although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (21-22)
This is the deeper magic that Aslan talks about in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe…God’s grace runs deeper than the law ever could. As Paul goes onto say, God is the One “who justifies the ungodly” or “[the One] who justifies the unjust.” (Rom 4:5) How can he do that? Our legal obsessed brains begin to break…all of our understanding of justice gets turned upside down. Jesus justifies the unjust!? You and me? How can he do that? He does it through faith…the gift of faith…he gives us the grace to believe in Him.
This is the good news for us. This is what Jesus tells us in Luke’s gospel (4:16-21). This is Jesus’ answer to Isaiah’s cry and to ours as well. He proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” He looks at us, and he sees the victims and victimizers…he sees the unjust…he sees the lowest of the low, the oppressed, those without power, without resources, without ability to defend ourselves or to stop ourselves and change our situation. And he has mercy on us. He sets us free from our captivity to sin. He forgives. You are forgiven.
Because we have received mercy, because we, the lowest and most helpless (we orphans and widows), have been given grace…we can give it to others. We can stand for the low and oppressed…and that may very well be the literally lowest of our society. Praise God if he calls you to minister to the financially poor, the sick, those without rights. At the same time, our definition of the poor, of the orphan and widow has changed. We may minister to someone’s physical needs…we may help them find their voice, we may help them achieve more equality and defend their rights. Which are all wonderful and important things…things we value. At the same time, in light of everything we’ve heard, in light of Jesus’ view of us as humans, we know everyone is ultimately suffering under the oppression of their sin…everyone everywhere. Especially those that are the absolute worst - the greatest perpetrators of injustice, the ones who seem to have the power and are the source of so much pain in our world. They too are confined by their sin, enslaved by their sin. They too need to be liberated. They too need the mercy of the Lord.
Behind every cause, every conviction for justice, we know the ultimate need of this world and that is to be set free from the power of sin. And we have that message. We proclaim Jesus…as Paul said, him and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:1-5). This is justice. This is mercy. This, the cross, is good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, liberty for the oppressed…this is the year of the Lord’s favor. Jesus has forgiven your sins. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Amen.
Recommended Reading
