The important consequence is that the King and His Kingdom Story is about God and humans, but those humans are narrowed by a covenant in Genesis 12, 15, and 22 to one man, one woman, one family and their descendants: Israel. God cares about a national-political entity (Israel of the Bible) and an ecclesial spiritual reality (the church that expands Israel to include gentiles) as the primary location where God’s redemptive benefits are taking root in the world. Read the Bible, and what you will discover is a whole lot of Israel and a whole lot of church. The Bible is about the people of God far more than individual persons and their redemption, though the latter is vital for the flourishing of the former. No personal redemption, no redeemed people of God; but no people of God, no place for the redeemed to flourish in God’s way.
These humans have a mission to the world: to be its light by pointing to the King and His Kingdom.
CHAPTER 13
JUSTICE IN THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM REDEMPTION STORY
Justice is the new darling word for America’s evangelical crowd. One generation back plus a decade, evangelicals were not tied into justice so much; what mattered was missions, gospel, evangelism, and church-planting. The new theme is justice. Justice spans the spectrum of evangelicals from progressives to conservatives.
This new enchantment with justice as social action for the common good and for the whole world has, however, a glaring weakness: the meaning of justice seems to come from the wrong place. What does justice mean? It all depends on whom you ask. If we ask the philosophers, this is what we get:
Justice in one sense is identical with the ethics of who should receive benefits and burdens, good or bad things of many sorts, given that others might receive these things. [Many gulp after reading such an abstraction. Read on.] There are various contexts for talk about justice, including (at least) distributive, retributive, and “corrective” justice (which apparently overlap to some extent). Distributive justice concerns the ethical appropriateness of which recipients get which benefits and burdens. Retributive justice concerns the ethical appropriateness of punishment for wrongdoing. Corrective justice concerns the ethical appropriateness of compensating with some good because of a loss or appropriating some good because of a gain.1
These are the ideas, or something quite like them, that are in the heads and hearts of many social activists: justice is about benefits and burdens, about things—like freedom and jobs and money and homes and health care provision. These senses of justice—distributive, retributive, corrective, as well as restorative—flow directly out of someone’s beliefs about rights and wrongs as well as about protections of rights and mandating some corresponding duties.
Who Decides the Meaning of Justice?
Who decides the meaning of justice? This has been a major discussion in the history of Western thought with three strong approaches: some think justice is determined by God, others by intelligent people discerning natural law, while still others think justice is a social arrangement or contract shaped by a given community or nation with a history and tradition. This last one shakes out into discussions of justice as either Right Order or Right Action. This third approach, with its variety of understandings, is mostly at work in today’s social activists, across the spectrum. It can be narrowed to a simpler answer: most people today derive their understanding of justice through our culture’s educational and social influence. That is, they get it from the Constitution of the United States and its unfolding of laws. That Constitution—truth be told—is a product of the Enlightenment’s strong affirmation and centralizing of human reason and human rights. Many today think they have a right to such things as jobs with adequate income for provisions and personal growth, health care, education, safety, solid roads, good neighbors, and reliable communities. These factors are in play when people say they are working for justice.
Three major ideas are included in this cultural understanding of the core values of democracy: equality, justice, and freedom. Or, as in the French expressions: equality, liberty, fraternity. The problem we see on every news page and in every news show on TV is that one person’s equality infringes upon another person’s liberty, and one person’s view of fraternity or justice is another person’s understanding of theft or invasion of privacy. Justice becomes a game of negotiation between action and standard, or behavior and ideal. Some say it is about balancing our rights with our duties. These terms are all very complex, and this is not the place nor am I the person to discuss these at length.
Justice is a measurement. It measures how a given action by a person or a society compares to a standard, which in the Western world means things like equality and liberty.
How then do we as Bible readers—readers who know the King and His Kingdom Story with its redemptive benefits—understand justice? It starts with this: in the Bible God defines justice. Neither Israel’s legal scholars nor kings nor prophets got together and determined what justice was; nor did they have a constitutional congress of representative citizens who gathered to hammer out justice’s major themes; nor was there a democratic vote on answers to the question, “What is justice?” In the Bible, God reveals and declares what justice is.
This is even more important: the cultural definition of justice at work in modern society may overlap in important ways with what the Bible says, but (1) they are not the same, and (2) the cultural understanding is secular and therefore neglects the most important element of justice in the Bible. The standards for secular justice and for the Bible’s sense of justice are radically different. In our culture the standard is the US Constitution, but it is probably just as much how that Constitution is understood and presented in our specific world context. For Christians, the standard is the Bible. The Bible’s standard determines what justice means and measures whether we are or are not just. So here’s a set of lines that set up this whole chapter:
• In the US, a just person is a person who conforms to the US Constitution and to humanistic and secular ideals.
• In the Old Testament, a just person is a person who conforms to the law of Moses.
• In the New Testament, a just person is a person who conforms to the fulfillment of the law of Moses in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles as that person is empowered to do so by the Spirit.
Once again, locating justice in the King and His Kingdom Story will give us our North Star for understanding justice.
What Does the Bible Say?
There are just a few important terms at work in the Bible that help us understand justice, but the terms alone are not enough. The terms need to be soaked in the Bible’s Story. Here are the principal terms: mishpat, din, tzedek, dikaios, and dikaiosune, as well as krima and krino. The first term, mishpat, can be translated as justice, judgment, rights, and redemption while din is translated judgment. The term tzedek can be translated as righteousness and justice while dikaios shows up in the New Testament translations as just and justice. And dikaiosune shows up as justification. Both krima and krino boil down to the idea of rendering judgment (both in favor of what is right and against what is wrong). Here in the span of four verses is an almost complete expression of the Bible’s ideas about justice. I begin with an ideal vision of Israel’s king, who is himself just, who renders just judgments and shows compassionate justice for the poor and prosperity to the obedient and renders punitive justice against oppressors.
Endow the king with your justice, O God,
the royal son with your righteousness (tzedek).
May he judge (din) your people in righteousness (tzedek),
your afflicted ones with justice (mishpat).
May the mountains bring prosperity [or peace] (shalom) to the people,
the hills the fruit of righteousness (tzedek).
May he defend (yishpat) the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy;
may he crush the oppressor. (Psalm 72:1–4)
Since justice in the Bible is determined by one’s relationship to God and the king (“the royal so
n” who has “your righteousness”), and since God expresses what is right in the Law (Torah), to be just (or righteous) is a description of a person who is in a right relation with God by conforming one’s life to God’s revealed will. Notice this: it is the king’s responsibility to ensure that justice (and all the terms in its big family) are established and embodied.
Notice these two passages:
For I, the LORD, love justice (mishpat);
I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them. (Isaiah 61:8)
Follow justice and justice [both are tzedek] alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:20)
And this text from the New Testament about being made right by God’s judging us to be in the right on the basis of Christ’s own redemptive work for us:
Therefore, since we have been justified (dikaioo) through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous (dikaios) person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:1–8)
Those made right are to be righteous:
For I tell you that unless your righteousness (dikaiosune) surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly (mishpat) and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
If we tie this all together, what does justice look like when the Bible is the new standard? A just person is one who is a participant in God’s covenant (justified), and God’s redemptive covenant ushers that person into a life of hearing and following the will of God as taught in the law (justice). In the New Testament, of course, that covenant becomes the “new” covenant and that “law” becomes the “new law” as taught by Jesus (e.g., Matthew 5–7) and empowered by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23; 6:2). Thus, a just or righteous person in the New Testament is one whose life conforms to the new law as taught by Jesus and empowered by the Spirit. Justice then describes conditions in his world where that new law rules the new people. This challenges the secularized understanding of justice—equality, liberty, fraternity—even if at times there is clear overlap. Theft is contrary to the law of our land and to the law of Christ. Christian ethics, of which justice is a major theme, combines three streams: one from God, one from the people, and one pertaining to economics. That is, Christian ethics are theological, social, and economic.2 What is lurking behind the doors of this disclosure is that a Christian sense of justice is thoroughly spiritual before it is social. Justice is covenant rooted. As Chris Wright puts it,
For Israel, then, justice was no abstract concept or philosophical definition. Justice was essentially theological. It was rooted in the character of the Lord, their God; it flowed from his actions in history; it was demanded by his covenant relationship with Israel; it would ultimately be established on the earth only by his sovereign power.3
What then is justice? I believe God’s first and foremost standard of measurement is love, the kind of love exhibited in God’s own love (not in our American dictionaries). Love in the Bible is a rugged, affectional commitment to another person in offering presence, advocacy, and mutual progress in Christlikeness.4 Justice is love, but justice is also peace and reconciliation and wisdom.5 Those who live this way flourish—what we speak of as happiness is an echo of what “blessing” and “flourishing” mean in the Bible. But what needs to be observed before we take the next step in this chapter is that the standard has changed, so justice changes. When we shift from the US Constitution and Western values to the Bible’s value of love, peace, and reconciliation, the very meaning of justice now shifts. If justice is comparing our actions with God’s standard, and God’s standard is love, then a just person is loving. That says it all.
Justice in the Bible’s Story
The redemptive benefits in the King and His Kingdom Story in the Bible create a radically nuanced understanding of justice. What the Bible says about justice is radically different from what most activists today understand justice to mean. How so? The aim of all creation is the new heaven and the new earth where God will dwell with God’s people (Israel, church), where God’s people will live in loving fellowship with one another in just and peaceful and wise ways, and the entire world will be soaked with lives aimed at glorifying God. These are the major ideas of God’s ultimate covenant with creation, but to participate in that kingdom one must be redeemed by that covenant and be transformed by the covenant God’s Spirit to become a person who lives according to the covenant God’s way of life among God’s people, all of whom are living according to God’s will. To say this in more New Testament language: one must be justified to live justly.
So justice in the Bible is shaped by God and God’s creation, and by God’s covenant with Abraham and the covenant, by Moses and the exodus and the law, and by David and the kingdom and the new covenant with Jesus. In Jesus, we get covenant, exodus, law, and kingdom. That covenant takes sinful people—cracked Eikons—and transforms them by God’s Spirit so they can become loving and just Eikons who long for God’s glory and who indwell fellowship with other redeemed Eikons. These themes are all tied together like a beautiful multicolored cord in Romans 5:1–8 cited above, and they are reminiscent of the new community, the church.
That fellowship, that love, that justice, that peace, that reconciliation, and that wisdom are God’s will so that a “just” person is not only “justified” (declared and made right with God) but also lives according to the will of God through that redeemed relationship with God. A justified person then becomes a just person who is an agent of justice. God’s covenant redemption makes possible God’s covenant justice.
Justice, like so many other themes in the Bible, is more than an idea. Justice is a way of life.
What Does Justice Look Like?
Justice begins with evangelism because the redemptive benefit of the gospel is justification. It may well strike many as odd to connect justification with justice, but the Greek term for justification (dikaiosune) is a cognate to the term for justice (dikaios). That perhaps makes the point clear, that the first step in justice is redeeming cracked Eikons so they can become agents of redemption in the world, which is what justice is. Thus, those working for a biblical sense of justice will be committed to evangelism, to the gospel that justifies and transforms the justified into agents of justice in the world. One can say this stronger: there is no genuine work for justice that is not working for justification.
Justice is awakened in the life of a believer by the power of the Spirit. It follows then that justified people are indwelt by the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who awakens believers to love, to peace, to reconciliation, and to justice. That is, the Spirit empowers redeemed people to become agents of grace in the world. Justice is therefore Spirit-empowered, or it is not what the Bible means by justice.
Justice is embodied in a local church where justice is embodied among a people. Here is a critical moment in understanding the Bible’s Story as it impacts justice. Justice is not the US Constitution, but the church’s constitution. That is, what the Bible says about justice is for God’s people (Israel, church) who are drawn into relation with God through the covenant.
Justice is embodied by the people of God in fellowship with one another. What does this look like? Justice is when you and I act peacefully, justly, lovingly, and wisely toward one another in a local church in such a manner that we as a body of Christ embody justice as a group. Thus, we disestablish racism, classism, and sexism, and we establish love, peace, reconciliation, and wisdom as the way we live as a fellowshipping community in Christ.
Justice is expanded into the public sector by the believer on the basis of learning how to do justice in the fellowship of the church. One of the more remarkable features of the New Testament is that how Christians behave in the public sector, that is, what the New Testament calls the “world,” is never called “justice” or “social justice.” Rather, Israel practices justice amongst itself while the church practices justice in the body of Christ. Justice, then, is learned among the people of God. But this isn’t a plea for isolationism. No, it means this: having learned justice in the body of Christ as we embody justice in our local church, we are formed into agents of justice who are then to enter into the public sector. In the New Testament, this is often called “doing good.” I quote here some verses from Jesus and Peter to show where these references are found:
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16, emphasis added)
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:11–12, emphasis added)
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