Justice, and Only Justice
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Big Idea: God’s people reflect His nature by pursuing justice and righteousness
Big Idea: God’s people reflect His nature by pursuing justice and righteousness
What is justice? If you were to ask different people, you could end up with many ideas about what justice is, but how many of these ideas square with what scripture teaches about justice?
Someone might say justice is everyone having equal outcomes. Everyone should have the same money, the same opportunity, or the same amount of happiness even. Some proponents of this idea of justice embrace socialism as the answer. Some might say justice is not punishing wicked people at all, because the poor criminal must have been driven to that state by something he couldn’t help.
But what our goal is as Christians is to: first, understand biblically what justice is, that is how God sees it, and then to pursue justice in whatever ways we are able in this world. The verses we are going to look at this morning also expand on some of the commandments. One commandment that justice is related to is Honor your Father and Mother, which not only implies that children should obey parents, but that all people should honor those in positions of authority, especially those whom God has appointed. The other main commandment this is related to is you shall not bear false witness agains your neighbor. In other words, justice towards your neighbor is honesty, especially if called upon to testify about what you know about someone’s actions. And ultimately, this call to justice gets at the earlier commandments, such as those about having no gods before the true God, no idols, no perversion of worship.
And that part we will see next week, Lord willing, in the text starting at Deuteronomy 16.21 and into chapter 17, where we find that woven right into the text about justice is the idea that the people of God are responsible to call out idol worship and the punishment was to be death, and the witnesses who report the guilty party are to be the first to throw stones, so that makes the witness highly responsible to act justly. They are to be absolutely sure that they are accurate in their accusations. We will look at that more next week, but this morning we will look more generally into biblical justice.
Summary: In Deuteronomy 16:18-20, God commands Israel to appoint judges and officers to ensure justice and righteousness throughout the land, emphasizing the importance of fair and impartial leadership in preserving the community's moral integrity and upholding God's covenant.
“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.
Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Big Idea: God’s people reflect His nature by pursuing justice and righteousness
Big Idea: God’s people reflect His nature by pursuing justice and righteousness
Three points:
Delegate Judges Diligently
Dodge Deceptive Decisions
Drive Divine Justice
Delegate Judges Diligently
Delegate Judges Diligently
“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
God had made clear the importance of honest men to be judges. You may recall that Moses received some valuable advice from his father-in-law, Jethro. He came to visit and saw Moses was extending himself to the point of exhaustion in trying to be the arbiter of all the legal cases of the people. Here is what happened when Jethro saw what Moses was doing:
The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening.
When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?”
And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God;
when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.”
Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good.
You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.
Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God,
and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do.
Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.
If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”
So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said.
Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves.
Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country.
So it cannot be that only one many be responsible for seeing to all the cases. Jethro was very wise, and the outcome was good. Moses was still available to hear the harder cases, but relieved of many of them. We may notice a similar structure in our court system. There are many levels of courts, and the toughest cases often go to higher and higher courts, and the ultimate arbiter in our nation is the SCOTUS. But the system would not work if everyone went immediately to the SCOTUS, because there are too many cases for that body to handle, so we have districts and county and state judges.
God’s people were to make sure they appointed honest judges. The system needed to be structured and impartial. In just these few verses, we see Moses very strongly reinforcing this idea of righteousness, or justice, or righteous judgement. So this impartial system to uphold justice reflects God’s nature as a God of order and fairness. As each community established trustworthy leaders, communities would embody divine justice and challenge the corrupt tendencies.
As Christians, we want to support and hold leaders accountable that are fair and have integrity. And this foreshadows Christ as the ultimate judge who offers righteous leadership. We will get into that some more in a bit.
Next, we need to
Dodge Deceptive Decisions
Dodge Deceptive Decisions
You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.
Patrick Miller:
Deuteronomy Judges and the Judicial System (16:18–17:13; 19:1–21)
Only one thing is required of the judges: right judgments (16:18b). This requirement is hedged by prohibitions forbidding particular kinds of actions that will pervert justice and fairness; specifically, they were not to show partiality to anyone (literally, “recognizing faces”) or to take bribes
In other words, as the Bible Knowledge Commentary put it, judges were to treat each person as though they had no prior knowledge of him or her.
We may need to take this a bit further in our society. You see, when Moses was giving these instructions, he was giving them to a homogenous society. In other words, the people were all from the same genealogy, ethnicity, race, or whatever it might be. We live in a very diverse society, and care must be taken to ensure that when it comes to justice that all are treated the same. There can be economic injustice. I don’t mean what the socialists mean when they say that everyone should have equal outcomes, but when I say economic injustice, I mean that sometimes people with more means find lighter sentences or fines than those who do not have the same means. Judges, jury members, and the public at large should be concerned about seeing justice be equally applied to all, no matter what the demographic may be.
There is a bible translation called the New International Reader’s Version that is for youth and readers who may be new at reading English, and this translation often helps to make things a little more accessible. The NIRV puts the passage this way:
Deuteronomy 16:18–20 (NIrV)
Appoint Judges and Officials
18 Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes. Do it in every town the Lord your God is giving you. They must judge the people fairly. 19 Do what is right. Treat everyone the same. Don’t take money from people who want special favors. It makes those who are wise close their eyes to the truth. It twists the words of those who do what is right. 20 Follow only what is right. If you do, you will live. You will take over the land the Lord your God is giving you.
For justice to reflect God’s character, it must remain unbiased. We can apply this in our daily lives by resisting temptations that may compromise our integrity. And we are reminded of Jesus, who consistently upheld justice and love and calls his followers to do the same. Jesus will return to be our righteous judge. His is past, present, and future judge of humanity, and his justice is perfect. The Psalmist said the righteousness and justice are the foundations of God’s throne.
We also want to:
Drive Divine Justice
Drive Divine Justice
Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
In the original language you would find a word repeated; it literally says “justice, justice”. This emphasis is strong and reflected in our translations in similar ways to what I just read. Justice, and only justice. Notice how in these 3 verses we see this strong emphasis on justice, or righteousness, which are interchangeable here:
18: They shall judge with righteous judgement
19: Shall not pervert justice
20: justice, and only justice, you shall follow
And in verse 20, we see a cause and effect of people who pursue justice. They may live in the land. Inherent in this statement is the idea that life and peace are promised to those who obey the command to pursue justice; when it is pursued, communities thrive. So we must participate in justice in our own context. We do not become part of slanderous conversations, we don’t judge people based on factors other than their own behavior. We don’t get involved in mob behavior, we avoid getting agitated over trivial things.
In Christ, we have a role to play, as He has a role and calls us to be like him. He is the embodiment of true justice and he invites us to join in His mission to bring His Kingdom, which ultimately will bring restoration and fairness in every area.
This passage points us to Jesus:
Jesus shows us that he is the ultimate judge of justice and righteousness. He fulfills the law. He perfectly executes God’s justice through His sacrificial love and grace. He invites us to mirror His character in our lives.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
He represents the culmination of the law’s purpose for all who trust in him
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Christ’s sacrifice accomplished what the law could not:
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The Father entrusted all judgement to Jesus:
For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,
that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Jesus will ultimately sit in judgement of all nations:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?
And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’
Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
His judgement reflects his character: He blessed those who showed compassion, which reveals that justice operates not only through condemnation, but sometimes through mercy. Some get justice, that is, they get what they deserve. Others get mercy. But no one gets injustice.
So we are called to follow the example of our Lord, even in suffering:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
We are to love as He loved us:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So we are to imitate God as beloved children by walking in love, just as Christ loved and gave himself as an offering:
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Love fulfills the law:
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
So justice and righteousness are not merely social obligations but are central to the nature of God and the community of faith, the church. We are called to uphold these values as a reflection of our commitments to God’s commands. We can seek justice in our communities, at our jobs, in our schools; wherever we see injustice, we must have a backbone and do what we can to call it out and remedy the injustices we have the power to address.
And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
He will judge even our secret thoughts:
on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;
for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Finally, all will stand before the throne of Jesus:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Where we can, we should offer mercy. Where we must, we must execute righteous judgement.
How will you honor Christ by emulating His mercy and justice in your own areas of influence?
