The God of Justice

Intro

So it goes without saying that 2020 was a super hard year for all of us, right? There are some experiences that many of us had in common, such as going through COVID together, experiencing just the crazy and sometimes tragic political climate. There was the January 6 events in DC, which were right up the road from me at the time, and that was shocking. We were all grieved in different ways by the racial unrest over George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and all the subsequent protests.

Many of you had experiences I didn’t, as students, some of you already in college, others were probably juniors or seniors in high school, and I just can’t imagine that.

Then we each have different experiences from our families, which may have made 2020 easier, or perhaps a lot harder, than some of our peers.

One of the ways that 2020 was particularly challenging for me was trying to navigate it as a pastor. All of a sudden I was being asked to essentially be an expert not just in Bible, but also in epidemiology, politics, public policy, racism and social justice, and so on. Trying to navigate polarized peoples in the context of a local church was incredibly difficult, often traumatizing.

And one of the areas of intense division that made 2020 so hard was over just what I’ll call the general issue of justice. Like, what even is justice, and what is the Christian response, if any, to injustice? And what happened in my church at the time was you essentially had two groups at odds with each other, and they were almost entirely split by generation.

On the one hand were the older generations, so older Gen X and Baby Boomers, who were very conservative, who didn’t want me at all speaking up about issues of justice. Any mention of race, justice, how to navigate issues of injustice, immediately brought out heavy accusations of people telling me I had abandoned the gospel, that I’d gone “woke”, that I was promoting critical race theory, and so on.

On the other hand, the young adults I ministered to, so younger millenials and Gen Z, were becoming heavily formed by their non-Christian peers on issues of justice, really wanted to engage injustice, and looked at these older saints in the church with great disappointment. Both sides were deeply suspicious of each other. One side didn’t want me to say anything at all about justice, and if I did, they threatened to leave the church. The other side had been deeply formed by their peers on justice, and based on what they were seeing in the church, they left.

So many lessons learned from this experience. But one of my takeaways was simply how poorly formed we are on what the Bible actually says about justice. Frankly, our understanding and imagination for what Biblical justice could look like in our society is unhealthy at best, and diseased at worst.

If I had to take a guess, these challenges are not foreign to many of you. I imagine that the subject of justice has been a major conversation for you and your peers. And so tonight I want to look at Psalm 146 as an opportunity to briefly survey what God things about justice, what the Bible says about it, and how we can respond.

What is Justice?

I want to briefly give us a working definition of biblical justice that will be as limited as our time is together, but it should be sufficient for our purposes this evening.

If I were to go around and ask everyone in this room to define justice, I suspect that most of our answers would fall into a category of punitive justice, that is punishment for wrongdoing. I think this tends to be how we must often use the word justice. So, for example, when a criminal is sentenced for their crime we say “Justice was served,” or even, “They got what they deserved.”

Certainly punitive justice is one aspect of biblical justice. Leviticus 24:22 warns the people of Israel to have the same justice for the foreigner as the native. In other words, to acquit or punish every person fairly in the court of law.

But there is more to biblical justice than that. In another passage very similar here to Psalm 146, the prophet Zechariah tells the people to

“Administer true justice…Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the immigrant or the poor.”

These four people groups, the widow, the fatherless, the immigrant, and the poor, have been called “the quartet of the vulnerable”, meaning taken together they encapsulate the most vulnerable of any society. We see 3 of these 4 categories here in Psalm 146, where it says in verse 7 that God executes justice for the oppressed.

Clearly this is not talking about punishing the oppressed. Quite the opposite. God takes the side of the oppressed and vulnerable and defends their cause.

So what, then, is biblical justice? It is giving people what they are due, whether that is punishment, or it is protection, advocacy, and care.

Why Should We Care about Justice?

Well, once again, this is a limited answer constrained by the limits of our time. If we had time, we could probably list out at least a dozen reasons the Bible gives for why we should care about justice. We’re going to give two reasons now. The first is definitely the most important, and the second is one of, if not the second most important reasons we should care about justice.

The first reason is because justice defines and reflects the character of God. We’ve already observed how this first of 5 psalms of praise which close out the psalter is a song of praise to God for his just character. Psalm 146 emphasizes specific ways which God executes justice for the oppressed: he gives food to the hungry, he sets the prisoners free, he gives sight to the blind, he lifts up those who are bowed down, and he loves those who act in accord with his just character, that is, he loves the righteous.

Throughout the Scriptures, we see that God not only identifies himself as one who sees and cares about injustice, but he also introduces himself as the defender of the most vulnerable and the most oppressed.

And so in Psalm 68 we read that God is Father to the fatherless and protector of widows from his holy habitation.

This just character of God will be revealed to us in the person of Jesus, who in his flesh makes the heart and character of God tangible to us. In Luke 4, when Jesus begins his public ministry, he heads to the synagogue, where he chose to read from Isaiah 61 in the public reading. And this is what the passage says:

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

“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.”

We will come back to this passage in a moment. But notice the parallels between what Jesus is claiming about himself in this reading from Isaiah, and who God is described to be here in Psalm 146.

From beginning to end, God shows himself to be the God of justice. So we ought to care about justice because God cares about justice, and we honor his character when we live and act justly.

The second reason we ought to care about justice is because God explicitly tells us to. In fact, throughout the Scriptures, just living is the standard by which our faith is judged. Let me say that again. Throughout the Scriptures, our just living and obedience is the standard by which our faith is judged. In other words, justice is proof of our righteousness; justice is proof that our faith is real.

Now, don’t hear what I’m not saying. I did not say that we earn righteousness through just living. I’m not talking about salvation by works. We are absolutely saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. 100%.

Nevertheless, the Scriptures testify that works are evidence of faith. This teaching is clearest in the book of James, where he said in chapter 2,

James 2:14–18 ESV

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

But James is not alone in this. John the Apostle testified to this truth when he said in 1 John,

1 John 3:16–18 ESV

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Just living is the fruit which comes from a heart that has experienced forgiveness and reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.

This is why, throughout the Scriptures, when God’s people are rebuked, it is for their injustice and hypocrisy. Sadly, as many of us know firsthand, religious observance is hardly proof of a saved and transformed soul. The most wicked of persons are able to use their religious participation as a cover for their wickedness.

Let’s survey just a few passages where we can see this clearly. Isaiah 1, verse 11, God rebukes the people of Israel saying

Isaiah 1:11 ESV

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

Why does he feel this way about their religious observance? Because they’ve become hypocrites, participating in worship while at the same time committing gross injustice. And so he tells the people in verse 16,

Isaiah 1:16–17 ESV

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

Similarly, the Lord used the prophet Amos to call the people to account for their hypocrisy. Hear Amos 5, starting in verse 21:

Amos 5:21–24 ESV

“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Jesus likewise judged the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, for outward religious worship while ignoring what he called the weightier matters of the law

Matthew 23:23–24 ESV

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

So if our faith is legitimate, if Christ has done a work in our hearts to apply his mercy, grace, and reconciliation to us, then the natural fruit of a changed heart is to care about justice. If we are to honor our God and make our faith credible, we will care about justice. We will care about justice more than all the peoples of the world.

How should we think about Justice?

Here I want to apply how the Bible’s teaching on justice cuts against two particular ways we in the West tend to think about justice. The first is what I’ll call the progressive, secular way of justice; and the second I’ll call the spiritual fundamentalist way of justice. The truth is, every one of us in this room is tempted toward one of these two ways to think about justice, and neither honor the Biblical teaching and just character of God.

So, first, there is the secular progressive way of thinking. This would include just about any way to try and achieve justice in this life apart from God. Now, I want to be the first to recognize how non-Christian movements for justice achieve much good in this life. Throughout the world today, there are countless people and organizations who are working out justice in the communities around them. There are secular organizations fighting against racism, poverty, pornography, sex trafficking, all around us.

So, I am very slow to criticize such efforts, especially when we could point to so much injustice that is done around the world in the name of Christ. However, our passage tells us quite clearly that as good as such movements may be, it is flawed to put our ultimate hope in them. Look at verses 3-4:

Psalm 146:3–4 ESV

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.

Do you see what the psalmist is saying? He’s saying that as good and righteous as a prince may be, their life is fleeting, and they’ll soon die, together with all of their plans.

The fact of the matter is, as long as humanity has been on the earth, we have failed to create anything that looks like a justice and equitable society. Generation after generation has failed. Yuval Noah Harari, some of you may be familiar with him, he’s a renowned atheist historian, has written much about this. In his first book, Sapiens, he shows how since the earliest stages of humanity, every time we encounter people different from us, who threaten our way of life, the result is always disastrous. It always results in conflict, war, or even genocide. He acknowledges that many people today have some sentimental idea of getting back to some harmonious past where everyone just got along, some point maybe before religion and world governments existed. But what he show is, such a point has never existed. We are inherently violent and unjust creatures.

So to put our hope in earthly justice, ultimately, is flawed, and at best strips us of the hope that ever arriving to a just and equitable society is even possible.

Furthermore, such attempts to achieve justice apart from God are unjust and discriminatory in themselves. You see, another reason not to put our ultimate trust in man for salvation, to achieve true justice, is because we are so often blinded by our own sin that we commit injustice in the name of justice. A colleague of mine in the DC area, Moses Lee, has really helped me to see this, and so much of what I’m saying here I’ve taken from him. Let me give you an example of this related to our topic here.

Today, it is common to hear people say that the White evangelical church is hypocritical, is unjust, is so flawed. Here’s the thing, you’re not going to get any argument from me about that. The abuse in the church that has been coming to light is grievous, heinous, and a scandal to the name of Jesus. The racism, the misogyny, the political idolatry I won’t argue with anyone about that. Now, I do think there is a larger conversation that needs to be had here, but for the sake of brevity and staying on topic, lets just take this claim as is.

The American, predominantly White evangelical church is filled with grievous sin, error, and hypocrisy. Yes. However, to take the errors of the predominantly White American church, and to then use those errors as reason to dismiss Christianity entirely, that is peak privilege. That is peak elitism. That is supremacy of the worst kind.

Here’s what I mean. Historically and globally, White American Christians are in the minority of the global church. We just happen to have a disproportionately loud voice. Statistically, the average Christian from a global perspective is an African woman. Christianity is exploding in the global south. Even in the United States, Black and Latino Americans are more likely to profess Christian faith than White Americans.

Did you know that Christianity was African before it was European? That’s right. Many of the church fathers were African. The influence of academic training, universities, and so on - much of that came out of Christian North Africa into Europe, not the other way around.

For that matter, just think for a moment about the crucial role Christian faith has played in the cause of justice around the world. Leaders like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, Howard Thurman, and Dr. King have championed the cause of justice for African Americans because of their Christianity, not in spite of it. Today, leaders like Esau McCaulley and Christina Edmonson carry that legacy forward.

Or in the Latino community, leaders like Bartolome de las Casas, Cesar Chavez, and Oscar Romero have been strong advocates for justice because of their Christianity, not in spite of it.

Today, Asian American Christian women and men like Sarah Shin, Raymond Chan, and Soong-Chan Rah are leaders of justice movements because of their Christianity, not in spite of it.

The list goes on and on. Here’s my point. To center the sins and errors of the White Evangelical church, which is really a statisticial minority with a disproportionately loud voice, and dismiss the voice and impact of the global church, that is an incredibly dismissive and privileged position. And so, often, the people who say they are most against privilege, the secular left, dismisses Christianity from a place of privilege by ignoring the voice of the global church and the faith of Christians of color.

I could go on, but I hope the point is clear. To put our trust in mankind apart from God’s justice is a fool’s exercise.

Let’s consider the other view, the spiritual fundamentalist view. In this view, God’s justice is subordinate to spiritual matters. And so this view will argue that it is not the mission of the church, nor the priority of Christians, to care about justice. Instead, we are only supposed to care about matters of the soul, we are only supposed to preach a spiritual gospel to get people saved. Often, those who hold to this view will take a passage like ours and say God is really only talking about spiritual blindness, spiritual hunger, the spiritual oppression of sin, and so on. The real, physical injustice in this world is either minimized or ignored entirely.

Here’s a real story of what this looks like. A few years ago, I went to a popular Christian conference and heard a well-known pastor give a message on this passage from Luke 4 where Jesus reads the scroll of Isaiah. This pastor made a huge deal about how Jesus was only speaking about spiritual blindness, spiritual poverty, spiritual oppression, and so on. He went on and on about how anyone who says that Jesus is talking about physical issues has abandoned the gospel and prioritized the physical above the spiritual; that God only really cares about souls, and so on.

This message made me so mad, because this pastor clearly loaded his agenda into the text. His message, frankly, doesn’t square with what we’ve already seen in Scripture. In fact, it doesn’t square with what Jesus himself says just a few chapters later in Luke. In Luke 7, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus and basically ask, yo, who are you really, and what should we go back and say to John? And then the text says that Jesus immediately healed people of diseases and gave sight to several blind people, and then Jesus said to them:

English Standard Version Chapter 7

Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.

Was Jesus only talk about spiritual matters? No! Clearly not.

What does our passage say to such people who hold this view? Look at verses 7-9. The Psalmist gives us this beautiful list of what God’s justice looks like - feeding the hungry, sight to the blind, protecting the fatherless - and then verse 9 closes saying that the Lord brings the way of the wicked to ruin.

If you had to take a guess about who the wicked are in verse 9, who do you think they are? Yeah, anyone who stands in the way of God’s justice; anyone who ignores the concerns of God’s justice clearly demonstrated here.

To minimize or ignore justice, even for reasons that sound super spiritual and religious, is not just wrong, it’s wicked. Here is how Dr. King addressed this view in his ministry:

The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but also his body, not only his spiritual well-being but also his material well-being. A religion that professes a concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion.

In other words, this spiritual fundamentalist view is a dead religion. And this would square entirely with what we read from James just a few minutes ago.

So what does this mean for us? What do we do? Is there any hope? If on the one hand, approaching justice without God is fraught with error; and if on the other, prioritizing spiritual matters over the physical leads to wickedness, what do we do?

Look at your handout at these texts from Isaiah 61, and Jesus’ reading of the passage in Luke 4. Notice a key difference. Where does Jesus stop? He stops after “To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” But notice the rest of the verse in Isaiah 61: “and the day of vengeance for our God.” Why didn’t Jesus read that?

Because he didn’t come to bring the vengeance of God on us; he came to bear the vengeance of God for us. The reason why he could say, “I have come to carry out justice and lift up the oppressed” and not say, “And execute judgement on the wicked” was because he would stand in our place, taking the judgement that we, the wicked, deserve.

So when we look to Jesus, and we see that our judgement fell on him, and that as a result we can now be accepted by God. When we see how Jesus took the punishment that we deserved so that we could receive God’s mercy and grace, do you know what that does? That changes you. If we can say, “I have been touched by the grace of God, and he has treated me with favor that I did not deserve,” then surely we can, at the least, give people justice by treating them as they deserve. And we can do all of it with a posture of humility and grace, because our hearts have been melted by the grace of God.

Here’s what I want to leave you with tonight. God’s justice and his gospel cut against the popular narratives of justice that we’re surrounded by. And what I hope you see through this brief study is that the gospel is not merely a one-time act of having our sins forgiven so we can move on with the rest of our lives. The gospel is an invitation into a new way of being, into having our hearts, our desires, our loves, our lives changed so that more and more we love what God loves and hate what he hates. This is a room of bright, young, future women and men who I know are going to do great things. You’ll work in big companies. You’ll start new companies. You’ll work in schools, you’ll travel the world. You’ll start families. Here’s what I want to challenge you with: in all these dreams and goals that you have for your life, what does it look like to move forward with a love for God’s justice and a heart that has been shaped by the gospel?

Maybe for some of you, tonight that just looks like trusting Jesus, and coming to him for grace and mercy. Maybe that is for the first time; maybe that is after a season of wandering from him.

Maybe for some of us, that means repentance for all too often ignoring the injustice that breaks God’s heart.

No matter where you are tonight, The good news is that there is a fountain of grace for each of us that will never dry up.

Jesus Christ didn’t come to bring God’s vengeance; he came to bear it, and if you let that message of grace enter your heart and go all the way down, it will turn you into a gracious agent of justice in the world.

Look to Jesus.

It has been my privilege to be with you all these last few months. It’s my last night with you. That makes me super sad. Please take one of my cards. I give that to you so if you need someone to talk to, look me up. If you move to Indy after you graduate, look us up. If you take a summer internship in Indy, let me take you to lunch. Ya’ll have encouraged me greatly and I’m thankful for you.