Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

These well-known words from the Old Testament were spoken by the prophet Micah - the same Micah through whom the ultimate just ruler, would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).

Slide - The Southern Kingdom

Micah was a prophet at the same time as Isaiah, from 736 BC - 700 BC.

He served the nation throughout the reigns of three kings - Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

Throughout Micah’s ministry, the nation was on a spiritual roller coaster.

Jotham led the people to worship God, Ahaz led them into the most vile pagan forms of idolatry (including offering his own children as human sacrifices), and Hezekiah led the nation back to God in a national spiritual revival.

Throughout this time period, the Assyrian army assaulted and defeated the Northern kingdom of Israel, and took the people as slaves.

Some years later Babylon emerged as the world power and conquered Judah, bringing the people into captivity.

Meanwhile, however, Judah continued her downward trend away from God and, not coincidentally, away from justice.

The prophet Isaiah, a contemporary of Micah, described the situation in vivid language:

Slide - A Courtroom Scene

It was in this context that God, through the prophet Micah, summons His people to court.

In Micah 6, God declares His controversy with Judah in a spectacular outdoor courtroom in which He calls on the mountains themselves to hear His pleas with His people.

He then questions Judah as to how He has wronged them or why they would turn from Him when He had been so good to them.

He describes how He brought them out of Egypt and led them into the Promised Land.

Micah, serving in this word picture as the litigator, answers on behalf of the nation.

But Micah doesn’t offer a defense - there was none.

Rather, he offers a series of questions regarding how Judah should respond to God’s goodness toward the nation.

All of these - national depravity and the absence of justice, God’s plea with the nation to return to Him, and Micah’s questions as to how to respond to God - lead us to the succinct words of Micah 6:8.

Slide - What does God Require?

These words were God’s answer to Micah’s questions.

What should be our response to God’s goodness?

Do justly.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.

These three instructions are as relevant and needed today as they were in the 8th century BC.

Despite the many calls for justice in our day, justice has been separated from truth, even as it was in the time of Micah.

When we separate justice from truth, truth falls in the street and justice get trampled too.

Everyone wants justice, but people today disagree on what justice really means and how it should be applied.

God’s Word allows us to cut through the confusion.

Biblical justice isn’t about justice for one group or certain entities.

It isn’t about leveraging social buy-in to further a political strategy.

It is about truth.

It is about relieving the oppressed.

It is about equity.

And it is to be deployed with mercy and humility.

In this lesson we will look at what the Bible sets forth as the justice God requires and contrast that with common secular views of justice.

In the following lesson, we ill circle back to biblical justice and examine the most meaningful ways that Christians can advance justice through mercy and humility.

A Framework of Biblical Justice

Defined biblically, justice is “the faithful application of the law of God.”

In Micah 6:8, where God commands us to “do justly,” the word justly speaks of righteousness, rectitude, moral virtue, rightness of principle or practice.”

If we step back to look at how this definition is developed trough Scripture, we see three basic truths.

God is the Habitation of Justice

Justice is an objective part of God’s nature.

Those who forsake God also forsake justice, because justice ultimately comes from God.

As the Creator and eternal King, God’s nature establishes what is right and maintains it through His actions.

God’s decrees are just and right and are the one objective line against which justice and injustice may be measured.

The fact that we discuss justice or injustice is a testimony to the lawgiver Himself, God Almighty.

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.

But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.

What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

Justice requires a standard, and there is not objective standard in a purposeless universe.”

- C.S. Lewis

God’s People Are to Model Just Living

Throughout the Bible, the adjective just does not simply describe someone who is fair toward others, but someone who is upright and practices righteousness.

This is the meaning in Genesis 6:9 when God describes Noah as “a just man.”

This connection is so important that is it impossible to separate “doing justly” from “practicing righteousness.”

What God has decreed to be right is also just.

Furthermore, to advocate for justice without moral righteousness make justice a loose cannon that has the potential for inflicting incredible damage.

For the Old Testament Israelites, commitment to Jehovah was also a commitment to His community.

It involved following laws God gave specifically for the benefit of the poor and needy who are overlooked apart from the influence of Scriptural justice.

For instance, Deuteronomy 24 contains instructions to pay just wages, to pass equal judgement for both the citizen and the foreigner, and to leave food in the field for the poor to gather.

New Testament Christians, filled with grace of God, should be no less equitable and generous in their dealings with others.

Both the Old and New Testaments instruct us to love our neighbors.

Thus, God’s people should model just living as they do justly

Men Are Individually Responsible

This truth is a crucial point of distinction between biblical justice and social justice.

Whereas most social ideologies place blame on collective groups of people - sometimes for the transgressions of their ancestors - biblical justice focuses on the responsibility of the individual before God.

This doesn’t mean that societies and cultures as a whole do not turn from God.

For instance, the nation of Israel repeatedly turned from God as a group.

But when they did, the individual people in Israel were responsible for their own sins.

Romans 1 also details the collective turning from God of pagan societies in verse 18- 32.

Even as He introduces these verses, however, God offers they gospel to individuals who will turn to Him.

So even people who are caught up in a culture of unrighteousness or whose leaders practice injustice are still accountable to God for their personal choices.

God sees us as individuals rather than as collective groups, and we are personally accountable to Him.

God doesn’t pick arbitrary sins over which to hurl blame at an entire group of people; rather, He calls each of us to personal repentance.

With repentance, God always offers forgiveness.

In fact, forgiveness is another contract to secular social justice which has a tendency to assign perpetual guilt for the sins of a group’s ancestors.

Contrary to unjust punishments among ancient societies, God stipulated that the judges in Israel could only mete out capital punishment to the actual offender, not to the offender’s father or children.

This underscores the personal responsibility built into biblical justice.

But God didn’t just protect ancestors or descendants.

He also said that a righteous person living in the midst of wicked people would not held responsible for the wickedness of the larger group.

Furthermore, the larger group, when behaving wickedly, could not claim innocence based on the actions of a few good people within their group.

God told the prophet Ezekiel that He was bringing judgement on the nation of Israel, and even if three of the godliest men in the Old Testament - Noah, Daniel, and Job - were living there, their presence could not stop His judgment.

Blame shifting is as innate to human nature as sin itself is.

We see this in the very first sin.

When God confronted Adam and Eve with their sin, Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent.

There were only two people in existence, and they both blamed someone else.

But there is no room for blame shifting in the sight of God, because He views each of us individually, and we are personally responsible to Him for our own actions.

Expressions of Biblical Justice

The biblical concept of justice takes place in at least two forms: commutative justice and distributive justice.

Commutative Justice speaks to the relational aspect of justice.

This is living in a right relationship with God and others.

Commutative justice includes giving other their due as image bearers of God and treating others with dignity and respect.

Distributive justice speaks of impartially rendering judgment, righting wrongs, and meting out punishment for lawbreaking.

This kind of justice is reserved for God and God - ordained authorities.

Specifically, in context of justice within a society, we understand that God ordains rulers who are divinely authorized to carry out punitive justice.

A biblical understanding of justice, however, must include more than the intellectual concept of it, for biblical justice is also a practice.