God's Justice Defined

On a personal note:
A River Of Tears Over 2-1/2 Years

This is a subject that echoes in my heart and mind every day:
As you may know, I have a beloved grandson who is behind bars for a sentence that will rob him of many years of his young life. Having  a drug addiction, he made a decision that was born out of  "desperation" and driven by that addiction. And now, no amount of repentance will reverse his course, where the stigma in society is concerned. Only God's grace and a heart transformed will insure him a productive and meaningful life. Recidivism will fail to raise its ugly head !
The following article articulates the difference between "justice" according to our Heavenly Father, (the Most High Supreme Court Judge)  and the evil and corrupt "justice" that is defined by mortal men. The resulting issues are far reaching, totally engulfing, and life altering for all who love the offenders and have to live with unending grief . Add to that, unimaginable heart - rending frustration caused by a system that sucks families dry from outrageously high costs through the greed of all who create ways to use and to take advantage by overcharging for basic necessities connected to those incarcerated. 
May our Lord's justice prevail over what is commonly called "justice" by wicked men who rule over America's Justice System.

 The Justice of God
 As a people who have been condemned by and have suffered under the long arm of the American criminal justice system, we know all too well just how evil and unjust the system can be. What is ironic; however, is that the same understanding of “justice” that we so despise and hate, is the very idea of justice that many of us attribute to God. When it comes to our own experiences and situations, we are very opposed to the idea of penal (punishment) and retributive justice, but when it comes to our understanding of God, Jesus the Christ and the cross, we embrace and support that very idea. Why is it that we are so quick to accept and embrace the cross as an act of retributive justice and penal substitution – the punishment, anger and wrath of God poured out on His own Son rather than on us – when we as prisoners in this system should know better than anyone that penal and punitive justice is a failure and actually makes things worse? Shouldn’t we be the first to speak out against such a notion of God?

The Apostle Paul was no stranger to the Roman justice system of his time, a system that is very similar to ours in America today. As a former persecutor and prosecutor of the early Christian Church, Paul (formerly Saul) lived much of his life as a champion of the Law and a defender of retributive and punitive justice. However, when Saul came face to face with Jesus the Christ in a blinding light and encountered the very One he was persecuting, his entire outlook changed. Paul’s conversion in his encounter with Jesus wasn’t a conversion away from his Jewish faith; he continued to regard himself as a faithful Jew. What Paul encountered in Jesus Christ was God’s true way of justice. Paul’s conversion was a conversion away from the religiously justified violence that he had formerly embraced. Paul was delivered from a mindset of religiously justified hatred and retribution and was called by God to champion a new kind of justice – one of forgiveness and restoration – a justice of grace and love for enemies.

Recent scholarship has shown that it is the “religious myth” of punitive and retributive justice that Paul is addressing and arguing against in his book to the Romans. Contrary to traditional thought, Paul is not addressing people who desired to escape God’s wrath and judgment; rather, he is addressing people who are crying out for judgment, punishment and wrath against sinners. Paul says that God chose the cross “in order to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” (3:25) In other words, in the eyes of Paul’s zealous Jewish audience (like his previous self), God’s not judging and punishing sin was seen as unjust. As a people who had been living long in exile under pagan oppression they wanted and expected God’s wrath to come and judge Gentile sinners. They embraced the idea of punitive and retributive justice. (It is now widely agreed by scholars that Romans 2:18-32 is Paul role playing the voice of these religious zealots who wanted to call down God’s wrath against sinners.)

Paul’s argument throughout Romans is that God’s justice is restorative not retributive. Paul says that God is “just and the one who justifies sinners” (3:26). In other words God is just and He demonstrates His justice by making sinners whole again. According to Paul, “justification” or “making-righteous” is not about mere acquittal of the guilty but a redemptive act of restoration and transformation of men through the work of Christ and the subsequent indwelling Spirit. The words “justice” and “righteousness” are translated from the same Greek word ‘dikaiosyne’ which means doing what is good and right. God’s justice is not about punishing sin or even overlooking it; God’s justice is about making things right.

Paul’s argument in Romans 3 and 4 is that the law brings wrath and exposes sin but that it is absolutely powerless to save and bring us new life. That is why he says the Jew is in the same boat as the Gentile, and that they have no room to judge (Rom 2). The law is NOT restorative; the law condemns. It is only through the righteousness or justice of God, received in the Spirit by faith, that we can be restored and renewed. God’s righteousness, a justice of mercy, is freely given to us in Jesus the Christ apart from the law as Paul so eloquently describes beginning in Romans 5 all the way to his grand conclusion in Romans 8. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation,” (there is no retribution), “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life,” (that is, God’s life imparting restorative action), “has set you free from the law of sin and death,” (sets us free from the law of retributive justice) (Derek Flood).

The Gospel of Jesus the Christ overturns, dismantles and replaces the entire worldly system of retributive justice. Jesus’ entire ministry of healing the sick, caring for the poor, forgiving sinners, culminating in his death and resurrection, was a demonstration of the restorative justice of God. As the embodiment of love, mercy and compassion, Jesus is the fulfillment, or “perfecter”, of the Law. Jesus’ focus was on compassion and love for people, not ritualistic law keeping, even if it meant Him being labeled a law breaker and sinner Himself. Enemy-love, God’s “new law” as seen in Jesus the Christ is not about retribution and punishment but about restoration and healing. (In both the Old and New Testaments, salvation always goes hand in hand with healing). The death and resurrection of Christ isn’t a mere legal transaction it is a re-creation that only love can accomplish. Justice is not an abstract philosophical idea or legal term, it is a living Person. All of our ideas of justice, whether human or divine, need to be redefined in the Person of Jesus the Christ, our Messiah.


Ted Brason