Moral Justice?
We are all very familiar with the word justice. It is contained in both religious and secular environments. However, the meaning in both can be very different and it would be a mistake to assume that when the word justice is used, that we all understand the same thing.
Bound up in the secular justice system is law. This is not God’s law, but guidelines decided by man – many based on biblical principles and ancient codes of behavior. We can of course identify some overlap with elements of God’s law. This may lead some to consider that the Western system of justice is similar to God’s. Nothing could be further from the truth.
At their basis they are truly not compatible. Courts of law exist to administer justice. That is to make determinations based on information as presented with judgments defined by man’s law. The justice system serves to find legal facts which are not the same as truth. There is not necessarily any moral component to these facts. Man’s justice system is not a dispenser of moral truth. Fact is a legal term, while truth is a moral term.
It is indeed confusing, but there is a difference between justice and doing what is just. In man’s system, facts may or may not be true. In God’s system truth has a moral dimension – something that is true. It is something that defines right and wrong.
“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just …” (Deuteronomy 16:18-20).
A key factor in today’s system of justice is moral relativity, which has increasingly become absorbed into our culture and is affecting the application of legal facts. This relativity says that we can do whatever we desire, as long as it doesn’t harm others. This accounts for the rise in immoral conduct such as pornography, drug use and so on.
God’s system of morality does not change with the passage of time. It is clear, concise and does not fluctuate.
“The works of His hands are truth and justice; all His precepts are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, and they are done in truth and uprightness” (Psalm 111:7-8).
In man’s system cases can be won or lost by whoever is the best at debating the facts which are not necessarily based on the truth. It is an adversarial system, and godly morality is not involved.
Human laws are modified over time to accommodate societal changes, but God’s law is an unchanging yardstick of what is right and wrong according to our Creator.
This brings to mind Paul’s admonition:
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?” (1 Corinthians 6:1-2).
God is a God of justice. His word defines what is morally just – what is right and wrong — and does not change with time.
Brian Orchard
