What is True Biblical Justice? And Why it Matters.

Anyone who has watched the news in the last year has seen cries for justice and different ways of seeking justice each vying for attention. As Christians, we must know what is true biblical justice and why it matters for our faith and for seeking justice in this world.

With that said, justice has been on my mind a lot lately. 

How can it escape us especially after the past summer of protesting for justice for black lives?

What is True Biblical Justice?

What’s really been on my mind is the question: “What is true biblical justice?”

I’m not talking about a justice that is somehow alienated from the God of justice. But justice that is truest because it comes from the one alone who is truly just.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

And untie the cords of the yoke,

To set the oppressed free

And break every yoke?”

Isa 58:6 

This passage in Isaiah is quoted by Jesus to announce that he is the one who is here to loose the chains of injustice (Luke 4:17-19). He is messiah. 

He is just. 

God is a God of justice. 

And what is justice, but to break the chains of injustice, to loose that which binds people down, to set the oppressed free?

Yes. All these things. 

Difference in how we carry out justice

But we don’t all agree on this; or at least how to carry it out.

Atheists want to tear down the oppressor. They want to set us free to individual freedom, which is whatever I define it as. They want to break down religion, and Christianity in particular, as a source of injustice. God is an oppressor to them and has been used as a weapon to oppress others.

And yet…

This couldn’t be further from the truth. 

But without God, what anchor is there for defining justice?

Without God, how do we know what love is?

For further understanding on biblical love, see:

• Do you know that God loves you?
• Learning about real love
• What is love? she asked.
• Romans 8: the heights and depths of God’s love (Bible study)
• Character traits: integrity and love (Bible study)

Why It Matters

Without God, we have no idea of the story of humanity. It becomes what we make it to be. Or remake it. Over and over again. 

Certain protestors, not all, would see Jesus and Christians, especially white or European Christians, as the problem (or at least a huge part of it). 

And yet, Jesus is exactly the one they should want to lead the charge. He is the one they are looking for (and yet don’t know it). 

Jesus is the one who came to do all these things they desire. 

Speaking on common ground…

IF we could speak on common ground, PERHAPS they would see that Jesus isn’t the problem, maybe just some of his followers have been… 

If we could have an honest talk, they might see that we want the same things. But we have no place. A white Christian voice seems to have no place anymore.

Or maybe just a Christian voice, because it speaks of God, who is vehemently denied by atheists and philosophers of class struggle and oppression and language (see this excellent podcast called Ideas Have Consequences: The Philosophers that Shaped 2020).

Jesus is the one to right injustice. Jesus is the one who teaches us true biblical justice.

But because Jesus is the God of justice, because he is Messiah, he is the only one who can truly loose the chains of injustice and set us into true freedom. A freedom that isn’t defined by me or you, but is defined by God. Justice that is about how we treat others and how we show love and how we care for the weak, and hungry, and naked among us.

God’s justice is the only justice that can break every yoke, not just the yoke we can see today and are willing to trade for a new yoke. He breaks every yoke. Jesus dismantles the systems that bind us, and allows us to be truly free, free in Christ. We must work towards THIS justice.

Understanding true biblical justice matters so that we can see lasting change.

What’s a way you practice biblical justice in your life? (Answer in the comments below.)

Please share this post with others who need to hear its message.