A recent paper of mine for a doctoral class on Preaching and Justice. Here is a brief attempt to formulate the tools that should be present when trying to understand justice in the scriptures
A Biblical Theology of Justice
Introduction
As preachers of God’s word, we have been given a distinct privilege to forge a similar path to that of the prophets of old. If we are faithful to our calling, we should be actively working to interpret the world through the vision of justice that God has placed in the scriptures and within our hearts. It is our responsibility to communicate this worldview to the church so that the church to respond in kind. Such a task can only be faithfully carried out if we have drunk deeply from God’s scriptures to ascertain that of which a biblical theology of justice is comprised. Biblical justice cannot be discerned by a singular definition, for it is a multifaceted term with far-reaching implications in theology. What we can be thankful for is the fact that the Bible is filled with expressions of what justice is espoused to be. We are given images of a God who intercedes for humanity in specific ways, ways that emulate his character and express his intentions for humanity. Who is this God that makes justice such a central issue for himself and works so diligently that we understand the significance of it?
In this essay, I will attempt to propose a succinct biblical theology of justice. My goal is to provide pillars for the concept of justice in the scriptures, hoping that these pillars will provide a foundation for our understanding of biblical justice. I aim to accomplish this by analyzing how the concept of justice springs forth from the character and nature of God. We will then turn to the profundity of the God-Man Christ Jesus, considering how justice is interwoven within the coming Kingdom, and finally, we will explore how God’s call for justice has a profound effect on the people of God.
Pillar One: God’s Character
Thus says the LORD: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the LORD. Jeremiah 9:23-24.
Character is the aggregate of qualities and tendencies that express the individual nature of a person or being. Understanding who God is and what he does has to be a first order task towards understanding justice, hence it is paramount in a discussion of justice to understand some of the core tenants that comprise the character and nature of God. The character and nature of God is, in my opinion, similar to a tapestry; one color of thread cannot create a picture, but combined with other colors we are able to understand the depth and scope of the subject. In this text from Jeremiah, we find Yahweh expressing a central truth – to know God is to know his character, and to know his character is to know his ways. It is my belief that we can extrapolate a biblical theology of justice by understanding how it comes forth from the Hebraic terms misphat, sedaqah, and hesed – these characteristics are core components of God’s character.[1]
The term justice (misphat) is readily available throughout the Old Testament, and it is incorporated strongly in legal terms that bring forward ideas regarding the rule of law for a society. Misphat expresses the communal boundaries that have been imposed on the people of God by the decree of God. In a sense, they represent “the letter of the law” and act as a “means to acquitting or punishing every person on the merits of the case, regardless of race or social status.”[2] Misphat provides an important starting point for a discussion of a biblical theology of justice, as it describes the expected norms that a person should expect from another person and likewise erects boundaries that preserve their dignity and worth. Justice should be understood at times in black and white terms; there is evil in the world so when justice is present that means there is a rebuff of acts of perpetration and sanctuary for those on the fringes of society. Consequently, misphat is pertinent to this discussion as these boundaries and decrees stem from the creative mind of God, so inherently they present an expression of who he is and what he values. Therefore, at the center of God’s character is the idea that individuals should not be trampled or exploited by another person or system. The Levitical Law is an example of how God sets up legal decrees that are meant to protect and sustain life for Israel (cf. Lev 25:8-30). This depicts a God that knows the world is filled with rights and wrongs, and it is foundational to his character that he acts on the side of the afflicted.
But to understand God’s justice in just legal terms would be incomplete; the beauty of the tapestry of God’s justice is that it is colored by the concept sedaqah. The character of God presents a concern for justice that appreciates not just the legal aspects of justice but also understands the “spirit of the law.” Heschel notes the distinctions between misphat and sedaqah stating:
Justice (misphat) is a mode of action, righteousness (sedaqah) a quality of the person…. Righteousness goes beyond justice. Justice is strict and exact, giving each person his due. Righteousness implies benevolence, kindness, generosity. Justice is form, a state of equilibrium; righteousness has a substantive associated meaning. Justice may be legal; righteousness is associated with a burning compassion for the oppressed.[3]
Sedaqah in the character of God represents how he desires humanity to function not just by what is legally prescribed but also in ways that communicate the worth of another individual. What Heschel is at pains to say here is that sedaqah should be seen to express the spirit of the Law, by which Israel acts with pure motives. This is particularly represented in Isa 58:6-9, where Yahweh calls Israel to have relationships with the marginalized, identified as sedaqah; when they function righteously with the poor, they will understand the meaning of the fast instead of interpreting the fast as a legal ordinance that they must simply follow. This response from Yahweh further underlines that a biblical theology of justice must contain righteous intent/action for any act of justice to be acceptable in his sight. This also helps us understand that God’s own engagement with us is held to the same standard – he does not have the capacity to half-heartedly appease our needs, rather, because he is a God of sedaqah he is pure and gracious in acting on our behalf.
We now turn to the third color of God’s tapestry of justice, which is his characteristic of hesed. Hesed should be understood as God’s enduring love/commitment to his creation or as Brueggeman rightly notes, “Hesed is to stand in solidarity, to honor commitments, to be reliable towards all the partners.”[4] Heschel pushes this definition further stating, “What the Lord requires of man is more than fulfilling one’s duty. To love implies an insatiable thirst, a passionate craving. To love means to transfer to center of one’s inner life from the ego to the object of one’s love.” Justice is represented in God’s character through hesed because it describes the emotive connection with his creation. Simply, we are his creation – he loves us and is committed to us because our origin is found within him. We are created in his image (Gen 1:27); we are not an orphaned people but rather a people that are privileged to be called his people. In God’s love for his creation we find a steadfastness that we are to emulate for one another in our community. We see the hesed of God in Isa. 41:17, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” The justice of God is one that contends for his people out of his love; he does not overlook our needs and his hesed compels him to act upon our behalf. If we fail to understand the component of hesed within the understanding of justice, we fail to understand the motivation of God to act on humanity’s behalf.
A biblical theology of justice must have its origins in the nature and character of God. He is the only one who can provide substantive leadership through the injustices that riddle this world. God’s heart for justice radiates from the core of his being. The combination of misphat, sedaqah, and hesed formulate an image of God’s justice that is representative of the divine pathos. He expresses himself through terms like these so as not to limit himself to an “abstract absoluteness, but in a personal and intimate relation to the world.”[5] A God that cares this much about justice means that he is a God that has emotion, one that cares, draws near, intervenes and intercedes. Heschel in his brilliance states, “Pathos means: God is never neutral, never beyond good and evil. He is always partial to justice.”[6] The divine pathos expresses that his pursuit of justice is full of justice, righteousness and steadfast love for the world that he created.
Pillar Two: Jesus, The Inauguration of the Kingdom
“and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor… Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:17-19, 21
As a church we celebrate and affirm the statement that “Jesus is Lord.” Such a statement has far reaching implications, implying that any competing powers are relegated to his supremacy, and therefore all of life must be reframed in light of the advent of his coming. Furthermore, in the ministry of Jesus we see a proleptic representation of justice, which will culminate in the final reordering of power when he returns triumphant in the Eschaton. Jesus was the manifestation of justice that we previously encountered through the character and nature of God. In Jesus, we see the personification of what it means to live with the character of misphat, sedaqah, and hesed. Jesus provides a signal that the justice of the kingdom is not some forgotten dream but rather is something to which we have the opportunity to show our allegiance today. It is my opinion that Jesus’ ministry represents the inauguration of the Kingdom and that the resurrection and impending return of Jesus Christ represents the seminal promise that justice will reign once and for all in the coming Kingdom.
In Luke 4, as Jesus took the scroll and read from Isaiah 61, he declared that what the prophets of old have longed to see is now being fulfilled in their midst. Israel had long anticipated a Messiah who would restructure the world in such a way that God’s rulership would be unopposed. Our theology of justice must employ the leadership displayed by Jesus. The means that Jesus used were not that of military might or political prowess; he instead followed the ethos and pathos that was laid out by the prophets. He spoke in such a way as to subvert the corrupt systems of power that functioned as a noose towards the marginalized in society. In his preaching he demonstrated solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and we are able to perceive the value for a humanity that is reconstituted by God’s pathos for justice. The solidarity that Jesus shows with the marginalized is exemplified at his trial and crucifixion. Who was more innocent then Jesus, likewise, who had more rights as the King of Creation to demand justice on his behalf? Yet he gives himself up to the corrupt system of the world in an act that brought about the redemption of the world. Moreover, in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6: 9-13), we are instructed to not cower to these corrupt systems but instead actively pray for the sovereign rule of God to break in to the present world, to carry with us a realized hope that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14).[7] Jesus’ ministry activates us to believe, in ways that we could only perceive previously, that “justice will roll on like a river, righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
The resurrection of Jesus verifies the divine pathos for justice. Jesus’ resurrections serves as signal flare to the entire world that God’s justice will reign over the world in the coming Kingdom. I believe that this is most succinctly stated by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 15; in this text Paul authenticates the Gospel and then proves how it serves as a bedrock for the future restoration of humanity. In this text Paul is at pains to declare that the resurrection is true! – If the Resurrection is true, death has then been defeated; if death has been defeated, the restoration of humanity has been achieved; if restoration has been achieved, Jesus was and is the reigning Messiah who was proclaimed in the Scriptures and, consequently, justice has been achieved once and for all. The resurrection serves as a compass for the church so that if we ever feel lost/confused/stained by the corrupt systems of the world, we can look to the resurrection as a promise of a future, final restoration for humanity and a God who would go to outlandish lengths to secure a future for his people.
Pillar Three: Justice in Community
The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:2-3
A biblical theology of justice would be incomplete if we did not examine the claims that the scriptures place on the people of God. In the scriptures we find God, like a good father, shaping and modeling his children so they would reflect his character of misphat, sedaqah, and hesed. Those who perceive the divine pathos for justice obtain eyes that truly see and ears that truly hear, and acts of justice can be expected to flourish in their communities. God shapes his people through the grace of deliverance and the discipline of exile. Both acts are done to capture the hearts and minds of the people so that they see Yahweh as their God and consequently reflect this by acting justly, since justice is inherent to the nature of God.
Central to this formation process is the exodus narrative, as it shaped the Israel that was in bondage and shapes us today as we remember the faithfulness of God exhibited in releasing Israel from the yoke of slavery. Israel is to remember the pain and desperation of being subjected to slavery. They are to recall the injustice of a power structure whose only concern was the centralization of wealth and power for a privileged few, made off the backs of those who were living at the margins of society. In Ex 2:23-25, as power bore down on them, laments for justice arose from the people. Brueggemann correctly asserts in this text that, “The cry is not addressed to YHWH; but it comes to YHWH because YHWH is a magnet that draws the cries of the abused….The human cry, so the Bible asserts, evokes divine resolve.”[8] In the deliverance of Israel, God declared the worthiness of this slave people; their condition did not represent their true identity, these were not slaves but God’s chosen people. The expectation of this deliverance narrative is that we should show solidarity with the outcasts and marginalized in society. We too were once slaves, victims to a corrupt power system, therefore if we have eyes that truly see and ears that truly hear, we perceive that all humans carry inherent value and worth. We see this call to remembrance throughout the book of Deuteronomy where the LORD states, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today,” in connection with a prescription for how they are to treat the outcasts of society. A theology of justice must have its roots in the knowledge that we are a people that needed to be delivered. Because the systems of power in the world are broken, we are called to act on their behalf because we share a common heritage.
If we fail to act on behalf of those in need, we can quickly find ourselves on the wrong end of God’s justice. We are to remember that there are no foreigners, because the imago dei (Gen 1:27) communicates that our origin is found in Yahweh himself. Duet 15:7-11 reminds us that we must maintain a posture of generosity towards our neighbors and warns us in v. 9, “Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,” and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the LORD against you, and you would incur guilt.” Liberation theology has done well in proposing the notion that God is always on the side of the oppressed, and with this in mind the people of God need to function in ways that fend off injustice, because the oppressed are often the voiceless in our society. Wolterstorff is right in stating:
Israel’s writers must have believed that when we look at the actual condition of the widows, orphans, resident aliens and the poor and compare it with the condition of other social classes, we discover that the former are not only disproportionately vulnerable to injustice but usually disproportionately actual victims of injustice. Injustice is not equally distributed.[9]
It is because they are disproportionately subjected to the abuse of predatory systems that we must understand that God is on their side and they carry inherent value. We find in Matthew 25 a stark appraisal from Jesus concerning how we treat the marginalized in society: if we are generous with them, we will receive eternal life – but if we withhold our ability to assist them, we will suffer eternally. A biblical theology of justice must be one that expresses the responsibility of humanity to care for those on the margins of society. By caring for the needs of the marginalized, we express to them their inherent worth, our generous care expresses our solidarity with them: we too have known the yoke of slavery and must show solidarity with their plight.
Conclusion
I begin this conclusion of a biblical theology of justice moments after hearing the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed by United States troops. Bin Laden has been the personification of evil in America for over ten years and social media sites are a buzz in celebration of this event. How should this event be interpreted? It can be perceived that his act on 9/11 set motions into play that killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousand Arabs due to wars being fought, or it can be perceived that America is the latest “Rome” who has pushed the marginalized to the edges of society so that they react violently in trying to obtain their own peace/rights. It moves in me the fact that human history cannot bring forward a verdict in regards to what is “justice” – it must come from a source that is unstained by the corruption of the world. An understanding of a theology of biblical justice must have its roots planted deeply within the character of God; he alone can serve as a compass for us in a world filled with self-interest and greed. It is the divine pathos that sent Jesus into the world to inaugurate a new Kingdom through his ministry and resurrection. We now are to reflect the character of divine pathos through acts of generosity for those on the fringes of society, working acts of justice in a world full of injustice.
Bibliography
Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Prophets: Two Volumes in One. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009.
Keller, Timothy J. Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. New York, NY: Dutton, Penguin Group USA, 2010.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), pg. 61-64. Here I build off of Brueggemann’s core assumptions of central characteristics of Yahweh.
[2] Timothy J. Keller, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just (New York, NY: Dutton, Penguin Group USA, 2010), pg. 3.
[3] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets: Volume 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009), pg. 201.
[4] Walter Brueggemann, p. 62.
[5] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets: Volume 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009), pg. 3.
[6] Ibid., 11.
[7] N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pg. 201.
[8] Walter Brueggemann, p. 11-12.
[9] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), pg. 79.
