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What is Justice? Part 2

Micah 6:8 tells us,

⁸ He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice [mishpat], to love kindness [hesed, “mercy, kindness”], and to walk humbly with your God.

This defines righteous judgment. Justice is not mere condemnation; justice seeks restoration, because the mind of Christ is also “to love kindness” (mercy). God is good, and He built goodness into everything in nature (Genesis 1:31). Sin disrupted our relationship with God, but the justice of God has never changed.

The goal of justice is to restore that which has been lost or damaged, so that no one loses anything. Hence, justice is not done until all the victims have been restored fully to their original state. When a thief steals from his neighbor, justice is there to recompense the victim. At the same time, justice is there to restore the sinner by teaching him the lawful way to accumulate wealth—through his labor. Justice seeks to impart the mind of Christ to the sinner.

Prophetic Judges

God set up earthly courts for this very purpose. However, earthly judges are limited by the carnal mind, and so their ability to do justice is also limited. Evidence is often lacking, and so the guilty often go free, because it requires two or three witnesses to confirm any sin (Deuteronomy 19:15). This limitation can be overcome by divine revelation and the spirit of prophecy, such as we see with the prophet Samuel, who judged the people. 1 Samuel 7:15-17 says,

¹⁵ Now Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. ¹⁶ He used to go annually on circuit to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah, and he judged Israel in all these places. ¹⁷ Then his return was to Ramah, for his house was there, and he judged Israel; and he built there an altar to the Lord.

Not all prophets were judges as such, but to be judged by true prophets who understood the law of God and possessed the mind of Christ was as close to the ideal as a nation could get insofar as justice is concerned. Such judges, wielding the sword of the Spirit, could discern the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

By knowing the good purpose of justice, they could seek to restore sinners along with their victims, though in different ways. They would understand that even when a sinner is found guilty, his time spent “under the law” was temporary and was ultimately to restore him to a place of righteousness and forgiveness.

I pray for the day when our own earthly judges will be schooled in God’s law and will put on the mind of Christ, so that they may judge the people as prophets who can discern the heart. I pray for the day when the prison system is replaced by work programs to pay restitution to victims for their losses, as prescribed in Exodus 22:3.

Every believer should seek to establish the laws of God in place of man’s laws (or “traditions”). Unfortunately, many have been taught to think that God’s law is merciless and cruel, thereby blaspheming the very nature of God. How can such people put on the mind of Christ when they think that the law works against God’s nature? Will they not think that injustice is godly? So we see that most Christians support the current prison system, which is clearly an ungodly system.

The Death Penalty

God’s law prescribes the death penalty for crimes that make it impossible to restore justice to the victims. Where no restitution is possible, the sin (crime) is beyond the power of earthly courts to do justice. Most obviously, this is seen in the case of premeditated murder. If the murderer cannot restore life to the dead, then he is in danger of forfeiting his own life (Numbers 35:30).

Kidnapping is another sin worthy of the death penalty, because no one can repay double restitution (two lives) without compounding the sin. So Exodus 21:16 says,

¹⁶ He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.

It is important to note that one who has been pronounced guilty and sentenced to death in a court of law is then at the mercy of the victim (represented by the guardian, the kinsman-redeemer), who has the power of forgiveness and mercy. If the guilty one is truly repentant, the guardian has the power to forgive the sinner, even as Joseph forgave his brothers for kidnapping him (Genesis 50:17-21).

If, however, the death penalty is actually carried out, it is not the end of the matter even then. Executing a criminal lacks the power to restore the victim to a place of wholeness. The death penalty is actually a way of appealing to the Divine Court at the great White Throne, in order to allow the heavenly court to take the case. This principle of a higher court was established in Deuteronomy 1:17, where Moses told the judges,

¹⁷ You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring it to me, and I will hear it.

This is reaffirmed in Deuteronomy 17:8,

⁸ If any case is too difficult for you to decide… then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses. ⁹ So you shall come to the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days…

Moses was a type of Christ. Moses was the Supreme Court Judge under the Old Covenant; Jesus Christ is the Supreme Court Judge under the New Covenant (John 5:22). In the ultimate sense, all death penalty cases are “too difficult” for earthly judges to decide, because it is beyond their power to restore the losses to the victims. The best they can do is to appeal to the great Judge of the whole earth, who alone is capable of administering true justice.

Christ will then judge all cases at the White Throne (Daniel 7:9, 10; Revelation 20:11, 12). By the power of the Sword of the Spirit, “there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). Having the power of life and death, He has the ability to restore all things and to bring justice wherever earthly justice failed.

Restoration Through Justice

Where earthly courts fail, the heavenly court succeeds in bringing true justice to all the victims of injustice. We have faith that the heavenly court has the power to fulfill the purpose of justice and will actually do so. The court will not only bring justice to the victims, but it will also cause every knee to bow and confess (profess) that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10, 11). Everyone in that day will “swear allegiance” to Christ (Isaiah 45:23, 24).

When I was a child, I asked my teacher in the Mission School what would happen to those who bowed and confessed Christ. I was told that they would be forced to bow and confess and then that they would be tortured forever in the lake of fire. In other words, their forced confession would serve no other purpose than to make them admit, “Ok, God, You win.”

But does that really bring glory to God? Does that serve the purpose of justice? Is such justice tempered by mercy? I think not. Furthermore, because mercy is established in the law of victim’s rights, are we to believe in merciless justice? Are we to believe that God is so compelled by His holiness that it is impossible for Him to show mercy? If that were the case, then how can we ourselves rest assured that God will show mercy to us?

Those who confess Christ, bow to Him, and swear allegiance to Him in that day will do so on the same grounds that the believers have done today. This idea that sinners cannot be saved after they have died comes chiefly from a misunderstanding of Hebrews 9:27,

²⁷ and inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.

But where does it say that no man can repent and be saved at the judgment? The verse only tells us the order of events. We all agree on this order of events. It does NOT say, “it is appointed for men to die once, and after this he has no further opportunity to be saved.” Such is a man-made extrapolation that is not there. In fact, such an interpretation ignores the mercy factor that is built into the law as an expression of God's nature.

The law itself teaches us that there is more than one opportunity to be justified by faith in the blood of the Lamb. Justification is established in the feast of Passover. Yet if one was unclean and was thus ineligible to keep the regular Passover, there was a second Passover that he was to keep. Numbers 9:10, 11 says,

¹⁰ Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, “If any one of you or of your generations becomes unclean because of a dead person, or is on a distant journey, he may, however, observe the Passover to the Lord. ¹¹ In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight, they shall observe it…”

Applying this law in a New Covenant manner, we see that those who are unclean through death and those who are afar off from God are not justified by faith in the Lamb of God. Nonetheless, “they shall observe it” in the time of the second Passover. This is how every knee will bow and every tongue will profess Christ to the glory of God the Father. It is not about a “second chance.” It is about being compelled to come to the great White Throne, where every knee will bow.

Every time the law says, “you shall” or “they shall,” it is a command under the Old Covenant and a promise under the New Covenant. As believers in Christ, who is the Mediator of the New Covenant, we are the “children of promise” (Galatians 4:28). Our faith is in the promises of God, not in the promises of men. So when God says in Numbers 9:11, “they shall observe it,” we see this as a promise that will surely come true. It is therefore a prophecy.

The entire law is prophetic. That which it prophesies will surely come to pass. When the law is fulfilled, then the former sinners will become subject to Christ and His “fiery law” (Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV; Daniel 7:9, 10; Revelation 20:15) until the final Jubilee sets all men free to return to the inheritance that they lost through Adam’s sin.

This great Jubilee will fulfill “the anxious longing of the creation” (Romans 8:19, 21) to be “set free from its slavery to corruption and into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” In that day, the law of the God of love will fulfill its purpose, and both justice and mercy will be accomplished.