You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 16:19-20
Justice matters to God because it is righteousness applied to the most difficult human circumstances. God is just. He treats humanity with grace and mercy. He does not let sin go unpunished, yet He forgives the truly repentant and extends mercy. He has pity on the needy and truly cares for them.
God also cares about human justice and those who are charged with dispensing it because it is a means that He has set up (that's what the last half of this chapter in Deuteronomy is all about) to answers the prayers and right the wrongs of people in need. It is not the only answer to their prayers, but righteous judges acting on biblical principles, practicing true justice are meant to be dispensers of God's mercy and help. In Israel, justice was not about human power to gain. It was about the human power to aid others and to give.
A rant about the absurdities of any one system of human justice corrupted by sin would be pointless. Biblical principles of justice must still frame the Christian worldview on society, even if much of our culture disdains biblical christianity and sees no need for it with stringent secular commitments. Secularism as a model, especially naturalism, cannot be fair or equitable because at its heart it has to be committed to survival of the fittest or strongest. Justice is thus impossible and the situation is warped into injustice by sinfully, selfishly warped human nature. God's truth, however, is still the corrective.
- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.
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