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and howl for your miseries that
shall come upon you" (James
5:1 ).
But what had they done
wrong? They had made promises
to pay laborers for work, never
intending to keep those prom–
ises!
"Behold, the hire of the labor–
ers who have reaped down your
fields, which is of you kept back
by fraud ... " (James 5:4).
·what you deserve is the good
that you acquire through volun–
tary agreement with others, or
the evil that you earn by using
force or fraud against your fellow
man.
Truth, Justlce and
the Way of God
Because justice is what you de–
serve, there can be no justice
without truth. Do you really
deserve something?
God requires that, in voluntary
agreements~
the standards of t he
transaction be fixed and accurate
("no t humbs on the scale"), so
each party would give and receive
exactly what he bargained for:
" Ye shall do no unrighteous–
ness in judgment, in meteyard, in
weight, or in measure. Just bal–
ances, just weights, a just ephah,
and a just hin, shall ye have .. . "
(Leviticus 19:35-36).
The same principie is illus–
trated in the great wisdom with
which King Solomon settled a
famous "child custody" case.
Two prostitutes claimed to be the
mother of one child (I Kings
3: 16-22). Solomon said that the
child should be cut in half and
distributed to each (verse 25).
This prompted the true mother to
cry out that the child be spared,
even if it meant that she lose the
custody fight. The pretender, of
course, didn't care if the child
died.
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The great justice in Solomon's
response (verse 28) was not that
he ordered a child slain, but that,
by being creative, he had discov–
ered the truth of who really was
deserving (the real mother).
Justice In God's Character
Can you imagine what t hings
would be like if God were not a
September 1980
God of justice? You could not
depend on Him! You could not
rely on His promises. The whole
universe would be undependable,
arbitrary, capricious. Nothing
could be done. No one would ever
undertake any constructive, up–
building effort, because there
could be no assurance that any
good would come of it. All human
work would stop. Life would be
squalid, impoverished, futile.
But God is a just God. The
Bible plainly says so: "He is the
Rock, his work is perfect: for all
his ways are judgment [the term
the King James uses for
applied
justice]:
a God of truth and with–
out iniquity, just and right is he"
(Deuteronomy 32:4).
But God's justice creates a
"problem" to be solved. The
problem is that by the equal stan–
dard of God's Law, no human
being deserves to live beyond this
life. All have sinned, failing to
live according to God's character,
which is His Jaw (Romans 3:23).
Indeed, by God's standards,
"there is not a just man on earth
that doeth good, and sinneth not"
(Ecclesiastes 7:20).
Yet God would not compro–
mise with this standard of jus–
tice! Rather than do so, He sent
His son Jesus to bear the just
penalty of what each human
deserves. Because Jesus Christ's
life was worth more than the
lives of all other humans who
have ever lived combined, His
sacrifice could pay a price that
had to be paid.
Thus God, rather than change
the principie of justice, let His
son die an agonizing death. God's
merey is then not in-justice-the
penalty is still meted out, but
God can allow human beings to
live beyond this life through
merey.
Moreover, even in the context
of God's freely given grace-the
fact that human beings
do not
earn
salvation- God still pro–
motes the principie of justice as
to the rewards of office and posi–
tion in God's Kingdom. Salvation
is a free gift of God ( though
certain conditions to the gift are
attached). But rewards
within
the
Kingdom of God are apportioned
by what each individual deserves,
according to God's standard of
giving and service (I Corinthians
3:8).
In Thls World Today
God lays on the rulers of this
world today, particularly those
who descend from the ancient
so-caBed "Lost Ten Tribes" of
Israel, which includes the United
States and British nations, a duty
to se·e that justice prevails in
human affairs:
"Thus saith the Lord God; Let
it suffice you, O princes of Israel:
remove violence and spoil, and
execute judgment and justice,
take away your exactions from
my people, saith the Lord God"
(Ezekiel 45:9).
lndeed, God tells human rulers
that they are to punish evildoers
because evildoing
deserves
pun–
ishment:
"For he [the human ruler] is
the minister of God to thee for
good. But if thou do that which is
evil, be afraid, for he [the human
ruler] beareth not the sword in
vain: for he is the
minister of
God, a revenger
to execute wrath
upon him that doeth evil" (Ro–
mans 13:4).
Notice! Revenge is part of jus–
tice. When the human govern–
ment punishes a young punk who
knocks down elderly ladies, it
should do so because he should
receive the same evil he did to
another. Criminologists call this
the _"retributive" theory of pun–
ishment. It just happens to be
God's principie.
However, God does specify it
must be official lawful authori–
ty-the human state acting as
"the minister of God" which
takes revenge. Prívate individuals
might inftict more evil than is
proportionate to the offense. As
such, they are not to administer
vengeance themselves (Romans
12:19: " 'Vengeance is mine; I
will repay,' saith the Lord").
On the·other hand, human rul–
ers have absolutely no authority
to harass those who do not
deserve punishment. Their legiti–
mate authority stops at punishing
evil
doers. "Also to punish
t~e
(Continued on page 38)
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