Balance restored

[Jesus said]
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

Luke 4:18-19

Last week I went for training with Just Love.

Probably my favourite session of the training was Josh's talk on the theology behind social justice - how it is in inseparable part of living as believers and lovers of Christ, and it's importance in anticipating God's kingdom come. Or, as I like to put it 'building the republic of heaven here on earth'.

In the Bible, 'Justice' in Hebrew manifests in 3 words:

-Mishpat: This is rectifying Justice, the kind of justice that punishes crime and sin and restores rights. This word appears more than 200 times in the Old Testament (which was written in Hebrew. The New Testament was written in Greek).

-Chesedh: This translates to mercy (an interesting example of how God's character of fully just and fully merciful shows itself in the semantics of justice!)

-Tzedeq: This talks about right relationships. Right relationships of God and Man, Man and Creation, Man and other men, and Man and himself and his own heart/conscience.

I think when people think of God's justice in the Old Testament, they focus on a certain part of the Mishpat part of justice. The many laws and rules and regulations that seem strict and totalitarian. But they forget that the other areas of justice interplay too, and that a loving-justice has always been God's concern for Mankind. His laws for the Israelites which fiercely protect the quartet of the vulnerable (Deuteronomy 14 & 15, Exodus 23:10-12, Leviticus 19 & 23, Leviticus 25) and condemn social injustice (Isaiah 58, Ezekiel 16:49, Isaiah 1:10-13, 16-17). He implements such strict rules because he aches for Tzedeq, a restoring of the right relationship between Him and His children, and because of His perfection and our sin, that can only be done when all is right and balanced and perfect, when His 'rules' are followed and our sin atoned for.

In the New Testament, despite being written in Greek the old Hebrew strains of justice still apply. The gospel is the good news of Man's reconciliation to God through Jesus death on the Cross which 'repays' the debt our sin creates (Mishpat) And this is not through his own works but through God's mercy (Chesedh),  so that the right relationships (Tsedeq) that God created in the beginning once again could flourish in new creation.

Also in the New testament, social justice is interwoven intimately into Jesus life:

1) His incarnation - born to a woman who was unmarried, in the midst of genocide which forced their family to become refugees in Egypt

2) His crew - he mixed with tax collectors, prostitutes, fishermen, people in poverty - he intimately identifies and cares for social outcasts

3) His words and deeds - healing the sick and disabled, protecting the vulnerable and marginalised, overturning and critiquing corruption and hypocrisy in the ruling elite

4) His ethics of love -particularly his 'mission statement' in Luke 4 and the jubilee economics of His church in Acts which reflect those of Deuteronomy.

Social Justice is:

- An example of God's character revealed in scripture

-Us reflecting God's image in us; since we are created in God's image to worship Him, anything that oppresses our fellow brothers and sisters, dehumanising them and preventing worship is an affront to God himself and therefore so wrong.

-An outflow of grace (see Tim Keller's book/video on generous justice) When we were lost in our sin, with no way out, God reached down to pull us out of darkness into his glorious light, and we reflect that dynamic when we free the oppressed and fight injustice

-An integral part of us pointing people to Jesus

-A prophetic image, pointing towards New Creation and God's coming Kingdom, when there will be no more weeping, or pain, or injustice, and no one will hurt or kill on God's holy mountain.