This post should not be viewed as an attempted “take-down.” It is offered as a critique, hopefully to contribute to the ongoing conversation about biblical justice, social justice, and the gospel of Jesus.
The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel (SSJ&G) was released last year to much interest and commentary. At last glance, more than 11,300 people had affixed their names. As an initial signatory on a public declaration written long ago, I can attest to the difficulty of getting buy-in.
(That there was no social media back in the day doubtless suppressed our efforts. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.)
Both support and criticism of the SSJ&G were fast and furious. The Statement continues to be a point of conversation, especially on Twitter, partly because of the admitted corrective approach: “we grieve that in doing so we know we are taking a stand against the positions of some teachers whom we have long regarded as faithful and trustworthy spiritual guides” (see Introduction).
None of these teachers are named nor any of their problematic, newly untrustworthy spiritual teachings quoted in the document.
The statement is itself a basket of affirmations and denials about topics like scripture, God’s law, heresy, and racism—thirteen in all. One early objection—I still hold it—is the absence of defined terms. A statement authored by several pastors and theologians, ostensibly to address concerns about “social justice,” did not define the very term at issue. (Here’s my effort to define terms.)
Here’s the full article (see #3) on justice:
WE AFFIRM that since he is holy, righteous, and just, God requires those who bear his image to live justly in the world. This includes showing appropriate respect to every person and giving to each one what he or she is due. We affirm that societies must establish laws to correct injustices that have been imposed through cultural prejudice.
WE DENY that true justice can be culturally defined or that standards of justice that are merely socially constructed can be imposed with the same authority as those that are derived from Scripture. We further deny that Christians can live justly in the world under any principles other than the biblical standard of righteousness. Relativism, socially-constructed standards of truth or morality, and notions of virtue and vice that are constantly in flux cannot result in authentic justice.
It’s fine to decry “standards of justice that are merely socially constructed” as long as you’ve provided at least a working definition “authentic justice” or “biblical justice” against which such standards can be measured. Such remains absent. Clearly no statement designed to be consensus can cover every facet of every issue (being overly broad was another objection to the SSJ&G), but to not even define the most important terms is a critical lapse.
Recently, after tweeting about the lack of defined terms, I was directed to this update to the Statement, published about two months after the initial drop. It is an expansion of Article 3 on Justice by initial signatory Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace To You, the home of John MacArthur’s content.
I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in total agreement with the first half of Johnson’s explanation. He writes:
Justice is, of course, a major theme in Scripture. In fact, it’s a much larger concept–and more central to the Gospel–than most people realize. In both Hebrew and Greek, the words translated “justice” and “just” are the same words normally translated “righteousness” and “righteous.” No distinction is made in the original text of Scripture. The biblical idea of justice encompasses everything the Bible says about righteousness.
In English, when we use the word justice, we normally have in mind evenhanded impartiality (especially in the realm of law and civic affairs). The dictionary defines justice as “maintenance of legal, social, or moral principles by the exercise of authority or power–including the assignment of deserved reward or punishment.”
Righteousness denotes virtue, uprightness, moral rectitude–godly character.
Because we differentiate between the words and use them differently, we tend to think of justice predominantly as a legal standard or civic paradigm, and righteousness as something more personal. Again, Scripture makes no such distinction. In the Bible, justice and righteousness are the same thing, encompassing all the legitimate connotations of both words.
He continues with two distinguishing points.
First, justice is a vital gospel issue because the atoning work of Christ turned divine justice in favor of sinners who trust Him as Savior. “For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Having fulfilled the whole law to absolute perfection, Jesus (who “knew no sin” by experience) bore the sins of others (by imputation). Those sins were accounted as if they were His, and He fully paid the due penalty, so that His own perfect righteousness could be imputed to His people. The law has thus been perfectly fulfilled and sin fully punished in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So God can “be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins . . . We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn. 1:9–2:1).
Second, “social justice” is entirely different from biblical justice. It is a severely abridged and often badly twisted notion of legal equity–dealing mainly with matters like economics, social privilege, and civil rights. In recent years, a plethora of politically correct causes have been added to the menu, including global warming, animal rights, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, gender fluidity, war, immigration, socialism, and a cornucopia of similar issues borrowed from the political left.
Well, we went from so far, so good, to okay, hold up.
Eternal and Temporal
The first point continues in the vein of the first half; there is no major error about which to disagree, except—Johnson omits a important component of what the Bible teaches about the subject of justice. The simple fact is the scriptures do not limit its teaching on justice to the eternal (cosmic) work of justice accomplished by Christ on the cross. Neither the Old nor New Testaments builds such a fence. There is much in scripture directly related to the other half of justice—what it looks like in day-to-day life. Temporal justice is the complement of eternal justice; together they comprise biblical justice. (By “temporal justice” I do not mean “temporary.” I mean “here and now justice” or “present justice.” We inhabit the temporal realm as opposed to the eternal realm.)
By limiting “biblical justice” to cosmic justice, Johnson short-shrifts his readers the biblical whole. If the SSJ&G understandably did not address each and every point in depth, the same cannot be said of the explanatory articles which were written for the purpose of filling in brevity-necessitated gaps. They exist to better explain, but better explain Johnson does not.
Because Johnson does not fully explain biblical justice—omitting temporal justice—he’s left to contrast it to this flat description of “social justice” as a “cornucopia,” to use his word, of Leftist political issues. While it is true and most evangelicals would agree that everything a human culture calls an injustice does not meet the biblical criteria of an injustice, that does not mean no injustice exists anywhere in the world. Further, it does not mean something labeled an “injustice” by the political Left is de facto outside the fence of biblical justice. Equating temporal justice with Leftist politics is an error.
Providing no place for temporal justice within biblical justice, Johnson pours thousands upon thousands of faithful Christians who followed the biblical imperative to pursue justice into a brew-pot with Critical Theorists, Social Justice Warriors, and seekers of racial reconciliation—even though these believers were motivated to letter writing, sermonizing, emailing, marching, charitable giving, organizing, and raising their voices for the voiceless directly from holy writ. Neither Marx, the Frankfurt School, Liberation Theology, nor Hillary Clinton played a role.
What about James?
In similar fashion, co-initial signatory and Texas pastor Tom Buck takes his elaborating keyboard in hands for an article entitled An Eternal Perspective of Justice. Like Johnson, Buck begins with a survey of cosmic (eternal) justice, affirming both the existence of injustice and God’s expectation that “those to whom he delegates authority [should] demonstrate justice in his world.” Also, like Johnson, Buck offers no concrete examples of injustice in today’s world. In fact, to read these explanations is to come away with the idea that injustice exists everywhere in the abstract but nowhere in the material. Fighting against injustice is thus an exercise in shadow-boxing—no one risks anything, no one gets hurt, and nothing changes.
Justice for Buck is an eschatological truth above anything else. The rich of James 5, for instance, “who hoard their riches (v. 2-3), defraud their laborers (v. 4-5), indulge their desires at the expense of others (v. 5), and violently oppress the righteous who have no power to resist them (v. 6)” are denounced and warned their ultimate judgment will be harsh. He continues:
James was giving the unjust rich an eternal perspective. Those who live for self in this life are destined to suffer sorrow in the next. They might escape the consequences in this life for the injustices they carry out upon others, but the day was coming when justice would finally be served.
The only hope for the unjust is to repent of their sin and run to Christ for the forgiveness and salvation that he alone can give. At the cross, God meted out justice upon Christ and offers forgiveness to all who would turn to him in repentance and faith. “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).
I’m in total agreement with this representation of cosmic justice.
However, Buck makes the same error as Johnson: addressing one aspect of divine truth while leaving other aspects untended. In attempting to describe “the believer’s response to injustice,” he wonders why James didn’t command his listeners to “march, protest, and demand justice.” Instead, James’ commands “be patient,” “strengthen your hearts,” and “pray” which, according to Buck, connect believers to an eschatological perspective.
This is true as far as it goes. The trouble is, it doesn’t go far enough. James wrote for them to endure “because the Lord’s coming is near” (5:8). James, like Paul and others in the early church, expected the return of Jesus to be immediate. “Bear up under your load,” he’s saying, “Jesus will return soon and you’ll be free.” Christ’s return wasn’t immediate, so other scriptural teaching should be sought as well.
Moses and Lincoln
Scripture does not forbid seeking justice for one’s self. In other words, seeking legal redress to injustice is biblical. That’s one reason “the gates” of the Old Testament were imperative; they were the place of legal judgment. Since the poor were oft oppressed “in the gates” the logical inference is they were seeking justice there—which was their right—but being denied it. God, through the prophets, expressed his displeasure—even anger.
Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow is the narrative of a woman, unjustly treated by an adversary, who hounds the same judge over and over for justice on her behalf. As she is an illustration of persistent prayer, our takeaway can hardly be that shewas wrong for not simply suffering in silence, especially since the judge represents God who grants her request!
The children of Israel cried for deliverance for 400 years before Moses was sent by God to deliver them. Never in the midst of their suffering are they told to merely suffer well. They suffered, they prayed, but when deliverance came, they plundered the Egyptians and left town.
(Worth noting: slaves in the American era also prayed while suffering and working for their own freedom. Some even petitioned for their freedom based on God’s love for all mankind and the saving work of Christ.[i]After the Emancipation Proclamation many viewed Abraham Lincoln as their own type of Moses who had delivered them from bondage—an answer to their longstanding prayers. It was an honor not afforded to people like slave-owning, slave-trading southern pastors and theologians.
Johnson and Buck also overlook that God’s people have always borne a responsibility to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. Even if those who are suffering must themselves sometimes suffer with patience, that does not mean those who recognize the injustice are to stand by wagging their heads, assuring the burdened down of their prayers. Apathy is not a fruit of the Spirit. The Apostle James rebukes this kind of selfish behavior (James 1:14–17) comparing it to demonic “faith.” The priest and Levite are not heroes in the story of the Good Samaritan.
Proverbs 31, frequently invoked on behalf of the unborn, is not limited to the unborn. Contextually “no voice” includes those who have no power to deliver themselves from oppression, are needy, or are otherwise dispossessed (lit. “children left behind,” also, “destitute” or “are unfortunate”). In a democratic republic like the United States, where the power of the government is in the hands of the people, it is not a big step to see “speak up” is more than verbalizing concern. If, however, one takes an über-literalist interpretation that speaking up is limited to preaching, teaching, and otherwise vocalizing one’s position, one would expect loud, strong, and extended protest on behalf of the oppressed, needy, and unfortunate rather than the bloodletting of a thousand theologically qualified pin-pricks.
The Bible indicates that injustice is sin and that it should be addressed and when possible rectified by God’s people. In the paradigm of the SSJ&G, however, no deliverance from oppression, confrontation of corruption, or speech of biblical truth directly to power—even that done in the name of Christ and through the power of the Spirit—seems acceptable. Preaching on a street corner against the ills of oppressing the poor might be fine; marching to city hall to protest said oppression is, apparently, beyond the pale.
If the sufficiency of scripture only applies to the preached gospel, but not to the actions preaching the gospel motivates, then what are the good works we are admonished to do over and over supposed to accomplish? Good works are evidence of the light within (Matthew 5:16), are the purpose for which we were created in Christ (Ephesians 2:10), should be obvious (1 Timothy 5:25), the result of our eagerness (Titus 2:14), to which, along with love, believers should provoke each other (Hebrews 10:24), and are a means to glorify God before unbelievers (1 Peter 2:12).
Finally Brethren
The kind of justice espoused in the SSJ&G is incomplete and can potentially lead its readers to an incomplete, inaccurate understanding of biblical justice. Evangelicals as a whole fully accept the work of Jesus on the cross as central to the gospel, the pouring out of God’s judgment on him on behalf of sinners. No other person in history could accomplish it; only God in flesh, the incarnate Son could drink the cup and be made sin for humanity. This is unquestionable, and, among the overwhelming number of evangelicals, quite frankly, unquestioned.
The pursuit of justice by a growing number of Christians, especially in America, is not an example of jettisoning the gospel, but one example of recovering its implications and expectations for those who claim the name of Christ. Make no mistake: temporal justice does not save. But, when pursued biblically and in the name of Christ, it can bear witness to the Jesus who does.
[i]See for instance the petition of Felixto the government of Massachusetts in January 1773: “We desire to bless God, who loves Mankind, who sent his Son to die for their Salvation, and who is no respecter of Persons; that he hath lately put it into the Hearts of Multitudes on both Sides of the Water, to bear our Burthens, some of whom are Men of great Note and Influence; who have pleaded our Cause with Arguments which we hope will have their weight with this Honorable Court.”
