God’s Justice Is Unlike Ours (II)

　　In the May issue of the seminary’s English Newsletter, Dr. Huen explored in his article “God’s Justice Is Unlike Ours (I)” the nature of biblical justice, and showed that “justice is not about distribution, but sharing.” In this sequel, he will further expound on the idea that “justice is not about retribution, but reconciliation.”

…“sharing” also reveals the original intent of creation: as creatures, our existence ought to be interdependent and never self-sufficient and self-existent; the reality of our life as creatures is that we should and can rely on God, other people and other creatures….

— From “God’s Justice Is Unlike Ours (I)”

Justice Is Not about Retaliation, but Reconciliation

　　If biblical justice is not about distribution, but sharing, then, maybe we should at least agree on another axiom: “reward the virtuous, punish the wicked”? However, confusing God’s justice with “retributive justice” is another temptation for Christians.

　　The secular judicial system is founded on the concept of “retributive justice” which is punitive, retaliatory, and even vindictive. “Retributive justice” shares the same principle with “distributive justice”; to wit, rewards and punishments should be strictly proportional to merits and faults. The latter distributes advantages and benefits, while the former judges, disciplines, and punishes. “Retributive justice” claims that it can restore justice for the victims by righting the wrongs. Yet, it is at most merely a warning against evil and a punishment for the wicked. It can never root out sin or prevent tragedies, much less to lead people toward goodness, or reconcile broken relationships. It is in the final analysis a false justice. “Retributive justice” only punishes; it never heals.

　　Nonetheless, a majority of Christians misunderstand Yahweh in the Old Testament as a judge who executes such a reward-or-punish system, and confuse it with the misconception that practicing justice means punishing the wicked and rooting out evil. Of course, the roots of the noun “justice” and the verb “judge” are related in the Hebrew. And God will judge everyone — rewarding or punishing justly — according to one’s good and evil, merits and faults. This is truly the prevalent depiction of God throughout the Scripture. Yet, in the Old Testament, we can also find another image of God in the Wisdom Literatures, Prophets, and Psalms: He is like a midwife who sees to it that “justice” is upheld, more than a judge who presides over fairness and intervenes in history.

　　Quite many passages in the Old Testament (e.g. Prv 13:21, Hos 4:9, Ps 7:14-17) point to an act-consequence construct: every act comes with its own consequences, just as the causational maxim goes, “plant the cause of goodness, thus receive its good fruit,” and vice versa. ¹ One’s act will naturally “judge” oneself, and the wicked will eventually reap what they have sown. Acting viciously is thus damaging to the agent. Sin “punishes itself,” and evil will eventually undo itself. Throughout this unfolding of act-consequence, God is at no time an idle spectator. Were it not for God’s involvement, setting into motion the causal chain between “act” and its “consequences,” retribution will not happen all by itself. Moreover, apart from ensuring the law of causation, God can also either delay or hasten the effects of the evil acts in “catching with” the wicked. Likewise, the New Testament also contains a similar concept; for instance, Paul says, God “gave them [the sinners] over” in the sinful desires of their hearts (Rom 1:24, 26, 28). In other words, human sin itself is God’s “wrath” or judgment on humanity. That God gives humanity over to sin is already a punishment; human sin need not additionally arouse the judgment and punishment of God.

　　Yet, the above understanding and description of how God executes justice is not an adequate or faithful account of the being and works of the Triune God. Some theologians hold that, even though the Scripture often mentions the “wrath” of God, we must interpret this kind of personification with caution. However, the true blasphemy will result in our total abandonment of using personalized language to understand God. It is because, whenever we adopt any impersonal abstraction to comprehend God, it would probably eliminate God’s agency and His freedom as an agent. If we imagine the operation of justice in terms of mechanical principle like the natural law of causation, and exalt this kind of moral order as “the order of creation” established by the Creator, we degrade God by making Him submissive to the moral laws that He created.

　　If we insist that God must judge everyone “fairly,” meaning that the virtuous be rewarded and the wicked punished, we are still mistaking the action of “judging” — a prerogative solely belonging to God — for an impersonal, mathematical formula. Indeed, using the word “punishment” to describe God’s judgment does have its own problems. It is because in the secular mind, “punishment” usually carries the connotation of “punishing for the sake of punishment”: in order to give someone a lesson, extra suffering must be imposed on the wicked. This kind of “punishment” often purports to satisfy the so-called strict requirement of “justice,” but in fact it could not realize any goodness. For similar reason, understanding the “wrath” of God as an emotion wrongly equates God’s character with the human pysche, as if He would throw a tantrum, lose control of His temper, punish humans arbitrarily, and like us, seek revenge and repay His enemies a hundredfold.

　　Thus, the “wrath” of God should be understood as His acts, rather than His inner affections or emotions. God’s “wrath” is embodied in the ways He upholds justice. Of course, God can also make use of other people or the created order as His agents of “justice,” as His means to fulfill His will. Yet, God does not only wait for evil to destroy itself in time, or simply let the wicked slaughtering each other. God will definitively intervene once and for all, for the purpose of addressing the problem of evil thoroughly. Therefore, there will be a “final judgment” when Christ comes again, where he will bring forth the new heaven and new earth, reconciling all things in Himself. As of now, God does not judge us immediately at this moment; He tolerates humanity’s evil, sustains limited justice and restrains evil through other provisional methods and means, all because He delays His wrath, showing us His grace and mercy.

　　Honestly, at least in this life, we often witness the fact that the good people do not always end well, while the wicked seem to prosper and always have their own ways. Does it mean that God stops or totally postpones His judgment, echoing the Chinese proverb, “What goes around comes around, and God’s mill grinds slow but sure?” If so, justice has to wait until the eschatological reversal, retribution, and redress? Or should we rather reconsider from a new perspective, asking ourselves whether God’s justice is “retributive” at all?

　　The Triune God revealed in the Scripture is a God who miraculously would change His own actions in response to the actions of humanity. God can voluntarily allow Himself to be affected by human actions, yet remains unconstrained and uncontrolled by humanity. The Holy God would feel sorrow for mankind, reconsider a decision, and even “repent.” The Triune God is an Agent with personhood, not a supercomputer or a celestial judging machine that keeps a ledger of everyone’s sin and vice for future reckoning. There are at least two theological bottom lines: (1) God is not bound, constrained, nor restricted by any professed principle of “justice”; even if God will not punish the wicked who deserve punishment, seek no retribution for their sins, but rather save and forgive them, who could gainsay it, be discontent, or raise an objection? (2) However, the prerogative of vengeance, retribution, and judgment always entirely remains with God, and belongs only to Him; God can execute punishment on the wicked, and whatever His punishment is necessarily just, and no one is in the position to complain, grumble, or question it.

　　On such theological ground, we can also infer a bottom line for Christian ethics: Because the power of vengeance belongs only to God, no one can seek revenge for themselves; because God’s judgment is the only true justice, every human-made and/or secular justice is incomplete or a counterfeit of true justice. Because only God is just, men can never take God’s justice into our own hands.

　　As stated in this essay’s prequel, the justice of God differs from “distributive justice,” and now it is shown to be different from “retributive justice” as well. Based on the self-revealed character of the Triune God, we can tentatively call God’s justice “restorative justice,” a kind of justice that actively restores broken relationships. The consistent revelation from the Old to the New Testament is that: God’s character is defined by mercy, not resentment.

　　Of course, God at times can be seen as irate. However, He has no “enemies,” meaning that He never nurses hatred, nor harbors grudges. He is slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness (Ex 34:6-7). This is the true character of God. The anger of God is always temporary; His punishment stops at the third or fourth generation of those who sin, which means “in front of our eyes.” Yet God’s mercy and kindness prevails to the thousandth generation of humanity, which means “eternal.” The anger of God is always surrounded or “hedged” by His mercy. God’s love toward us cannot be shaken by humanity’s evil or sins. Even the impending judgment of God is out of mercy: in order to (fore)warn sinners to repent in time, i.e. His ultimate desire is not to take revenge, make retribution, or impose punishment. God’s “anger” is a kind of anger that comes from “grief” (cf. Mk 3:5). The Scripture consistently points out that although judgement is God’s privilege or freedom, God does not want to judge and punish us according to our sins. From the characteristic action of God, we can know about the character of God. God holds the power of punishing everyone by our deeds, but characteristically restrains from doing so. He willingly forsakes to exercise His rights. This, in fact, is what Christians should proclaim to the world; it is the most revealing and amazing good news about the character of God!

　　In the old days, Israel betrayed their identity and calling as the people of God; they often failed in faithfulness, obedience, and submissiveness to Yahweh’s will. God, however, did not seek revenge, nor nullify the graceful covenant between Him and Israel; He unceasingly appealed to and waited for Israel to repent with unlimited patience. The faithful Yahweh voluntarily set out to save the faithless Israel. God’s justice is shown as a faithful love. Ever since the Fall of our ancestors, God has determined to save sinners. God became man in Christ, to save the ungodly. But Jesus was finally rejected by the world, and crucified for us. This evidently testifies that God was not reluctant to reconcile with humanity until Jesus’ death on behalf of us, hence came a grudging forgiveness; but humanity has been reluctant to reconcile with God all the while, so God actively reconciles the world to/with Him.

Jesus as the Justice of God

　　Paul says that God’s justice is only shown through Jesus’ life (Rom 3:25). We can never understand fully the meaning of “justice” by ourselves. We can only come to understand God’s justice through knowing and following Jesus.

　　The justice of God is unlike secular justice; it is not a retributive justice which rights the wrongs through retribution. Christians believe that Jesus Christ’s death “satisfied” God’s justice. Yet, what could an innocent man’s unjust death “satisfy”? It is better to say that Jesus’ whole life, including his passion, satisfied God’s justice because Jesus himself is the justice of God. The Christ event shows the Creator’s continuous fidelity to His fallen creation. Christ submitted himself to human rejection unto death, in order to win over those who rejected him. This ably demonstrates that God refuses to repay us with that we deserve; God does not overcome evil by evil, and He does not judge us by our sins. This subverts the logic of evil: when sinners are saved, that is the victory of God’s justice (cf. Rom 12:20).

　　Of course, the Gospel of Jesus proclaims not only salvation but also the future judgment. The teaching about eternal punishment or Hell comes from this most loving Lord of the world. The aim of God’s judgment, including His punishment of sinners, is not meant to root them out, but to overcome all evils in the created world. If punishment were God’s sole purpose, the incarnation is redundant, and saving grace is superfluous. As a matter of fact, the so-called “satisfying the requirement of justice” — punish the evil-doers and give these deserved sinners a just upshot — can neither please God, nor comfort and compensate the victims. God is only fully content when a sinner is enabled to repent, confess, regret, and to some extent compensate for his or her faults and the damage done, so that he or she can reconcile with God, with others, and with themselves. Only this is the justice of God!

　　Unfortunately, some Christians still puzzle: How can God be just and merciful at the same time? Some people insist that God must be a fair judge. Nevertheless, if God merely wants to judge and punish the wicked single-mindedly, why does He bother to rescue sinners like us through all the troubles? Indeed, when we insist that God must seek revenge for us and take vengeance on our enemies, have we ever thought about our sins against others? Can we detect any trace of the secular obsession with exacting retribution in the divine justice Jesus revealed in his more than thirty years of life on earth?

　　Thus, God’s justice and mercy are two sides of the same coin. They are not mutually exclusive and there is no tension between them. God’s justice will not be reduced or diminished when God executes His judgment and forgiveness at the same moment. To the Triune God, “judge” and “forgive,” “justice” and “mercy” are not contradictory, because the purpose of God’s justice is mercy, with the aim of accepting and retrieving punishment-deserved sinners. On the other hand, mercy is the most efficient and suitable way to achieve this kind of justice which matches with God’s character best. “Forgiveness” is not setting aside or suspension of “justice,” but a way to practice justice. Eventually, mercy is more “just” than simple equality and equity. Benevolence is the genuine righteousness.

　　God’s restorative justice makes possible and necessitates forgiveness, while judgment is its condition of possibility. If the purpose of justice is to restore broken relationships and overcome evil, what justice demands is not punishment, but forgiveness. God will judge; therefore, we need God’s mercy and forgiveness. God’s justice is Jesus Christ himself who is our only hope!

　　As long as justice is achieved through Christ himself, justice comes from God’s unconditional gifts and grace, instead of human efforts, endeavors, and acquisitions. Moreover, actual justice is never an unreachable “ideal.” It is lived out, though incompletely, within a group of people who are willing to completely submit themselves to God’s reign.

　　Only the Church could possibly live out true justice. It is because only the Church would offer and return to God what is due God, for instance, when we worship faithfully.

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¹ See Klaus Koch, “Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament,” in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. James L. Crenshaw (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1983), 57-87。
^* Bibliographical footnotes are mostly left out. For details, please refer to Dr. Huen’s forthcoming article “God’s Moral Character and Agency as the Basis of Christian Ethics” in Hill Road, Issue 41 (June 2018).