Eternity Daily Bible Study No. 263

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The Scriptures and Justice  - 3

JESUS AND JUSTICE 

Jesus has a repeated concern with true righteousness – not superficial hypocrisy but the sort of real and resonant goodness that surpassed the legalism and cant of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). The inhabitant of the kingdom is supposed to be a righteous person who seeks justice and acts fairly and mercifully toward others. (Matthew 5:6, 6:33) The words righteous, righteousness and justice all come from the same Grek word family (“dike” – deekay) so the righteous person is also called a just person. 

Matthew 5
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
           For they shall be filled.

In this saying Jesus indicates that Christians are to “hunger and thirst” for righteousness. Righteousness is to be a spiritual preoccupation of believers and not just an occasional thought. 

Matthew 6
33But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

This saying tells us that to seek the Kingdom is to seek a place where God ‘s will is done; that is to seek a just and good world.  The Kingdom is a place where people live, grow up, feast and develop as human beings, it is a place governed by peace and goodness and relationships in right order.  The Kingdom is not full of thievery and lies - rather it is righteous.  To build God’s Kingdom is to build justice and build righteousness into the lives of believers.

Matthew 12  
 15Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, 16warning them not to tell who he was. 17This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 
    18"Here is my servant whom I have chosen, 
       the one I love, in whom I delight; 
   I will put my Spirit on him, 
       and he will proclaim justice to the nations. 
    19He will not quarrel or cry out; 
       no one will hear his voice in the streets. 
    20A bruised reed he will not break, 
       and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, 
   till he leads justice to victory. 
        21In his name the nations will put their hope."[3]

The prophetic call on Jesus’ life was to “proclaim justice to the nations” and to lead justice to victory” (which will be finally done when He appears). he does this with infinite graciousness and patience so that ‘a bruised reed He will not break” and on a universal scale “in Him will the Gentiles hope”. His justice, His establishment of a righteous and good world involves removing suffering and sickness “and He healed all their sick”.  the righteous world is a world that s “right side up” and where life “works out right’ for even the weakest person. Thus sickness, which blights so many people’s lives, is removed as not belonging to the rightness and goodness of the Kingdom.

Matthew 13
43Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

After the removal of the “tares” which are the wicked and everything that offends, the righteous will shine forth in the kingdom of their Father.  God’s Kingdom involves a massive act of justice and judgment and the final removal of all wickedness.  When the world is the right way up it will be just and good and the righteous will prosper in it. In fact they will shine. We are to seek the righteousness that will be our glory in that day!

Matthew 23
23   "(1) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.

True righteousness is not a spiritual game of trivial pursuit! It involves the “weightier matters of the law” – the big three that we saw yesterday – justice and mercy and faith/faithfulness or as Micah says “walking humbly with your God.”  There is more to Christian righteousness than not smoking – it also requires compassion, truthfulness and honesty as well as kindness to the poor.

Matthew 25
46And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Jesus utters this as the conclusion to the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep are Christians who act like Christians. They have faith and live it out in caring for others. The goats have either no faith or dead faith – they are simply selfish. Their “Christianity” has not affected their heart or been reflected in their actions.  Faith must be living to be saving. It is not as if our works save us. they do not, (Ephesians 2:8-10) they are merely indicators of the life within.  Yet these works are what we were made to do (Ephesians 2:10). 

Thus Christians who live life according to Jesus’ commandments must be concerned with living righteous and just lives in God’s good Kingdom which is “right side up”. 

Jesus calls us to seek righteousness and proclaim justice and we must move beyond seeking to be entertained by the gospel to living by it instead.

Blessings,

John Edmiston johned@aibi.ph

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