DOING JUSTICE: Weighing Problems in a Just Manner

We do not know how many people to whom Peter preached in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost, at least 3,000 and likely ten plus thousand.  That mammoth number of people was told that the one they had killed in fulfillment of Psalm 110 was now sitting at the right hand of God the Father, ready to make His enemies His footstool.  A large number in the crowd sought what to do in order to deal with this problem.  They should have been, and likely were, afraid of the consequences, but it seems that they also were affected by their knowledge that they had so offended God.  If they thought about how good God had been to them, it would have seemed like a gigantic injustice to have offended Him in so many ways.

Their problem, as they should have seen it, was akin to what the people had when Noah was preaching.  There was the physical problem for them of being physically destroyed, but the worse one was eternal punishment.  It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment (Heb 9:27).  Their problem was not high rental prices in Jerusalem.  Peter wasn't even making the problem mistreatment by the Romans, who very often would kill massive numbers of people for no good reason.  Their problem was their problem with God.  They were already disobeying Him and then they murdered their Messiah.

All injustice is bad, but justice itself requires judging problems as to their most severe.  People should think of this as a judicial triage.  Not doing this is not just.  If there were three people in the emergency room, and the severity of the problems were paper cut, sprained ankle, and tourniquet on artery bleeding.  Getting to the paper cut or the sprained ankle first isn't just.  I say this only as an illustration, so please don't try to ruin the illustration.  I'm asking you to get the point.

The eternal problem is a greater one than the temporal one.  In most cases at least and maybe all the cases, the solution to the eternal problem solves the temporal one too -- I'll come back to that.  Eternal death is worse than temporal death.  On top of that, eternal death results from offenses directly against God.  It's worse to offend God than it is some person on earth.  It's not that offending a person isn't bad.  It's just that it is worse to offend God.  Making a bigger deal about offending people than offending God itself is not just.

Temporal problems, and we know this from God in His Word, so it is right, come either from direct or indirect consequences of sin.  Their best solutions are biblical ones that relate to sin.  Men are blinded by sin and deluded by sin.  They have reprobate minds, because of sin.  The bigger solution takes care of the smaller solution.  Solving the bigger problem really isn't ignoring the smaller one.

Justice, as I wrote in an earlier post on justice, and what many know, is based on equal retribution, the so-called scales.  Scales weigh.  The problems must be weighed.  Offending God is of greater weight than offending a person.  Eternal problems are bigger than temporal ones.  However, the just weighing of problems relate also to judging between only temporal ones.  Again, as a reminder, this doesn't mean that temporal problems aren't also eternal ones.

In an act of injustice, a black man is shot down in a criminal way by a white police officer.  Let's say this is the worst case scenario for the thought experiment on justice.  It's not true though.  In 2016, the FBI statistics say that 2,570 black people were killed by other black people.  243 black people were killed by white people.  On the other hand, 533 white people were killed by black people.  169 total unarmed people were killed by police (of any race) in 2016.  53% of those unarmed killed by police were white and 24% were black.  That is 90 white people and 41 black people.  If the killings were not justifiable, then those were unjust.  2,570 weighs more heavy than 41.  That is without bringing up the matter of abortion and the killing of the most vulnerable and innocent of human beings.  926,200 abortions occurred in 2014 in the United States.  In 2014, 28 percent of abortions were black, which is 259,336 people.

Murder is an offense to God.  The more murder the worse it is to God and offending God is the worst problem.  That is an eternal problem.  41 police officer killings of unarmed blacks (not assuming they are all murders) and then 2,570 black on black murders and 259,336 murders through abortion are different in weight.  If you are a person for justice, you have to look at the latter more seriously than the former, and then apply most efforts to the latter.  When the latter are ignored to look at the former, then justice is not the motivation any longer.  Justice is not being done.  It is such a vast difference, a just thing to say is that it is unjust to put much time at all into the 41, let alone focus on it.

With everything that I have written about temporal and eternal problems, the greatest justice issue is the offense of God and the eternal punishment of Hell.  When professing Christians are more concerned about the 41 killings of unarmed black men by police in the United States in one year than the 2,570 black murders and 259,336 murders through abortion, this is not doing justice, because it is giving greater weight to the wrong problem.  The scales of justice are moving down on the wrong side.  This is unjust.

Even further, if professing Christians are more concerned about physical death than eternal death, as seen in less effort given toward evangelism, than, say, feeding impoverished people, whether spiritually saved or lost, this is also unjust.  It is ignoring the eternal offense of God.  It is also not making the connection between temporal impoverishment and the effects of the lack of conversion.

Even Christians are moved by the idea of orphans or starving children in third world countries.  This physical concern surpasses in many instances the offense of God and the eternal detrimental effects of the lack of salvation.  Most often the two are related.  People are physically suffering because of spiritual problems, but even professing Christians would rather try to deal with the physical problem first, as if a spiritual concern is less credible when it starts with a spiritual concern and not a physical one.  All of this is not to understand justice.  This is not to do justice.  This is injustice.

Why the actual injustice posing as justice?  I think it is pandering.  It is about looking compassionate, because reprobate minds judge justice in a corrupt manner.  People attempt to impress them or try to fit in with them. They don't really care about justice because this isn't that complicated.  The people who really care are not focusing on the police.  They are looking at people of every race as to whether they are hearing a true gospel.  Preaching the gospel will not be rewarded by society or culture.  People who do so will not be judged as to care more than those who focus on the relatively minor problems.

Trying to look good is also corrupting the problem.  The problem is an internal one, not an external one.  It is a form of self-righteousness.  It is proud, thinking of what one looks like, looking compassionate to a crowd, who cannot really judge in a just manner.  It is Pharisaical, acting like a Pharisee, who put the external problems ahead of internal, spiritual ones.  Not caring about poor people, not caring about starvation, that's a problem, but it is evidence of a spiritual problem, and the spiritual problem is a bigger problem than it's symptoms.  People need to be saved.  This is bigger.

What else happens?  Social do-gooders, social justice warriors guilt people into temporal problem focus.  This includes evangelicals.  They try to get you to take your eye off the ball by making the eternal problem look less than the temporal one.  They mock people who spend almost all the time preaching, because they don't care.  They might even "not be saved," is also how it is being presented today.  Those "saved" are putting massive effort into short term social problems, whether they are even solving them or not.  They look like they "care" (if it is even care in light of the eternal problem).  The people who care, really care, know what the biggest problem is, the weightiest.  They also know that more temporal problems would be solved long term with the emphasis on the eternal ones.

Jesus, the Apostles, and Paul did not attempt to change societal or social structure.  They didn't give their lives to change economic status of people.  They were pedal to the metal attempting to get the truth out, spread the gospel.  They went just the opposite direction.  Jesus said you'll always have the poor with you.  Paul said servants submit yourselves to your masters.  It wasn't that injustices weren't being done, but that it wasn't just to focus on temporal things, when the eternal issues were far more important.  The solution was a kingdom where Jesus reigned for 1000 years.  He would change the world.  This is the justice of weighing problems in a just manner.