Justice and mercy

Mercy triumphs over judgment.—James 2:13

In the Law we see the principle of the talion. Sins against men are addressed by doing to the sinner what he did to another. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. This principle applied to the body. A few maiming or capital punishments could be greater against a criminal in certain circumstances (eg. sexual crimes). But permanent destruction of a man or a part of his body was limited to what he had done to others. An example is in King Adonibezek who had cut off the thumbs and great toes of kings and the same was done unto him (Jug 1:7). He saw this as a punishment from God because of what he had done.

The punishment could exceed this in some circumstances, especially property crimes: A thief pays back more than he stole to act as a deterrent. Further, a man could be flogged for a crime because this did not cause permanent physical destruction of an organ.

The talion acted also limited punishments; it prohibited judges from sentencing excessive punishments.

Jesus speaks against the talion in his Sermon on the Mount. It is worth noting that he is teaching not against what is written, but what the people had be taught. When Jesus refutes his opponents he frequently appeals to Scripture saying, "It is written." The rebuke is in not believing Scripture. If his opponents claim to believe Scripture Jesus shows them how they err in their interpretation. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus refutes not what is written but what they have been taught. Jesus prefaces his teaching by denying that he is abolishing the Law,

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 5:17-19)

And then he says,

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ (Mat 5:21)

And

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ (Mat 5:27)

And

It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ (Mat 5:31)

And

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ (Mat 5:33)

These are what they have been taught by the scribes. When Jesus addresses these teachings, which are based in the Torah, Jesus explains what they mean. He explains that murder originates in the heart and that lesser sins  such as hatred also violate the law. He explains that adultery can be in the heart. He corrects the teaching they have received on divorce. But consider this teaching,

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ (Mat 5:43)

Hating your enemies is not an Old Testament quote. He tells them to love their enemies.

When it comes to the talion Jesus says,

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. (Mat 5:38-42)

Jesus is not abolishing the Law as he has already said, but he is commenting about how they are applying the Law. None of the examples Jesus gives involves actually losing an eye, or a tooth, or one's life. Jesus is speaking against a spirit of retaliation. The talion was given to administer judgment and limit sentences, it was not given to justify our internal desire for revenge. This is what the Pharisees got wrong and why Jesus spoke so sternly to them in other situations. A spirit of revenge works against mercy. It subverts all that God wants to do. It is antagonistic to God's purposes. Punishment is not wrong, and the principle of the talion is not wrong, but if we let revenge take priority in our hearts we oppose what God is doing.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God pronounced judgment against them. The judgment was severe: they became mortal, they were estranged from God, they had difficulty with children, difficulty between each other, difficulty in their ability to get enough food. And such a judgment was necessary, they now knew good and evil and the depths of depravity the human race was now capable meant that they had to be restrained.

Even so, look at the promise when God curses the serpent.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15)

The protevangelium contains the promise of deliverance. Even in the curse God is planning to redeem the problem. God does not intend for men to be alienated from him.

Jesus teaches the same thing.

No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light. (Luk 11:33-36)

When our eye is healthy, or generous, we view things rightly. We need to pay careful attention that we have healthy eyes. Luke writes this within the context of people saying Jesus operates by the power of Beelzebub. He warns them against having an unclean spirit, and he rebukes them for their unbelief. Then following this is a condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees.

Some have argued that Jesus opposes the religious but defends sinners by virtue of his kindness towards tax-collectors and prostitutes but frequent condemnation of the religious men of the day. This misreads what Jesus does and is doing. Jesus befriended sinners because they were lost. The sick need a physician. Yet the sinners we encounter in these verses are repentant sinners. Jesus offers mercy to those who repent. Jesus had a generous eye, one that defeats his enemies by making them his friends. It is this what the Pharisees get so wrong. They load up burdens on men's backs but do not help lift a finger (Mat 23:4).

It is not that mercy is right and justice is wrong, it is that people do not care for mercy which is a higher virtue. Love is above all.

And it is not that being a sinner gets one right with Jesus, it is repentance that matters. Jesus called Herod a fox (Luk 13:32), he warned the paralytic to stop sinning else something worse than paralysis would happen (Joh 5:14). And Jesus was gracious towards many righteous who were not sinners, including some who were Pharisees.

God is about redemption. He is about getting people into his kingdom. The pathway is faith demonstrated by repentance. The harsh words of Jesus against the Pharisees was because they opposed God's purposes which was to enable sinful men and women to repent and be accepted into the kingdom of Heaven. It matters not whether you consider yourself religious or not, what matters is that you have a heart inclined towards mercy.

But this is not a condemnation of justice. Justice remains. It is only in the context of justice that we can understand mercy. The men who refuse to call sin for what it is have neither justice nor mercy. They refuse to see that sin is an affront to God. They offer acceptance without repentance which is not mercy because it leaves people in their sin and outside God's family. They condemn religion while justifying the rebellious. Yet it is the very nature of justice which should make us so cautious.

Judgment will come. Heaven cries out,

her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
Pay her back as she herself has paid back others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. (Rev 18:5-6)

It is the certainty of judgment which men deserve which makes mercy so imperative. Jesus is against men who would refuse the repentant; such an attitude demonstrates that they themselves have not received mercy, that they remain outside the kingdom.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.” (Mat 21:31).

Walk the (grace) line

I intermittently watched the movie Walk the Line recently. It is about Johnny Cash (1932–2003). I did not know that much about him other than he was a Christian and I have heard a few of his songs.

I am cautious about how much one can rely on a movie for biography; at times "artistic licence" seems to be a euphemism for "flagrantly disingenuous." Nevertheless, it told of his his addiction to (prescription) drugs and possibly alcohol; and his marriage break-up due to this and possibly his infidelity.

He subsequently recovered from his addictions and also married singer June Carter. He remained married to her until her death 35 years later.

The story reminded me of a prayer by a fellow parishioner. His own marriage had dissolved many years ago following his indiscretions. He subsequently remarried. He apparently prayed a few years ago during an open prayer meeting something along the lines of, "Lord, thank you that you are a God of second chances."

These are excellent examples of God's grace in people's lives. The God we serve is a God of redemption, of the returning prodigal, of mercy and goodness toward a race of sinners; a God of second chances.

As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live;... (Ezekiel 33)

God's sovereignty and glory

Calvinists have claimed that God chooses specific men for salvation because he is sovereign. Those are saved to maximise God's glory in his mercy, and others are damned to maximise God's glory in his wrath.

These ideas, I think, are incorrect. The issue of sovereignty is a logical question. And damnation, while giving God glory, does so less than salvation.

I don't think it possible for God to force anyone into heaven. Or rather force anyone to love him; heaven is the destination. So I think the Calvinists are incorrect about sovereignty over who is saved because it is not an question of sovereignty.

God can create, God can woo (prevenient grace), God can save, God can give eternal life, God can create freedom of the will.

None of which man can do.

However I think that if God creates us as beings that have the ability to choose or reject God then I think it logically impossible to force love from such a being.

To have such a high view of sovereignty that claims that God can make us love him, seems, to me, as preposterous as a high view of God's omnipotence means he can make 2 + 2 = 5.

So I don't think that non-Calvinists have a low view of God's sovereignty, I think they have a more accurate one.

Further I think God does desire every single person go to heaven. I don't think any have been created specifically for destruction. Neither are we created for redemption; rather for fellowship. Because of Adam's choice we become estranged. God's grace gives us a possible path back. Those who continually reject God's drawing are handed over to destruction. They become unredeemable^* objects of wrath whom God prepares for destruction based on our rejection of him.

It is theoretically possible that every person could choose God.

God does seek his own glory, but the Calvinists are incorrect about this being the reason for creating beings for damnation. Why? Because if we choose obedience and become objects of mercy, God gains even more glory.

God is glorified when he destroys the wicked.

God is glorified more when he shows mercy to the repentant wicked.

What of Romans 9?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called,...

It is not that God creates beings solely so they can be destroyed and they have no choice to escape that destination. Rather they have insisted on wickedness, they have rejected God's offer of mercy, therefore they are prepared for destruction. Given they are not redeemable, God uses them to maximise his glory in the view of the vessels of God's mercy. God uses a bad situation for good.

If Calvinism was correct about God's sovereignty then he would maximise his glory by saving everyone. That would bring him more glory than damning some.

^*We are children of wrath because we are fallen (Ephesians 2:3). If we reject God to the point we are not redeemable then we are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction (Romans 9:22).

The long-suffering of God

The time of the judges is an interesting period. God intends to lead Israel by men he raises up. Though he commands the Israelites to obey him, frequently they don't and God removes his protection and allows evil men (of which there is no shortage in the world) to oppress them. We see them following God in the time of Joshua but depart soon after his death and several times again even though God delivers them thru Othniel, Ehud and Barak.

We reach a period when the Israelites again choose disobedience:

The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook the LORD and did not serve him. So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites, and they crushed and oppressed the people of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed. (Judges 10)

It is in their distress that they cried out to the Lord,

"We have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals." (Judges 10)

I find this response of God interesting. God said,

"Did I not save you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites and from the Philistines? The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you out of their hand. Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will save you no more. Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress."

God says enough! He has delivered Israel repeatedly, he will do so no more. And if Israel continues in her idolatry then let her ask for help from the false gods she clings to.

This example of wearing out God's patience is reminiscent of God's words to Moses when the Israelites made a golden calf shortly after God delivered them from Egypt:

And the LORD said to Moses, "Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" And the LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you." (Exodus 32)

After rejecting God, God rejects them. In the first he would have destroyed Israel had not Moses interceded for them. In the second he tells Israel that he has delivered them several times already and he is thru.

Nevertheless, the Israelites acknowledged their sin, acknowledged God was right, accepted God's judgment on the matter, stopped their idolatry, and again requested deliverance. They would have worn out my patience, yet God remains ever merciful and kind. After the Israelites' repentance in word and deed God...

became impatient over the misery of Israel (Judges 10)

And again God raises up a deliverer for Israel!

These passages tell us much about the patience and grace of God and it gives us much hope that even those who reject God continually may not be beyond his redemption. But we would do well not to presume on his grace. Some have rejected God and are then only useful for God to show his glory thru his righteous wrath, such as God's judgment on the Egyptians. Proverbs warns:

He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck,/
will suddenly be broken beyond healing. (Proverbs 29)

We do not know the length of our days. None of us deserves life. God is not compelled to save us. These stories give hope for the sinner contemplating repentance but leave no room for presumption.