Chapter 1 - Justice and Righteousness
Introduction
There are two words that are often seen together in Scripture, ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness’, and are frequently found in that order (see 1 Kings 10:9; 2 Chronicles 9:8; Psalm 99:4; Ecclesiastes 5:8; Isaiah 33:5; Jeremiah 9:24; 22:3, 15; 23:5; 33:15; Ezekiel 45:9) and over forty other times we see these two concepts combined in the same verse throughout the Old and New Testaments.
When we look at how these words are used in the Bible, it’s hard not to apply strict compliance. After all, God is holy and perfect, and we are intrinsically neither. So when we read these words in passages like Isaiah 33:5-6, “The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.” Can we assume that there should be no leeway?
I believe the study of a Biblical concept like this should begin at creation. For example, if we consider life to be an accident, then ‘justice’ must be codified (made available for everyone to know, typically in written form) by an entity (like a king or some other form of government) making it a law first, which in turn dictates what can be called right versus wrong. But if life is not an accident, then we need to explore the motivations of the creator. If created dispassionately then, like the results of some accident, a law would need to be established first to differentiate right from wrong. Now before proceeding with my next statement, I must acknowledge that there are potentially several more options than these two, but I am not a divine being, so I am only going to offer these two “being created” options. If created, which I wholeheartedly believe to be the truth, then we must investigate the elemental love the creator has for that creation. Why? I say that from the perspective of what we know today, as already being recipients of God’s mercy and reconciliation, we see that there is hope beyond demanding strict compliance to His law. After all, He sent His Son so that we can live forever in His presence! Too many theologians fail to take in account His love when examining the concepts of justice and righteousness.
Through this understanding we can begin to get a glimpse of God’s stance regarding humanity, including the Jews, Israel, and all Christian believers. Some call this the “law of God’s innermost thoughts.”[1] It is only against this background can we have faith in the validity of His promises, especially to the Jews and believers.
Let me digress for a moment to ask a question and discuss something that may help us to provide a framework for this subject. Consider the scenario where there are three people, one is tempted to break the law and does indeed succumb, another is tempted with the same lure but does not break the law, and the third is not tempted at all and manages to avoid breaking the law. What can we say about the third person? Hold your answer, we will come back to this scenario later.
At this point it might be a good idea to make sure we are all in sync with the terminology. And since we will be examining these two concepts (those being justice and righteousness, in case you forgot) from a Biblical word perspective, we will begin there. We will take a quick look at the words that are translated as ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness’ (a little etymology, semantics, etc.) and how they are used in the Bible (literary application). Please be patient, this won’t take long!
It is interesting to note that some languages do not offer unique words for these two concepts, they are typically blended into one word which could, I would imagine, complicate the comprehension of anyone reading the Bible in those languages. Fortunately, that is not true for us English language readers.
In both the Hebrew and Greek, we see that the words that are translated as ‘justice’ lean towards the existence of a law, or more specifically a legal judgment. For example, the Hebrew word mišpāṭ, is a noun referring to a judgment, a legal decision, a legal case, the process of government, as well as it can connote several other variations in meanings depending on the context (including referring to that of following rules, mannerisms, customs, etc.) Then later in the New Testament the Greek krisis is a noun meaning an opinion formed and expressed, an official judgment, sentence pronounced, or the act of judging. Usually translated in the New Testament as either judgment or justice. It is also the word most often translated in the Septuagint for mišpāt.
When we come to related words such as ‘just’ (as an adjective), ‘justify’, and ‘justified’ we begin to narrow the gap between the concepts of justice and righteousness. To be a ‘just’ person would be those who carry out judgment based on righteous standards. To justify refers to being innocent, to be put right, being declared right, or to prove oneself innocent, which are again based on righteous standards. To be ‘justified’ is more than having a good reason for an action, Biblically it’s the past tense of justify, being declared right.
The concept of righteousness refers to being right, and this, of course is when things get blurry. What is right? We will tackle that question in a moment but first let’s quickly review some of the words translated or related to righteousness. In ancient Hebrew ṣdq (or ṣāḏaq) is a verb meaning to be right, the root word for justify and justified. The adjective form is ṣaddiyq, considered to be just or righteous because of conformity to a given standard. The masculine noun ṣeḏeq and the feminine noun ṣeḏāqāh refer to righteous or blameless conduct. The Greek words dikaios (adjective), dikaiokrisia (feminine noun), dikaióō (verb), dikaiosúnē (feminine noun), etc. all relate closely to their Hebrew counterparts. For this review we can relate the concept of righteousness as being right or doing the right thing while justice can be seen as how that was determined (or the judgment itself). I know, this is a lot of words with little progress, and we still don’t know what is right!
Let’s Go Back to the Beginning
As mentioned before we need to go back to when man was created. God first put Adam in the garden of Eden and gave him the instruction, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16b-17, ESV) A command that Adam and Eve disobeyed (see Genesis 3:1-7). Only one law and they managed to break it! They were warned that the penalty would be death, not like a death sentence we might see today but that they would eventually die, something their immortal bodies could not do prior to their disobedience. So, I think we can all agree that they did not do right.
God being perfect and righteous would require any violation of any rule, law, commandment, etc. to be punished according to that same law. The penalty of the above commandment is death and since He is a ‘just’ God (the one who carries out the judgment) He responds (see Genesis 3:14-19). His response to one law broke by two individuals from our perspective may seem excessive, let’s take a quick look at what happened next.
As a result of their disobedience: 1) all ‘serpents’ were cursed and would move on its belly from that time on (likely a reference to what we now call snakes); 2) enmity (hostility) between the serpent (that being Satan, see Revelation 20:2) and the woman (a reference to all of humanity); 3) enmity between the serpent’s offspring (Satan and his minions) and her offspring (leading to the Messiah);[2] 4) the Messiah will bruise (crush) Satan’s head, Satan will bruise the Messiah’s heel (will be killed but will come back to life again, see Isaiah 53:5); 5) will increase the pain of child birth; 6) wives will be contrary to their husbands; 7) husbands will rule over their wives; 8) creation will be cursed (no longer perfect); 9) man will struggle often in pain to make a living; 10) weeds will be prolific; 11) people will need to labor to feed themselves; and 12) the human body will decay after dying, returning to dust. All because they broke one law, or was there something more that was broke here? God, a perfect being made a perfect creation, but His created people disobeyed (sinned against) Him, and were likely therefore no longer perfect, the Bible calls that a ‘fallen’ state of existence. If death was not introduced, they would have lived forever in that fallen imperfect condition. The rest of creation was then ‘cursed’ to match the same fallen state so that the people had a place to live. God knew He was going to send His Son to not only make it possible for people to be saved from eternal condemnation (the result of being fallen), but also be restored back to perfection.
Man, from that moment on, now possesses new knowledge, namely the ability to discern what is good and evil. But in order to pronounce something good or evil, just as we have discovered in the concepts of justice and righteousness, there needs to be a standard to base those decisions on. Adam and Eve, as well as all of humanity, have God’s understanding of what is right and wrong, some refer to it as being “written on our hearts” (see Romans 2:14-15). As much as we all might want a ‘say’ in that determination or interpretation, we must recognize that there is only one fully qualified and only one that can enforce those decisions and that of course is God! Although many seem to be able to ignore them or have ‘edited’ them in their hearts.
We fast-forward in the Bible and look at the many commandments, instructions, and protocols God gave to the Israelites through Moses in order that He can dwell among His chosen people. It was a symbiotic relationship, they were to obey, and God would bring them into a land that was promised to their patriarchs, provide victory in the battles, provide favorable conditions for crops, protection from plagues, etc. But on several occasions, they failed to maintain that law and were punished. From those instructions, commandments, and protocols we learn first and foremost God’s love for these people, think about it, He desired to dwell amongst them. God knew who they were and what they would eventually do, but nonetheless He wanted to be there. Even though given to the Israelites, those instructions also offer to us a framework as to what constitutes as being sin (what pleases or angers God does not change, but they can be satisfied).
A Dilemma?
From our perspective it seems that God has a dilemma, He is perfect and is ‘incompatible’ with anything imperfect. He loves His people (and all of mankind) but it appears that imperfection cannot coexist with perfection.
We again fast-forward in time to the arrival of the Messiah, God’s Son, Jesus, who lived a sinless life, suffered, died, and rose from the dead. While being fully God, He is also fully human which means He was able to conquer death and perfectly fulfill the law as a man thus imperfection is solved, or is it? Does that change the reality of eternal condemnation for all of humanity? Since Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, it makes sense that God would give humanity a choice regarding eternity. Either choose to love the world and spend eternity away from God, or choose to love Jesus and spend eternity with Him.
Jesus invites anyone who has faith in Him as their Savior and repents of their sin to live forever with Him to be restored in full perfection in the next life. Again, motivated by love for humanity Jesus provides the bridge between perfection and imperfection. In response, we love Him back and try to follow His teachings. But does that effort make us fully righteous at that time? No, even though our spirit (and soul, perhaps for a quick definition, our ‘software’) is immediately saved and cleansed (made righteous) by God, but our bodies (the ‘hardware’) remain susceptible to disobeying God. When our lives on earth are done (through death or rapture) God then restores our bodies at that time to His perfect standard (then we’re fully righteous).
While we live on earth, God allows us to continue in our pain, to suffer, to experience joy, to make a living, be educated, have a family, in other words, live like we did before accepting Jesus’ free gift of righteousness and justice. But it is also a time to help others find and hear about God’s plan of salvation (see Matthew 28:18-20). If life had no concerns, issues, problems, annoyances, pain, suffering, etc. humanity may not seek God, so having an adversary who wants to constantly pester us (that would be Satan), can be used by God to bring us closer to Him. He allows things to happen to strengthen our dependence on Him. As we get stronger from our experiences, we can then help others going through similar circumstances.
Now do you remember earlier when I asked you to consider a scenario involving three people. One was tempted to break a law and succumbed to the temptation, another was tempted but did not succumb, and a third person was not tempted and did not break the law. I asked what does that tell us about the third person. The answer is that it doesn’t tell us anything, as the third person was not tempted. To test our reliance on God we must be tempted, so everyone is indeed tempted (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). Satan is real and he is the one responsible for most of life’s temptations (see Matthew 4:1-11; John 8:44; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:9). These tests are not for God’s benefit, but ours. If we fail in some regard, perhaps we have not fully given that part of our lives over to God. We are to strive to be more like Jesus every day, while this slow process of sanctification (see Chapter Seven) does not affect our salvation we desire to do what pleases Him and do what He calls each of us to do.
Application for Today
Second only to the fact that every page of the Bible points to the ultimate manifestation of God’s love, that being Jesus, we see that the concepts of justice and righteousness are also repetitive throughout the Bible saturated in Jesus’ blood and love.
We should not view any portion of God’s ‘law’ without understanding that it’s rooted in love, a love so great that it is beyond our comprehension. While justice can only be obtained through the strict compliance to His perfection, being given the righteousness (the perfection) we need for our salvation, allows us to see that God does not give up on those He loves! For example, to say He has rejected Israel or turned His back to the Jews, is not only wrong but could be regarded as blasphemy. But since God is a ‘just’ God, He will judge and punish those that choose to love the world and have rejected Jesus’ free gift of salvation.
⇐Previous Chapter (Introduction) Next Chapter⇒
[1] Krašovec, J. (2022). God’s Righteousness and Justice in the Old Testament (p. 26). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[2] Genesis 3:15 is the first verse of the Bible that points to the future arrival of a Messiah, it reads "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." The Hebrew word translated both times as 'offspring' is the Hebrew word zě'·rǎ which means 'seed'. But the idea of "a seed of the woman" would technically be both a biological error and a grammatical error (as it is singular, not plural), we would then normally consider the concept of a woman having the seed as being incorrect. However, this is the Word of God, so it must be correct, and it is correct, as God is not referring to all of humanity when He said, “the seed of the woman.” He was specifically referring to one singular person, Jesus, the child of a virgin.