Just One Word Justice

  Justice

Lora Parsons

The Ashland Beacon

I’ve been thinking lately about the word “justice” and how much it sounds like our two words “just us.”  I also have thought a lot about how we as humans long for that when things go wrong. When crimes are committed, we want justice. Sometimes we talk about it in terms of wanting justice for the victim, but at other times we talk about it in terms of wanting justice for the perpetrator. That’s odd that it’s possible to want one thing in a criminal situation but it be on behalf of the two people opposing one another in that same criminal investigation. Years ago, we desired justice for those guilty of the Columbine High School shooting, but we also desired justice for Rachel Scott, one of the victims–one desire to assuage both ends of one crime. In those terms, it makes sense that the symbol of our justice system is a weight scale, where the two pans dangling from chains balance one another out, illustrating well the idea that the consequences of our actions are in direct relation to the crime that’s been committed.

  When we apply that spiritually to ourselves, though, we understand the importance of getting exactly the opposite of that. We have a grave understanding of what it would mean to receive justice for our sins. We know that God demands justice; Isaiah says He is “a God of justice; blessed are those who wait for Him.”  When others have done us wrong, we might have a tendency to find comfort in the idea that they’ll get what’s coming to them one day. If they’re never brought to justice on this earth, they’ll face Jesus one day and He’ll make right all the wrong that’s been done to us. But, in moments when we might be tempted to think such, I believe we should quickly be reminded of the opposite:  that we should be so very grateful that in the end we will NOT receive the justice we deserve for our sins. If we did, it would line us up to receive the same punishment that Jesus endured for our sake on the cross. The annual sacrifice of a perfect lamb was the Levitical requirement for sin. Jesus came to fulfill the law–to render it completely, permanently, perfectly accomplished and satisfied for all time through His death, burial, and resurrection. We no longer have to be concerned with justice being satiated, because He took care of that on the cross once and for all. God’s requirement for justice was satisfied through Jesus.

  And, really, that’s not justice at all. Justice would mean that JUST US had to pay for our own sins, not Jesus, who was without sin. It would demand that the scale of all of our sins, weighed heavy with guilt, would require JUST US to balance them out on the other side with enough goodness to restore the pans to a state of balance–a task we could never accomplish. In His infinite mercy, though, a characteristic of God that is often paired with His demand for justice, He sent us Jesus to be that restoration of balance. My own scale of justice has been brought back into a state of balance because of Jesus. JUSTICE isn’t possible by JUST US. It takes Jesus. And, the beauty of that relationship is that it doesn’t take anything on my part to have Him represent me. I don’t have to pay a high retainer fee or secure a judge to appoint Him to me. I simply have to ask Him to forgive me of the sins I’ve committed and trust that out of God’s great love for me, justice for my sins has been secured through Jesus. If left up to JUST US, we’d be lost forever; thankfully, we find the restoration we couldn’t secure on our own wearing a crown of thorns, paying for sins that should have been on JUST US. How grateful we should be that we do NOT get justice of this sort!