The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Richard P. during the 2009-2010 League.
Mission: Research on Justice
2,850,000 hits. That's what Google came up with when I typed in the word justice. There is Justice Clothing, justice found in the headlines, a French music group, justice results near my hometown of Lake Orion, MI, and justice on myspace. Scattered throughout are various hits which include definitions of the word justice and various essays on the subject.
Wikipedia defines justice as: "the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity." A footnote to the article was revealing. It read: "Konow, James. 2003. "Which Is the Fairest One of All? A Positive Analysis of Justice Theories." Journal of Economic Literature 41, no. 4: page 1188." This seemed to explain why that source took such a broad definition of justice.
Justice, to me, is something much more tangible than that. It's more down to earth. Justice is the reward of the righteous, the punishment of the sinner, "natural selection," and more. God has a system for everything. For humans He created the law. For the animals in His creation He let the strong rule the weak. In every piece of Creation there is some sort of law at work.
God judges everything a bit differently. For instance, He judges angels differently than man. In Second Peter it says, "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to Hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment..." He does not offer angels any kind of allowance; if they sin, they fall. After one-third of the angels fell with Lucifer, He put them into captivity, also known as Hell.
But the rules were different for humans. He created the Law, first writing it down and giving it to Moses, and later, dictating it to Moses to inscribe himself. All throughout the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible also known as the "Books of Law," God lays down a series of laws for His people. It's how He judged them, both eternally and on Earth. Ezekiel records for us that "Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."
But the Law wasn't the only thing He judged by. In Christianity we are governed by mercy and grace as well. God displayed mercy time and time again when He saved the Israelites from their troubles, He had mercy when helping the prophets, and He gave the ultimate demonstration of mercy when sending His son down to Earth. Christ showed his love to the Father by dying for us. What a picture of mercy!
That's what God does. He balances mercy and justice for us. Angels are judged differently. Beasts are judged differently. But we who were "created just a little below the angels" (Psalm 8:5), are shown mercy.
Because we are given mercy we have something to give to the world. We have hope that we can share with all others. Utterly corrupted, the world needs to hear the Good News! I recently led worship at my church, praising God and sharing some of how God has worked in my life. When examining my experiences, I can see God's mix of justice and mercy. I'm nowhere near perfect, and suffer from the sickness called "procrastination-itis" and am judged and limited by that, but God's grace and mercy cover so much more.
To a world with a perverted sense of justice, we have a message with absolutes like truth and love. I can live in a system like that. I can live, truly live forever, in God's system of justice and mercy.
