I often come away from theologically oriented discussions about the topic of justice, especially about criminal justice, with the impression the Old Testament is regarded as the preferred place for the grounding for the concept of justice, especially in Amos or Mica 6:8; but not in the New Testament. The New Testament is sometimes called upon to emphasize the judgment or wrath of God on the unrighteous, or our duty for visiting prisoners, or, providing clothes and food for the poor, benevolence or charity, but primary justice talk, not so much.
Of course theologians and philosophers such as Wolterstorff (2011) have contested such reductionism, indicating also a tendency by some to read the New Testament gospel as though the love command trumps the Old Testament teachings of justice. Wolterstorff, along with Bianchi (1985), also indicate a tendency of NT translators of interrupting the symmetry of the New Testament Greek dik-stem words (justice), and frequently mistranslating the word dikaiasune , using the characterological word, “righteousness”, instead of the English words, “ just”, or, “justice.” Bianchi(1985) focusses his work on correcting OT translation errors relating to the concept of justice, noting that the English word “retribution” is often skewed in translation, as well as stating that the original Hebrew meanings of the words for Torah (law) and tsedeka (justice, righteousness) have been altered in translation.
The English language is at a loss to convey the rich variety of meanings embedded in the biblical sense of justice. The original hearers, authors, and readers, early in that first century CE, would have heard and seen the clear references consistent with their relational concept of “justice” from a first century Jewish understanding of the gospel narratives and the epistolary literature. Their perspectives would have been learned on parent’s knee, and in the hearing of the scriptures as read and taught in the synagogues. Their Old Testament understanding of justice would have carried over naturally into the New Testament, however, given a more universal and dynamic application in Christ. Justice was not trumped, but made richer in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. A relational, covenantal, and holistic, understanding of justice for them would flow naturally to apply to the social-economic, contextual realities of their lives. It is also from this original perspective that we, in the 21st century, must attempt to approach the task of interpretation, avoiding the projection of modernity’s theories and myths about crime and justice that just are not there, onto the biblical narrative.
Paul in his letter to Timothy (II Tim. 3:14-16) would have been encouraging Timothy to keep troth to the Old Testament scriptures as he had learned them as a child, for teaching, reproof and correcting, for instruction in dikaiosune, justice, to be equipped for good works. In my NIV, dikaiosune is translated there as “righteousness.” However, as Wolterstoff (2011, p.260) has pointed out, most dik stem words in the Bible should be translated as relating to justice, and here it certainly should be, for Timothy is instructed to equip people for doing the work of justice; and in the manner of the Old Testament scriptures, he would have conceptualized justice from the tandem OT words, mishpat and tsedeka, justice, or judgment, and just action. Dutch criminologist Herman Bianchi (1985) complains that our western concept of justice was coopted by the bifurcated Roman concept (public law from civil law) of juridical law, law having been isolated from justice, in other words, mishpat from tsedeka (p.14, 15). Bianchi (1988) also explains that the Greek-Roman legacy of procedural, objective, justice, “short circuited” the Judeo-Christian biblical relational tradition of tsedeka justice which was contextual, done in the community, and not monopolized by the state (p.6). The rule of retribution was not a duty to inflict pain in return for a crime committed; retribution in the sense of tsedeka meant setting limits upon retaliation; it, “…certainly did not mean: ’do inflict pain, torment, anguish and misery ‘ ” (Bianchi, 1978, p.5). He notes that tsedeka justice existed and was practiced before the monopoly of criminal justice by the state began its monopoly on crime control in Enlightenment Europe and England, the source of North America’s criminal justice tradition. Modern Western understanding and practice of justice has lost its ancient and scriptural grounding and has become a mere commodity or place, like, “bringing individual people to justice”, or to have justice received on one’s “day in court.” Tsedeka justice, however, states Elizabeth M. Elliot (2011), is a communitarian concept and a continual reaching for peace and reconciliation…it is “…bringing tsedeka to the people” (p.51). “The definition and aim of tsedeka is peace” (Elliot, p.52). Law and intention are not, in positivist style, isolated from result or outcome of the legal procedures taken.
It is sometimes asserted that Jesus was not political, implying that we, in relation to our faith, should not be involved formally in justice either, justice being the major responsibility of the state. (Though this does not keep Christians from electing law and order politicians) In reality, however, understood in the organic sense of society life and governance in Israel of His day, Christ was challenging existing political structures and ideas by his life style and teachings regularly; structures certainly different than our present social political realities, but the principles remain. He showed love for the outcast and unclean, even touching them, making himself unclean according to the law of that day, healing them, feeding them. We can certainly say that Jesus was involved in social justice as we know it today, and in doing so he was also challenging the religious-political and social sensibilities, of Roman Stoics, as well as those of the Pharisees and Sadducees and the unjust social structures they affirmed. The Sanhedrin held considerable authority in Jerusalem regarding the social-political arrangements of the day, seeking to preserve the status quo and their own “righteousness” and places of privilege in that status quo, while seeking to blame the poor and needy for their own poverty and sickness. Jesus was not deterred in doing Justice, going beyond the parameters of the law as practiced then, challenging the social taboos and religious-political rules of his day, and sending a message to the Jewish leadership and calling them to heed the call to do justice, to seek kindness, and walk humbly with their God.
Herman Bianchi (1985) following Martin Buber’s relational philosophy, understands the sense of Torah and Old Testament law as not indicating prosecutorial and punitive forms of justice, but rather the Torah was for guidance and direction. Bianchi and uses Buber’s term, “Weisung,” for, law, as that of giving direction, and proposes the term tsedeka justice to differentiate from the western rationalized positivist approach (p. 26, 51). This approach to justice was communitarian and participatory (covenantal) in which the law was not a metaphysically imposed law to fear, but a guide for living well and a standard with which to guide and seek solutions and resolutions when harms and offences were experienced. Old Testament law was to invoke joy and satisfaction, not fear of prosecution; it was to guide for shalom in community. Wolterstorff (2011) similarly suggests that for the Old Testament Israelites, “…keeping the law is not something other than loving God but an instance of loving God. Loving God is constituted, in part, of obeying God” (106-107). Fear was more in the sense of respect for God’s grace and wisdom, who, after redemption from slavery in Egypt, “…is now offering them a law-code that will enable them to flourish” (Wolterstorff, 2011, p. 107). Fear would be appropriate in acknowledging God’s concern and wisdom, and that one would be ill advised to live contrary to God’s wise direction for covenant faithfulness; lives would not experience shalom in community and creation. No one “broke” the law and deserved punishment, as we say today. But, intervention and accountability were in order when violations incurred social and ritual harm. Justice, mishpat and tsedeka then did not call primarily for punishment, but law and justice was a guide by the community and its leadership to call the erring person to stop and think about the direction his or her life was taking. If harm was being done it would discussed by all involved just how this harm may be addressed and what a good and right direction of action should be (Bianchi, 1984, p.8, 9). The law and the infrastructure to facilitate “justice” was still absolutely necessary, but began at a very different place than our modern Western concept of criminal justice.
Jesus gives the rich ruler (Luke 18:18-30) something to stop and think about when Jesus suggests that he sell all his possessions and give it to the poor. Jesus, referring to the ancient Torah that this man said he knew well since his youth (he probably knew Mica 6:8 as well), did not condemn or rebuke him. Jesus was subtly suggesting that this man, in focussing on the status of his own righteousness, had forgotten about the covenant obligations to, and relational bond with, the poor. This was not a matter of individual morality for personal salvation, but of public justice, and going beyond mere legal obligations. Jesus was giving the law a universal and social-ethical focus, as well as calling followers to go the “extra mile,” and doing away with any notion of desert. In Matthew 25:31-45, we recognize that our response to the poor and needy is not simply based on their need, but on the close relationship that Jesus has with them, and thus correlatively the close relationship we have, in Christ, with the poor and needy, even those we label undeserving, or enemy, or criminal. Love and justice are inseparable, and in our love we bring justice to our neighbour, and justice, we bring in love, justice being an example of love (Wolterstorff, 2011, p. 83, 93).
Here is another thing: There is a modern tendency, as I see it, that when the English word “justice” is used, many people think mainly of, investigation, prosecution, punishment, and perhaps prison or worse. Ironically, this concept projects a modernistic understanding of justice onto the Bible, a concept that was never there to begin with, not even in Israel of the Old Testament nor in the Rome of the Roman citizen. Herman Bianchi (1985) emphasizes that a specific system of criminal law and justice did not exist until the 13th century, until the inquisition, in Europe. What you find in the Old Testament is the relational organic concept of justice described by the twin words, mishpat and tsedeka; in the New Testament the correlative twin words are krisis and dikiasune . Neither set of words would refer to our modern concept of a prosecutorial criminal justice system whose primary job is to find guilty, prosecute, and punish, wrongdoers. There was no criminal law or criminal justice system in Hebrew or in Roman society. Roman society had a good legal structure or framework that protected the rights of Roman citizens; but unjustly, slaves or foreigners did not have rights. Roman citizens had access to laws, procedures, and functionaries, to help them solve mutual differences and conflicts more in the manner of today’s civil law, processes resembling today’s restorative justice processes as well. The military dealt summarily and cruelly with political violators, but this was not part of an organized criminal justice system based on criminal law such we would have today. Non-political offenses were resolved locally using indigenous participatory practices by Roman citizens (this was true in many pre-modern small scale societies). The system of prosecutorial law and sanctioned punishments that we have today was built on the repressive, punitive, practices allowed for slaves and non-citizens during Roman rule; they did not have rights to protection by law. Roman abuse of power in cruelty and imperial domination was second to none; however, they never established a formal body of criminal law and a criminal justice system (Bianchi, 1985). Our current prosecutorial- punitive system that we have today has its roots in such ancient unjust prejudicial practices adopted by the inquisition, and then further developed (rationalized) during the Enlightenment, producing our current criminal law and justice system. Bianchi (1985) states bluntly, that the Enlightenment “reformers” were not humanizing a barbaric system, but rather, rationalized a barbaric system of crime control (p.96).
It is important then that the model of justice Christ established in the New Testament be the inspiration and grounding for our modern theories of criminal law and justice; we, as followers of Christ, must be aware of the models we have inherited from our culture and from those narratives flowing simply from Enlightenment sources. That said, modernity is not entirely perverse, it also gave us goods that can enhance the common good, and there are many sound sources and resources for study and dialogue. Judgment, discernment (diakrino), and insight are necessary. But we must find a new way to think about criminal justice. Law and justice originally was not, as we hear it so often said today, to bring wrongdoers to justice, but rather to bring justice to the people so that peace and wellbeing can be experienced by people in community. Ekdikesin, vindication, was for the victims of injustice, to bring empowerment, and to attempt a resolution of brokenness. Judgment was not simply for revenge or for retribution for the offender. Disconnecting the victim from the process and focusing primarily on prosecution and punishment of the offender just does not bring shalom, it rather destroys the social fabric, forgetting also that both the offender and victim are one of us.
In Hebrew society under Mosaic Law, justice was to be achieved by talking out differences and achieving mishpat, judgment “at the gate”; the goals would be searching for solutions and reconciliation. Bianchi (1985) suggests that justice as law was a measure to judge whether the solutions and responses actually achieved their purpose, namely shalom. Severity and cruelty in judgment did happen, such as stoning’s etc., but the O.T. laws of jubilee, and New Testament gospels revealing Jesus’ nullification of the old ritual purity code and the reciprocity code (retaliation as justice), indicate that Revelation in the history of redemption moves forward and is fulfilled, and continues to be fulfilled, in Christ, in historical reality. Lewis Smedes (1970) exclaims that a new situation has been realized in Christ, in history: “…by his resurrection He established a new pattern of life and a new order of history that is under His rule of love and grace (p.208). Christ’s victory on the cross makes public justice possible because the absolute control of the principalities and powers have been radically diminished, states Smedes (1970). Smedes recognizes that a ”cosmic coup d’état” has taken place in the atonement, opening the possibility for the work of justice in addressing structural oppression and injustice and working for shalom in our communities and nations (p.34). Smedes notes that situation Christologies acknowledge the chief actors in the drama of redemption on the cross as being Jesus Christ and the principalities and powers, or Satan; not just God the father and His son Jesus Christ, as with Transaction theories. “Transaction Christologies emphasize that Christ radically changed the personal relationship between God and man. Situation Christologies stress that Christ radically changed the historical situation in which men [sic] live (Smedes, p 30-31).
In this new historical cosmic situation of Christ’s Lordship, the sense of inclusion of all previously errant, foreign, and unclean and marginalized, and of our endangered creation, would be unthinkable by Jew and Roman alike; it challenged the apostles and followers of the Way to discover new ways to live together pluralistically, culturally, ethnically, and justly, in grace and love. Such a continual searching for for shalom is still necessary in all areas of our lives today; this is tsedeka. Paul’s revelation of Christ’s mystery hidden for ages can be said to be the revelation of God’s gracious redemptive disposition and justice extended to all people, nations, and genders. Restorative justice would more closely follow as a model akin to tsedeka justice, in the wake of Christ’s victory, and in the mandate of a ministry of reconciliation given to us (II Cor. 5:16-21) as we address wrongs, conflicts, and crime. God’s gracious inclusive justice was astounding in the times the scriptures, and it still is today in Christ. Justice was not, and is not, a prosecutorial justice demanding punishment of the guilty (which is all humanity anyway) for deterrence and crime control. God’s just holiness is wise, loving, forgiving and “down to earth.” His ministry entrusted to us is one, not of war, but of reconciliation, and any act of judgment and justice must serve reconciliation and wholeness (shalom) for the good of the neighbour, for the common good; for “eunomie, not, anomie,” (Bianchi, 1985).
Works Cited
Bianchi, H. (1984). A Biblical Vision of Justice. Occaisional Papers of the MCC Canada VictimOffender Ministries Program, 1-9.
Bianchi, H. (1985). Gerechtigheid als vrijplaats. Baarn: Ten Have bv.
Bianchi, H. (Sept. 1988). Returning Conflict to the Community. Tsedeka Justice Volume One, 1-12.
Elliott, E. M. (2011). Security with care. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
Smedes, L. B. (1970). All Things Made New. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Wolterstorff, N. (2011). Justice in love. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Company.
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