“Then the LORD spoke his word to Zechariah. He said, ‘This is what the LORD of Armies says: Administer real justice, and be compassionate and kind to each other. Don't oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and poor people. And don't even think of doing evil to each other.” (Zechariah 7:8-10) “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory.” (Matthew 12:18-20 – NIV)
No concept of retributive justice can possibly be compatible with forgiveness. Where there is punishment, there is no forgiveness. Where there is forgiveness, there can be no punishment.
Justice, in order to be just, must always take into account every mitigation and extenuation: “He remembers that we are but dust,” the Psalmist says.
Moreover, “justice” includes giving rewards and restoring things to rightful owners. Justice with mercy includes giving what a person actually needs rather than only what they merit. There is a reason why Paul, referring to “sin,” uses the concept την αμαρτία, rather than την ενοχή, την ανομία, or το σπάσιμο του νόμου. Sin means to miss the mark, fall short of the goal, and the goal is unity with God. Alienation, not “breaking laws,” is our real problem. Even a virtue can be a sin (`αμαρτία) if it causes an alienation between us and God. Not only the idea of retributive justice, but the idea of redemption through “substitutionary sacrfice” negates every concept of forgiveness. Nevertheless, salvation comes through forgiveness.
“Redemption” does not consist in a human sacrifice offered 2000 years ago. The teaching of “substitutionary sacrifice” requires a tedious construction of legal fiction, subjects God to some immutable law of the universe regarding “justice,” and pays little heed to the role mankind plays in his own salvation.
Redemption is an ontological process, not an historical execution understood as a juridical payment to an all too human "god."
The Orthodox concept of redemption may be briefly epitomized as follows: while "atonement" is not an Orthodox Christian term or expression, we may look at its actual meaning. "Atonement" is really "to remove (or overcome) the cause of separation." In other words, man is separated from God, which is the actual meaning of the word "sin" (that is, by his constant "missing of the mark"), and so he is in bondage to death (because he is separated from the only Source of life, not because God punishes man with death). Since man sins continually because of the power of death, sin separates man from God and death perpetuates the separation (and vice versa). By death, we fall short (again, by "missing the mark"—sin) of our original destiny, which is to live through unity with the Creator.
The following summary of the Orthodox teaching about redemption is drawn from works by Fr John Romanides:
Christ saves men, who have fallen through their own fault into the power of the devil, by breaking that power. He became Man for this purpose; He lived and died and rose again that He might break the chains by which men were bound. It is not His death alone, but the entire Incarnation, of which His death was a necessary part, that freed men from their captivity to Satan. By becoming Man, living a sinless life, and rising from the dead (which He could not have done unless He had first died), He introduced a new power into human nature. This power is bestowed on all men who are willing to receive it, through the Holy Spirit. Those who receive it are united with Christ in His Mystical Body, the Church; the corrupted human nature (the bad habits and evil desires, which St Paul calls "the old man": Rm.6:6; Eph.4: 22; Col.3:9) is driven out by degrees, until at last it is expelled altogether, and the redeemed person becomes entirely obedient to the will of God, as our Lord Himself was when on earth. The prisoner is set free from the inside; his mind and body are both changed; he comes to know what freedom is, to desire it and, by the Holy Spirit working within him, to break his chains, turn the key and leave the dungeon. Thus, he is freed from the power of sin. God forgives him, as an act of pure love; but the condition of his forgiveness is that he must sin no more. "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rm.5:8-9) but, if we continue to be sinners, Christ's death for us will have been in vain; and we are made capable of ceasing to be sinners by the power of Christ's Resurrection, which has given us the power to struggle against sinfulness, toward moral perfection.
The advantage of this Orthodox teaching is that it is firmly based on the New Testament. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2Cor.5:19); the act of reconciliation is effected by God in the Person of His Son, for it is man that needs to be reconciled to God, not God that needs to be reconciled to man. Throughout the New Testament we find the proclamation that Christ has broken the power of the devil, to which mankind was subject (see Lk.10: 17-18); 11:22; 1Cor.15:25; Gal.1:4; Col.2:15; 2Tm.1:10; Hb.2:14; Jn.10:11; 12:31; 16:11; 1Jn.3:8; and frequently in Rev.). Moreover, this teaching of the atonement requires no "legal fiction" and attributes no immoral or unrighteous action to God. Man is not made suddenly good or treated as good when he is not good [the classical Protestant delusion]; he is forgiven not because he deserves to be forgiven, but because God loves him, and he is made fit for union with God by God's own power, his own will co-operating. He is saved from the power of sin by the risen life of Christ within him, and from the guilt of sin by God's forgiveness, of which his own repentance is a condition.
Thus, salvation consists in the union of the faithful with the life of God in the Body of Christ (the Holy Church) where the Evil-One is being progressively and really destroyed in the life of co-suffering love. This union is effected by Baptism (the Grace of regeneration) and fulfilled in the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, and in the mutual, cooperative struggle of Orthodox Christians against the power and influence of the Evil-One. This is precisely why the last words of the "Lord's Prayer" are, "deliver us from the Evil-One," and not "deliver us from evil."
“Justice with mercy includes giving what a person actually needs rather than only what they merit.”
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve never thought about the connection between shalom-building, justice and mercy quite like this. I bet that if I looked through Romans with this idea I would connect with Paul’s logic of Jesus as the justice of God.
Thanks so much. I’ll be chewing on this in my context for a while.
Darnell
darnellbarkman.com