Justice and Love are One

Is God bound to punish sin? If the answer was yes, then forgiveness would be impossible. Then justice and mercy would be opposed to each other, generating a schism within the Godhead. The idea that God wants to forgive, but cannot since He is just, is a direct attack on God’s omnipotence.

We think a person deserves punishment for the sake of justice. Why is punishment the only right option? When we forgive rather than punish, we do nothing wrong. When we punish however, amends are not made for a person's wrongdoing. Punishment satisfies the wrath of the punisher, but it doesn’t make right what was done wrong. Therefore it is not for the sake of punishment that God punishes, but for the sake of restoration.

Turning the other cheek for example is unjust if we understand justice in terms of retribution, but it’s supremely just if we understand justice as the overcoming of evil with the good.

The Western view of justice

Western theology teaches that our real danger and enemy is God. Salvation is somehow to be “saved from god”. And in order to be saved from this god people become atheists, and understandably so. Who wants a god you need to be saved from?

Atheism is the rejection, not of God, but of the evil god. The West's juridical concept of God, this warped perception of God’s justice, was nothing but a projection of human passions on theology. A return to the pagan way of humanizing God.

This "justice" punishes and demands satisfaction. And so Christ’s love and sacrifice lost its significance and logic in this schizoid notion of a God who kills God in order to satisfy the so-called justice of God.

According to this ‘juridical conception’ of God’s justice, God could not simply pardon, but a superior necessity demanded vengeance.

Even if God was in reality good and loving, He was held back from acting accordingly. He had to act contrary to His love. In order to save humanity, He had to punish His Son in the place of men, and in doing so, “God’s justice” was supposedly satisfied.

Justice and Love are One

This is a warped understanding of God’s justice. Human justice rewards the good and punishes the bad. But God's justice [tsedaka], is the 'divine energy which accomplishes man’s salvation'. It is the justice that "makes things right". It is parallel and almost synonymous to the other Hebraic word, 'hesed' which means “mercy”, “compassion”, and “love”. Punishment does not make things right, thus punishment is not justice.

God is just because he always acts in service to the good. Thus Justice and Love are one. God is just and therefore Justice is Love, for God is Love and Love is the fulfilling of the Law. He is not two-faced as some claim: “God is love, but he is also just; God is love, but he is also angry.” No, God can show wrath, but God is not Wrath. Rather God’s wrath is an extension of Love. His justice is an extension of Love. Therefore was the justice that God brought to the gentiles (Isa. 42:1-7) salvific and not retributive. It restored sight to the blind and liberated the prisoners.

The cross reveals God’s justice

People think God renders justice in proportion to what a person deserves. Origen once said, “they think that it is just to do evil to the evil and good to the good, that, according to their view, one who is just does not appear to wish good for the evil, but to bear a kind of hatred against them.”

He also said: “The just and good God is one and the same, and he does good with justice and punishes with goodness; since neither goodness without justice, nor justice without goodness, can convey the dignity of the divine nature. If the just is different from the good, then, since the wicked is the opposite of the good and the unjust of the just, the unjust will doubtless be something other than wicked; and since, according to you, the just is not good, so neither will the unjust be wicked; and, in turn, as the good is not just, so the wicked will not be unjust.”

With other words: If we want evil for the evil one, we are evil ourselves. The same is true for God. Because God is just, He wants good for the evil one -– He saves the evil one from his evil. If he doesn't save, then evil and sin remains. But God’s justice won’t allow that. He is just, He makes things right.

The cross shows us how far God would go to extend forgiveness. Hence He rightfully earned His judgment seat, but His verdict is restorative justice.

God was not in Caiaphas needing a scapegoat to take the blame. God was not in Pilate requiring an execution to satisfy justice. God was not in the religious leaders to assuage wrath. God was not in the Roman soldiers torturing Jesus. God was in Christ reconciling the world, not counting their sins.

This seems unfair and unjust. A just God should count our sins. Forgiveness should be deserved. But God is greater than that. He doesn’t have to pay off a god higher than himself called “justice”. He freely forgives.