What comes to mind when you think of social justice? Is it human trafficking, racial prejudice, healthcare, or even Immigration reform?

Social justice is a trendy and vital topic, but it’s often a hotly debated one as well. Justice is a word that many people use, but very few define. Consequently, people will use one word with completely different meanings, and yet think they are speaking the same language.

Before we can think rightly about “social justice”, we must first understand biblical justice. How does the Bible define justice?

This course is designed to help bring clarity to the biblical notion of justice, as well as it’s social manifestation.

Each section of this course is designed to build upon the previous section. Proceed through the course by engaging with the content (video, audio, questions) and reading the course materials. Once you have finished, share the course with your comments about what you found helpful.

“Justice” and “righteousness” are words used throughout the Old Testament that occur within the same semantic domain, and occur in relation to God, people, and society. The terms “justice” or “judgment” are often translated from Mish-pat (מִשְׁפָּט), which occurs 425 times in the Old Testament. Mishpat carries the nuance of being used most often in judicial settings, such as civil disputes in Israelite society.

The terms “righteousness”, “justice”, and “innocence” are often translated from the Hebrew words Ze-dek (צֶ֫דֶק) and its cousin, Ze-da-kah (צְדָקָה), which together occur 283 times throughout the Old Testament. These nouns carry the nuance of being used most often to describe something that reflects an accepted standard, like God’s law.

Take a moment to read this excerpt from an article by Tim Keller that we will be using throughout this course. It will expound upon the significance of these terms, how they are used, and why it matters for us today.

Reflection Questions:

1. Have you ever studied the categories of Justice and Righteousness through the Old Testament? What did you think these terms meant before this session?
2. How should one apply these concepts in the Church era?
3. What is the relationship between the gospel and justice?

Now, let’s move in the next two sessions to look at a brief biblical theology of ministry to the poor, beginning with the Old Testament.

So far, we have looked at word studies and a short biblical theology of the concept of justice as it relates to the social realm. But what about one of the biggest justice categories in the Bible, justification through faith? The doctrine of Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone has been arguably the central Christian tenant since the Reformation.

It is no secret, as Tim Keller observes in the video you are about to watch, that people who are really into justification tend to be quite nervous about justice. And people who are really into justice tend to shy away from justification. It’s rare to find people combining both justification and justice.

In this video, Keller will discuss how and why justification through faith and justice in our world should never be separated.

• How does Keller define justification? What does he say this has to do with justice?
• Luther says, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” What types of acts flow from a heart that has been saved by faith?
• To which side do you lean—justification or justice? Why? On what truths and promises of God do you need to meditate in order to be more balanced?

In the image of the triune God, we were made with expansive hearts to be in relationship with God and one another. As Jonathan Edwards writes,

Before, and as God created [man], he was exalted, and noble, and generous.

His original design for us was self-giving, not self-serving. It was justice, not injustice. In the fall, however, we embraced injustice. We sought our own and blamed others.  

Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness and expandedness, to an exceeding smallness and contractedness.

Adam said, “Don’t blame me; blame her.” And Eve said, “Don’t blame me; blame the serpent.” (Gen. 3:8-13)

Our gracious God, though, has not left us alone. In Jesus, justice and order are redeemed. On the cross, justice and mercy kiss (Ps. 85:10) for God put to death the dividing wall of hostility between both man and God, and man and man (Eph. 2:11-11). And we are now called to live in light of our justification, even as we await ultimate justice from the One who is both the just and the justifer of those who have faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). Until then, the best we can pursue is proximate justice.

When you understand the biblical categories of justice and mercy, and the overall emphasis placed on these categories in Scripture, then the question becomes how you translate these things into ministry. At TGC, we have attempted to distill our understanding of justice and mercy as they are manifested into ministry through the following statement taken from our Theological Vision for Ministry document.

God created both soul and body, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both the spiritual and the material. Therefore God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice. The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust. Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away. Those who receive his salvation are not the strong and accomplished but those who admit they are weak and lost. We cannot look at the poor and the oppressed and callously call them to pull themselves out of their own difficulty. Jesus did not treat us that way. The gospel replaces superiority toward the poor with mercy and compassion. Christian churches must work for justice and peace in their neighborhoods through service even as they call individuals to conversion and the new birth. We must work for the eternal and common good and show our neighbors we love them sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not. Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace.

Justice is not just policies and theories. It’s people and families, too. Yes, we need to advocate for just systems in the public square and in government, but seeking justice must also be personal. For we cannot have true justice unless we remember that each person is made in the image of God.

Meet Kunthy and Chanda. They were sold by their mothers to human traffickers, who held them in a brothel and brought men in as customers to evaluate them for sexual exploitation. The traffickers escaped the force of the law because they bribed those in power to look the other way.

Human trafficking is a $32 billion a year industry—that’s $7 billion more than McDonald’s typically makes in a year. Today over 20 million people, 26% of which are children, are in slavery. This is injustice.

And Kunthy and Chanda give a face to injustice.

• What is injustice?
• What is justice? What did it look like in the lives of Kunthy and Chanda?
• Who are the people in your life that give you a face of injustice? Can you name them? How might you be a part of bringing justice to their situations?

We know that the Psalmists understood injustice because one-third of the Psalter consists of songs of lament, expressing deep sorrow for both individual and corporate suffering and a longing for God’s blessing and intervention.

In a broken world, lament is not something we avoid, as if injustice might go away if we just ignored it. On the contrary, lament is a gift. As Bethany Hoang writes in The Justice Calling:

Lament is a gift. In the midst of everything going wrong around us—whether in the world at large or in the lives of people whose names and faces we know and hold dear—lament is a gift given to help us hold fast to God. God invites lament because he knows our temptation to turn away rather than toward him in the heat of hardship (p. 104-105).

In order to lament, though, we must first listen to those who are victims of injustice. For although the obligation of justice call us to action, its twin obligation of empathy calls us to draw near to one another, just as Christ drew near to us. He did not wait for us to listen to him before he became incarnate. He initiated and put himself in our shoes.

This is how we humble ourselves to listen to those who are victims of injustice. This is how we live, as Jonathan Leeman says, “according to love, not self-seeking power.”

• In what ways does the gospel call us to sympathize with another’s pain?
• How does injustice threaten our communities and churches?
• Can you think of a someone in your life who has experienced, or is experiencing, pain as a result of an unjust situation in his or her life? Have you listened to him or her tell you about it? How can you love him or her in this situation?

What comes to mind when you think of social justice? Human trafficking? Racial prejudice? Heathcare? Immigration reform?

Social justice is a trendy and vital topic, but it’s often blurry, too.

One thing we know it’s not is a social gospel. By advocating for social justice, we’re not advocating for a social gospel. A social gospel is a false gospel that says we’re saved through our good works of justice, that personal holiness and evangelism don’t matter.

Social justice, on the other hand, is tied to personal holiness. For as we saw in our first class, Justifying Faith Leads to Justice, righteousness and justice are inextricably linked in the heart of God. As David Platt says, “A robust commitment to the gospel and the Great Commission will inevitably lead to encounters with the impoverished, the orphaned, and so forth.”

• How can the worship service itself point to justice?
• As you consider your own church’s weekly worship service, how might it propel you to both recognize injustice and work towards justice in your own life?
• Where do you see injustice in your vocation—whether as a church leader, a businessperson, a doctor, a stay-at-home mom, or even a citizen of your community? How might you be a part of speaking into that injustice?

As we live in hope of Christ’s return to fully and finally set all things right, how do we become a people who witness to persevering hope in the face of real injustices in our world? How do we hold fast to hope for victims of injustice who wait to be rescued? And what about those who perpetrate injustice? What is our hope for all who commit horrors of abuse in this world?

All of creation is aching and groaning for redemption, for justice that not only protects victims from violence and holds criminals responsible for their crimes, but also for justice that stretches all the way to the final fulfillment of shalom—to the redemption and reconciliation of even the most vile evil (and human perpetrators of evil) known to our world. No sin, no brokenness, and no brutality is beyond God’s love and the power of the ultimate restoration and culmination of his glory in the age to come.

Yet facing and fighting the daily reality of injustice, even as we long for all things to be made new in the coming of Jesus Christ, is hard. How do we persevere in hope?

We must remember that justice has a source, and that source is not dependent on what we have or don’t have in our hands, or on our good but faulty intentions. The source of justice in the midst of even the most heinous injustice in our world is Jesus Christ. God’s very character is one of justice, and Jesus is the manifestation of his justice both now and for eternity. God is the one who reveals the justice calling upon our lives, because God is the source of justice.

Therefore, even as we fight to push back injustice in our lives and to shine the light of justice, we remember what David told Goliath, and what the Lord told Jehosaphat: “The battle is not yours, but God’s.” We do God’s will, but he is the One who makes our work effective. The battle belongs to the Lord.

• When you see injustice in your community or in the world, and you’re powerless to do anything about it, how do you feel?
• How might knowing that God is the source of justice help you persevere in your work for justice?
• What promises of Scripture can help you know more about God’s justice in a way that can give you an increasing, persevering hope?