He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8[1]
Justice for all! This statement is a great sound bite but little more than that. Indeed, as it is used today, it is superfluous on the surface and vacuous once a brief examination is undertaken. However, given that Americans have been conditioned to respond to sound bite journalism and half-truths and worse masquerading as fact-based news, this mantra has become a dangerous, misleading, and effective tactic utilized by those bent on destroying Israel, in part by undermining American support for it.
The recent action by the South African government in filing a legal proceeding with the International Court of Justice against Israel, accusing it of violating the Genocide Convention agreement, is one example of the upside-down world in which we live. I admire the detailed response by Tal Becker, legal advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his opening statement on January 12, 2024, he called the character of the government of South Africa into question. He said in part:
But, as this Court has already made clear, the Genocide Convention was not designed to address the brutal impact of intensive hostilities on the civilian population, even when the use of force raises “very serious issues of international law” and involves “enormous suffering” and “continuing loss of life”. The Convention was set apart to address a malevolent crime of the most exceptional severity.
We live at a time when words are cheap. In an age of social media and identity politics, the temptation to reach for the most outrageous term, to vilify and demonize, has become for many irresistible. But if there is one place where words should still matter, where truth should still matter, it is surely a court of law.
The Applicant has regrettably put before the Court a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture. The entirety of its case hinges on a deliberately curated, decontextualized and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities.
South Africa purports to come to this Court in the lofty position of a guardian of the interest of humanity. But in delegitimizing Israel’s 75-year existence in its opening presentation, that broad commitment to humanity rang hollow. And in its sweeping counter-factual description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it seemed to erase both Jewish history and any Palestinian agency or responsibility. Indeed, the Application delegitimization of Israel since its very establishment in 1948 in its submissions, sounded barely distinguishable from Hamas’s own rejectionist rhetoric.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that in the Applicant’s telling, both Hamas’s responsibility for the situation in Gaza and the very humanity of its Israeli victims are removed from view.[2]
For justice to be realized by all, at least two things are necessary foundationally: there must be a standard or system of justice available to all that is objective, that is, it is beyond the frailties and double mindedness of man, and all parties interested in justice for all must recognize this objective standard as the guiding principles for determining when justice has been exhibited. In other words, there must be law and the rule of law must prevail over all well-intentioned and/or misguided arguments based on emotions, feelings, or the ideology-du-jour of the day.
In order for true justice to prevail and guide any people in their shared lives, justice must be impartial, proportionally related to behavior so that each individual receives his or her due, whether that due is reward or punishment. This must be in accord with the objective standard agreed upon as the guiding principles mentioned above.
America was founded upon Christian principles. Therefore, God’s moral law has undergirded the guiding principles of this republic even before the American Revolution. The Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of English settlers to America makes this clear. The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights follow suite in recognizing the God of the Christian Bible as Creator, Sustainer, Lord, and Law Giver. His immutable and timeless law is recognized as the foundation for America’s laws.
John Locke said, “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.” President John F. Kennedy recognized that truth when he stated during his inaugural address that: “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” Sir William Blackstone, the acclaimed English jurist and scholar of jurisprudence, wrote that:
“Man … must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator…This will of his Maker is called the law of nature…This law of nature…is of course superior to any other…No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force…from this original.”[3]
Additionally, justice has many different applications and therefore must be understood within several different contexts, among them: commercial, vindictive, retributive, punitive, and remedial justice.[4] Commercial justice defines voluntary relationships, while vindictive, retributive, punitive, and remedial justice defines involuntary relationships. Theologian and Philosopher E. Calvin Beisner, offers this explanation:
Commercial justice requires that if we desire what another has, we must offer something he prefers in exchange for it, not acquire it by force or fraud – whether directly (picking his pocket) or indirectly (using a law to take from him and give to ourselves or others). Violations of commercial justice by fraud, theft, or violence bring punitive and vindictive justice into play as correctives.
When one person violates another’s rights (which are defined by justice), the injury is to be redressed by vindictive, retributive, and punitive justice. Vindictive justice judges the victim right in his cause (1 Kings 8:32; Deuteronomy 25:1). Retributive justice (from the Latin re, or “back,” and tribuere, “to pay”) requires the offender to restore the victim to his status before the offense (Exodus 22:1-15). Punitive justice applies a penalty to the offender as punishment for violating the law (Romans 13:4). In crimes against property (theft or destruction), punitive and retributive justice combine in the offender’s restoring what was taken or destroyed (retribution, also called restitution) plus some additional amount (punishment).
Sometimes someone harms another accidently. Then, remedial justice requires the one who caused the harm to share the cost equally with the victim (Exodus 21:35) but adds no penalty. But if he is negligent, he must be punished by bearing the whole loss (Exodus 21:33-34, 36), restoring the victim fully to his former state at his own expense.[5]
In the current climate of identity politics, gender dysphoria, and Marxian and Critical Theories run amok, these requirements for justice appear to be out of reach. That leaves us with a bare-naked power grab by certain people, or cast in Darwinian terms, a fight for the survival of the strongest, where might makes right. In America today that means political power financed by globalists who espouse anti-American ideologies. The ability to force people to comply against their wishes and of the common good has defined tyranny throughout the ages. Sadly, much of the American Protestant church has been deceived and is supporting the multi-pronged Luciferian lunacy of the leftists and other assorted God haters.
Instead of giving up and giving in to the wickedness of our day, a better approach would be to educate ourselves and others in the methodologies and strategies of the enemies of God and then begin to broadly denounce this present darkness for what it is – a direct attack against God. Mankind has consistently done a very poor job of administering justice when the laws used to determine justice are constructed on the shifting sand of rogue philosophies and the subsequent politics that pander to tyrannical lusts. The fight is on. You must join the fray or watch America and her allies die a slow painful death.
Dr. Mike Spaulding
Pastor, Calvary Chapel of Lima
[1] All Bible references are taken from The New American Standard translation (Lockman Foundation, 1995).
[2] Jewish News Syndicate, International Court of Justice Opening Statement On Behalf of Israel, January 12, 2024. https://www.jns.org/international-court-of-justice-opening-statement-on-behalf-of-israel/
[3] See https://nccs.net/blogs/our-ageless-constitution/natural-law-the-ultimate-source-of-constitutional-law
[4] See E. Calvin Beisner, Social Justice vs. Biblical Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel, Good Tree Press, 2018.
[5] Beisner, p. 24-25.
Image Courtesy of Sang Hyun Cho from Pixabay
