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"The Justice and Righteousness of God"
Many polls have shown that an overwhelming percentage of the American public believes in God. But what sort of God? If the average American believer is asked to describe God, he or she will almost certainly say that God is “loving.” God is also commonly described as compassionate, welcoming, forgiving, accepting, merciful, and inclusive. Very few white Americans will volunteer that “God is just.”

African-American Christians are much more likely to speak of a just God because their forebears were slaves, and because they still experience injustice at many levels of our society. Poor and marginalized people all over the globe do not have leisure to watch television programs discussing injustice; they know about it first hand. Therefore the news that God is just means a great deal to them.

It is a different story with comfortable middle-class American Christians, who are not much interested in hearing about the righteous judgment of God. The whole idea of judgment sounds cold and forbidding to us. If we use the word “judgmental” to describe someone, it’s not a compliment. It’s characteristic of us to say that people should be able to do whatever they want to do. We don’t really mean that, of course—we all have limits as to what we can tolerate—but our cultural resistance to the idea of God as a righteous Judge is very strong.

Now, this resistance has a lot to do with the common tendency to divide the Old Testament from the New. Churchgoing people frequently speak of the “judgmental God of the Old Testament” and the “loving God” of the New Testament. This is not only ignorant, it’s dangerous, because it can lead to forms of anti-Judaism.

Let’s take another look. I heard a preacher on the radio say that the New Testament tells us almost nothing about what went on in the mind of Jesus. That got my attention, because it’s true. Then he said a very striking thing. He said, “If you want to know what went on in the mind of Jesus, read the Old Testament, read the Hebrew Scriptures.” That is a dazzlingly simple way of stating the matter. We tend to forget that what we call the Old Testament was the only Bible that Jesus and the first Christians had. Not only so, but those Hebrew Scriptures were known to them by heart in a fashion today that we can scarcely imagine. There are many things that we don’t know about Jesus, but we can be certain of this: his whole being was shaped by intimate, continuous interaction with the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets and the other Scriptures of Israel.

In those Hebrew Scriptures, there are a few ideas that predominate, and of these themes, there is none more central than that of the justice of God, also called his righteousness. God is righteous, just, holy: these words are used interchangeably with his name. The prophet Isaiah says, “The Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.” Wherever justice is administered, the Lord himself is present: When the king appointed judges in Israel, this is what he said to them: ‘Consider what you do, for the Lord is with you in giving judgment. Let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed what you do, for there is no perversion of justice with the Lord our God, no partiality, no taking bribes.’”

The administration of justice brings a person, or a people, close to the very heart of God. Through his prophet Jeremiah, God says: “For if you truly...execute justice...if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell...in the land that I gave of old to your fathers for ever.” One of the best-known passages in the Old Testament reminds us that justice is an indispensable aspect of a godly life. The prophet Micah: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Notice how in this famous text, justice and mercy are brought together as equals with no suggestion that they are contradictory.

And here is the point: justice and mercy are two foundational aspects of God’s character. Working out the relation between the two is an essential task for Jews as well as Christians. In our own time this has become a particularly pressing imperative as we debate the international codes of justice. There is a widespread impression in America that Christian forgiveness cancels out justice, but this is shallow. Forgiveness is not as simple as is often suggested; it’s a complex and demanding matter. Non-Christians can see this readily in the case of extreme crimes or terrible suffering, if Christians speak too quickly and too glibly about forgiveness. For instance, there was a great deal of criticism when those Columbine High School teenagers who were members of a Christian fellowship were asked by their leaders to forgive the killers only a few hours after the horrific episode happened.

The question of forgiveness really should not be discussed apart from the question of justice. When a terrible wrong has been committed and an apology is offered, the person or persons who have wronged may be justified in feeling that too much is being asked of them. If the impression is given that the wronged parties are simply supposed to “forgive and forget,” the wrong will linger under the surface and cause further harm. Forgiving is hard work. It takes time, and involves pain.

Many people believe that forgiveness in and of itself is the essence of Christianity, but this is not the case. Forgiveness must be understood in its relationship to the righteousness of God. The place to look for this is in the letters of the apostle Paul. It is significant that Paul virtually never uses the word forgiveness. He focuses on what God has done, and his word for what God does is not forgiveness but justification. That is to say, God makes right what is wrong. This is a reinterpretation of the Old Testament witness to the righteousness of God. Let me restate that: in our world, something is terribly wrong and must be put right. If injustice does not make our blood boil at some point, we have not yet understood God. It depends, though, on what outrages us. To be outraged on behalf of oneself or one’s own group is to be human, but it is not to participate in Christ. To be outraged on behalf of the defenseless and the oppressed, however, that is to do the work of God.

Paul, the Apostle, recast the whole concept of righteousness and justice in light of the Cross of Christ. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was the chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, summarizes the matter this way. He said: “Forgiveness is not cheap. It is not facile. It is costly. Reconciliation is not an easy option. It cost God the death of his Son.”

In the Cross we see how justice and mercy come together in the being of God. The Judge of all things has put himself in the place of those who are guilty. In doing this, he has not simply declared a general amnesty. The mystery of the Crucifixion is this: in Christ, God is giving himself up to utmost degradation in order to reorient the world to himself and to declare that all things will be made right in the Kingdom of God.

Conversation with Fleming Rutledge

Daniel Pawlus: Fleming, thank for sharing that provocative and challenging message with us.

Fleming Rutledge: It’s a pleasure.

Pawlus: I thought we’d perhaps start with your differentiation between a judgmental God and a loving God. I found it fascinating. Growing up I had a very strong relationship with my grandmother who shared with me in her Catholic upbringing how she felt the church has come a ways in opening itself up in more of a loving way than more of a judgmental way, and that was intriguing and a sign of growth to her. What do you feel about that?

Rutledge: Undoubtedly, she had an experience of church in which the judgment of God had overbalanced the mercy of God. And that’s the problem. Today we tend to hear almost exclusively about the love and mercy of God and very little about his judgment, at least in the white churches. Or if, unless we are fighting a war in which God is cast in the role of judging our enemies, which is dangerous because then we think that God is not judging us but only our enemies. But your grandmother undoubtedly—and isn’t it wonderful? Never underestimate the role of a grandmother, being a grandmother myself!—had experienced something very important. She had recognized that an over emphasis on God as a judge who is frightening and who is watching every single thing you do, grading you, counting up your sins and your mistakes and your faults, is a terrible way for people to hear the Gospel.

Lydia Talbot: Isn’t that kind of the Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” motif? But let me ask you, you say in your message, Fleming, that to be outraged on behalf of the vulnerable, the oppressed, the defenseless, is to do the work of God.

Rutledge: Yes.

Talbot: I want to know what makes your blood boil these days.

Rutledge: Oh, Lord! What makes my blood boil? The fact that we have secret prisons. The fact that we are not offering habeas corpus to those who we deem beyond our standards. The fact that the American government—I’m almost incoherent!—is doing these things is inconceivable to many. We never thought we would live to see a time when America would torture prisoners. And the whole idea of making a distinction between those who are worthy to be called prisoners of war and those who are not worthy to be called prisoners of war has led us into the position of imprisoning, for years at times, people who are clearly not guilty but who have had not opportunity to prove that they are not guilty. I have a number of friends whose blood is boiling about this.

Talbot: And so “The Crucifixion,” your next book that you’re working on, connecting the Crucifixion with today’s culture. Say more about that and how it speaks to injustice.

Rutledge: Well, it’s this very strange thing, because the crucifixion is the last thing we would think of as the center of a religious idea, a crucified God, a person who is publically tortured to death. In this way, Jesus has put himself in the place of those who are tortured to death without regard to whether they are guilty or not. Jesus himself was utterly innocent and therefore he stands in the place of those who torture the innocent and therefore he is not only representing victims but also perpetrators. This is the thing about Christianity that is so different. The distinction between victims and perpetrators is broken down in Christ. And that’s why it’s so important, from a Christian point of view, for us not to make alternate distinctions between our enemies and our friends.

Pawlus: I wanted you to speak a little bit about forgiveness. You positioned that very interestingly, too. It isn’t easy but it’s absolutely necessary, isn’t it, for us to practice that and to do the work that’s required?

Rutledge: It is the unique Christian characteristic. But I just want to emphasize, obviously, that it is not easy, that it sometimes takes years, and that it must be combined with this passion that things should be made right. It should not be papered over. The injustice, the crime, the wickedness, the suffering should never be papered over. There should never be this sort of “forgive and forget” or “let’s put this behind us.” It’s very dangerous.

Talbot: And as you say it should never be discussed without, or apart from, justice.

Rutledge: Absolutely.

Talbot: Fleming Rutledge, thank you so much.
     

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