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Relational
Justice - 2
Under
Assault: The Just Nature of God
Unlike any time before us, an overwhelming assault is being mounted on the Just nature of God. This assault is not only by the world without but is found within the heart of the church. It is occurring at all levels of human society, among every operation of God’s people, and is coming in many forms. In fact, we are so overwhelmed by it that I do not think we can really grasp its magnitude.The assault on God’s Just nature by society is obvious to the church. Not only is injustice tolerated and encouraged between men (courts are about legality, not justice), but the perception of God as a deity of justice is itself under daily attack, as are any who openly advocate that God is primarily an authoritative God of justice.
But the heart of this assault is not found in the society. It is found in the church itself. This is where the core attack is. At the center of this attack is the redefinition of God’s Love so as to effectively obliterate any concept of His justice. This redefinition is manifesting both doctrinally and practically.
Doctrinal Anti-JusticeDoctrinally, the Scriptures clearly present God as a fundamentally Just God who is motivated by Love toward men to deliver them from the consequences of living in violation of His justice. This means His Love is parametered by His Justice. God’s Love is to the standard of His Justice. God’s mercy and forgiveness—the evidences of His love—derive their meaning from the fact that His justice is the final unalterable reference point for His actions. They are not their own standard.
Again, God’s nature as Love is ultimately referenced and subject to God’s Just nature. When the Bible tells us that God’s love (mercy) “triumphs over judgment,” it specifically means that His Love has found a Just way to circumvent the consequences of violating Justice. (We should remember that Christ’s Love for us was all about satisfying the demands of God’s Justice.) In this, God’s Justice remains the referencing attribute for defining His Love.
But the church of the “third day”—the evangelical prophetic Spirit-filled church—now doctrinally pits God’s Love against His Justice. Based on John’s word that “God is love,” the church isolates God’s Love from His Justice, then, making Love to be God’s one all-embracing self-defined attribute, subordinates Justice to Love, then by this uses Love to effectively deny His Justice. We are taught that God’s Love “has no bounds” and is “unconditional” (translated—has no definition outside of itself) and that “Love triumphs over Justice.”
The forms of this aberrant doctrine are many. It shows up in the removing from the gospel our sense of accountability for sin (the fear of the Lord), the warning of hell and our need for repentance. It shows up through the constant one-sided drumbeat that exalts God’s mercy and grace to no standard. And it appears through the gaining teaching that hell itself is but a temporary penal colony from which God is obligated by His Love to save all men—and the devil.
Anyone who is teaching these things is—wittingly or unwittingly—making of themselves an enemy of Christ and is contributing to establishing the man of lawlessness in the temple. Anyone whose teaching on love subordinates God’s Justice to His Love should be redemptively warned and then, if necessary, avoided.
Relational Non-justiceOn the practical side, God’s justice is effectively absent from relationship in the church. There is no sense of justice or its application in the body regarding interpersonal conflict. The same justice-less “love” behind today’s view of God also forms the basis of church relationships.
Just last month I heard a sermon by a well-known teacher about “unconditional forgiveness” calling all to simply bury every sense of offense and grievance over every and any issue. But like true love and mercy, true forgiveness can only take place on a platform of relational justice. (If you’ll notice, Jesus always presents forgiveness in a judicial context. Even His own forgiveness is based on a judicial cause—“for they know not what they do.”) But what prevails today instead is an unconditional grace and forgiveness that holds no one accountable for conduct in conflict.
This is especially true in “anointed” churches. The truth be known, relational injustice thrives under the anointing. With no way for recognizing (much less curing) relational injustice in anointed churches, transparent relationship through trust is replaced by shallow meaningless “hugs.” The corporate anointing serves as a mask for hidden unresolved hurt and grievance.
The elimination of God’s Just nature from our thinking and practice has made the church into a haven of relational lawlessness. Often this lawlessness peeks out through evil conduct. But in all cases, it manifests simply through “unglued” relationship—meaning, there is no glue for growing spiritual relationship through conflict. If offense arises, just bury it or walk away. But don’t deal with it.
Spirit-filled churches across a city appear to have many attendees. But the substance of relationship in the churches is vaporous. The numbers are deceiving because most such churches are just revolving doors for one another—all because there is no bar of enforceable cohesion. Wrongly or rightly, believers choose to leave a church because they don’t want subjection to relational justice, or they are forced to leave because they can’t find it. And it is on this platform of roving intra-city injustice that what passes for “citywide church unity” is built.
Where the church has no bar of relational justice, it has no true government. (When was the last time you heard of a case of church discipline in a prophetic church—other than for an absolutely horrific sin?) Today’s idea of church government is purely one of positional relationship based on anointing, but not on a relational justice that applies to all, including leaders.
Positional anointing-based leadership unsupported by relational justice is government without substance (or—as I often say—“emperors without clothes”). It’s the difference between “Sauline” and “Davidic” government. (Saul, remember, was anointed.)
Where Is Heaven on Earth?All of us are grieved with the plunging moral state of society around us. We are grieved by the public onslaught against our God. But think about it. If we’re the salt of the earth, and the earth is failing to be preserved, must it not be because we ourselves have failed as salt? If there is injustice in the earth, it can only be because the church has first failed at letting God establish His justice at the core of her own heart.
We are grieved over the lawless court decisions of men. But where are our own courts of justice to set an example for society? Where is the justice in our own halls or worship? All justice is about relational justice. A key hallmark of the church is supposed to be her ability to put the government of God on display! Government is about justice. As the Old Testament prophets repeatedly cry then, “Where is God’s justice in our own midst?”
You know, there is so much talk about the kingdom…”We are the kingdom…Our mandate is to bring the kingdom of God to earth”…. And so on.
Really? Well, where is it? What are we talking about? (A lot of this talk is by people who openly deny God’s nature as Judge to come.)
If our idea of the kingdom is nothing more than miraculous displays of the anointing and “love fests” that have no foundation in relational justice, then you can forget about “bringing the kingdom to earth.” Jesus was not just about miracles. He was about deliverance from sin and the establishment of a people who could adjudicate God’s righteousness through justice-based love in their own midst. It is by justice-based love that “all men might believe” that He truly is the King of the earth.
But we have proven utterly incapable of doing this. After our own “two-day” shot at living out the Lord’s mandate as the gentile church, all we have produced is lawlessness. All we are doing is setting up a many-membered man of sin in our temple. (Truly, we have all been concluded under unbelief, Jews and Gentiles alike.)
No wonder then the world is as it is. And though we like to think we have broken into passionate “holy of holies” worship in our conferences, let me tell you that when it comes to relational justice, we are in the outer courts—courts of non-justice that give the world only an excuse to blaspheme our gospel and do what it is doing to God’s Name.
Soon therefore—as salt good for nothing—we will be totally trampled under foot of this gentile world because of it. Do compare the prophetic significance of Matthew 5:13 and Revelation 11:1-2:
13 "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
1 I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers. 2 But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.
But Must It End This Way?
Despite the way things look—despite all the idiotic doctrines and the justice-less mess we live under as the church, we know that God’s justice will indeed come to all the earth. The prophets are emphatically clear about this:
Isa. 9:7 There will be no end to the increase of {His} government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.
42:1 " Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one {in whom} My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. 2 "He will not cry out or raise {His voice,} Nor make His voice heard in the street. 3 "A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. 4 "He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law."
If this justice is to come to all the earth, and we the church are the one true repository of that justice in the earth, then bank on it: something drastic is going to happen to us to transform us to become the People of “Justice Love” we were elected to become.A great divide will come in our midst. It is a sovereign divide. At this divide, God will purge out of our midst all who profane His Just nature and have used His love to promote lawlessness throughout the world. As a refiners fire He will purge out of His temple the Man of Sin we have set up. Those of us who remain in this state will suffer the fate of Matthew 5:13 and Revelation 11:2.
But for the rest who find the mercy of repentance at that awful day, relational justice will finally become established at our heart. We will know true government for the first time as God’s people. And so will the earth. I’m not talking about “pretend faith-talk kingdom” reality here. I’m talking about manifest reality—the Reality that “all flesh will see it together.”
In a follow-up article, I want to look at what I believe God is doing already to prepare in us the establishment of relational justice.
Chris Anderson
Riverside, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org09/05
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