In anticipation to a late fall 2019 teaching invitation along the Thai Burma border I commenced to think more carefully about justice. This posting is a window into my preparations. But there is also another motivation behind this piece. Upon returning to the USA from Asia this summer (2019) I observed that many Protestant churches have come to identify with ‘Progressive Justice’ and incorporated it into their mission statement. I am not confident however that the churches who have embraced this banner have fully grasped the distinctive meaning of justice as it is given to the church in the Judeo-Christian tradition. ‘Justice’ as it is understood in the modern world and justice in the sacred tradition at one level share similar meanings but at another level their understandings diverge.  This divergence is significant. If the church’s understanding and mission are to escape being absorbed into the world’s in late Modernity, it is imperative that it clarify the distinctive strands of meaning it brings to the table regarding justice. Properly understood the church’s relation to its world in time and place is always dialectical rather than unitary.

The Biblical word justice emerged into the lexicon of words and meanings out of Israel’s formative experience of deliverance from Egyptian slavery (Psalms 103:6-7). Unlike Greek thought that gave birth to abstract ideas Hebrew thought expressed and interpreted signature events.  Liberating events preceded meaning, acts and words were joined. Formative acts in the history of Israel generated meanings and ethics. In the Bible, the formative history that sourced the meaning embedded in justice was Israel’s bondage to the Pharaoh followed by their liberation. In Egypt the Hebrews belonged to the pharaoh and existed to do his bidding. To live was to serve him. In short, they were under him, not merely as a political authority and governor, but as a god. Pharaoh overreached, or to state the matter precisely, he trespassed his rightful stature and dignity. Looking back at the situation from this side of the Exodus and the one God as Lord revolution he went beyond his civil political office and assumed god-like power over them. The totality of their existence was under his will, body and soul. This divine identity of Pharaoh was normative until it wasn’t. By this cryptic phrase, I am arguing that there was no basis to critique Pharaoh’s claim to possess absolute power over his Hebrew slaves until Yahweh showed up. Only after the revelation of God as the invisible one God as Lord over all, were human and political claims to divinity exposed for what they were. Pharaoh trespassed a boundary.

Pharaoh’s trespass was vividly demonstrated by his refusal to allow his slaves the freedom to worship. Israel had requested a mere weekend in the desert to worship their God. Pharaoh’s refusal was no doubt externally motivated by economics, a factor present in the Torah record of the story. But it was deeper than economics.  Almost certainly Pharaoh feared that a revival of their religion via a “camp meeting in the desert”, something Moses and Aaron set about to effect, would clarify to the peoples that they belonged to One’ higher and greater than Pharaoh. Even if Pharaoh considered this belonging to Yahweh imaginary rather than real, the danger to his spiritual hold over them remained the same.

Almost certainly the Hebrews’ faith in their invisible God had suffered after 400+ years in Egypt, and Moses and Aaron’s role in the Exodus were not only leadership, they were first and foremost ‘evangelist’! In order to downsize the magnitude of Pharaoh and his power in the minds of the Hebrews slaves living in Goshen One greater and more powerful than Pharaoh, albeit invisible, had to be re-formed in their imagination and faith. Whether this took place in a desert holiday (holy day) weekend or in the cottages and back streets in Goshen is insignificant. That it did occur was crucial. The power of Pharaoh had to be broken in their minds and hearts spiritually before it was broken literally. But it is worthy of noting that Pharaoh’s refusal to accommodate their holiday revival request back fired. In forbidding them to worship their God inadvertently Pharaoh publicly magnified and clarified to them that he had out sized himself. To over do is to undo. Furthermore to deny this thirst to revive their faith almost surely guaranteed that it would become viral and take place underground in Goshen. Pharaoh is a study in how not to administer the state if you want to prevent a revolution. Permission to go to the desert and worship might have been all that was needed, or at least a first step, to prevent a wholesale revolt. But as the Good Book states, “God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”

Careful reflection on this archetypal paradigm of Judeo – Christian justice clarifies its distinctive character.  First it should be remembered this justice had nothing to do with a legalistic conception of justice, namely getting what one deserved measured either by Israel’s goodness or Egypt’s ‘badness’. Rather, as the text plainly states, God had compassion and pity on Israel and delivered them out from under a power over them that they could not of themselves break free of. Egypt and Pharaoh suffered, not because God set out to punish them for their wrongs, but because, when through Moses and Aaron light shinned on their path, they refused to repent of their over reach. Because Pharaoh refused to peacefully comply with Yahweh’s will to restore his people to the dignity and purpose he created them for via Abraham, he came to ruin.   Justice occurred when Israel had restored to them what they had lost to Pharaoh and could not of their own strength and ingenuity regain – namely their God given dignity, their freedom to be and become what God had called and chosen them to be. Ultimately included in this was the freedom and means to rebuild their lives, their families and their ethno-religious faith.  Justice as such was about being delivered out from under something that de humanized them, and prevented them from being and becoming what God intended them and called them to be.

At this juncture I am approaching the heart of the matter stated in my title. The out from under dimension of justice was a forward to something greater.  Justice was not only the destruction of oppression by way of liberation from its shackles so that Israel could then realize their innate God given human potential and dignity. Liberation, i.e. deliverance from oppression, was merely one half of the equation. The teleology of Hebrew justice climaxed with Israel becoming reincorporated into and under one greater than the pharaoh, the power and prerogative of their God who claimed to be their Lord.

The Invisible One replaced the ultimacy of the visible one. Once the overreach of Pharaoh was dealt with and the Exodus occurred, almost immediately, we discover from the record that the freed slaves were gathered at the foot of Mt Sinai to hear the words “I am (now) the Lord your God who brought you out of the house of bondage you shall have no other gods before me”. (Exodus 20). Note the word “before” , “no gods before me”. Here “before” is used because this is precisely what Pharaoh did – he placed himself before Yahweh, and when this was made evident to him, he refused to repent of this “trespass” . Trespass is the precise word because pharaoh had trespassed ( crossed over) a sacred boundary . He would have remained relatively safe if he would have taken up residence on the one side of the boundary. In this stead he would have understood himself more along the lines of a governor where there were limits to his power vis a vis his job description. But he stepped over that boundary when he made himself a god according to himself absolute power. Of course to talk about these limits historically is anachronistic. Nevertheless the seeds of new political theory are in the Exodus. Nevertheless words, signs and wonders were given inorder to alert Pharaoh and awaken him to the realization that his power had limitations. “Let my people go” spoken by Yahweh through Moses spoken to Pharaoh did not merely call Pharaoh to make an allowance rather it required Pharaoh to downsize himself in the presence of one greater. Power and pride are blinding and blunt conviction.

Pharaoh’s trespass was codified in the First of the Ten Commandments so that his trespass as prelate over the people would enlighten and warn all prelates, kings and lords in the stream of history. No less the First Commandment speaks to the people warning them not to be seduced into giving to visible powers and authorities a loyalty and obediences that belong only to the invisible God . This epic history of the Jews’ struggle with Pharaoh and their deliverance is prototypical of the human predicament. Continually humans set about to pull themselves over others assuming a relation to them that God alone has the right to enjoy. And are continually humans slipping under others giving to them a loyalty, trust, dependance, worship and obedience that belong to God alone.

With this clarification the pinch of the point emerges into the open. All liberation that only involves the first half of justice sooner than later devolves into new forms of bondage. The seeds of bondage are endemic to the human predicament and to human nature. This bondage is concomitant to the human experience. It occurs unwittingly through accidental circumstances. It was famine that originally drove Israel to go down to Egypt for charity/help, i.e. grain . But charity has an upside and a potential down side. It occurs through folly because of carelessness, naïveté and stupidity ( “lead us not into temptation” lest we foolishly wander into it”). And it occurs willingly because the human will possesses a propensity to perversity, self-assertion and hardened independence and autonomy ( “all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way” Isaiah 53).  “Transgression” carries this meaning and is a cousin to the word aggression and forcefulness. From all these sources bondage comes to meet us and over take us. Bondage always possesses a god like power and grip on us and engenders captivity. Again the First of the 10 Commandments implies this when it reads “no other gods before me”.  The implicit under belly of the First Commandment is the vulnerability and propensity of the human person to lose her God given dignity and calling by coming under a god like power, and these powers are not merely external but also existential. “We have met the enemy and we are it”.

Here then is my thesis on the distinctive meaning of Biblical justice. Freedom from bondage, all forms of bondage involves not merely coming out from under something oppressive but coming into and under the supremacy of a gracious and loving God as Lord whose first word to us is one of belonging. And here “Lord” does not denote a vertical severity but terror to all principalities and powers who would dare to take themselves too seriously and trespass their rightful province and claim upon us ( or we upon another). By and through costly grace (i.e. the Christ -Messiah) we belong to One higher than ourselves and higher than any other being however terrible, significant, awesome or near and dear. And we not only belong to this One we exist for him. Furthermore as the Torah so vividly states this God is a jealous God. He suffers no loyalty or love that precedes or compromises his preeminence. All loyalties must not only hasten to second place, this second place is known and understood as always and continually conditioned by the sanctity and reach of God’s preeminent will.

There are many subtle distinctions woven into this essay reviewing the distinctive character of Biblical and Christian justice but the pinch of the point has been made. There is a substantive difference which marks off the Christian understanding of justice from that justice celebrated by late Modernity. For Christians justice leads one out from under the over reach of penultimate powers within and without that in one way or another fetter and bind one’s God given humanity and proper freedom. This is the first half of justice modernity and the church share in common more or less. But the church takes justice another step. The out from under gives way to a higher ultimate unconditioned belonging to God as Lord that involves one in a higher loyalty and service. Real freedom always involves a person in a belonging, loyalty and service that exceeds the autonomy of the self and the exertion of the power and will of another upon us . All true freedom has within it the warp and weave of a deeper and higher devotion, loyalty and service to the One higher than the self. There is no naive idealistic concept of justice found in Scripture.  The freed self contains within itself the seeds of new enslavements unless and until the self is reincorporated into a higher gracious belonging and loyalty that conditions and transforms freedom into trust, worship and service to a higher Being. When Christians read Jesus’ words “take my yoke upon you and learn of me… my yoke is easy and my burden is light” they recognise the teleology of Judeo-Christian freedom and justice.

It is imperative to stand up for any and all persons or peoples who are deprived of their dignity, trampled on, rejected, ostracised and oppressed in the world because this is what the Bible clearly states, “This what the Lord requires of you ” the Prophet Micah asserts- “Do Justice” (Micah 6:8) . The New Testament adds that Christ’s followers do this justice in his name, however  it is not wise for the church to become identified with causes of justice in the world simply by affixing the name of Christ to a given cause. Affixing Christ’s name is not enough. Whenever and wherever the church and the Christian embrace causes of justice in the world it is important that they meet and carry these as much as possible in a way that that the two dimensions of Biblical justice disclosed in the Exodus deliverance come into play.

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