Justice and Mercy

or Why I Am a Christian

by Michael Osborne

On the one hand, we are continually expressing our instinctive desire for justice; on the other, we are expressing our instinctive desire for mercy. Why both? Is this blowing hot and cold with the same breath?
Instincts express themselves early. You’ll find four-year-old prosecuting attorneys expressing in the most rudimentary terms, “That’s not fair. He got to play with the train set longer than I did” and “She scratched me first.” But the same four-year-old will plead, “Don’t spank me! I won’t do it again.”

Adults retain some of these petty concerns (“He cut me off and made me miss the green light”) but also develop stronger, more settled opinions on weightier matters. “We should send all the illegal immigrants back to Mexico.” “I’m sick of standing behind people using welfare money to buy better meat than I do.” “I can’t believe he got only two years for smashing his girlfriend’s face in!” “It’s only fair that the rich should bear the greater tax burden.” But adults, too, want mercy. “I know this assignment is late, but can you give me another 12 hours?” “Don’t send my son to jail. He’s only a kid; he just needs to grow up.” “He stole to feed his family, and it’s hard to blame him.” “I’m so glad I got off with a warning; I was only nine miles over the speed limit.”

Our literature and movies appeal both to our sense of justice and our desire for mercy. Who hasn’t been thrilled to hear The Princess Bride’s Mandy Patinkin launch into his final, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” and then follow it up with two sword strokes across the bad guy’s cheeks, repaying him tit for tat? But then, whose heart isn’t warmed when Ebenezer Scrooge takes advantage of his chance to repent and reform? For every Malvolio (Twelfth Night), whose self-humiliation we love to watch, there is an Edward Rochester, who exhausts Jane Eyre’s 70 times 7 before the story ends. For every bully like Janice Avery (Bridge to Terabithia) who “gets hers,” there is a Eustace Scrubb (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), who is transformed into a new person. Some literature raises the question of justice and mercy directly. Gollum from The Lord of the Rings is a classic example. We think Frodo a better Hobbit for his pity on Gollum, but we feel quite satisfied to watch Gollum fall into the fires of Mount Doom, his precious Ring in hand.

The Bible tells us that our sense of justice and mercy go all the way back to God Himself, that they are grounded in ultimate reality, a Person who is “Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 4). In Christianity, there is a God whose character is the standard of righteousness and whose law is the imperative for righteousness. And He has both the wherewithal and the passion to uphold the standard. But He also has compassion.

Atheism

Now, in an atheist’s world, issues of justice and mercy are little better than social conventions, and our personal impulses toward justice or mercy are little better than the random gurgles of chemicals in our brains. In an atheist’s world, there is no person at the top. The impersonal give rise to the personal, so personal virtues or vices have no root in ultimate reality as they do in Christianity.

Hinduism

But atheism is not the only alternative to Christianity. There are several other major world religions, and each has something to say about justice and mercy. In Hinduism, we are heavy on the justice and out of luck with the mercy. The impersonal law of karma has the semblance of justice but no personality. The law of karma is not offended or angry when we do wrong. It sorts us as an Acme Widget Sorter culls out bad widgets. “Good. Good. Bad. Good. Bad.” Nor does the law of karma have any room for mercy. You’ve done wrong in one life or another, so suck it up and deal with the consequences as best you can. Try to do better, and the next life won’t be so bad.

Judaism and Islam

Closer to Christianity, but still so far away, are the other two great monotheistic religions: Judaism and Islam. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim to speak for the same God, that is, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. But they say very different things about Him. This is that God who declared Himself to Moses to be “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” but in the same breath said that He “will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6–7, KJV). How does the God of Abraham maintain both His justice and His mercy? How can the “Judge of all the earth do right” (Gen. 18:25) and still “abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7) those who deserve not pardon but condemnation? Would it be right for God simply to overlook sin? Is that perfect justice?

Christianity offers a unique answer to this question, an answer that repels Jews and Muslims. But without an answer, one Christianity provides, neither Judaism nor Islam can make sense of themselves or of God.

First, Judaism. Jews, with their elaborate sacrificial system and their Yom Kippur, their Day of Atonement, ought to understand the penalty for sin and the impossibility of mercy without sacrifice (cf., Lev. 17:11). Laying one’s hands on a goat’s head and watching it die was supposed to communicate something. While the priesthood was a unique blessing for the Jews, its whole structure should have taught them not only God’s favor but also God’s distance from them; and for that matter, the distance between God—holy, pure, immortal—and all mankind—sinful, unclean, doomed to die. “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isa. 59:2). Notwithstanding the intended lessons of Old Covenant typology, Judaism today doesn’t get it. They view God as directly accessible, sans Mediator. There is no longer even a typological atonement, but Judaism replaces it with human prayer, repentance, and affliction of soul. (On the Day of Atonement, some Jews actually wring a chicken’s neck and swing it as an offering.) And on the justice-and-mercy question, they describe something of a “Battle of the Attributes.” For them, God is primarily merciful, so much so that the Talmud teaches that God prays to Himself, that His mercy will overcome His justice (Berachoth 7a). While they correctly observe that God takes no “pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11), in their scheme if God is going to show mercy, He will have to subjugate His own justice.

Islam does the same thing, only differently. In the Koran, every Surah except Surah 9 opens, “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.” If we pursue the question, “How does Allah show mercy?” it begins to look a lot like justice, possibly justice “graded on a curve”: Allah judges intentions and efforts. Consider these verses: “Say, (O Muhammad, to mankind): If ye love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance)” (Surah 3:31–32).[1] Or this verse: “Spend your wealth for the cause of Allah, and be not cast by your own hands to ruin; and do good. Lo! Allah loveth the beneficent” (Surah 2:195). In Islam, there is mercy, but you need to earn it. You don’t need to be perfect, but you need to merit the mercy. But mercy is by definition that which is undeserved. Mercy in Islam looks a lot like justice.

Judaism and Islam take this error in slightly different directions, but both do more or less the same thing. That is, they mitigate both justice and mercy so mercy erodes a channel through justice, rendering the justice crumbled and unstable and the mercy muddy.

Aberrant Christianity

Pop Christianity, or Christendom, or really any soteriological error, is going to do much the same thing. If you ask the man on the street, “How do you get to heaven?” he will probably answer, “By being good.” If you confront him with the fact that he’s not perfect, this statement doesn’t faze him, as if “Nobody’s perfect” is something that persuades God to grade on a curve or to give out an “E” for “Effort.” A man on the street might tell you, “Well, I think God looks at the heart.” Yikes! If only he thought about it, God’s ability to see through to the “thoughts and intents of the heart” is a terrifying prospect. We slurp down iniquity like water (cf., Job 15:16). “I don’t think a loving God would send people to hell.” Yes, well, we’ll talk about your imaginary god some other time, but can we see what the Bible has to say? “God has to give us a second chance. It’s only sporting of Him.” God doesn’t owe a second chance to anyone. He shows mercy to whomever He will (Ex. 33:19). If every last person went to hell, God would be perfectly justified in sending him there (cf., Rom. 3:4).

We still have a sense of justice and a sense of mercy, but sin has greatly perverted them. Justice is no more justice (since sin must go overlooked), and mercy is no more mercy (since you do have to merit having your sins overlooked, be it the merit of your intentions or of your overall performance). We’d rather blaspheme God’s perfections than confess that our condemnation is just and His mercy, if granted, is undeserved.

Biblical Christianity

Before the foundation of the world, God, who is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, and perfectly wise, planned for the salvation of sinners. He would justify the ungodly, the condemned. And He would remain perfectly just. How?

Romans 3:24–26 gives the answer. We are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

From this passage, we learn many things. First, we are justified (declared to be righteous, not lacking in any obligation to the law) freely. It is an undeserved gift, given by God with no compulsion for Him and at no cost to us. Second, His gracious character motivated this gift. It reflects who He is. Third, this gift was not absolutely free: it cost God the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who bought His people out of their slavery to sin. Fourth, God planned and provided this salvation, God who set forth the solution. If God hadn’t done it, there would have been no one else who could have and nothing else that could have been set forth. Fifth, God’s justice was not bent, diluted, circumvented, or anything of the sort. It was satisfied. God had been an enemy, but now He is a friend. He had been angry, but now His wrath is spent. Christ bore it. Sixth, only by faith in Christ’s cross-work can anyone be saved. Seventh, any “winking at” sin in the past was not God’s bending the rules, certainly not forgiveness. It was forbearance. And God could be righteous and not immediately punish those sins because, in one way or another, retribution would come. Finally, we learn that this is the solution to the problem under discussion. God can be just and also show mercy on sinners. Jesus was condemned in the place of sinners so sinners may be declared righteous.

An Existential Consideration

Some people may find the vicarious atonement offensive. It certainly offends one’s self-pride, that someone else would have to die for him. But what other way could there be? If God is just, what other fate than hell could we hope for?

Studying this problem from a theological or legal standpoint is fascinating. Seeing the pattern of Christian thought against the pattern of unbelieving thought is enlightening. But beyond the theology on paper, I find Romans 3 to be an existentially compelling reason to be a Christian. I feel guilty. The Bible tells me that I am guilty and that I ought to know that I am guilty, not just beset by guilt feelings but really, truly guilty. All of the world’s religions line up and tell me how to improve myself and offer me salvation at a reduced rate, as if mercy is some kind of “no interest for 90 days” gimmick. Only Christianity steps forward and says, “Actually, you are as bankrupt as you feel.” Only Christianity maintains a God who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Only Christianity steps forward with a historic person whose whole purpose in life is to die.

Only Christianity lets me sing, in the words of Philip P. Bliss,

Guilty, vile and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He.
Full atonement, can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Endnote

^{1. The translation of the Koran I am using is Mohammad M. Pickthall’s The Glorious Qur’an: Text and Explanatory Translation, 10th rev. ed. (South Elgin, IL: Library of Islam, 1994). Please note that every translation of the Koran varies not in its wording but also in its versification.}

Mike Osborne received a B.A. in Bible and an M.A. in Church History from Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC). He co-authored the teacher’s editions of two BJU Press high school Bible comparative religions textbooks What Is Truth? and Who Is This Jesus?; and contributed essays to the appendix of The Dark Side of the Internet. He lives with his wife, Becky, and his infant daughter, Felicity, in Omaha, Nebraska, where they are active members at Good Shepherd Baptist Church. Mike plans to pursue a further degree in apologetics.