[This is part 1 of an article series on God and justice. See part two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris 

Though it seems to be largely neglected in modern Christianity, the Bible makes it clear that God hates injustices. Being that one agency, the State, is in control of justice and law in our society, these injustices we speak of are namely those caused by the oppressive political systems we have created in our rebellion against His natural order. God hates the political plunder systems of man, which have perverted everything that is true about justice, law, order, liberty, and peace, and turned their understandings upside down.

Though professing Christians today have largely stripped God of any concern for social order or the political systems around us and turned Him into merely some spiritualized religious figure who is only interested in saving souls rather than us seeking righteousness and the Government of God, it is important to show that seeking justice is something we are to be doing as part of His kingdom-seekers. We are to actively stand against injustice and actively seek true justice, which in Scripture often involves defending the rights and liberties of our neighbors, caring for the poor and oppressed, and liberating people from the bondage of human rulers and corrupt political systems (Psa 82:3, 146:7; Prov 31:8-9; Isa 1:17, 58:6-7; Jer 22:3, 30:8; Zech 7:9-10).

Contrary to those who hold the escapist and even nihilistic view that God’s only concern is getting people into heaven after they pass away from this cursed earth, justice is high on the list of things that God speaks about in His word. It is not just some secondary matter of men of faith, then, but should be a core part of our duties to God’s kingdom while we are present on earth. It is on us to care about these things. “The righteous consider the cause of the poor, but the wicked have no regard for such concerns” (Proverbs 29:7).

Far from not caring about matters of justice and social order, this is what living out our Godly duties are all about. The problem is that men have not viewed “the church” as a government, where God’s kingdom-people are to be carrying out matters of welfare and aid and justice in a private, decentralized level that lives apart from the kingdoms of this world, but have viewed it more as “going to church,” where they attend a state-approved brick building and pat themselves on the back as if they have fulfilled all their duties and obligations to God and neighbor by singing songs and listening to monologues.

Abdicating responsibility

The perversion of justice has come precisely because we didn’t care about it and abdicated our responsibility of justice over to men who call themselves the “government.” It is when we fail to protect and serve our neighbors ourselves that we get a false system of protection and service — where men who are paid in stolen money (taxes) write “protect and serve” on their police cars and pretend they exist for “public safety,” but beat people up on the side of the road and break into their homes as part of their routine operations. This pursuit of justice becomes corrupted when individuals seek to outsource it to the false gods of human government — whether local police, county sheriffs, federal bureaucracies, judges, district attorneys, or others. It is this act—the statization of law and justice under the systems of men—that produces the injustices in society that God has seen all throughout His holy word.

These injustices are seen throughout all levels of the State, but very much so in the agencies that are thought to uphold law, justice, and order — such as how the actions of police embody the very things that God says He hates in Proverbs 6. While these practices do not exhaust the scope of things that God hates or the abhorrent conduct of those who serve the State, these acts of injustice and violence nonetheless reflect a society that has strayed from the Lord. Namely, the shedding of innocent blood, the devising of wicked schemes, and the feet that run towards evil — all of which characterize the institution of human government and its perversion of justice. The corruption of these things that have come under human government in our time are the same corruptions as we see in scripture, and which God sees of us today.

God’s viewpoint

Looking down at our statist societies today, God sees a perversion of the law and justice He commanded us to uphold. He sees people who have abandoned His ways and instead turned toward the violent political rule of men. He sees a bunch of statist whores who have prostituted themselves out to political gods who ministrate the ways of God’s kingdom for them, which of course turns it upside down and leaves them living in a society based on violence and a neglect for their neighbor’s welfare.

“See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!” (Isaiah 1:21).

God has always seen these perversions of justice that are inherent to the political systems of man.

“I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt” (Ecclesiastes 3:16).

When God sees our corrupt, political societies today, He sees nothing but men who have turned against everything He told us to seek. He sees the opposite of what He expects us to have.

“He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress” (Isaiah 5:7).

Perverted justice 

For turning to men to perform our Godly duties for us, justice in society is perverted. Actually, society as a whole is inverted, which serves as both a lesson and judgement against those who have placed their faith in the political systems of man. Law and justice become everything but what most expect it to be. The men who idolaters have entrusted to uphold law and justice instead use it as a means of expanding their own powers and robbery. Non-criminals are imprisoned, while actual criminals call themselves “the government” and exempt their crimes from punishment. They “acquit the guilty and condemn the righteous” (Proverbs 17:5). Individuals possessing marijuana or so-called “illegal firearms” face lengthy jail sentences, and child molesters run free. Wealth is bestowed upon those who contribute little, while hardworking people are evicted from their homes by government agents enforcing unjust tax laws. 

Under the political systems erected by men in their rebellion against God, justice and law become all-around perverted from any common understanding of their purpose. Just and moral men who have violated no one’s liberty are punished under the guise of “law,” while actual criminals evade punishment or even declare their crimes to be “legal” because they were performed with badges on or within the realm of government officialdom. Harmless actions, such as “driving without a license,” “failing to register” your vehicle with Pharaoh, or not sending money to our Egyptian captors, are labeled as “crimes,” while genuine crimes like kidnapping and imprisoning men who do not comply with the arbitrary decrees of government are upheld as “law.” Everywhere are the roles are reversed. Regular men are treated as criminals, and actual criminals who invade the rights of others are called “law enforcers.” Innocent people become victims of “the law,” while those who commit aggression against others and their property are said to be upholding it.

Under political systems of law, there develops many double standards. Some men are punished for theft and murder, while the legal system grants immunity to those in power who commit the same crimes under the guise of law. There develops a society of “one law for them and another law for us” — where “one law” applies to the government, whose agents are free to commit crimes, while everyone is subject to its edicts. As 19th-century German philosopher Max Stirner observed, “The State calls its own violence law, and that of the individual, crime.”

The law turned upside down and backward

In a statist society, the purpose of law—meant to protect the liberties of people and foster a peaceful, prosperous society—becomes inverted. The new purpose becomes to rob the very people who mistakenly believe that “law enforcement” agents exist to protect them. As Frederic Bastiat wrote closer to two centuries ago, 

“The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself is guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!” (Bastiat, The Law). 

When men entrust the administration of law to human government, where it is coercively monopolized and funded through taxes, naturally these wicked men, who are bent on plunder, are able to pervert “the law” for their own purposes and use it as a means of extorting the masses and keeping them as their slaves. The law ceases to serve any true purpose of protecting people from invasion, and is no longer even law in any genuine sense of the term. As Bastiat said under such systems of state law,

“The law…has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense” (Bastiat, The Law). 

Since the State offers another way of coming about property other than working and providing genuine services to people, those who occupy these seats of power attempt to use the monopolized legal system as means of diverting people’s money into their pockets. As Bastiat explains, 

“The fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.”

Contrary to all the foolish people who think the State exists to serve “the people,” States are nothing but systems of legal plunder that monopolize the law for the purpose of transferring property to themselves and their allies in government. States are simply criminal organizations that permit psychopaths to dominate other men and get away with it under the banner of “law.”

Such legalized crime is what men always get when they turn away from God’s prescribed social order and trust in men to carry out the religious responsibility to protect and feed their neighbors themselves.