What is Biblical Justice? Well, first, what is Justice? Webster's 1828: 1. Justice; right. In practice, equity is the impartial distribution of justice, or the doing that to another which the laws of God and man, and of reason, give him a right to claim. It is the treating of a person according to justice and reason. The Lord shall judge the people with equity Psalms With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity Isaiah 2. Justice; impartiality; a just regard to right or claim; as, we must, in equity allow this claim. Wikipedia 2022: Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspectives, including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. The state will sometimes endeavour to increase justice by operating courts and enforcing their rulings. So now that we have a framework of what Justice is, where do we get the values of right and wrong? Is it game theory based social contracts? Or is there an over-arching standard to which we all appeal when we say something like “napalming babies for fun is wrong”? How about killing off minorities for the promise of a healthier future? How about preventing those with particular beliefs from receiving medical care? From where do we get our standard? Well, obviously you can tell from our conversation so far that the Bible is the standard we call upon. So let's look at what God calls Just and how He conferred the duty of carrying out Justice to Man, historically. We also will see where Justice and Law became perverted. Genesis Genesis In Genesis In Exodus In Exodus 20-23 we see the Lord lay out part of what would become the Mosaic Law. This is what was used by Moses, Joshua, and the Judges all the way up to Samuel. Samuel's sons were wicked men. They perverted the Lord's system and ultimately died for it. However, before these sons of Samuel died, the Children of Israel cried out for a King. This led to the rule by a man, and not directly by God. Now, with man in between God and the people, tyranny ensued. We see Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and the rest suffer from their humanity. And the people suffered as well. The United States of America is a unique system, in that our Founding Fathers attempted to revert, as much as was possible, to a somewhat Exodus-like form of Government. This government, they warned, would only work with citizens who held the Judeo-Christian Ethic. John Adams stated in a 1798 letter to the Massachusetts Militia: “Avarice, Ambition, Revenge, or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The return to a Godly society with the freedoms and liberties of Christ were at the core of our system. Today, we see an enormous amount of crime and our measures of prison time have failed to produce the clean streets we would like. Sure, the streets are safer when one bad guy is taken off of them. However, how did God choose to deal with crimes? Capital Punishment, Restitution, Corporal Punishment. Capital Punishment: Deuteronomy Restitution: Exodus Corporal Punishment: Deuteronomy Now, many have said that they believe that we should abolish prisons. Where are prisons found in the Bible? They are not, unless we are talking about the prisons of the Gentiles who oppress the Israelites. Prisons are a man-made concept. It is thought that the first prisons were constructed in Egypt or by some of the Mesopotamian nations surrounding Israel. http://www.prisonhistory.net/prison-history/history-of-prisons/ So here is the question: Why do we not follow God's plan for law and order? Sure, some things are different than the Levitical Law days, but the principles are similar. And before you go on to site Christ and His forgiveness of sins of various people, Christ is God. He is the ONE person who had the authority to do that (also the only one who would know if this person had actually repented). So why have we changed the way we meet out Justice? Jeremy Bentham was the philosopher responsible for the modern incarnation of British and American prisons. His primary motivation was that he was against the Death Penalty. https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/famous-prisons-incarceration/history-of-imprisonment/ Bentham was the Father of the Utilitarianism Movement as we know it today. He believed that: “actions are morally right if they tend to promote happiness or pleasure (and morally wrong if they tend to promote unhappiness or pain) among all those affected by them” https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjwq4SgpuX2AhU8j2oFHRJ6DesQFnoECAIQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Fbiography%2FJeremy-Bentham&usg=AOvVaw0-6DiUdiSNK_byPWSbvG9q So here we have an example of man going his own way. Now that we have seen that this system does not work as well as we would have liked it to, some are suggesting that we reduce prison sentences as articles like this one do: https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/oct/1/new-study-shows-tough-crime-generation-spent-more-time-prison-despite-falling-crime-rate/ However, there is no indication that the lawlessness would go away and as we see in places like Southern California, reduction in consequences only increases crime. https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2022/why-has-shoplifting-been-out-of-control-since-the-pandemic-began/ The issue is not a change in man made policies, but a return to God's policies. One will be less likely to steal if one has to pay restitution. One is much less likely to murder if death is the result, and certainly they will not be able to murder a second if death is the consequence. Now, some will immediately recoil at the mention of the death penalty, that is okay. The death penalty has also suffered at the hands of “man's wisdom”. Deuteronomy More Bible verses dealing with Justice: Who is ultimately sovereign over Justice? Ecclesiastes Hebrews What does God say a society should do concerning Justice? Hosea “Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.” What affect should Justice have on the righteous, what about the wicked? Proverbs “It is joy to the just to do judgment: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.” Proverbs Whose job is it to maintain this order? Romans Romans What does the Bible say about partiality? Leviticus 1 Timothy Deuteronomy