Meditations from Zion

Justice has gotten pretty fuzzy in our current culture. How often do the guilty go free if they simply have a good lawyer? How can we expect a modern world to connect to the concept of God’s justice and actually appreciate true mercy and atonement?

Romans 3:25
God presented him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, . . . to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished . . .

Even in Bible times, the Apostle Paul spent a lot of his time convincing people that the long-awaited Messiah had arrived in Jesus of Nazareth. But the Jews had built an entire culture and way of life around the observance of “law” and a complex set of requirements to exact justice with various acts and sacrifices. Did they really believe the Messiah would come or had they put the idea so far into the future that such a reality was unimaginable?

In essence, no matter when the Messiah would appear, the prophecies promised that his arrival would wipe out the old ideology and replace every sacrifice, every payment, and every atoning act, with his own blood. It would change everything. Justice would have new meaning.

If they had accepted the “fact” of a Messiah then, their entire temple system would have been obliterated in a single day. Is there any wonder the priests and accompanying temple staff were resistant? Their livelihood, their routines, and all of their traditions were in danger of collapse if they accepted this man Jesus as the Messiah.

To accept the atoning act of the Messiah is to have faith in a new execution of justice. To appropriate the ultimate sacrifice/justice of the Messiah requires a person’s confession of sin and lawbreaking.

Unlike a court of law where the defendant is trying to convince everyone that he/she didn’t really “do it,” this court is strictly for those willing to say, “guilty as charged.” And through that personal confession of guilt, suddenly, there is mercy and grace in a way that is beyond our understanding.

This is justice without fear. This is justice married to mercy. This is justice covered by love. Thanks be to God for the Anointed One whose sacrifice made it possible for me to live under a banner of justification.