Social Justice Pharisees? - The Horns of Their Dilemma

So I wanted to make a quick video to hopefully help anyone who opposes what I say about social justice, help them understand where I'm coming from and really where this conversation needs to go and what it needs to be focused on, in my opinion, of course.

The Pharisees’ Man-Made Holiness and the Corban Law

But I really do think that social justice advocates are on the horns of a dilemma. And I'm titling this video, Social Justice Pharisees. And if you remember, what did the Pharisees do? What was the biggest problem with them?

Well, Jesus said that one of the things that they did all the time was that they had their own system of holiness, their own law that they followed that made them look really good, that made them look so righteous and holy.

The people loved them because look at how great they were. They had all this stuff, but it actually disregarded the real law of God. Like the big one that everyone remembers is the Corbin Law, right? So what they would do is the money that they were going to give to their parents to honor their father and mother, they would say, well, we're gonna give that to God instead.

And the people would look at them and be like, wow, look at how much money that these Pharisees gave to God's cause. People are so great and the people loved them. They thought they were so great. But really that was actually, Jesus said, that was actually overturning the law of God because they're supposed to honor their father and mother.

Instead, they say, nah, nah, I don't wanna do that. I'm gonna give this to God so I look really good. And so they had this law that really disregarded the law of God. And that was one of the main things the Pharisees did and one of the main criticisms that Christ had for them.

Defining Justice Biblically Instead of Treating Scripture Like a Buffet

And so here's the horns of the dilemma, right? Because social justice advocates constantly are talking about justice and we need to make sure that we're defining this biblically. And so social justice warriors will go to the Old Testament and they'll say, well, see, God cares about justice and God cares about restitution and stuff like that.

But they treat it like a buffet because what they do is they'll pick a verse here, they'll pick a verse there, but they won't actually contextualize everything and actually understand it. Because here's the thing, here's what I want you to do.

If you're gonna talk about biblical restitution, then you gotta go all the way with me. We can't just say, I like biblical, excuse me, I like biblical restitution, therefore it is whatever I say it is.

No, no, no, God defines restitution. And the thing is, Reformed Christians and Calvinistic Christians, we're used to doing this because we do this with the word love all the time because the world has all kinds of crazy definitions as to what love is.

They'll say that if you're pro-love, then you have to be pro-same-sex marriage because how could you deny love? I mean, Matthew Mine says this. How could you deny love and human flourishing to homosexual brothers and sisters in Christ?

And we're like, whoa, hold on a second. We gotta define love the way God defines it because it's not good fruit for two homosexuals to get married and constantly break the law of God against homosexual sex.

That's not good fruit according to scripture. So we're all used to doing this, especially with the word love and things like that. And we also, we don't wanna treat the Bible like an Arminian treats John 3, 16, right?

Because Arminian, you've heard this, Arminians say, well, see, God so loved the world. Therefore, Arminianism is true. And we're like, well, hold on a second. We need to define this and look at the context and consider all of scripture and make sure that we're not misunderstanding things because the reality is people like you and me, we know our own sinful hearts.

We know that our ideas of what love is, a lot of times they can be twisted. And so we need to look at the light of the word of God to compare what the word of God says to what we think. And then if it's not comparing, then we need to change, not the word of God.

And so we need to do this with justice because the reality is you cannot just say, well, biblical restitution, therefore reparations. And I know all of you aren't saying that, but some of you are, but you can't just say, well, God cares about justice, therefore income inequalities.

You can't just do that. We have to look at the scriptures and see what the parameters are that God sets up himself. So if you wanna talk about the Old Testament, let's not treat it like a buffet bar or a salad bar where we just pick and choose what we like.

If you wanna talk about restitution, let's go all the way and really talk about restitution. Otherwise, you've got a real problem. If you're not gonna do that, if you're not willing to let God define what justice is, then the other option is that we're just kind of making up justice as we go along.

I mean, God cares about justice and therefore income inequality, wealth inequality, economic equity, and things like that. That's all justice issues. And if you're gonna do that, then what you're doing, and especially if you're gonna hold other Christians accountable, because I see people saying that it's un-Christ-like to not care about income inequalities.

And I'm saying, well, show me in the Bible about that. No one ever does. And so if you're gonna hold me as a Christian accountable and tell me that I'm not being Christ-like for something that you've just made up or you've adopted from another source, not the scriptures, then unfortunately, you're being like the Pharisees.

Because here's the thing, if you're gonna promote some kind of a socialistic income redistribution or something like that, that's not in the scripture. In fact, it overturns the scripture. It breaks the command against stealing.

It breaks those kinds of commands. The idea of reparations, as we understand it today, taking, making payments to the children of people who were enslaved, I would, I guess, get a payment as well. That would actually break the commands of God.

That would be doing what the Corbin Law people were doing, doing something that appears so righteous and so holy, but really it's just ignoring the law of God. And the thing is, I think social justice warriors, they're on the hordes of this dilemma.

Why Social Justice Advocates Risk Pharisaical Hypocrisy

I'm not gonna call them Pharisees at this point because I think sometimes they think they're being biblical, but the thing is, they're not going all the way. And so you need to be very, very careful, especially if you're gonna hold other Christians accountable to your views of justice.

Because if it actually ends up being unjust, in other words, if something that makes you look really good for promoting, whether it's reparations, whether it's social engineering, income redistribution, it makes you look really good and people love you when you support it.

The world loves you. But really, is it just the Corbin Law all over again? Anyway, that's your dilemma. That's what you need to figure out. And I hope that you come with me on not the Pharisee side. I think many of you won't.

You don't want to be hypocrites like that. So let's go all the way. If we're gonna talk about applying the moral law of God, God's standard of justice, and we're gonna go all the way and talk about how he defines it.

We don't wanna be like Arminians. We don't wanna be like Matthew Vines talking about love. We wanna be fully reformed in every area of life, including the area of justice. Anyway, I hope this was helpful.

God bless.