Social Justice is Not Enough - God's Word is STILL the Standard

God's Word as the Standard for Justice and Restitution

You know, God's word gives us tools and commandments and verses that deal with all of life's situations. There are foundational elements inside of God's law that show us what it means to reconcile, what it means to make restitution, to make up for sins of the past.

And the sins, the racial sins of the past, you know, slavery and discrimination, that is no exception. God shows us in his law how to deal with that. And so we don't have to, you know, bicker and fight about all of these ways that we can think of to deal with it.

You know, liberals have one way, Republicans have another way. We don't have to, we don't have to worry about that kind of stuff because we have a word, we have a revelation from God about how to deal with that.

And so I always find it interesting that, you know, in all of this, you know, conversation about social justice, that really the law of God is not ever talked about in any explicit detail. You know, when it comes to slavery, for example, God has a way to make restitution for the slavery that existed in the United States.

Biblical Penalties for Kidnapping and Theft

Like, you know, slaves were kidnapped from their home and brought over to be slaves here in the United States. And the penalty, you might not know this, but the penalty in Israel for kidnapping was death.

They got the death penalty for kidnapping if they were found with one or two or more witnesses. And so that would be restitution for kidnapping. If you kidnap somebody, the restitution that you owed before God, according to his justice, the general equity we could apply today would be the death penalty.

And likewise, stealing, you know, there's a part of slavery that is also stealing, you know, because you're taking a person's labor as if it was your own. And, you know, everyone has the right to their own property, including the fruits of their labor.

But in slavery, that was taken from them. And in God's law, again, the general equity we could apply today would be to make restitution if you had two or more witnesses of what was stolen, you'd have to give back what was stolen and then some.

There's a principle in God's law that you don't just get back what was taken from you, you actually get back more than what was taken from you. And so that's another way that we could make restitution for the sins of the past.

Why Restitution Cannot Be Applied to the Dead

Now, one thing that is very clear is that the people who perpetrated these crimes, the people who kidnapped slaves for America and the people who stole their labor are long dead. And so, you know, no longer can we make restitution in that way.

How could you give someone who's already passed away the death penalty? Well, the answer is you can't. How can you command the person who's already passed away to give back what they've stolen, especially considering that the people they stole it from are also passed away?

Well, the reality is you can't. And so, you know, some people today might think, well, my ancestors were stolen from it, so we need to make restitution today. Well, that's not actually the case. And the reality is that you might think, well, then it means that these slavers just got away with it.

Due Process, Witnesses, and Final Judgment Before God

No, they didn't. No, they didn't. You know, God's law is interesting because it requires two or more witnesses to establish a matter. And so if somebody commits a crime, let's say that somebody commits a murder and there are no witnesses or there's only one witness, God's law says that that person might not have to get the penalty for what he did.

But in Christianity, that doesn't mean they got away with it. You know, due process sometimes means that people who committed crimes do not get penalized because we can't prove it. But they don't get away with it in Christianity because they go to their grave and they have to meet their maker.

And there's either one of two options, either they're paying for their sin, their crime that they committed that they never that was they were never caught for or Christ did. And so there is no one that gets away with it.

The slavers of the past didn't get away with it. The the people that that stole African-Americans labor in slavery, they didn't get away with it either. Either they were covered by Christ's sacrifice and Christ paid for their sins or they paid for them and are currently paying for their sins themselves.

And that's the reality. That's how biblical justice works. And so we can't go back into the past and say, well, we got to make restitution for what happened in the past today. Well, you can you can only do that if you have two or more witnesses.

And to be perfectly honest with you, I just don't think that that's the case. We don't have we you know, it would be a mess to really try to figure out, OK, who was taken from, who was the one doing the taking and how do we make restitution there and how do we even prove it?

We don't have the witnesses anymore. I don't think that that would work. And I don't think it's a beneficial use of time as a Christian today. And so if somebody is doing something wrong to you, showing partiality, stealing from you today, let's handle it today according to God's law and according to God's principles, because there is a general equity from the Old Testament law that we can apply to today.

Applying Old Testament Law to Present-Day Injustice

If somebody's enslaving someone, kidnapping, OK, that's the death penalty. OK, that's that's that's the death penalty. If someone's stealing from you today, well, they owe you what they stole from you.

They owe it back to you. And then some. That's the general equity. So let's not bring in all of this secular stuff about reconciliation and restitution. No, no. We have a word from God and we know what restitution is, what true justice really is.

And so I urge you, if you're involved in this conversation, this social justice conversation, let's have the correct standard for justice and also the correct standard for restitution. That standard is the law of God.

Hope this is helpful. God bless.