Mercy and Justice Yes! - Fake "Social Justice" No!

Cultural Marxism, Presuppositionalism, and a Blog Response

So I wanted to just mention this article from Cody Leibolt at For the New Christian Intellectual, which is a website that it seems to focus on a few different things. They're definitely against cultural Marxism, which is very good.

They are also against presuppositionalism, which they might be surprised to know that I consider myself a bit of a presuppositionalist, but that's okay. I don't have any ill will towards you, and I totally understand the controversy and why the arguments against it and things like that.

So I still love you, and I still recommend that you follow this website for their cultural Marxism content and also just sort of the philosophical, you know, methodological banter. Anyway, in any case, I wanted to not respond to this, but just mention this article.

This is a response blog to a blog post by Mere Orthodoxy. And Mere Orthodoxy, from what I understand, I don't know this. I don't follow them, but from what I understand, they are very positive. They speak positively about socialism and socialist ideas.

I don't know that for a fact, but that's kind of what I've seen from comments and things like that. But this particular article is interesting. So Cody is taking issue with sort of how they apply a certain passage of scripture.

Luke 4 and Isaiah 61: Mercy, Not Social Justice

Now, this is a very famous passage. Most people could probably say most of this from memory. It's from Luke chapter four, where Jesus says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And this is essentially what, I mean, everyone knows that passage, but what the Mere Orthodoxy people say about this is this.

They say they interpret this to mean that Jesus began his ministry by standing up in the synagogue and saying that he came to bring justice to bear on the earth. And particularly so on behalf of the poor, oppressed, weak and vulnerable.

Now, here's where Cody says they defend socialism. And this article he claims is more of the same. And it certainly seems to Cody and also to me that they're really reading a lot into this, a lot into the words of Jesus.

Cody says that this isn't really about justice. This is about mercy. And he notes here that the word justice doesn't appear there and neither does the weak and the vulnerable. That's an interpretation that they're giving to it and all of that.

And Cody correctly says that this is a quote from Isaiah 61. And this is what Isaiah 61 says, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and to release from darkness and a release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn.

Now, Cody wants to say that they conveniently don't go for the rest of the quote, which Jesus doesn't either. Jesus doesn't mention the rest of this quote either. So that's fine. But this does talk about the day of wrath of our God, the day of vengeance from our God.

So that's justice and also the year of the Lord's favor. And so this is if you read the passage in its original Isaiah context, you know, you're not going to get sort of this idea of this sort of socialistic type of justice.

And here's what he says. He says, he says, notice where Jesus conspicuously stops reading. He stops right before the phrase about the day of God's vengeance, which he interprets as justice. I would agree.

Everything that before that point was referring to compassionate works of God that he would do for those who are suffering. There's no mention of justice in what Jesus read. The gentleman at mere orthodoxy should have attempted to read the passage objectively without putting on it the unwarranted assumption that Jesus is talking about something people would conceive of as social justice.

It's an act of mercy to proclaim the good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted and to release a captive or prisoner. And he's exactly right. He's exactly right about that. There is a distinction between mercy and justice as we understand that in English, in our culture today.

Now I've heard people say that in, in Jewish times that the distinction wasn't quite as sharp and that's okay. I'm okay with that because oftentimes when Jesus talks about righteousness, he's talking about both justice and mercy and that's okay, but we have to understand that these are different things.

Mercy and Justice at the Cross of Christ

So in other words, when we look at the cross of Christ, we need to make sure we have categories for both mercy and justice. We received mercy, not justice. The gospel is about mercy in terms of God's, in terms of our sin against God.

It's about God having mercy on us, not accomplishing justice against us. Justice was, would have been, we died for our own sins, but instead God had mercy on us in Christ. And so God is perfectly just because the penalty was paid by Christ.

It wasn't like the penalty just was dropped, but we received mercy because we objectively should have died for our own sins. So there's a difference, there's a, there's a distinction and that's very true.

But here's the thing, even if, so I agree with, with basically everything Cody says here, but, but even if you do want to conflate justice and mercy in this passage, let's just, let's just accept that.

Let's just say this is about justice. We can't have God divided against himself. So in other words, when Jesus talks about proclaiming liberty to the captives, good news for the poor, recovering sight of the blind, setting liberty, those who are oppressed, he's talking about these things according to his own definition of these things.

He's talking about these things in terms of the law. So in other words, would, now that we have the gospel, we're Christians, right? Would it be just for us to let murderers go free? Murderers are in jail, right?

Or sex offenders or, or anything like that. These people are in prison. So now that we're in the gospel age, should we just set them free? The answer is no, because God's already determined what is just and what is fair in his law.

And so we apply the general equity of that to today to know what is just. And so if you want to talk about justice, let's just say that God's talking about justice here. We have to define justice according to God's law.

Mercy, Charity, and God's Law

Good news for the poor. What does that mean? Does that mean that all of a sudden it's okay to take from rich people illegitimately and give to poor people? Is that all of a sudden? Okay. Socialism is all of a sudden.

Okay. No. So even if you, even if you say this is about justice, which I'm perfectly happy to go with you there. Good news to the poor does not mean stealing from the rich to give to the poor. What it means is what it always meant.

Mercy, charity, grace, according to God's law. God, the gleaning laws. That was a, that was something that commanded God commanded Israel, but he didn't make it a matter of justice. He didn't make it a criminal matter if you didn't do it.

Um, giving alms, giving to the poor, giving charity, um, things like that. The good Samaritan, all of this stuff is examples of personal charity in obedience to God. And there's no question that charity and mercy and, and, and those kinds of acts are required for Christians, but it's not a matter of law.

It's not a matter of justice as we understand it. So good news to the poor, right on. That's amazing. But you know what? It has to be in terms of God's law, what is allowed and what is moral and what is good.

It is not moral to vote that rich people, people richer than you pay more so that we can protect the poor. That's not moral. That's immoral. That's, that's objectively immoral. Um, and the same thing with the, you know, setting the captives free.

We can't just let everyone from prison go free. That's, that's also immoral. That would be immoral. But, uh, and, and also we don't, we don't, we look at this word oppressed and we have to also define that according to God's standards because it's not oppressed.

Just you're not oppressed just because you're in the minority. And I know that's what critical theory says. I know that's what cultural Marxism says. I know all of that, but it's irrelevant to what the scripture is talking about because scripture defines oppression and it defines it in terms of God's law, the 10 commandments.

It defines it in terms of stealing. It defines it in terms of unjust taxes. It defines it in terms of, uh, of, uh, dragging poor people to court just because you have the absolute power, uh, of, of, of a money advantage and a lawyer advantage and an influence advantage talks about those kinds of things.

It talks about agreeing to pay someone $10 and then when payday comes, you don't give them anything. That's what it talks about. That's real oppression, real moral oppression. It's not just, well, you know, black families make $10 ,000 and Puerto Rican families make $8 ,000 and white families make 20 ,000.

That's not what we're talking about. So I'm okay with saying this is justice. As long as you're willing to define justice, according to God's term, good news for the poor, according to God's terms, proclaiming Liberty, the captives, according to God's terms, recovering sight to the blind, according to God's terms, setting at Liberty, those who are oppressed according to God's terms and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

In other words, grace, that's what we're talking about here. Not justice, because when justice falls down, when justice comes to all of the people on earth at that is the great and terrible day of the Lord.

That is when God comes and judges the world and saves his people whose penalty for their sin has been already paid. In any case, I hope this was helpful. Again, I do recommend that you check out this website for the new Christian intellectual and follow Cody Liebold online.

Even if you're a presuppositionalist, there's nothing wrong with engaging with people who are against presuppositionalism. I hope this is helpful. God bless.