“Justice!” is a universal cry throughout the world. It has, however, become little more than a slogan, the content of which is a wax nose and reflects no more than the prevailing prejudices of the day. For example, in the post-Christian West, for one, justice is having a house provided by the State. For another, justice is the State providing an abortion of an unwanted child. We could go on. Justice is whatever people desire and to which they attach the rubric "human right". And new human rights are being "discovered" and promulgated by the hour.
In more authoritarian nations, justice tends to be viewed as requiring compliance of all citizens to the rules of the State. If one does not comply, one is stealing from or defrauding the “people.” In such nations, not to obey the State is itself an act of injustice.
But what is common—whatever the particular meaning and content given to the concept of justice—is the axiomatic belief that it is the duty of the State to provide and administer justice for its citizens.
For Jerusalem this is also true. The State is the ministry of justice. In fact, it is about the only recognised competence of the State within the Scriptures. State involvement in any other activity almost inevitably ensures that the State ends up perpetrating injustice and acting unjustly, at least insofar as the Bible, our constitutional documents, define what justice is and is to be.
The responsibility of the State to administer justice justly is clearly set down in Psalm 82, where God is revealed to be the Judge of all judges:
God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers. How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked? Vindicate the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
Psalm 82: 1—4
Rulers, politicians, all the organs and branches of the State have a duty before the Living God to judge, rule, administrate, and legislate justly. The opposite of justice, according to the Christian faith, is to show partiality—to favour one person or group at the expense of another. Particularly, to show favour to those who are wicked and would do wickedness.
Then the text goes on to address specifically the plight of the poor, the weak, the orphan, the afflicted, the needy, and the destitute. Now this passage has been seized upon, quite wrongly, by socialists and those who advocate that justice requires redistributing wealth in favour of the poor, the indigent, etc. But, as we shall see elsewhere our constitutional documents explicitly forbid showing any favour to the poor at all. Rather, what is being utterly condemned here is the rich and powerful conspiring against the poor, using their wealth to buy judgments in their favour. This is absolutely inimical to justice, and kindles the wrath of the Living God.
The second key constitutional provision for justice is found in Leviticus 19:15:
You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor not defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbour fairly.This is the source of the concept within the older Western legal tradition that “justice is blind.” Under a just State the judges and courts care not (they do not regard) whether the plaintiffs or defendants are rich, famous, powerful, or notorious—or whether they are poor, uneducated, deprived, orphaned, or destitute. Justice, in order to be just, has to be completely disinterested and neutral towards all. One law, one rule for everyone—for kings and princes, and for subjects and paupers. This is the essence of the rule of law. The Scriptures explicitly forbid showing partiality—but particularly partiality on socio-economic grounds. When the State does so, the State has devolved into a ministry of injustice.
Leviticus 19:15
The third key constitutional definition of justice is equal access to the courts of justice. If the rich can get to be heard in court, but the poor cannot afford to get access to a judge, the State has become a ministry, not of justice, but injustice. Moses, the great Lawgiver, the steward of the House of the Lord, laid down this constitutional principle as follows:
Then I charged our judges at that time, saying “Hear the cases between your fellow countrymen, and judge righteously between a man and his fellow countryman, or the alien who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's.
Deuteronomy 1: 16—17
Modern Athenian city and nation states have shut up the law courts to the poor and, therefore, the societally and politically weak. Access to justice has become more and more the preserve of the wealthy which means that entire societies in the West are becoming systemically unjust.
The final key constitutional principle which defines justice is constantly repeated prohibition against taking bribes. Moses, again:
You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord you God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, and justice only, you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 16: 18—20
When we see how the constitution of the City of Jerusalem defines justice, we rapidly conclude that modern Western post-Christian democracies have become systemically and constitutionally unjust. Athens and injustice are now inextricably interwoven.
Firstly, Athens is a City built on bribery and the corruption that inevitably follows. The essence of the modern Athenian democratic process is for state legislators and lawmakers to seek favour with a majority of the community by promising to pass (or maintain) laws that favour them and their factional interests.
“Vote for me. I support unions, or employers, or the unemployed, or students, or the aged, or families by passing laws which favour you, reward you, give money to you, or advance your case against others.” This is what an Athenian election is predominantly about. Lawmakers get elected by promising to pervert the essence of justice by enacting laws that favour one group or other. Or, to put it another way, Athenian lawmakers achieve office through bribing voters; if they bribe sufficiently cleverly and lavishly, they get to be elected. Then they get to write the law in such a way that it pays the bribes they have offered to the people in exchange for their support. It is called "distributive justice" which is a monstrous oxymoron. The whole fabric of Athenian society is thus tawdry and unjust.
The populace in Athens enters into this systemic injustice with relish. It wants to be bribed, and allows its vote to be bought. It sells it to the highest bidder. We should not be surprised at this, since the practice was rife in ancient Athens as well. In a Western democracy, in the end the people are the Judges: everywhere, throughout modern Athens, the Judges (the people) are up for sale and open to bribes. This is why the West has become systemically and irremediably unjust. This is why the corpus of law in Western countries has institutionalised injustice in a way that can never now be changed or addressed, until Athenian idolatry is no more. This is why government has become so pervasively corrupt. Government is all about getting and dispensing favours towards one group or other, not administering justice.
The West has been remarkably self-blinded to this development. It operates in a crazy “hear no evil, see no evil” mode. If an individual or a company were to walk into the office of a judge or legislator and lay money on the table in order to get a favourable outcome, the briber, if exposed and convicted will be punished. But if a politician (seeking to become a legislator) appeals to the electorate by offering to lay “money on the table” in order to get a favourable outcome it is called fair and just. It is regarded as the working of a healthy democracy. But in fact the ethics and morality of the two situations are exactly the same. The only difference is the quantum of money involved. In the latter case, however, the quantum of the bribe and the extent of the injustice involved is much much greater. It is so much more evil that it is called systemic, and recategorized as “just”. Athens is compelled to this hypocrisy. To reverse it would be to tear down the fabric of modern Unbelieving society itself. The whole Athenian polity is built upon a foundation and superstructure of injustice and could not now continue or exist without it.
A further great perversion of justice in Athens is that the government or the State insists on regarding the socio-economic status and condition of people in its administration of justice. Despite the prohibition of the Living God that the law courts have regard to whether the person or case at issue involves the rich or the poor, modern legal systems insist upon it. Tax law, welfare law, health administration and law, educational law—it is all built upon an edifice of redistribution in favour of the less wealthy or so-called disadvantaged groups.
In other words, virtually the entire legal corpus in modern Athens is built upon the premise that you have to take into account and have regard for the socio-economic status of citizens. If you do not, you are condemned as unjust. Yet, this, according to the law of the Living God, is inimical to justice itself. Justice is no longer blind, but it has its eyes wide open, and is deliberately and overtly partial. The law has been perverted to become an instrument of evil and injustice.
Thus, on three basic counts, Athens is a systemically and perpetually unjust City. It has removed access to the courts, except for the rich. It has made bribery an intrinsic component in its political and legislative—and therefore its judicial—processes. Thirdly, it has removed the impartiality of true justice and substituted it with an entire edifice of law built upon the principle of favouring some at the expense of others. Corruption, oppression, deceit, lies, self-interest—these are simply the order of our day.
Athens, built on unjust foundations, has become an edifice of systemic corruption. Its dissolution and destruction is inevitable, not just because it will rot from the inside, but because all kings, rulers, and judges must answer to the Living God. Because they have turned to idols and made their laws and their law courts places of systemic, rampant, and irremediable injustice, He will turn upon them.
The West long ago lost any grounds to plead for the care and protection of the Almighty.
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