2 Chronicles 19

I was recently having a conversation with friends about justice. Particularly about our "justice" system and whether it correlates to God’s definition of justice. I don’t believe so, and I’ll tell you why. In this world, we are typically limited to a style of "justice" that is more retributive than anything else. For instance, if one person murders another, the only option available to us is to inflict some sort of punishment on the perpetrator for their wrongdoing—whether that be prison time or even sentencing them to death.

But God’s justice is restorative. I believe that His kind of justice in such a case would be the resurrection of the murdered person and an attempt to rehabilitate—if possible—the perpetrator. Often, we even attempt the rehabilitation, but we don’t have the option of bringing someone back from the dead. Therefore, we’re sort of limited in the amount of true justice we can achieve. (Having said that, I don’t have any qualms about punishment/discipline for crimes. A person should be held to account for wrongdoing.)

In this chapter of 2 Chronicles, however, God’s justice is described in even more detail: "Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for mere mortals but for the Lord, who is with you whenever you give a verdict. Now let the fear of the Lord be on you. Judge carefully, for with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery." (vs 6-7)

The Hebrew word translated "injustice" there simply means unrighteousness, or wrongdoing. So, God doesn’t do what is wrong, He doesn’t show partiality or favoritism, nor is He corrupt. He can’t be bought off. One of the interesting things in this description, for me, is that God shows no partiality.

This is another big difference from the trend in our system of "justice." Especially with the advent of "social justice," it seems that one of the ways we try to achieve justice is through partiality—whether it’s partiality toward a particular economic class, race, gender, or religion. We perceive that a certain group of people have been wronged by society at large, so they often receive special treatment in our courts and legislatures.

But this isn’t God’s justice. He shows no partiality. That means no favoritism toward the rich. And it also means no favoritism toward the poor. (In fact, He typically doesn’t even define rich and poor in the ways we do. See Revelation 3:14-22.) It means He is not partial to whites or blacks, nor is He partial to Muslims or Christians. He always does what is right, no matter what. He operates on the basis of true justice.