God's restorative justice

In my last post, I addressed the first part of my answer to some questions Peter's Gurry asked in the comments to another blog post. Here I'd like to deal with the second part:

"I struggle to see how your definition of God's righteousness/justice will hold in Rom 3:21-26, especially vv. 25-26. When God passed over previously committed sins, does that mean he never healed people of their brokenness? And if so, how does healing that brokenness now through the cross show that God is, in fact, restoratively just when he restores those who have faith in Christ (3:26)? In other words, I still don't see the need for a blood-stained cross in your system.

I think Paul's logic in this section of Romans makes much more sense if the question he's addressing is not "When will God restore broken, fractured lives" (important as that question is) but rather, "How can God possibly forgive punishment-deserving rebels in a way that doesn't make a mockery of the very retribution they deserve?" In other words, How can God be both just and the justifier? Remember, the question that sets this section going is a question of God's wrath against rebellious humans (1:18-3:20). It's not a question about our fractured human lives. We are victims to be sure, but far more serious is the fact that we are perpetrators and that all our sin is finally directed Godward."

As Peter notes, my definition of "God's righteousness/justice" (Greek: diakaiosyne theo) is restorative justice, as opposed to retributive justice. Peter asks about how that understanding of justice as "making things right" fits with Romans 3:25-26:

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

So let's back up to the beginning of Romans and follow Paul's argument up to here. Paul opens Romans with a discussion of the wrath God (beginning at Ro 1:18). Wrath here can be understood as retributive justice: it is the just punitive consequence for our sinful actions. We do bad stuff, and bad things happen to us. It is the law of sewing and reaping, quid pro quo, or if you like "karma." Paul is addressing his fellow Jews, and begins by speaking about pagan depravity. At this point his audience is thinking "yeah, those pagans sure are rotten! God's gonna get them!" It is here that Paul turns the tables and says that we have no right to judge others when we are just as bad. He then goes on to argue (Ro 2:1-3:20) that we are all under sin, and therefore when we hope for God to judge, we are in fact calling down wrath on ourselves.

This is something that Paul knew from practical experience. He had himself, before his conversion, not only wished for God's wrath, but had seen himself as an instrument of it, acting to persecute, harm, and even kill Christians based on his belief that he was doing this all in the name of God. Paul's major sin was that of religious zeal leading to acts of violence in God's name. This motivation to religious violence was common in his time, has continued to be among the church throughout its history (the crusades, the inquisitions, etc) and frankly still is today among many Christians.

While Paul begins by saying that we are all guilty of sins in general (chapter 2), he then moves on in chapter 3 to address the specific sins of religious people. Notice that the specific sins he lists here have to do with hateful speech (“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness”) and violence (“Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”) What Paul is describing here is the sins of religious zeal that results in hateful judgment and acts of violence done in God's name. Since Paul would of course include himself in his indictment, we could read this as Paul's own confession of the shape of his religious life before his conversion:

“My throats was an open grave; my tongue practiced deceit. The poison of vipers was on my lips. My mouth was full of cursing and bitterness.
My feet were swift to shed blood; ruin and misery marked my ways, and the way of peace I did not know. There is no fear of God before my eyes.”

Paul did not know the way of peace, and there was no fear of God before his eyes. So Paul's aim in this first part of his argument is to put the fear of God before our eyes: if we continue on this way of judgment and retribution, it will lead to our own destruction. This is also a common theme of Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus warns of God's wrath unless we embrace the radical way of forgiveness.

At this point in Romans, Paul introduces a new concept: "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify" (Ro 3:21). The law here represents the system of retributive justice, of blessings and curses, that Paul has been discussing up to now. If we obey the law we receive blessing, and if we break it we find wrath. Paul contrasts this way of retribution with "the righteousness/justice of God." This is God's action, motivated by unmerited love of enemies, to make things right. It is restorative justice. So what Paul is proposing is that God's restorative justice breaks into the cycle of violence inherit in retributive justice. God overcomes the cycle of our hurting and being hurt by acting to restore and reconcile us.

With all that in mind, let's return to 3:25-26: Paul writes that God made things right through Jesus in order to "demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished." In other words, God leaving sins unpunished was seen as wrong by Paul's audience who wanted to see God's wrath poured out on bad people. They felt it was unfair that bad people got away with it, and wanted God to punish them. Paul has been arguing that the bigger problem is that we are all bad, and so in wanting this we are really just hoping to add to the hatred and pain, we are pulling ourselves into the destructive cycle of retribution. In order for God to show that he was not unjust in leaving past sins unpunished, in not wiping us all out (and it would be unjust to simply do nothing in the face of evil), God now acts to make things right through Jesus. "God did this to demonstrate his restorative justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." (v 26, my translation). We could also translate this verse as "God did this to demonstrate his goodness at the present time, so as to be good and the one who makes-good those who have faith in Jesus."

So I think Peter is absolutely right in saying that Paul is not addressing the question "When will God restore broken, fractured lives" (important as that question is) but rather, "How can God possibly forgive punishment-deserving rebels in a way that doesn't make a mockery of the very retribution they deserve?" More specifically, the question is how can God just ignore sin, and not punish it? Paul's answer is that God cannot simply ignore sin and be just, but God can act to heal sin (and sinners) and make things right, and in doing so God demonstrates true justice which is God's restorative justice that comes through Jesus.

Now how exactly God's action in Jesus (in the incarnation, cross, and resurrection) acts to restore us, Paul does not detail here (he does elsewhere, but that will need to be the subject of another post). He simply claims here that what God is doing now in Jesus apart from law (that is, in contrast to the system of retribution) is about God's act to restore ("the justice of God" diakaiosyne theo) as an answer to the problem of retributive justice (wrath).

Peter Gurry writes that "We are victims to be sure, but far more serious is the fact that we are perpetrators and that all our sin is finally directed Godward." As we have seen, Paul was a perpetrator. That sin was indeed directed Godward. Jesus confronts Paul on the road to Damascus with the words "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5). Because God identifies with the victim, when we hurt others, even when we do this as Paul did in God's name, (or perhaps especially when we do) as do it unto them, the least, the vulnerable, we do it unto God. But what Paul the violent perpetrator encountered was grace and forgiveness instead of wrath, and that unmerited enemy love turned him around so that he renounced his former commitment to the way of retribution, and instead embraced the way of grace and restorative justice in Jesus. Paul's brokenness was precisely his hurtful understanding of religion that lead him to hatred and violence, and it is this wrong understanding of justice that Jesus undoes in Paul, replacing that with a new understanding of God's justice typified by restorative enemy love.

Following Jesus means following in that way of love of enemies, of forsaking judgment and instead embracing healing restoring forgiveness. To claim that the atonement is one rooted in the fulfillment of a retributive demand (that God punishes Jesus to fulfill the demands of retributive justice) is to utterly miss the entire point of the New Testament--that God's way is the way of radical restorative grace. That is what God's justice means. The cross is a demonstration of that restorative justice acting to overcome the way of retribution by making things good again, rather than adding hurt to hurt.

Romans & "all have sinned"

I'd like to share a new take on Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

As an evangelical the interpretation that I had always been taught for this verse is that it means that everyone has done something wrong, we all have lied for example, and because God is holy this means that we need to be punished with Hell, even for one small infraction. Anyone who has grown up in Evangelical circles as I have will instantly recognize this line of argument.

Now I don't deny that sin and separation from God is a reality, and that we as humans need to be reconciled into a personal relationship with God. I wholeheartedly affirm that as an Evangelical. But reading through Romans, I do not think that Paul here was intending to present this verse as a kind of moral score card.

Let's back up and look at Paul's line of thought in Romans: The book of Romans is primarily addressed to a Jewish audience (that is, to Christians coming out of a Jewish rather than a pagan background). This becomes abundantly clear in chapter two when Paul directly addresses his readers as Jews "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew..." Paul begins his argument by looking at pagan temple prostitution. Verse 27 reads "In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." This is one of the passages that is frequently brought up in debates about homosexuality. But Paul here is not speaking about a mutual committed relationship between two people with a homosexual orientation here (a concept virtually unheard of in his day), he is speaking about sex with a temple prostitute outside of any sort of relationship, and regardless of ones orientation. More to the point he is citing this as an example of a religious practice. This is not an example of 'wild living party people', this is an example of religion gone wrong. The purpose of these orgies in the mystery religions was to connect with God through these rituals. Paul here is putting forth an example of people who are trying to lead moral lives and get close to God, but getting it horribly wrong. It is an example that any Jew at the time would have found appalling, perhaps comparable to how we might react towards the story of some Kool-Aide suicide cult.

Paul then turns this around in chapter two, saying: see how messed up their religion is? well, yours is just as messed up! He challenges his audiences tenancy towards self-righteous judgmentalism, and points out their own hypocrisy. Paul's argument here is that God looks at our heart and life, not at our religious affiliation. It is an extremely radical argument that must have been shocking to hear at the time. Take for example this passage:

"Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God." (Ro 2:25-29 NIV)

Now let's imagine what it must have sounded like in their ears by replacing some of the words here with our own terminology:

"Baptism has value if you observe God's Word, but if you break God's Word, you have become as though you had not been baptized. If those who are not baptized keep the requirements of God's Word, will they not be regarded as though they were baptized? The one who is not baptized physically and yet obeys God's Word will condemn you who, even though you have the Bible and baptism, are a sinner. A man is not a Christian if he is only one outwardly, nor is baptism merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Christian if he is one inwardly; and baptism is baptism of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God."

Now I realize that there is not a direct parallel between baptism and circumcision, so take the above with a grain of salt, but I think putting ourselves in their shoes like this does help to bring out how radical and challenging Paul's message is - both then and now. It is a message that challenges religious self-righteousness and pride.

Paul then in chapter 3 asks if being a Jew does not exempt one from being a sinner what advantage is there then? I think we are on pretty solid ground if we include ourselves as Christians in this, so we might ask the same question: if being a Christian does not mean that we are blameless and perfect, what does it mean? Paul's answer is that having God's word makes us aware of the reality of our brokenness and need so that we can hopefully respond with a bit of self-reflective humility.

This all brings us to Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." Paul continues

"...and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."

I've said a lot in the past about the meaning of verse 24 "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood" which you can read here, here, and here. Right now I want to draw our attention the part after that where he says "He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished"

The original Greek for this reads:

"εἰς ἔνδειξιν (in order to demonstrate) τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ (the righteousness of His) διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν (accounting for ignoring) τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων (the previous sins).

So a pretty literal translation would be that God presented Jesus... "in order to show His righteousness in ignoring previous sins." The NLV puts it like this "This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past." In other words, in the eyes of his Jewish audience, God's not judging and punishing sin was seen as unjust. As a people long in exile, living under pagan oppression, they wanted God to come in wrath and judge the Gentile sinners. God judging sin meant for them that the victims would be avenged. So when God did not come in wrath, this seemed in their eyes to be unjust - similar perhaps to how we might feel it unjust to not respond to an act of terrorism. They saw it as an inaction, and cried out with the Prophets "How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, 'Violence!' but you do not save?"

What I think Paul is saying here is that because we all are sinners, this wish for God to wipe out the "bad guys" means we would be wiped out too. That's why he says God held back (πάρεσιν), because God wanted to show his righteousness and justice in a different way, though Christ now making us right (v 26). This is what Luther called "God's alien justice" making us right with him though God's righteousness. It's not a quid pro quo payback justice, its a justice that justifies - that sets us aright. This new way in Christ is the way of redemption instead of wrath. That means that in this context, Ro 3:23 is not some sort of judicial score card, it is a statement of non-violence. Paul is saying: look I know you want to see people being judged, I know you want to see those who have oppressed and hurt you get hurt back, but that way is a deathtrap because we all are guilty, we all have hurt and been hurt. This vicious cycle of blame will only perpetuate injustice. It's not just them over there, it's all of us, and so we all need mercy and redemption.

That's Paul's message here in its original context. Not one of petty accounting where the smallest infraction has the most severe consequence, but a recognition of our own brokenness and need - even as religious people, especially as religious people - to live in mercy and grace.