Let Justice Roll Down like Waters
The most frequently mentioned command in the Bible is ‘do not fear’. Both Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT). That little command is mentioned approximately 365 times. Just sufficient mentions to remind us, every day of the year that we should not be afraid. I’ve often thought that Scripture says it so often exactly because God knows that we will fear and so He needs to remind us every day not to!
The biggest overarching theme in the Bible is likely the Kingdom of God. In a way it links to the most common command, ‘do not fear.’ If it is indeed so that ultimately God rules and reigns in full authority and full authority rests in God’s hands, then we should not fear despite what we see around us.
The most often mentioned sin in Scripture, is idolatry. Idolatry is of course anything that replaces the need for God in our lives. It could be a thousand things, but for 21st Century Western Christians it is most often overt materialism and comfort. In Scripture the theme of idolatry is, more often than not, linked to a failure to care for the poor and an indifference to human need. Yet we are faced now with billionaires and even voices purporting to speak on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ who openly espouse that empathy and compassion is the “failure” of the West.
Somehow these frequently mentioned themes and commands all seem to be linked to one another. For our purposes today the themes would seem to culminate in another enormous and often ignored theme in Scripture. The theme of justice. Justice is an enormous theme in Scripture. I want to kick off 2026 with a prayer that asks Jesus to grant us a more just world this year.
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, you call us to do justice. You ask us to defend the cause of the fatherless, the widow, and the orphan. You urge us to love the foreigner who lives among us. The immigrant. The Muslim, the Sikh and the Christian alike. To provide for the hungry, the homeless, the thirsty, the naked, those in captivity of all sorts - the wretched. The need is overwhelming, and we are human. Holy Spirit, fill us with courage and hope. Remind us that only in Christ are we are good enough. Lord, you are our Rock. When we strive right what is wrong, help us to remember that you do, too. You care about injustice. Thank you that you are our Rock, that your works are perfect, and that all your ways are just. When fairness, or even basic human decency seems a long way off, teach us to abide in You. May 2026 be a year in which Amos’ vision sees justice ‘roll down like waters’. Come Lord Jesus, come Holy Spirit.”
Preaching Biblical Justice
Some of you who read this blog are preachers. I’m appealing to us now. Narrative OT history, the OT prophets, Jesus in the Gospels, and much of the epistles, Acts and other NT writings all share the foundation of compassion, mercy and justice as being at the centre of God’s heart. Biblical justice is about God and God’s people (1 Co 3:9) putting the world right.
In general, the evangelical Churches have historically not been faithful in preaching or doing justice. We’ve been concerned – not completely without reason – that the simple Gospel message of Acts 16:31, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved…” is in danger of being lost when justice becomes too central. To that fear, I would say ‘do not fear’. James is clear. “But someone will say you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds (Js 2:18). For me the one necessarily flows from the other. I do what I do, because I am who I am. Cognitive belief is not the belief the Scriptures speak of. Belief in the NT sense, is that thing I fully commit my life to.
Without going into all the history that has landed us where we are now, the covenant of the Lausanne Movement – an evangelical movement concerned with world evangelization – is very clear that ‘the message of salvation implies a message of judgement on injustice.’ The Lausanne covenant speaks of the ‘whole Church taking the whole Gospel, into the whole world.’ Justice is part and parcel of that whole Gospel.
The challenge in preaching biblical justice is that putting things right, necessarily means passing judgment on that which has gone wrong. This means that in our preaching and elsewhere, we have to say ‘no’ to something before we can say ‘yes’ to something else. To make everything ‘right’ we, as biblical justice preachers need to be able to say ‘no’ to the things that are systemically wrong.
Those would be the things that dehumanize, distort and destroy God’s world. Things that include but are not limited to racism, sexism, Christian nationalism, corruption & fraud in high places, white supremacy, patriarchy, skewed legislation that favours the wealthy and prevents others from advancing, legislation that keeps people in a cycle of poverty, police brutality, prison overcrowding, prison brutality, unjust immigration laws, limited access to bursaries, loans, health care, unjust and prejudiced banking practices, destructive theologies and more. Easy territory, right? There is little possibility of me offending anyone here at all - not.
I can hear the clicks on ‘unsubscribe’ as I type. Somehow even in circles where justice is a central value, preaching that focusses more narrowly, perhaps, on the three great cries of the Reformation viz ‘sola Gracia, sola Fidei, sola Scriptura’ still tends to be better affirmed than the portions of said ‘Scriptura’ that allude to structural and systemic injustice. ‘Sola Scriptura’ is popular in evangelical circles, as long as one focusses on select portions of the Scriptures. Venture a little wider, attempt a little more prophetic disruption and the ‘Scriptura’ are not necessarily quite as strongly affirmed.
The difficult and extremely unpopular part of preaching biblical justice in an evangelical context involves these things that we need to say ‘no’ to, before we can say ‘yes’ to something else. Something better. For preachers of biblical justice, the human constructs that are systemically unjust are all too plain to see. The challenge is to preach messages that are reconciliatory and restorative, rather than retributive only. My conviction is that biblical justice differs from retributive justice in that it always has at root, reconciliation as its ultimate motivation.
I have lost at least one friendship I am aware of because of a difference in just this one nuance: ‘Is the justice you preach aimed ultimately at reconciliation, or is it only ever retributive?’ This not to say that there is no place for corrective compensation. From my vantage point there most certainly is place for that. Correcting the imbalances of the past most certainly has its place. Rather, it is to say this; ‘is the ultimate goal of your preaching the reconciliation of all things – particularly human relations – to one another and to God, or is it, at root, based in vengeance? (Col 1:20).
Effrem Smith, a former Fuller professor of mine says that biblical justice is to be distinguished from various secular forms of justice because it centres around reconciliation. Co-existence is very different from biblical reconciliation.
About a decade ago, I recognised a major omission in my own theological formation that had led to my general preaching philosophy. The omission was that I had read relatively little theology, up to that point, on biblical justice from the position of the marginalized themselves. Most of the theology that had shaped me till then had been authored by white UK, USA and even white African authorship.
Even where that theology had been distinctly biblical justice orientated, it was penned from the place of privilege. There is a significant difference and contrast between a theology of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. I am not at all dismissive of the voices I had heard up to that point and remain grateful for the shaping influence of most of them. But I recognized that I needed to start hearing about marginalization from the perspective of the marginalized themselves.
This opened the world of the Antebellum Church, African American theology, womanist theology, Hispanic theology and more to me. It has been a game changer. And for all who would fear for my orthodoxy…it has not moved me one iota from still most firmly believing the Gospel call of Acts 16:31 I started out with: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved…” I believe that now, more than the day Jesus called me.
In Christ, there is no slippery slope. “Remain in me as I also will remain in you…I am the Vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (Jn 15:4,5). The fullest Gospel is the one that includes all of scripture, not just the parts that suit my cherry-picked and often prejudiced belief system. Let Your justice roll down like waters, Jesus.
Happy New Year!
Grace & peace
Melt