Social justice has become the primary mantra of the 21^st Century. When people become “woke” they look for enlistment opportunities to sign up and start protesting for social justice to be implemented. Most are not quite sure what the expression “social justice” means, but because it sounds right and so many influential people are joining the marches for it, they feel that it’s truly a “gospel” cause.

Social justice was originally a Catholic term. It’s first known use was around 1840 where it was used to describe a new kind of virtue (or habit) necessary for post-agrarian societies.

The United Nations’ 2006 document Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations, states that "Social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth ...” What this means is taking by force from the “haves” and giving to the “have-nots” under some socialists/Marxists form of government. In many countries it has and is being done by the threat of a bullet to the head. The reason this is not yet necessary in America is due to people learning that they can do it by the voter’s ballot.

“Social justice” is not a biblical term, in fact, it is a profoundly anti-biblical one. On the other hand, the word “justice” is a pervasively used biblical term, being found 130 times in the Bible. As to “social”, it isn’t used in connection with “justice” a single time. Why? Because with God there is either justice determined by His Word or injustice, which is a transgressing of His Word.

The late 20^th Century economist F.A. Hayek declared: “I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term ‘social justice.’”

The following is a lengthy quote from Pastor Chris Strevel: “Justice is a personal issue for Christians, for we tremble before God’s righteousness and bow before Christ’s cross. Satisfied justice is the heart of our faith; righteous lives are the fruit of our faith and love.

“The golden opportunity requires us to define justice correctly and to renounce most of the dangerous and unjust views of justice that are publicly advocated. When men reject or ignore God’s law, they lack any legitimate standard to identify justice, any motivation to uphold their subjective definitions of justice, or any justification for denouncing injustice. It is a blatant contradiction to howl bitterly against God and Scripture but then also scream for justice. Before you burn down the world, two questions must be answered: By what standard? Whose justice? Unless these questions can be answered, social justice is nothing but what your particular mob wants at the moment.

“Since justice has no foundation apart from submission to God, it has degenerated into “accept my personal decisions and pay for them.”

“Justice does not insist that anyone who has ever thought, said, or done anything that someone now condemns should be exhumed and publicly burned. Justice is not the right to remake the world according to modern theories of race, gender, and sex, egalitarian economics, reigning scientific paradigms, or militarism. Justice is not the right to pass through life without being offended. Justice has but one definition: that which is right in the eyes of God. There is but one standard to define justice: God’s holy word. He has not left the world in the dark. He has not told us to live by natural law, as it was never sufficient for fallen man (Deut. 4:6-8; Ps. 19; 36:9). Into our darkness, God sent his Son. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. Outside of him, there is nothing but darkness everywhere. He must be our righteousness before God and make us righteous in life by the power of his illuminating Spirit, or we shall have no justice anywhere.

“Justice is a gospel issue. Sin spreads its corruption throughout the whole of man’s life. Sin’s injustice is felt in millions of homes where conflicts go unresolved. Injustice is seen in economies manipulated by the super-rich. Injustice broadly exists in the way the various races treat each other. We need no “hidden racial bias” classes to know that this exists. All these efforts are descriptive of sin’s evil, without ever identifying sin as the culprit or regeneration as the solution. To admit this would be to recognize that there is no state answer to injustice. Human politics is incapable of solving human depravity. There is no human answer for injustice. Fundamentally unrighteous before God, man spreads injustice and oppression wherever he goes. Then, because he will not face his own depravity, he redefines justice to suit his political agenda and chooses solutions that are exponentially worse than the original problem.

“Therefore, only those who take man’s fall into sin seriously, his loss of original righteousness, and his total depravity are in any position to speak intelligibly about injustice. Justice is essentially a responsibility issue. We, you and I, must take personal responsibility for our corruption, our attitudes, and our practices. Escaping injustice requires divine deliverance through God’s satisfying his justice upon his Son. It is telling that in all the raging about justice, none ever think of God’s offended justice. Our present conflicts are not about justice but about man’s fears, anger, selfishness, and covetousness.

“Since post-Christian societies no longer ground justice in God and his law, injustices will continue and increase. Sin never rests. “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isa. 57:20-21). Without righteousness, there can be no peace (Ps. 119:165). This is the gospel message to our fallen world in the grip of sin and injustice. There is only one Deliverer. Jesus Christ must deliver us from ourselves. We are the poison fountain of all the hate and injustice in the world, past and present. If men will not recognize this, repent of their sins, and turn to the HOLY ONE, social justice is nothing but an elusive dream of utopians, the deceived masses, and malcontents. It is nothing but a way to establish man’s definitions of righteousness without having to submit to God’s. As long as the regime of God-hating, Scripture-rejecting continues, our social woes will increase. They will be exacerbated in lands that once enjoyed gospel light, for God is judging them for rejecting him. He is also chastening his people in those lands for failing to give a persevering witness and live the new life of obedience to God that Jesus Christ purchased for us by his blood and obedience and outpoured Spirit.”

Amen!