Where is Justice?

Perhaps one of the most elusive desires the world seems to be blindly running after, justice is being searched in the wrong places for quite a long time.


Always in every crime, accident and in every unpleasant circumstances, the victims -- usually those who remained alive-- groan for justice.

Unfortunately, not all of them has been heard. For many of them, justice has become a thing exclusive for the rich. They have been deprived from the very thing that they needed, only because they don't have the power to defend themselves. And worse, the rich is just too powerful for them to face.


Such a terrible life!


If someone has been killed in the family, vengeance is their justice; others a demand for the killer to give them the help in burial; and others is for the guilty to be put in prison to suffer an inhumane fate as a payment for what he has done. But can that kind of justice bring the dead back to life? No indeed! Instead it asked for another life to be sacrificed or perhaps to act as a wage for the grimly act.


And it leaves wounds unhealed and a loss unreplaced. But at least that is how the world made them think.


However, there lies the real question those who demand justice should ask. Not where. What.


Justice is the upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law. Those who disobeyed the law must be punished so that justice may be observed. Without the punishment, the law is not at all being followed. Because of that, justice depends on the law. Justice and the law should therefore coexist.


There are many kinds of constitutions in different nations. Some laws in one country are not in the other. Some sound fair in one country and ridiculous  for the others. With different kinds of laws governing different places, different kinds of justice are being demanded.


For example, in the Philippine constitution, a person guilty of murder should be put to prison, while in one country, say Death country, murder is legal. Justice is observed in the Philippines if the person guilty of suce crime is put to jail, but not at all in Death country.


With imperfect laws come imperfect justice. Justice perfectly implemented in an imperfect law is still an imperfect justice.


There is, however, one perfect Law. It is the Law created not from futile minds of dust-born human. It came eternally from the Creator Himself,--the Almighty God-- the one who created everything.


The Law governs everything in the universe; from time, to space, and to matter. Nothing is above the Law except of course the one who created it. It doesn't give any favors on anyone under it. All are naturally submitted to it; rich or poor; young or old; whether they like it or not.


From this perfect Law comes the perfect and only justice. In this justice, punishment don't come easy. Since the Law is spiritual, any violation requires a very heavy punishment.


Spiritual violation is called sin. In the letter of Paul to the Romans, he said, “For the wages of sin is death”(Rom. 6:23).


A more disturbing fact is that in the same letter he said, “All have turned away from God. They have all gone wrong; no one does what is right; not even one” (Rom. 2:13). Therefore, if all have disobeyed the Law ant not even one, then all are lawfully guilty to be put to death.


Who then can impose judgment of death on another person when he himself is guilty as well? The guilty cannot judge the guilty because both are under judgment.


The good news is that the Creator doesn't want to condemn us to death because of His great love for us. He just can't cancel the Law that required punishment because the weight of sin requires a payment fot the Law to be fulfilled.


Because of the Father's great love and mercy, He did not make us pay the wages of our sins. Instead He made His own Son pay it for us. “But because of our sins he was wounded' beaten because of the evil we did” (Is. 53:59).


“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)


Justice was and is served through the punishment and death of the Son, which in turn deemed us innocent for the crimes we committed if we believe in Him, accept him as our personal Lord and Savior, and allow him to lead us to the path of righteousness. Because of this, we ought to give mercy to others who were given the same mercy as us.


Where is justice? Justice is in the Word of God nailed to a cross.