Eternal Pillars for True Justice

The only solid foundation for a just and prosperous society is, without a doubt, the word and values of the Kingdom of God. By relying on merely ethical and humanistic reasoning, a nation will never be able to establish a truly just system.

Proverbs 14:12 declares: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Jeremiah 17:9 adds: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and wicked.” In other words, human beings need more than their own reasoning and moral speculation to arrive at true justice. They need the fixed points of God’s eternal and absolute wisdom to guide them rightly.

The mind of a person estranged from God is a faulty, defective instrument. Like a damaged computer, it is capable of great feats at times. But because its processor is defective, it can also produce utter nonsense and lead to serious errors. Only the sure compass of divine wisdom, set forth in the Scriptures and spread through the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s children, can save a society from plunging into the abysses of moral relativism and injustice in disguise.

Without the absolute and eternal points of reference that only the word of God can provide, all that remains for a humanistic culture in its search for truth and justice are the deceptive labyrinths of moral relativism and the treacherous mirages of situational ethics. Left with only the dim light supplied by a fallen mind, the modern individual easily loses his way. He ends up calling evil good and good evil.

The apostle Paul explained this phenomenon accurately two thousand years ago in his epistle to the Romans (verses 21 and 22):

21 For although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

Later, Paul adds:

28 And since they did not see fit to keep God in mind, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things that are not fitting.

Often, what seems just to human beings is merely a subjective projection of their own selfish preferences and inclinations. Much of what passes for justice in our societies today is nothing more than the particular preference of interest groups in power, or the passing winds of cultural fashions that come and go with time. It is far from representing God’s objective, absolute, and unchanging truth and justice. The antidote? The sound wisdom that comes only from God, the mind of Christ, a mind enlightened by the Holy Spirit that receives understanding to make decisions that benefit societies and their institutions. When societies humble themselves before Jesus Christ and submit their understanding to divine illumination, then they will understand “justice, judgment, and equity, and every good path” (Proverbs 2:9).