Digging Deeper into the source of Justice

As more and more details continue to come out about bin Laden's death, I have seen questions of justice continue to be asked.  I've even noticed that a lot of people are struggling to figure out if and how justice was done in this situation.

Yesterday, I looked a bit at how our individual senses of justice are influenced by details of the situation, even though we seem to have some basic things in common.  I want to look at those basic things today, and tomorrow, look at why I believe that our imperfect sense of justice finds its true origin and understanding in the God who created this world.

Most people agree that you shouldn't just walk down the street and kill some random person for no reason whatsoever.  Likewise, most people agree that simply taking something that belongs to another is wrong.  While we may try to split hairs by examining motives and the details of the situation, typically we do that in order to prove why such an occasion should be an acceptable exemption to our sense of justice.  We acknowledge that a wrong was done, but soften the blow by making it appear a bit more acceptable.

Yet, the one thing we tend to miss in this is that the person still did wrong.  The man who steals food from the grocery store to feed his disabled children because he lost his job still did wrong.  It's only because we feel sympathetic to his situation that we soften the blow.  But no one can deny that a wrong was done.  He stole.  There is an element of the black and white underneath the shades of gray that we introduce. 

I would suggest that, even though God paints the picture of a sinful, fallen humanity, we still retain elements of that perfect being which God created Adam and Eve to be.  We are completely marred, and can never be repaired without passing through death, but that original created sense of justice still resides in us.  Because we are disconnected from God's will, we simply do not want to accept what justice may call for in particular situations (especially ones where we don't see what the big deal is), or consider that our sinfulness means that we are imperfect judges, at best.  Only God can perfectly judge right and wrong, since He alone is without sin.

Tomorrow we'll look at God's justice, and how His justice tends to play out in our world.