Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Darrell Harrison - Social Justice vs. Biblical Justice

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode Darrell B. Harrison from Just Thinking Podcast answers the question: “What's the difference between Social Justice and Biblical Justice?”Watch on YouTubeFollow on InstagramVisit Our Website

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with Daryl Harrison of the Just Thinking Podcast and ask him, what does social justice even mean? Let's dial in. Daryl, thanks for sitting down again. I wanted to ask you, so much is said today about social justice. It's hard to turn on an NFL or an NBA game and not hear it constantly. But I think many people don't really even understand what social justice is by the definition of the people promoting it. Can you please give us some insight? What does social justice even mean? Yeah, so social justice is a very outcome-oriented versus biblical justice, which is very income-oriented. And let me explain what I mean

by income and outcome. In Scripture, God is concerned about balanced weights. He doesn't want prejudice or bias going into a situation that needs to be adjudicated, you know, where decision needs to be made, a judgment needs to be made, a conclusion needs to be drawn. The scripture is clear that we cannot show partiality towards anyone. I think it's in Leviticus 19.15 where God outlaws partiality even towards the poor. Nexus 23 as well, yeah. Bingo. So you have in social justice, social justice is especially biased towards the poor, especially biased towards those who have not. And what we as believers have to understand is God is so against partiality that he really doesn't care whatever whatever special circumstances there may be. when a situation is being adjudicated in court or if you have a disagreement with someone, God is concerned about what goes into making sure that situation is fair, what goes into making sure that situation is just regardless of the outcome.

I think a great biblical example is in 2 Kings chapter 3, where you have the situation with King Solomon having to adjudicate the situation between the two women who came to him, both claiming that the child was theirs. Solomon ruled with equity, knowing what the outcome would be that one of these women would go home without a baby. So in God's economy, he's concerned about equity, whereas the world is concerned about equality and everybody coming out with the same thing or a particular outcome, a desired outcome, being the reality for me. Social justice is very biased in the world's terms. Then let's say hypothetically someone said, Darrell, well, for many decades it was not balanced in one direction. And now what the social justice movement or people that adhere to it are trying to do

is overcompensate to level that out. What's the difference then between showing no partiality and trying to fix what's happened in the past? Well, I don't know that it's the church's job to try to fix that. I don't mean to sound sarcastic here, but I don't know what you would expect in a world that's under the power of

the evil one. We know that from 1 John 5, 19. We should not be naive as believers to think that everything is going to balance out in this world, that everything is going to be fair. We talked earlier about how, as believers, we're to do good works in keeping with repentance. You cannot expect anyone, regardless of if the person is in a position of authority, if they're not a believer, if their heart's not regenerate, you should not expect them to apply God's principles and precepts of fairness and justice and righteousness to certain situations. But to try to overcompensate as much as the social justice movement does by using the same discriminatory attitudes,

the same prejudicial attitudes, the same biased and partial systems and mechanisms to sort of right a historic wrong, that's just as sinful as the wrong that was committed originally. God's not going to honor that either. So would you say when a pastor or an NBA player say they're fighting for social justice, are they both in their own minds, you think, fighting for the same thing? And if, you know, as far as we're passionate about social justice, when you turn on ESPN and see that, and a pastor that says that, are they united in what they're fighting for, or do they have different interpretations of what that means? It could go either way, and I don't mean to be so simplistic in responding to your question,

but we've got some woke pastors in the church. We know that professional sports leagues are beyond woke right now, so there are pastors who could say, well, yeah, I'm for social justice, and they could still be siding with some of these woke athletes out here, but when you look at Scripture, there's no such thing as social justice. In Scripture, there's justice and there's injustice. There is no qualifier, and when you look at Scripture, there's no such thing as social justice. In Scripture, there's justice and there's injustice. There is no qualifier. And when you look through Scripture, justice is inexorably tied to God's righteousness, is inexorably tied to his character. So when we talk about justice, we have to ask ourselves, well, what do you mean by that?

Do you mean the world's context of it where they're saying, well, I need a certain outcome? And if that outcome doesn't come to fruition, you think that's an injustice? Or are you looking at God's definition and context of what justice is, which means doing what God considers righteous, regardless of the outcome, without partiality? So we have two distinct definitions here. And more times than not, the world's definition of justice is not Scripture's definition of it. So if someone says to you, well, Darrell, the Old Testament tells me in Amos and Micah to do justice. What does that mean biblically? That means doing righteousness.

It means doing righteousness in terms of how God defines it. But again, I cannot expect an unregenerate person to do God's justice. I cannot. I should not expect that. And again, justice. And unfortunately, we even have evangelicals latching on to this description. Justice is so outcomes based in the world. You look at what happened with the what's going on right now, even with Derek Chauvin's trial with the George Floyd situation. He was convicted. A lot of people would say, well, yeah, he got justice because they wanted to see a conviction. But you know what? Even if he'd been acquitted, that's still justice because the process that acquitted him was impartial.

It was not biased. It was fair for both sides. It was fair for the defense and the prosecution. And we need to remember 1 Timothy 5, 24, even in situations where God's righteousness is not carried out in this world, it will be carried out in the next. Paul writes in that verse that some people's sins, they're going to be judged in this life, but others' sins are going to be judged afterwards. So regardless of the outcome, as long as the income, as long as the process that went into it was fair, was unbiased, was impartial, we have to say that that was God's justice because God is sovereign over those situations. It's helpful, Daryl. Now, last question here is, let's say I'm a pastor and I come to you and go, Daryl, I'm conscientious that I don't start doing things merely out of concern for someone else's skin color. But I also want to do righteousness in the community. And I see clearly in James 127 that I'm called to care for orphans and widows in their distress.

How do I obey these principles without being labeled as woke or having the right heart about it? Yeah, I would just say to that person, first of all, you need to stop caring what anyone might think, number one. Your only concern, I've heard John MacArthur say this, his only concern when he steps into the pulpit is what God thinks. He's told congregations to their faces, I don't really care what either of you think about what I'm saying from this pulpit. We have to have that same attitude. We can't care what someone else thinks. I think it's in 1 John where John writes that if our heart does not condemn us,

that we have the things that we ask God for. So you have to examine yourself. It's like Paul says, what are your motives, number one? Are your motives to sort of apply some sort of moralistic effort to what's happening. External facade. Right, external facade. That's not the gospel.

The gospel is not moralism. If you're motivated by anything other than trying to be obedient to God, if you're motivated by anything other than wanting to serve God, if you're triggered, if you will, by certain events that happen in society and then you rise up one more and say, oh gosh, I got to do something. Well, that's wrong motives. That's moralism. That's humanism. That's what Martin Luther King was about, to be honest with you. But that's not the gospel. So yes, the thing that that pastor should be concerned about doing are things that he should be doing each and every day,

but realizing that those works are not salvific. Your first job is to preach the gospel and let God work your word in that person's heart so that they come to faith in him. That's number one. Fruit of what God is doing. Exactly right. It's the outflow. That's helpful. Darrell, thank you so much for the time and the clarification.

I think that this will provide for so many people. Please do.