What Is the Biblical Concept of Justice?

Social Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel by E. Calvin Beisner examines the modern concept of social justice and contrasts it to the biblical ideal. While Beisner offers many more insights than I can summarize here, his discussion of Hebrew and Greek words appearing in the Bible that relate to the idea of justice is vital. Hebrew words convey the ideas of adherence to God’s standard of ethics and morality, as well as referring to governmental processes and government in a broad sense. The Greek concepts include fairness and uprightness, as well as the idea of legal judgment or the dispensing of justice, righteousness, and fairness. On this basis, biblical justice means “rendering impartially and proportionally to everyone his due in accord with the righteous standard of God’s moral law.” Biblical justice isn’t about equalizing wealth, but about impartiality and making sure people receive what they rightly deserve.

When one exercises biblical justice, he or she renders “impartially and proportionally to everyone his due in accord with the righteous standard of God’s moral law.”
—Calvin Beisner—

Calvin Beisner, Social Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel, (Burke, VA and Washington, D.C.: Cornwall Alliance for The Stewardship of Creation, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, 2013), 11.

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