What is injustice?

While injustices can take on many forms—whether the mistreatment of others, discrimination, economic or political injustice, law enforcement overreach, unjust actions carried out against you or someone else, structural or systemic injustice, or simply not doing what is right towards others—we all know injustice when we see it. When we see it, we have an inherent urge to respond to confront injustice—not only because we are Christ’s Ambassadors, but also because God is a God of JUSTICE and the Moral Law Giver who has implanted within each of us to know what is right and what is wrong. God has called us to do justice, to seek justice and to correct oppression.

Given the myriad ways in which injustices manifest and impact people, our communities, our nation and world, the issue is God-sized and therefore requires a gospel-rooted response. It is a God-sized issue because the issues originate as sin in the heart of mankind. Only God can deal with the heart appropriately. Without first applying the gospel-rooted response to the injustice, we will short change true deliverance and restoration. With the physical injustices made visible, we must first realize that the physical is derived from that which is invisible and spiritual. You may already know this. If we want to fix the visible injustices, we must first engage the issue(s) from the spiritual perspective.

Through prayer and fasting and putting on our spiritual armor DAILY (Ephesians 6:10-18), Isaiah 61 offers us a hopeful “forecast” of the restoration that can occur for the oppressed when we engage injustice through a spiritual approach first:

The Year of the Lord’s Favor

61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

⁴ They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
⁵ Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
⁶ And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

⁷ Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

⁸ “For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
⁹ Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹ For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

God has created the biblical standard for what is true justice and how we can bring it about for those who are oppressed. In following His approach, we will truly loose the chains of injustice and bring renewal and restoration to the oppressed.