Who is my neighbor? – part 1

In a full biblical study of “Who is my neighbor?” there are several chapters to the Story that impact how we reason through and live out a just treatment of others. I’d like to give a brief overview of these and then a few comparisons and approaches to synthesis which might help us understand the concept of biblical justice. Unfortunately, there are several oversimplifications of justice in both Christian and secular circles that are insufficient and even counterproductive. One example is a statist or a technocratic system which assumes that government programs can engineer social equality and well-being for everyone, confusing relational justice with bureaucracy. The dangers here include a false understanding of the nature of sin that impacts both people and systems and the nature of people who need relationships and accountability not just the power to buy what the state says they need.

We need sufficient complexity that takes into account the nature of the world (God’s design), the nature of humanity (our bent toward sin), and the nature of redemption (that restores both justice and relationship). Remember that my “neighbor” can be anyone who might enter our circle that could benefit from our investment, especially when our care for them enables us to demonstrate God’s character and restore their self-respect or their ability to care for themselves and others. Justice in the biblical sense is providing for each what is due according to God’s character and covenant order, which requires covenant faithfulness, a right order in relationships, protection of the vulnerable and accountability for wrongdoers.

As we look through the grand narrative of Scripture, we get clues to God’s character and His commitment to justice through how He interacts with those who live under His Covenant and with those who refuse to recognize Him as Creator and Lord. The earliest chapters relate God’s initial words and actions in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve disobeyed His first command. First, He gives them opportunity to come to Him and repent. They knew that they had rebelled against His command. Unfortunately, they did not repent but rather made excuses and shifted the blame, further complicating the problem and compounding the broken relationships and consequences. Second, God takes initiative, showing both mercy and justice. He is the one who takes an animal, kills it (demonstrating the fatal consequence of sin), clothes Adam and Eve with the skin (hiding their shame), proclaims judgement on each appropriate to their action and role (Adam in tilling the soil and Eve in childbearing), sends them out of the Garden (partially as a protection against eating from the tree of life and living forever in this fallen state, partially as a banishment of sin from His presence), and then promises a return to their position of fellowship and stewardship of the Garden through Eve’s offspring. This pattern is then repeated in variations through God’s interaction with Cain, with Noah, and with his descendants at the Tower of Babel.

It’s important to notice God’s character first in the process which sets the standard for both His words and His actions. His design was good because He is good. His one prohibition was fair both because He is so generous and because he wanted humans as agents to choose to obey and honor Him of their own free will. His punishment was tempered and very merciful because He is kind, knowing that the full weight of just judgement would not provide opportunity for reconciliation. His words brought sorrow but also hope because He knows that we cannot face the consequences of our sin without a hope that is anchored in Himself and His power to restore and redeem what we have broken.

Many more chapters in this Story demonstrate and expand on these themes:

• The patriarchal narratives show God calling a family into a covenant relationship. Abraham is both a model of faith and a flawed human who fails to live up to the dignity and protection people should receive (i.e Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael).
• The Levitical law sets concrete legal protections and social practices for resident aliens and sojourners: equal justice, gleaning laws, fair wages, Sabbath inclusion, limits on ritual practices, and commands to love the foreigner and even the former slave-owners (Egyptians) as oneself.
• The Wisdom literature underscores practical ethics, impartial judgment, and God’s kingship as the ultimate guarantor of justice (as in Psalm 82).
• The prophets repeatedly indict religious ritual unaccompanied by justice. Micah’s famous demand — “do justice, love mercy, walk humbly” — links personal piety and social ethics. Prophetic critique centers on economic oppression, exploitation of widows/orphans/foreigners, and empty forms of worship.
• The returned exiles rebuild the temple and Jerusalem’s walls and then reestablish covenant identity. But some argue that Ezra and Nehemiah’s reforms, while aimed at covenant fidelity, also had the effect of marginalizing certain Israelites who could not document their lineage and forced divorce on those who intermarried, effectively disinheriting their wives and children.
• Jesus reorients love for neighbors as an overflow of mercy, not by their ethnicity or ritual status. The parables push readers to care for both material and spiritual needs without first requiring moral perfection. This sets a new standard, especially for the religious leaders of the day.
• Paul teaches that in Christ both Jew and Gentile are joined into one people by grace. The law’s role is reinterpreted in light of Christ’s work and portrays the church as a new temple or new household where former strangers become citizens. Some distinctions are preserved because of Israel’s history and calling, but the invitation to fellowship is now extended because of Christ.
• John is shown visions (in Revelation) of all peoples and tongues and nations before the throne of God in worship, where sin and evil have been banished and the hearts of all believers have been washed clean, made righteous, and are living fully restored and in right relationship with God and others.

Let me just focus on 1 of these chapters: the Levitical Law regarding foreigners. I will do this because some people like to quote the Law in relation to justice due the alien or a foreigner living in one country with a weak understanding of the context or the meaning of the words. Take for example the passage in Deuteronomy 27:19. Hebrew uses 3 distinct words including “nokri” (temporary foreigner, outsider, or non-assimilating immigrant) and “zar” (stranger). However the word “ger” (resident alien integrating into Israelite society) is the one used in this case, meaning that the covenantal affirmation of justice for the foreigner is for those who have accepted the values of the society and participate as citizens. The Hebrew word used here for justice, “mishpat“, has a range of meanings that go beyond our modern concept of legal fairness. In this context, mishpat means giving each person what is rightly due to them according to God’s covenant order. This is one of many such affirmations of covenant with God that Israel committed to carry out as they entered into the Land that God had promised to give to them as His people. When they did not abide by the covenant that God had made with them, God’s justice demanded that He would give them over to their enemies, no longer protect them as a people, provide for them or answer their prayers. Since Israel was a theocratic covenant nation uniquely under Yahweh’s kingship, the commands regarding covenant identity and responsibility cannot be directly mapped onto immigration policy, but the moral principles of impartiality and care for the vulnerable certainly still apply.

Remember that those who came to live in Israel and were later accepted as Israelites with full rights as citizens (like Ruth and Rehab) had agreed to live under the Mosaic Law and follow both the social requirements as well as the spiritual practices of worship. Foreigners had very limited political and land inheritance rights unless they fully joined the covenant community. This is why the Parable of the Good Samaritan is so powerful. The Samaritan, who was a religious and ethnic outsider, is the one who cared for the injured and robbed Jewish traveler! This shows the power of a transformed heart and a new paradigm where the one from outside the community takes the responsibility for the one who is already part of the community, shunned by those who claimed to follow the Law. While the parable focuses on personal compassion, Jesus is also exposing the failures of the religious–social system. But the core is relational, not legislative. Of course, there is room for legislative justice as well, and Jesus may have had something to say about punishment for those who committed the crime, but that was not the focus of His parable.

How might these episodes of God’s Story be viewed and resolved in light of the Church’s history of violence within the church, the subjugation and even slaughter of those ‘outside the faith’, or the reformation and renewal efforts to free slaves and restore rights and dignity to every person? How can we develop principles for biblical justice and how would those principles be different from other systems of justice? A biblical understanding of justice holds together creation design, human fallenness, and redemptive restoration. It affirms moral order, personal responsibility, property rights, and the value of every human. It directs the family and church to lead in compassion while limiting the state to maintaining justice and public order. We will examine other systems of justice in the next post as a means of comparison. Then we will consider how the varied success and failure of the Church contribute to an authentic application of biblical justice.