Comments on: God’s Justice – Punishment or Restoration

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:03:12 +0000

Ziun, I’d be interested to know how often you have copied and pasted that comment on different blogs?

If it’s original, while I get your point, I don’t think it relates much to the article at all. You haven’t really addressed the article and shown specifically where you disagree… and I am assuming you do disagree somehow.

Note the points you disagree with and I’ll be more than happy to discuss them.

By: Ziun

Ziun — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:35:54 +0000

However, I may have read the whole subject wrong. some of that may be right, but some parts may not be.
I would say truly test it by the scripture before accepting what an article may say.
some articles aren’t right.
Ya’ll may be trying to be right with the true Lord and trying to is noted.
But the point is still stated.

By: Ziun

Ziun — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:23:34 +0000

You should really check your state of your soul. Watch and be careful what you treed, because the real Jesus Christ the Lord is sitting on the right side of the father and knows your hypocrisy.
God the Father is a intimate loving Lord and His justice is to do away with sin, the devil, demons and those wanting to kill his saints. However not in the way you purpose.
He died for all of mankind (4 we are all sinners) if they would follow and accept Him by accepting His Son Jesus Christ the Lord and following Him by carrying your cross through the Holy spirit dayly. You’d know how to properly follow and you’d know better. God is not for demons, nor is He for immorality, sexual perversions, abortions. But those who are in these things He calls to offering His Holy Spirit through His son to save us from Sheol and the wiles of the devil. To accept His son and follow in the real Jesus who is in Heaven not a fake one made up by society or by some man or by some man calling himself God. The only man who was truly God was and is Jesus Christ the Lord He is real and living, and He sees and knows and (again) is in Heaven with the Father He is not for the anti-christ. To change your lives through Him growing in love, meekness, kindness, God’s grace. His justice is to bring those of whom “are” His sons, daughters, and mothers together in a loving relationship with Him.
Not to try to falsely use His justice and twist it to something else or world peace. That cannot be unless it is false because sinful man cannot be with God they must first be born again. Not some false nonsense about being healed either. Sinful man has to accept the true Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven which is the true one and only God and (again) following Him by His Holy spirit and living in Him. He will show His spirit in His people the truth and they know truth. Not a president, not politics, not idols, not doctrines of demons, not false prophets.
Follow the Holy Spirit or do not, check your relationship and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not falsely consider that God is for new acts of “sodom and gommorah”. God does not support a gay society, nor false justice masking itself as God’s. You are not God. God is the one who decided not man for His justice is true, not man’s for we are all sinners. You should love your enemy and pray for them that they may be saved not to go and make a false justice in the name of God or His son who is God for the Lord is one.

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:05:37 +0000

PS – It’s great to hear from you again and have your participation here!

Yesterday I had the chance to interview Judge Andrew Becroft for our Podcast. I would imagine you are familiar with him through TSCF? We interviewed him in his capacity as Principal Youth Court Judge. He shared some great thoughts on justice.

Hopefully that Podcast will be up this Friday.

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:25 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Scott. I hear your concern, but I personally don’t see that dichotomy present in what Dr. Zehr has written here… aside from the title, but even then, is the purpose of punishment purely judgement, or is the underlying factor restoration? Did God defeat sin and death simply to judge or was the ultimate intent restoration of the relationship between humanity and himself?

God’s justice can involve punishment, but the point of that punishment always seems to have restoration as its focus at some point for as many stakeholders in an offense as possible.

I think in what he has written Dr. Zehr still leaves much room for punitive consequences to wrong-doing. What I see him addressing here is the imbalance often present in modern views of justice and how those may have been influenced to a point where too often justice is viewed as only entailing punishment and punishment being the “end-point”.

In his work “The Little Book of Restorative Justice” he talks of a continuum where society still needs the current system to a point, but that a process needs to be found where the punitive approach is not necessarily the default approach.

With this in mind, nobody who upholds restorative justice denies obligations on the part of the offender, indeed if obligations and an understanding of the need for accountability on the part of the offender are removed, then this form of justice falls over. Where the offender is not willing to recognise their obligations and be accountable for their actions, that is where I believe the purely punitive system must step in – but even then, the point is restoration for the stake-holders in the offense.

All that said, I’m still a beginner on thoughts of justice, but I would agree and assert that the aim of God’s justice is always restorative, but that sometimes in order for restoration to occur where “sin” has caused damage, sometimes a purely punitive approach must be enacted as a part of justice – but it is not the whole and in my view, it should not be the default.

By: Scott Mackay

Scott Mackay — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:31:58 +0000

I tend to think this is introduce a false dichotomy which is not present in the scriptures. ‘Punishment OR Restoration’.

By showing that the West has perhaps mistakenly aligned a theology of God’s justice with it’s own systems of justice, Zehr sees the solution as changing the concept of God’s justice, rather than decoupling God’s position as the ultimate judge, with human justice systems. I think this makes much more sense of Romans 12:14-13:7 for example.

In terms of the salvation story of the Bible however, freedom and peace come through punitive justice on God’s enemies, rather than as an alternative to it. Israel is saved in the Exodus through the judgement on Egypt, and likewise, the believer in Christ is saved through the judgement of God on our ulimate enemies – sin and death – which he accomplished at the cross.