Indiscriminate Justice

A President has been elected under the slogan “Make America Great Again”. The greater part of the States award him their Electoral College votes, but the few States on the east and west coasts with much larger populations skew the popular vote toward his opponent. The President is a man with a great sense of business and a definite vision of what the office of President entails, but he lacks political and diplomatic skills. He delights in directly communicating with the people, but in doing so, frequently antagonizes those who disagree with him, because while he can be charming, he is also used to getting his own way, by bullying if necessary. He is not a politically correct communicator.

The nation has suffered for a number of years from economic and domestic policies which have been viewed as egalitarian and desirable by the President’s opponents. Large numbers of people have become wealthy as a result of those policies, but a much larger part of the population has suffered poverty and despair. Large numbers of aliens have been permitted to enter the country, skirting the legal immigration process, to take advantage of the social programs, bringing with them customs which clash with the resident society and diseases which medical services are unfamiliar with and ill-equipped to handle. Some also bring with them the threat of terrorist activity as a part of their religious beliefs. At the same time, the social programs are strained and cannot meet the needs of the citizens for whom they were originally designed. Local law enforcement is taxed not only with criminal activity imported with the new arrivals, but also with the added problems of domestic abuse, identity theft, and voter fraud from people who have a very different perception of what behaviors are appropriate in this country.

The new President takes measures to enforce the existing laws, which his predecessor deliberately ignored to allow the situation to grow. His predecessor, and the two Presidents before him, had identified seven nations which were particularly prone to harbor terrorists and which either lacked adequate information services to identify such persons, or who actively trained and encouraged them to attack the country. The President calls a 90 day halt to allowing persons from those countries to enter or visit in order to set up a system to provide better background checks. He also instructs the immigration services to enforce the existing immigration laws, deporting aliens who have entered the country without going through normal channels and have also been convicted of crimes since they arrived. Large numbers of people see those actions as inhumane or contrary to their vision of what the country ought to be, and carry out protests and riots to block the authorities. Some of the people who have benefitted financially from exploiting the migrants file lawsuits to halt the action, and unjust judges, obeying the voice of the mob rather than the law, enjoin the President from enforcing the law.

What is a follower of Jesus Christ supposed to make of this? Is not God a God of mercy and compassion? Should the church rebuke the President for enforcing the law and taking steps to control the entry of persons who are unknown or might have dubious backgrounds?

What is the Christian to make of such verses as Micah 6:8 and Matthew 23:23? Should not mercy and compassion be at the forefront of our efforts? Is this a case of discrimination in justice against foreigners?

Micah 6:8 tells us that God requires us to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God”. Matthew 23:23 contains a statement that the weightier matters of the Law are “judgment, mercy, and faith”. Why is mercy second and not first in both sequences? What of the statement in James 2:13, that “mercy exults against judgment”?

Prior to leaving office, President Obama was asked if he would pardon Hillary Clinton for breaking the law regarding using private emails for government business, and Edward Snowden for releasing secret government communications. Neither request was granted. He could not pardon them, because they had not been convicted of a crime, even though it was evident that they had committed crimes. Mercy is not possible until judgment has been passed first. If one is not capable of judging, then neither is he capable of being merciful or forgiving.

What is judgment; how does one apply justice? After all, Deuteronomy 16:20 concludes how righteousness in judgment was to be effected under the Law : “Justice, justice, you shall do!” The Law was to be applied without discrimination, and was to be applied equally to both the citizen and foreigner alike.

Are there unjust laws? Possibly so, but when a law is in effect to treat all persons equally, and one group of people is allowed to disregard it, that is injustice. When a nation has laws designed to protect its people, and foreigners are allowed to disregard those laws, that is injustice. Is a person who permits someone to break those laws — even for “humanitarian” reasons — being merciful, or is he being unjust? Unless the lawbreaker has been convicted of his lawbreaking, mercy is not possible. The person who permits the lawbreaker to proceed is being unjust to his fellow citizen, and is actually discriminating against those strangers who do obey the law, who do not practice identity theft, who obtain legal permission to hold a job and earn money. That person who permits the lawbreaker to proceed unhindered is a partner in crime.

So the Christian is commanded to love; to show compassion and mercy. Can he do that without considering the precursor to mercy? Can he show favoritism to the stranger over the fellow citizen and still consider himself just? Before we speak out against the authorities which God has placed over us, should we consider whether we ourselves are acting in indiscriminate justice?

There is a strain of theology which teaches that God is merciful and loving and non-judgmental. If that were true, then there would have been no need for Christ to die in our stead for the sins which we have committed and for which we would suffer eternal deportation to the Lake of Fire. God has judged all humankind worthy of eternal damnation, for there is no one who has not not transgressed His law. The Scripture relates that even the thought of foolishness is sin, punishable by eternal separation from our Creator, who is holy and abhors the violation of His orders.

Having judged us, He was then able to be merciful, offering Himself by taking on a human body in the person of Jesus, and forgiving us by paying the price for our sins Himself on the cross. Forgiveness is not possible without paying the price for the wrong in place of the one who has wronged us.

It would be the gravest injustice to tell someone outside the Church that God will save him from eternal damnation by simply “accepting Jesus” without also telling them that they must repent of their sins because salvation comes through the payment in Jesus’ blood for those very acts. Jesus may have forgiven a person and paid the price of admission to Heaven, but the Scripture is clear about the woes of those who disregard the preciousness of the blood of Christ and go on sinning as though the price was despicable.

The Christian must feed and clothe and help the alien in his land, but must also warn him that his breaking of the immigration law is an insult to those who serve and protect. To despise the laws that were set up to protect the health and safety of our country’s citizens — laws defended and paid for in the blood of those who have sworn to uphold the law of the land for our good — is to despise their sacrifice. The alien who has entered the land illegally should understand that we judge that action as unrighteous, that we can mercifully meet his immediate needs, but that he must repent by returning to his own land and following the rules if he wishes to join us here. Repentance is never easy. Repentance is usually accompanied by tears. But supposed “mercy”, without such judgment, is simply a form of damnation, leaving the alien to live in fear until the day he is caught and banished from the Promised Land.