On Justice, Grace, and Love
Just read a great article by Fellipe Do Vale (Assistant Prof at TEDS) on “Justice, Grace, and Love: A Theological Commendation,” TrinJ 42NS (2021): 185-200.
De Vale writes:
Far from being inconsistent with grace and love, Christian justice is grounded in and defined by grace and love. Not only is there no incompatibility between justice and the gospel, but justice is the necessary moral outflow of a life correctly shaped by the reception of grace and the pursuit of love. In short, my argument will be this: justice is defined by the worth bestowed by the gift of Christ and is the appropriate pursuit of those in whose hearts the love of the Holy Spirit has been poured forth (Rom 5:5).
Do Vale argues that by expositing Nicholas Wolterstorff’s view of the nature of justice, combined with John Barclay’s recent account of divine grace, and then an Augustinian synthesis of love and justice.
He concludes:
Justice, then, does not “hijack” the gospel. In fact, the opposite is true. All of those things that make Christianity familiar are those things that make justice what it is. Christianity, if anything, is about the gospel and it is about love. Justice, on the view presented above, is similarly all about the gospel and all about love.
A good article worth reading, some great thoughts worth reflecting upon.
Justice is not the proclamation of the gospel either. Justice is required of God’s people because God does justice to people. The proclamation of the gospel is a command from Jesus.