June 2020

by Darrell Bernard Harrison

In Mark 7:21-23, Jesus makes it clear that the seed of every sinful attitude and act that you and I exhibit toward one another is the sin that resides in our hearts.

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.

I've been writing and speaking about the "gospel" of social justice, and its various and sundry layers and aspects, for nearly a decade. In that time, I've been consistent and unwavering in my insistence that Scripture is unambiguous that the root of all injustice in the world, regardless of how the injustice may manifest itself, is sin—period.

But as I continue to engage with evangelical social justicians on the matter of "social justice," I'm finding that many of them want the problem to something other than sin, that is, they want the problem to be something that is outside of them that they can fix, not something that is innate to them that only God can fix.

Interestingly, if not ironically, their desire that the problem of injustice be something other than the sinfulness of the human heart makes many of them angry and indignant because that reality means that there's nothing they themselves can do about it—absolutely nothing at all—which likewise means they are powerless in and of themselves to bring about the kind of structural and institutional changes they desire to see in the world.

by John Calvin

IT IS NOT A CASE OF THE BELIEVER'S "CO-OPERATION" WITH GRACE; THE WILL IS FIRST ACTUATED THROUGH GRACE

But perhaps some will concede that the will is turned away from the good by its own nature and is converted by the Lord's power alone, yet in such a way that, having been prepared, it then has its own part in the action. As Augustine teaches, grace precedes every good work; while will does not go before as its leader but follows after as its attendant. This statement, which the holy man made with no evil intention, has by Lombard been preposterously twisted to that way of thinking. But I contend that in the words of the prophet that I have cited, as well as in other passages, two things are clearly signified: (1) the Lord corrects our evil will, or rather extinguishes it; (2) he substitutes for it a good one from himself.

In so far as it is anticipated by grace, to that degree I concede that you may call your will an "attendant." But because the will reformed is the Lord's work, it is wrongly attributed to man that he obeys prevenient grace with his will as attendant. Therefore Chrysostom erroneously wrote: "Neither grace without will nor will without grace can do anything." As if grace did not also actuate the will itself, as we have just seen from Paul [cf. Philippians 2:13]! Nor was it Augustine's intent, in calling the human will the attendant of grace, to assign to the will in good works a function second to that of grace. His only purpose was, rather, to refute that very evil doctrine of Pelagius which lodged the first cause of salvation in man's merit.

by Jeremiah Burroughs

Suppose a malefactor is condemned, but now execution is not till two or three days after; in that space of time he has granted unto him liberty to have meat and drink, and friends come to him, and he may refresh himself in those two or three days; but he has forfeited all his estate, and the tenure now upon which he holds any comfort, it is not the same which he had before, but merely through the bounty of the prince it is that he has comforts. 

So it is here. Wicked men have committed sin, and the sentence of death is out against them, and they have forfeited all the comforts of their estates, and of their lives, only God in patience grants unto them some outward comforts here a few days before execution; and upon this tenure do all wicked men hold their estates: I will not say that every wicked man is an usurper of their estates, as some perhaps have held, that they have no right at all before God; some right he has, as you cannot say a malefactor has no right (when he is condemned) to meat and drink before execution; he has right to what is given to him of donation and bounty, but not that right which he had before. 

So I say, for wicked men that have estates in this world, they have a kind of right to that they have; but how? Just that right that a condemned man has to his dinner or supper before execution; this is the right of wicked men to their estates; that is, God of his bounty grants a little while before execution they shall have a few comforts to them in this world: And this is the evil of sin, and the least sin, there is not any one sin, but the fruit of it is condemnation. And brethren, you must not mistake, to think that wicked men are never condemned until they come before God in the day of Judgment; they be condemned here, mark that, John, 3. 18. He that believes not is condemned already: now condemned, not hereafter, but a condemned man already: this is a sad condition indeed. 

I am delighted to see how many young people are committed to universal justice. But, at the same time, modern society tends to be deeply incoherent. On the one hand our culture demands justice for the oppressed and impartial benevolence toward all. On the other hand it teaches that no one has the right to declare right and wrong to anyone else, as secularism asserts that every person must determine his or her own moral values. This is cognitive dissonance. It demands moral behavior of others and yet insists morality is relative. The idea undermines itself. The promotion of universal justice, human rights, self-sacrifice, a commitment to human dignity and considering the poor can only coherently make sense in a world where morality is objective and whose source is God. Either stop moralizing others or stop pretending to believe morality is relative/subjective. You can't hold to both at the same time and expect people to take you seriously.

If you lie to yourself in this way, you are not helping. It is a type of willful blindness to the real source of the problem. This means if you are fighting for justice with human wisdom alone, with no thought to where human dignity comes from, you are keeping humanity in the very bondage and slavery you claim to be fighting against. We cannot merely judge policies by their "good intentions" but by a consistent commitment to the truth, in a way that corresponds with reality. The real remedy for our problems cannot be based on a lie.