As I write this, our country is full of street protests instigated by the unjust killing of George Floyd. There is a definitive lack of peace in our country right now, and everybody feels it. If you attend a rally or simply watch the news, you will see somebody holding up these kinds of signs.
Back when I lived in Spain I witnessed many protests or street "manifestaciones". The Phrase "No hay Paz Sin Justicia" was common there as well. In Spanish, the word Justice and the word Righteousness are actually the same word: Justicia. This is a fascinating linguistic connection in itself; justice and righteousness are virtually synonyms. True justice is always righteous, and true rightness shines forth in the world as beautiful justice. Peace and Righteousness are massive Biblical themes and upon studying them I discovered that they typically go together.
The opposite of righteousness is “sin." Sin is 'wrongness." Sin is everything that flows from man's self-centered rebellion towards God who is the source of everything right and just and true. The Bible affirms that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sin is the reason that mankind opposes God and fights with one another. There is no peace because man is disconnected from the one who is righteous. This lack of peace infects our world, our homes and our hearts. We have unjustly mocked God, turned from God and tried to live without God; and now everything is messed up.
Jesus, who is called the Prince of Peace, came to earth to take away the sins of the world. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless, righteous life and then after three years of teaching and doing ministry he went to the cross. At the cross, Jesus took the unrighteousness of man upon himself, and then endured God's holy wrath towards sin. Because God is just, he could not simply allow evil to go unpunished. There would not be true justice for God to simply say, "well, it's unfortunate that mankind joined Satan and traded in a world full of life, beauty, truth and love for a world full of hate, murder, exploitation, abuse, lies and death. I know that that there has been a lot of evil in the world, but let's just try to forget about it and move on." NO. God will not just move on because that would be wrong. God hates evil, and the righteousness of his character compels him to destroy the power of sin.
The Bible teaches us that the wages of sin is death and because "all have sinned', every person deserves to die as a result of our rebellion towards God. (Romans 5 makes it plain that sin is the reason that physical death exists. And the book of Revelation talks about "the second death" which is a spiritual separation from God.) Dying on the cross, Jesus took our sin upon himself and paid the death penalty that we deserve.
The cross was a demonstration of God's mercy; Jesus lovingly died in our place. And the cross was also a demonstration of God's perfect justice; God doesn't simply ignore sin, he opposes and crushes it. By dying on the cross, Jesus has demonstrated and vindicated the righteous justice of God.
A Christian is a person who puts their faith and trust in Christ. The Christian receives God's forgiveness for sin that was purchased by Christ with his blood on the cross. Christ took our unrighteousness on the cross and now we, through active belief are credited with his righteousness. The Bible teaches that "in Christ" we are able to be reconnected with God. In Christ, we are "justified" which means declared innocent or declared righteous. Again, we see this justice/righteous connection!
Romans 5 summarizes this beautifully: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Peace comes through justification. Now it's very important to notice that the peace referenced here is peace with God. Again, sin is rooted in our rebellion and separation from God. Our primary conflict, from which all of our other conflict flows is our pride-fueled contempt for our creator. Before peace can flow out into any other part of our lives, we need to live at peace with God.
And again, because of Christ, we can! There can't be peace without righteousness and Christ who is God is the source of true righteousness. We need Jesus in order to be set free from the power of sin. Sin is the reason for every conflict, fight and war. But until we surrender to Christ and cease our conflict with God and experience peaceful reconciliation with Him, we don't have the resources to see peace manifested in the world. We will continue to be a part of the problem until we are reconciled to the solution! And so we uphold, that there is no peace without justice and both are found in God. So we make known and make visible the good news of Christ, the righteous prince of peace. And living transformed lives marked by the peace and power of Jesus we are able to act in the world to promote right over wrong.
