The word judgement is often associated with negative connotations of punishment, criticism or retribution. But as a linguistics enthusiast, I feel like this word has been hard-done-by and poorly represented in our
modern-day context.
I work part-time in the legal field where judgement has a very different meaning. In the legal world, “judgement” carries with it meanings of “finality” or “closure”. Individuals involved in disputes for years can receive vindication and peace after a decision is handed down. Lives turned upside-down by atrocities can experience closure and solace. Judgements can make possible the beginning of a new chapter for someone’s life. Our justice system is a beautiful thing (when it works as intended). It governs the very fabric of society and safeguards against corruption, abuse of power and crime. Each person is treated with equity and is given the dignity of being heard. Even when someone is guilty of a crime, the justice system does not abandon them but instead protects their right to a fair trial. The justice system investigates matters thoroughly and passes judgements with the intent to promote the right and moral course of restitution.
the roots of justice
The legal system is founded on several primary principles: fairness, equity and access to justice. Each of these serve a vital role in ensuring that individuals are granted not only a right outcome, but also a right treatment throughout the legal process. Justice systems adopted across the world are each based on these fundamental principles, which largely originated within the Judeo-Christian tradition.1 This is perhaps no surprise to many when we consider the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule of “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). Even in secular educational institutions when jurisprudence (the philosophy of law) is taught, educators cannot but acknowledge that much of the justice system had its quintessential birth in Christianity.
The philosophy of law considers why we need justice and where morality stems from. And, however one argues it, every school of jurisprudence acknowledges that the need for justice extends beyond personal experience and is a transcendent quality of existence. While the fundamental principles of law originate largely from the Christian tradition, they actually extend much further back than this. At creation, God set out the laws by which our world would operate: the laws of physics, time, aerodynamics, gravity, mathematics, morality, psychology and sociology. When God created our world, He established the structures by which good governance would be naturally infused into it. Each of these laws were premised on one fundamental principle—love. Love was designed as the ultimate guiding principle for life, to keep us safe and to enrich our lives. It’s not surprising, given God’s fundamental nature is also love.
when love was broken
In the Garden of Eden, God gave humanity one simple rule: not to eat from the tree of good and evil (Genesis 2:16). The consequence of disobeying God and eating this fruit was death. It was not the fruit itself which would kill them; but rather the disobedience in rejecting God’s governing law of love. In choosing to trust one’s own knowledge rather than the principles of selfless love intended for our good, sin happened.
Sin is the corruption of these governing principles of selfless love and leads to disease, distrust, corruption, discord and dissonance with one another—and with God. When we sin, we break the law of God and harm our relationships. Sin is a cancer so malicious that its very existence demands judgement.
But even from the beginning, God made provision for our spiritual lawbreaking. The punishment of eternal death was too great a loss, and the price of restoration was far beyond our reach. So He promised the “seed” of the woman would crush the head of the serpent of sin.
a plan for redemption
Ancient Israel had a system of justice that foreshadowed God’s ultimate plan of redemption in Jesus—the sanctuary practices of the Day of Atonement (see Leviticus 16).
Just as the justice system we now know was created to reflect the ideas of Christian principles, each component of the Sanctuary system, in structure and practice, reflected a different phase of God’s plan to redeem us.
The Day of Atonement involved the High Priest taking a perfect, blemish-free animal and symbolically transferring the sins of the entire community of Israel onto it before sacrificing it. The blood of this animal was then taken into the Most Holy Place and presented before God as a reparation for humanity’s sins—symbolically dying in their place. After the High Priest concluded this practice, the community of Israel would be considered “ceremonially cleansed” and the price for their sins paid (Leviticus 16:30). All of this was designed to point towards the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Justice demanded that payment be made for wrongs committed. Otherwise, where would be fairness, order, equity and love in this world? But God did not want to see His beloved children die and be lost forever to their sins and destructive habits. So, He removed the punishment due us and transferred it to Himself.
God came down as a human in the form of Jesus and lived a perfect, sinless life. He wrestled with temptation, struggled with loneliness, experienced hunger and thirst, He faced abuse and inhumane cruelty, all without breaking the perfect law of God—the law of love. Even as He was being killed, Jesus loved those who nailed Him to the cross; He sought their forgiveness and carried their punishment by dying the death that they deserved.
In dying for us, Jesus paid for our sins with His blood. His death paid the penalty for our rebellion against God’s law of love. And when Jesus ascended to heaven after His time on earth, He presented Himself to God as the sacrifice on our behalf, making us “clean”.
the judgement that sets us free
This scene in heaven is much like a court of law: God serves as Judge, the Devil our accuser, and Jesus Christ as our defence Attorney. This is what is referred to as the “investigative judgement” where God will look intently into each of our lives and judge us justly to determine our eternal future. But the advantage is that if we choose to accept Jesus’ gift of mercy and grace, Jesus will not only defend us, but He will stand in our place as the “accused”. In Jesus, God can find no fault. When Jesus takes our place, we are free from any condemnation.
People often see God as judgemental, cruel and exacting—but that is not His true nature. That may be the god of other religions or of false Christianity, but true Christianity sees a God who, even when being scourged with whips and nailed to a cross, sustained the very breath of the religious leaders and soldiers condemning Him to death, loving them and praying for their forgiveness: “for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24).
God is not a God of “judgement”, but a God of just mercy. He is the God who stands in our place and defends us when we sin, empathising with our weaknesses. In 1 Timothy 2:4-6 we are told that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people”.
The purpose of God’s investigative judgement is not to condemn humanity, but rather to seek any and every excuse to get us into heaven to share eternity with Him, where we can experience true peace, freedom and love (John 3:17). God’s “judgement” does not mean punishment, but rather it means finality and closure—marking the end of the sin which wreaks havoc and dissension in our lives and our world. And when this atonement is made complete, Jesus will return to make this world anew, free from sin, suffering and pain—forever.
1. Augusto Zimmerman, ‘Constituting a ‘Christian Commonwealth’: Christian Foundations of Australia’s Constitutionalism’ (2014, The Western Australian Jurist, Vol. 5, 123).
