These are two quite common words that are often the subject of controversy, debate, conflict, strife and even crimes.
However, we need to find out what truth is and what justice is. We need to understand how to act rightly in the context of truth. It happens often that these two concepts substitute one another, or are misunderstood. When a person makes a mistake, it causes harm or damage to himself, and in some cases, to others as well.
Let’s find out what truth is and what justice is.
Truth according to the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
The truth is the correspondence of knowledge to reality; the objective content of the empirical evidence and theoretical knowledge. In the history of philosophy, truth is understood as the correspondence of knowledge to things (Aristotle) as eternal and unchanging absolute property of ideal objects (“Jesus said unto him, I am the way and the truth and the life: no man comes to the Father except through me” (John 14: 6) (Plato, Augustine), the correspondence of thoughts to the feelings of the subject (David Hume), the consent of thought and the thinker, (Kant). In modern logic and methodology of science, the classical treatment of truth as the correspondence between knowledge and reality is supplemented by the notion of plausibility – the degree of truth and respectively the falsity of hypotheses and theories.
In other words, truth is an axiom, ideal, infallible, unchanging, constant. It is Jesus Christ.
Justice according to the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
Justice is a category of moral, legal and socio-political consciousness, the notion of the appropriateness associated with historically changing conceptions of the inalienable rights of man. It includes the requirement of the correspondence between the real significance of different individuals (social groups) and their social position, between their rights and duties, between action and reward, labor and remuneration, crime and punishment etc. Any disparity in these ratios is considered injustice.
The meaning of the word Justice in the dictionary of synonyms:
Justice is something that is right. However, what is right is changeable. Today, something may be right but tomorrow, it’s no longer right. What is right for one person may not be so for another.
Justice may be different for everyone, but truth is one for all!
Let’s look at what God’s Word says about justice.
Psalm 82:3-4: “Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked.”
Deuteronomy 1:16-17: ” Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.”
Philippians 4: 8: ” Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
Psalm 99:4: ” The King’s strength also loves justice; you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.”
Justice is not a fight for what is right but a virtue. It is the ability to be honest, decent, and true in relation to other people.
Misconception lies in the fact that we are fighting for justice in relation to us or to others, thinking that we are defending the truth. It’s also a mistake to uphold justice by using illegal, untruthful methods.
Life Situation: For example, a leader made a corrective remark and the person being corrected thinks: “It’s not fair, how could he say that to me. He annoyed me!” And the fight for justice starts, not understanding the truth of the situation. A similar situation could be any situation that directly or indirectly touches our interests, position, opinion, right etc. So, we must learn to put truth before justice.
The church “Word of Grace”
