The gospel and law work in tandem, bringing people to Jesus (and ultimately salvation) and helping Christian ambassadors bring about a more just society. We need to abandon the justice vs. gospel extremes. Our focus as Christians is not “We just need to preach the gospel.” It’s also not “Social justice is the gospel.” Instead, we partner with Jesus to preach the gospel, make disciples, and teach them to obey biblical principles in all areas of life. 

There are two misunderstandings about justice that have led to confusion in the Christian community.
First, there’s often not a clear distinction between the law of God and his gospel, especially in discussions related to justice. These two aren’t the same thing. The gospel literally means “good news.” It’s the good news that “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10). The gospel is good news when we understand that we do not and cannot earn our salvation. The work of redemption and justification has been finished by Christ, on the cross, at Calvary.
The gospel is not the law. Many Christians misunderstand the law. Some think that when Jesus died on the cross, he did away with all our moral obligations. This not the case.
Remember, the law of God gives us our moral standard in life, including the standard of justice. Of course, Jesus is the only man who ever lived up to that standard, but—with God’s help—we still need to pursue a holy life. Peter said, “Be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.” He then quoted the Law: “Because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16).
Think about what Jesus said in Matthew 22. A lawyer asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Notice the question is about law, not the gospel. This is really important. Jesus answered, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Now listen to his summary statement: “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” Christians miss this here. Notice our obligation to love is not the gospel. Loving God and loving your neighbor is law.
Here’s why I bring this up: The gospel is about God’s love for us. It’s his rescue plan for sinners. The law is about our love for God and others.
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Written by Dr. Julie Ponesse |
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Religious persons today are a threat, but not to public safety as the narrative instructs us. They are a threat to the idea that the state is to be worshipped above all else, to the religion that’s trying to take their place, to the idea that it’s possible to find a compelling and complete sense of meaning outside of the state.

Religious leaders like Artur Pawlowski who question COVID-19 health restrictions are a “threat to public safety.” Or so the criticism goes.
After giving a sermon in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta, in which he urged trucker convoy protestors to “hold the line” in their efforts to safeguard freedoms, Pastor Pawlowski was arrested, denied bail, and imprisoned for 40 days until the decision was unanimously overturned by the Alberta Court of Appeal in July.
According to the 2021 World Watch List compiled by the advocacy group Open Doors, there were two important persecution trends in 2020: the number of Christians killed increased by 60 percent, and governments used COVID-19 restrictions as an excuse for religious persecution.
Facial recognition systems, for example, were installed in state-approved churches in China, allowing churchgoers to be tracked and punished, and India’s nationalist Janata Party encouraged the persecution of Christians by sanctioning Hindu extremism. In Canada, a country that used to be a safe haven for the persecuted, pastors are being ticketed and imprisoned for holding religious services, and religion, itself, is slandered in the COVID narrative, associated with poor research, misinformation, and right-wing politics.
Our treatment of religious persons seems to be non-fictionalizing Orwell’s totalitarian state, Oceania, in which atheism is compulsory and religious belief is a crime (one of the crimes to which the hero of 1984, Winston Smith, confesses).
In Orwell’s superstate, atheism is not only essential to “the Party’s” absolute power, but it is compelling. According to Orwell’s dystopian fantasy, human life is meaningless because individuals will always die; but by joining the Party, they become part of something more enduring than themselves. Totalitarianism—I use that word intentionally—offers a way to rescue themselves from the threat of absolute nonexistence.
In any totalitarian state (including the one we are inching towards), citizens are divided and polarized. There are the believers and the non-believers, the members and the outliers, the chosen ones and the sinners. The followers believe above all else in the ability of the state to achieve a kind of utopia. They follow the state’s commands, not because of their evidentiary reasonableness but because their commitment to the project requires unquestioning allegiance. The sinners are heretics who stand in the way of safety and purity. What appeal have reason and freedom and autonomy when stacked against effortless and guaranteed immortality?
Today, many people are turning away from personal religion toward state-led science, which is presented as being more sophisticated and more aligned with truth. But totalitarianism is not an alternative to religion; it is secularized religion, as Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt wrote, and its appeal is spreading across the globe at a head-spinning rate.
Totalitarianism replaces personal religion with the idea that we can find meaning not in God but in ourselves, in a group of human beings. “The State takes the place of God,” wrote Carl Jung, “the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship.” The slogan of Oceania’s Party, “Freedom is slavery,” could easily be the slogan of Canada’s ruling party today. (And dare I mention the sign above the gate at Auschwitz “Arbeit Macht Frei” [“Work Makes One Free”]?)
In the totalitarian state, the methods of religious enthusiasm and evangelism are deployed to convince the masses that the dream of a perfectly pure, progressive state—a heaven on earth—justifies any limitation of personal freedom. And so, the punishment of dissidents—via mandates, surveillance, imprisonment, and possibly even extermination of individuals or groups—is considered acceptable or even noble.
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Written by Amy K. Hall |
Thursday, June 6, 2024
God’s grace is freely given—not to those who are owed it, but to those who aren’t. No one can say that justice demands they be given something they didn’t earn; and if someone gives an undeserved gift to one, in no way is he required to give the same gift to all. As Sproul concludes, this is the beauty and wonder of grace. 

What about those who never hear of Jesus? This is one of the most common questions I receive, and as with most of those common questions, it has to do with a challenge to the character of God. Is God acting unfairly if his salvation depends on trusting in Jesus and some never hear of him? Does justice require that God reveal himself to everyone?
In God’s Love, R.C. Sproul responds to the even stronger objection leveled at Calvinists that God would be unjust if he chose some for salvation but not others, but you don’t have to be a Calvinist to appreciate the quote. His concise explanation of why election by grace is consistent with the character of a good and just God applies equally to the objection about those who never hear of Jesus:
Somehow it is widely assumed that God owes all people either the gift of salvation or at least a chance of salvation. Since they cannot be saved apart from His grace, He owes it to everyone to grant them that grace.
This kind of thinking results from a fundamental confusion between God’s justice and His mercy or grace.
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