What is God like? This is a challenging question. What would your answer be? How would you describe God? Would it be by making Biblical propositional statements about His character or would it be by describing His interactions with His people, including you, throughout your and their history? Take a moment to reflect on how you would answer the question: ‘what is God like?’
A.W. Tozer, a man considered by some to be one of the most influential American evangelists of the twentieth century, boldly wrote in his inspiring classic work The Knowledge of the Holy that “[w]hat comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”[1]
He continues:
“A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”[2]
But what relevance does this have to understanding law, justice and the work of a Christian lawyer? Answer: Plenty! In order to know how God feels about human laws and legal systems and the qualities of character and conduct with which He desires Christian lawyers to possess, we need to have a right idea of what God is like. Let’s consider this in more detail.
Christian Lawyers
In the legal world today lawyers have a fairly bad reputation. The legal profession is the butt of a constant stream of jokes, such as:
Q. What do honest lawyers and UFO’s have in common?
A. You hear about them, but you never see them.
In marked contrast to the ways of a world that is indifferent about injustice and familiar with half-truths, Christian lawyers should reflect the character of God in their lives and work. We should be models of God’s character, since we are being transformed and conformed into His likeness, revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18). It is important then that we should know what God is like because, as theologian Christopher Marshall explains:
“It is God’s own self who models and gives content to those qualities of character and conduct that are ethically most important for God’s people, such as holiness, love, justice, mercy and compassion (Micah 6:8).”[3]
The world should therefore not only hear about these radically different Christian lawyers but should also be able to witness their honesty, holiness, love, acts of justice, mercy and compassion. In short they should see God in us because we, through beholding Him as He truly is, are becoming more like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Lawyers can sometimes feel pulled in several different directions – they can have duties to their own client, duties to the Court, duties to opponents and duties to others. In order to reflect and demonstrate God’s character in what can be a challenging environment, Christian lawyers will need to read and receive God’s Word, and seek His daily help and guidance in prayer to know how best to act; God gives wisdom generously to all who ask Him (James 1.5).
God’s character as Just
The Bible reveals who God is. God is love; God is gracious; God is merciful; God is sovereign; God is compassionate, etc. Importantly for us, the Bible also reveals that God is Just.
The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.
Psalm 145.17
He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
Deuteronomy 32.3-4
David Mcllroy puts it this way: “God's justice is displayed in his righteous actions to bring about the state of total rightness, shalom, in which the harmony of the created order, and the peace between God and the people he has created is restored. It is therefore characteristic of God’s justice that it seeks to restore relationship.”[4]
God's justice also holds human beings accountable for their actions; because God is holy and just, it means that God judges human conduct by an absolute moral standard, namely himself and his revealed will to all people.
Laws and Legal Systems
God has instituted governing authorities for our good, to approve what is right and punish wrong (Romans 13.1-4). Laws and legal systems are intrinsic to God’s design for good government. Because God is loving, just and holy we would expect Him to prefer laws and legal systems which promote these virtues. It follows then that a right conception of God is the Christian lawyer’s plumb line to knowing how He thinks and feels about human laws and legal systems.
As David McIlroy writes: “If the God with whom we had to contend was a war god, like the Roman god, Mars, then we could expect him to approve of a legal system which encouraged strength, aggression and brutality.”[5] It is important then that Christian lawyers advocate laws and legal systems that are in harmony with the character and nature of the God we worship; laws that reveal the beauty of His character and promote His virtues in society.
Knowing God
In short, it is essential that we pursue the knowledge of God. Like the apostle Paul we should declare, “I want to know God…” (Philippians 3:10) because we desire to know Him more deeply and intimately. In Philippians 3, Paul was not just expressing a desire for greater intellectual knowledge in the sense of learning facts about God. He uses the Greek word gignoskein, which means to have personal knowledge of and personal experiences with another person. Paul’s desire was for deep personal intimacy with God.
A powerful illustration of the difference between propositional understanding and personal experience can be grasped from a moving scene in the Academy Award winning film Good Will Hunting, written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The film is about Will, a twenty something genius. He’s read all the right books, including literary greats such as Shakespeare, philosophers, historians and scientists. But Will has a problem. He won’t allow anyone to get close to him because he’s afraid of intimacy.
In the early scenes of the film Will gets arrested and convicted of a nasty assault. His sentence is to see a psychiatrist, Sean. At their first very awkward meeting Will insults Sean by criticising a painting Sean created after his wife died of cancer (although Will doesn’t know this…). Having read all the books on art criticism, Will presumed to know everything about Sean from a critical analysis of his painting.
The park bench scene that follows is particularly poignant. Sat in the bleachers as they look out over a small pond, Sean confronts Will. He tells Will that he can’t presume to know anything just by reading or studying it – whether it is art, love, war or death. To really know something you have to experience it. He goes on. To understand war it’s no good reading Shakespeare, you need to have been on the frontline, tasted the stench, and witnessed the deaths. And quoting a sonnet about love is no substitute for the real thing. You have to have loved someone, and in doing so make yourself vulnerable to whatever life may bring – which in the film for Sean was the death of his wife from cancer.
These are hard truths for Will, and hard truths for ourselves as we draw a parallel here with our Christian faith. We can read about God in books and learn about Him in sermons but to truly know Him we need to personally experience Him, to enjoy Him, to live intimately with Him.
Knowing God personally is the most wonderful thing. Our God is the One who reached out to us at the cross, sending His own Son to save us for the wrong we have done. Our God is the One who sent His Holy Spirit as our counsellor and guide in this dark world. And our God is the One who has prepared a glorious future for us with Him – a future that we do not deserve and cannot earn.
And only by knowing God personally and in truth are we truly able to align our legal work with his heart and purposes.
This article is an extract from the LCF new publication "Law and Justice Bible Studies". Click here for more information about the book and the opportunity to explore it through a book club.
[1] Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy (Cumbria: OM, 1987), page 11.
[2] Ibidem, page 13.
[3] Marshall, Christopher D. Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2001), page 260.
[4] Mcllroy, David. A Biblical View of Law and Justice (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004), page 12.
[5] Ibidem, page 16.