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VIII. Justice Returned to Love
The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. This He needs; that you prefer He take it than that you keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to anyone you would not know. No one can lose for you to gain.
Here is the only principle salvation needs. Remember, salvation is not needed by the saved. Be you thankful that only little faith is asked of you. What but a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin?
There is a kind of justice in salvation of which the world knows nothing. To the world, justice and vengeance are the same, for sinners see justice only as their punishment, perhaps sustained by someone else, but not escaped. The laws of sin demand a victim. Who it may be makes little difference. But death must be the cost and must be paid. This is not justice, but insanity. How could justice be defined without insanity where love means hate, and death is seen as victory and triumph over eternity and timelessness and life?
You who know not of justice still can ask, and learn the answer. Justice demands no sacrifice, for any sacrifice is made that sin may be preserved and kept. It is a payment offered for the cost of sin, but not the total cost. The rest is taken from another, to be laid beside your little payment, to “atone” for all that you would keep and not give up. So is the victim seen as partly you, with someone else by far the greater part. In the total cost, the greater his share the less is yours. And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid. It matters not by whom.
Can this be justice? God knows not of this. But justice does He know, and knows it well. He is wholly fair to everyone. Vengeance is alien to God’s Mind because He knows of justice. To be just is to be fair, and not be vengeful.
It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit’s justice. They must believe He shares their own confusion, and cannot avoid the vengeance that their own belief in justice must entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the “wrath” of God in Him. Nor can they trust Him not to strike them dead with lightning bolts torn from the “fires” of Heaven by God’s Own angry Hand. They do believe that Heaven is hell, and are afraid of love. Their world depends on sin’s stability.
So do they think the loss of sin a curse. And flee the Holy Spirit as if He were a messenger from hell, sent from above, in treachery and guile, to work God’s vengeance on them in the guise of a deliverer and friend. What escape has He for them except a door to hell that seems to look like Heaven’s gate?
Love is not understandable to sinners because they think that justice is split off from love, and stands for something else. Thus is love perceived as weak, and vengeance strong.
God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. Love and justice are not different. Because they are the same does mercy stand at God’s right Hand, and gives the Son of God the power to forgive himself of sin.
To him who merits everything, how can it be that anything be kept from him? For that would be injustice, and unfair indeed to all the holiness that is in him, however much he recognize it not. God knows of no injustice. God ensured that justice would be done unto the Son He loves, and would protect from all unfairness you might seek to offer, believing vengeance is his proper due.
As specialness cares not who pays the cost of sin, so it be paid, the Holy Spirit heeds not who looks on innocence at last, provided it is seen and recognized. Just one witness is enough, if he sees truly. Simple justice asks no more. Without love is justice prejudiced and weak. Love without justice is impossible. For love is fair, and cannot chasten without cause. What cause can be to warrant an attack upon the innocent? In justice, then, does love correct mistakes, but not in vengeance.
You can be the perfect witness to the power of love and justice, if you understand it is impossible the Son of God could merit vengeance. The understanding that you need comes not of you, but from a larger Self, so great and holy that He could not doubt His innocence. Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. His understanding will be yours. God’s Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness and not his sins. How little need you give the Holy Spirit that simple justice may be given you.
Without impartiality there is no justice. How can specialness be just? Judge not because you cannot, not because you are a miserable sinner too. To take from one to give another must be an injustice to them both, since they are equal in the Holy Spirit’s sight. Who would have more or less is not aware that he has everything.
You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from all effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous and complete in every way. This is the only justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. Your special function shows you nothing else but perfect justice can prevail for you. You are safe from vengeance in all forms. The world deceives, but it cannot replace God’s justice with a version of its own. Let love decide, and never fear that you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what God’s justice has allotted you.
