A Community of Love and Justice: God’s Plan in the Church to Unify all things in Christ

Justice is the cry of our nation in recent days as many are tired of constant division and oppression leaving them without hope. Sadly, recent events simply join the constant chorus of voices crying for justice since Abel’s blood touched the ground. Suffering and death is the human experience in every corner of the earth.

Everyone’s heart cries for things to be made right, justice to be done, liberation for the oppressed, hope for those in despair. Some will resign to the reality that thousands of years of history seem to have gotten us nowhere. Others determine to take action. Change the course of history.

But history shows that even the freest societies still tend toward destruction. Liberation for some only becomes slavery for another. The oppressed tend to become the oppressors. If only someone was righteous enough to make better laws, strong enough to take down the mighty enemy, wise enough to judge justly, rich enough to lift all of society.

The Old Testament records every attempt to make things right in every way imaginable. Maybe we need to wipe out humanity and start over. No, that didn’t work (Gen. 6–9). Maybe a nation led by a humble man who lived in harmony with the land would do the trick. No, that didn’t work either (Gen. 12–25). We also need good laws, lots of them, that would probably help. Nope (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers…). Having strong warriors only led the people to constant warfare (Judges). A good king still led his people to much suffering (2 Sam. 24). A wise judge was the world’s greatest philanderer (1 Kings 11).

From that point forward history repeated itself with one oppressor taking over another. When would history finally change? Who would rescue us from this downward spiral?

All Things Culminate in Christ

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a glorious treatise on the hope we have in getting these questions answered. This world is not out of control, but God the Father has a plan unfolding since before the foundation of the world to care for his people (Eph. 1:3–6). The Spirit is working to enact this plan guaranteeing our inheritance in his kingdom of peace (1:13–14). And this whole plan culminates in the character and finished work of Christ (1:7–12).

All of history pointed to him. All of our sins laid upon him. The hope of the world founded on him. The promise of justice guaranteed in his blood. The young and old, rich and poor, man and woman all find their voices heard by the Father in Christ. Everyone who was dead in trespasses and sins is made alive together with Christ giving us an eternal inheritance of immeasurable riches in the heavenly places (2:1–7). Love and mercy, justice and righteousness are all brought together, perfectly satisfied on the cross. What marvelous promises to help us endure suffering in this world until that day when all things are made new.

But Paul continues by saying that this hope is even becoming a reality now. In a beautiful text that needs to be emphasized in this world more and more, he says Christ “has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility,” creating “in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace” (2:14–15). We don’t have to wait until heaven to experience this miraculous fruit of Christ’s atoning work of salvation. God is now using his people to bring this peace on earth now (2:17).

The Missing Piece of God’s Plan

This is an incredible promise. God guarantees he is going to do this work and he is going to use his redeemed people to accomplish it. But this is where we veer off course a bit.

Obviously Paul’s words to us tell us not to just sit back with a defeatist attitude and wait until heaven comes to earth to finally see justice. He wants us to be a part of bringing heavenly realities to earth now.

But we then miss the very specific plan he has to reshape society. God is not calling us to become culture warriors who through political maneuvering and public demonstration engage the world’s structures to reform them. God’s plan is full of wisdom. It is counter-intuitive. It balances both engaging the world and having hope in the world to come.

It’s called the church. Paul writes in chapter 3 verse 10, “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” The church is God’s display of his unifying power. The church is the manifestation of his justice and love in Christ.

Too easily we veer off course either disengaging from the world waiting for heaven to arrive or seeing societal engagement as the only hope for renewal. But those are both worldly ways of thinking: fight or flight, revolution or resignation. Neither will find success as this is not God’s way.

A Model of Love and Justice

The way to display God’s love and justice is through his redeemed community of people unified in Christ. This is a fine line to walk easily and repeatedly fallen off.

Paul does not want us to disengage the from world, but he also doesn’t want us to think that we can simply reform the world’s systems. We need to live in the world, but not be of the world. So what does that look like?

As both Paul and Peter write, we subject ourselves to governing authorities (Rom. 13:1–7, 1 Peter 2:13–17), work hard for earthly masters (Eph. 6:5–9; 1 Peter 2:18–25), and live at peace with everyone as much as possible (Romans 12:18). The general idea is: don’t be a revolutionary in this world. That’s the way it has always been and that’s the way it has never worked.

But work hard in the world and display a peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil. 4:7) so that people marvel that you are so comfortable with the suffering in your life leading them to ask about the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15). And with that opportunity we can describe this amazing work of our Triune God to save people from this desperate, broken world and invite them to come and see the place where God is already doing this renewing work: the church.

If we want to see change in this world, if we want to see the structures and systems changed, if we want to help desperate sinners see that there is hope for something better, we need to model it for them in the church.

It is a hurtful and unhelpful platitude that tells the oppressed to suck it up and wait it out until Jesus comes to get us. They need something real to experience as a means of grace to endure to the end. And it is a false assurance to give hope that this world can achieve peace and harmony for all. They need something real to show them the only way to build a society of love and justice.

The church must be this community of hope and this model of harmony. Too often in this country the church has not been so. We’ve not held each other accountable to our professions of faith through the means of baptism, communion, and discipline. We’ve separated not just by ethnicity, but even common interests. We’ve entertained ourselves away from the main thing. We’ve become distracted by good work that forgets that the point of our gathering is to display the manifold wisdom of God that unifies all peoples in Christ into a family.

Go meet someone different from you and invite them to help you put this powerful love on display in the church. Let’s build our church communities into models of the love and justice the world clamors for and never finds.