Justice Returned to Love

Chapter 25 – 9. 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. For if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you
against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it.
 
You need not give it to Him wholly willingly, for if you could you had no
need of Him. But this He needs; that you prefer He take it than that you
keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to no one you
would not know. This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose
for you to gain. And nothing more.
 
Here is the only principle salvation needs. Nor is it necessary that your faith
in it be strong, unswerving, and without attack from all beliefs opposed to
it. You have no fixed allegiance. But remember salvation is not needed by
the saved. You are not called upon to do what one divided still against
himself would find impossible. Have little faith that wisdom could be found
in such a state of mind. But be you thankful that only little faith is asked of
you. What but a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin? What
could they know of Heaven and the justice of the saved?
 
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.
Yet 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
looks on all in the same way. It is not just that one should lack for what
another has. For that is vengeance in whatever form it takes. 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. And in the total cost,
the greater his 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. For 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. Fairness and vengeance are impossible, for each one contradicts
the other and denies that it is real. It is impossible for you to share the Holy
 
Spirit’s justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. Yet how
could He be just if He condemns a sinner for the crimes he did not do, but
thinks he did? And where would justice be if He demanded of the ones
obsessed with the idea of punishment that they lay it aside, unaided, and
perceive it is not true?
 
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. And deep suspicion and the chill of
fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned. Their
world depends on sin’s stability. And they perceive the “threat” of what God
knows as justice to be more destructive to themselves and to their world
than vengeance, which they understand and love.
 
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
could He be to them except a devil, dressed to deceive within an angel’s
cloak. And what escape has He for them except a door to hell that seems to
look like Heaven’s gate?
 
Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment, but have a Judge
Who knows that they are wholly innocent in truth. In justice He is bound to
set them free, and give them all the honor they deserve and have denied
themselves because they are not fair, and cannot understand that they are
innocent. Love is not understandable to sinners because they think that
justice is split off from love, and stands for something else. And thus is love
perceived as weak, and vengeance strong. For love has lost when judgment
left its side, and is too weak to save from punishment. But vengeance
without love has gained in strength by being separate and apart from love.
 
And what but vengeance now can help and save, while love stands feebly
by with helpless hands, bereft of justice and vitality, and powerless to save?
What can Love ask of you who think that all of this is true? Could He, in
justice and in love, believe in your confusion you have much to give? You
are not asked to trust Him far. No more than what you see He offers you,
and what you recognize you could not give yourself. In God’s Own justice
does He recognize all you deserve, but understands as well that you cannot
accept it for yourself. It is His special function to hold out to you the gifts
the innocent deserve. And every one that you accept brings joy to Him as
well as you. He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept.
 
And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his
due. For 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. He
would not allow His Son be judged by those who seek his death, and could
not see his worth at all. What honest witnesses could they call forth to speak
on his behalf? And who would come to plead for him, and not against his
life? No justice would be given him by you. Yet 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. For just one witness is enough, if he sees truly. Simple justice
asks no more. Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if he will be that one, so
justice may return to love and there be satisfied. Each special function He
allots is but for this; that each one learn that love and justice are not
separate. And both are strengthened by their union with each other. Without
love is justice prejudiced and weak. And 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. For that would be unjust to innocence.
 
You can be perfect witness to the power of love and justice, if you
understand it is impossible the Son of God could merit vengeance. You
need not perceive, in every circumstance, that this is true. Nor need you
look to your experience within the world, which is but shadows of all that is
really happening within yourself. 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. And so
the Holy Spirit’s special function has been fulfilled. 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. How
can the special really understand that justice is the same for everyone? To
take from one to give another must be an injustice to them both, since they
are equal in the Holy Spirit’s sight. Their Father gave the same inheritance
to both. Who would have more or less is not aware that he has everything.
 
He is no judge of what must be another’s due, because he thinks he is
deprived. And so must he be envious, and try to take away from whom he
judges. He is not impartial, and cannot fairly see another’s rights because his
own have been obscured to him.
 
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, as God appointed for His holy Son. 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. And
you are safe from vengeance in all forms. The world deceives, but it cannot
replace God’s justice with a version of its own. For only love is just, and can
perceive what justice must accord the Son of God. Let love decide, and
never fear that you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what God’s
justice has allotted you.