“Justice” is a red hot term right now, and like all red hot terms, different people mean different things when they say it. But as I was reading in DA Carson’s How Long O Lord? this week, he used the term in a more classical way. He used it in the context of Job.

If you remember, the whole story of Job is pretty tragic and even more mysterious. Job, though a righteous man, lost everything he had, and when he was left with nothing, came before God seeking justice. Job’s claim was that what had happened to him was unjust, and he wanted an explanation. He wanted justice.

I think we do that sometimes. We lose a job, someone gets sick, The Office is a rerun – whatever. We complain, and we want justice. But there’s a fallacy in our desire. When we cry out for justice, we assume that justice will work out in our favor. But it won’t. Not really.

Carson has a helpful, if difficult, reminder – that the only place in the universe where justice is immediately and proportionally dispensed is hell. And if God were to start doing that on earth, then earth would very quickly become hell.

God is just, and we should love and want to see His justice. But we also ought to be careful what we wish for, so that we don’t ask Him for justice when what we really want is convenience and comfort.