How are grace and justice related?

Calvin Beisner explains in this video that we cannot confuse grace with justice. Justice renders what is due to a person. Grace renders an undeserved benefit. When we were sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't die because we deserved it.

We cannot understand the Gospel fully unless we understand that justice and grace are different. We must be careful to study what Scripture says about justice and grace.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) - "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Many people confuse compassion or charity or grace with justice and they think, well, after all, God tells us that we're supposed to give generously to the poor. So doesn't that mean that the poor are due our generous gifts? And if we're not going to do that voluntarily, well, you know, God has ordained the state to enforce justice, so the state can force us to do this. The problem is that that reasoning fails to recognize the distinction between justice and grace. Justice renders what is due.

Grace renders benefit not only where it isn't due, but where the opposite is due. We know the grace of God, and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And he loved us even while we were sinners, not because we deserved it. And so if we misunderstand justice, if we begin to equate justice with grace and compassion, then we actually obscure and corrupt the gospel. Because you cannot understand the gospel of justification and salvation by grace alone and through faith alone and Christ alone unless you understand that justice and grace are very different things.

So for that reason, I think it's tremendously important that millennials who have been very receptive to the resurgence of a social justice approach to our understanding of scripture, Really be very careful to study through what Scripture itself teaches us about the meaning of Justin. You