I was on Netflix, just finished the Deathnote series(not the anime version).
I thought the premise of the whole show was really interesting because of the idea that justice dosn’t always prevail.
A boy who grows up wanting be a policeman, yet realizing that without sufficient evidence, they police and the law is unable to punish the wicked and many are able to get away with murder/rape and even thrive.
With the deathnote, he is able to murder without leaving any traces. He strikes fear and crime goes down.
The people rejoice because the wicked are eradicated.
But as the boy uses the book more, he realizes he is about to get caught for killing the wicked indiscriminately. Consumed by his desire to bend the world to his will, his own sense of morality becomes so twisted that he would kill even his own father and his own friends for his obsession to create a world without crime.
Fighting fire with fire. Eventually, his overconfidence gets the better of him. His nemesis whom he managed to kill managed to stop him through a series of prerecorded videos anticipating the boy’s every move.
Its shows like this that make us think about uncomfortable realities in this world.
With age, our understanding of evil in the world becomes more convoluted as everything becomes a shade of grey rather than a clear black or white. Especially when one starts with the purest of intentions and falls into the trap of taking on the job that only God could ever perform and yet remain good. Where an enemy becomes a friend, or a son becomes a criminal, yet having to enact perfect justice without being prejudiced towards or against the one committing the crime.
Where a loved one departs from a faith, or abandons his family in the name of love or justice or human rights.
Some people call the devil powerless. Yet, even with all his power stripped away by Jesus’s death on the cross, he dosn’t even need to lift a finger and people would fall into the trap that the sins they commit are done in love, justice and freedom. In fact people would rush towards it, rather than to embrace the tyranny of a set of commandments that would condemn them if they did not obey.
Regardless of how much they know they are loved by Jesus, they would view Him as oppressive. They would choose the devil because of how he places no restrictions on what man ought and ought not to do. He would encourage man to embrace his nature. Jesus in contrast asks us to die to ourselves.
What if justice looks entirely differently from what we perceive it ought to be?
We view justice from the perspective of a human life, but God views it from the perspective of eternity.
While we may imagine it to be entirely unfair that the wicked are prospering in this lifetime, while the righteous seem to always been struggling through life. in light of eternity, the prosperity of the wicked is foolishness in terms of the unending suffering that awaits them.But the struggles of the righteous are but a brief foot note before they are welcomed to eternal joy.