There are a lot of people who think justice is a bad word, something associated with cruelty, formality, cold application of the rules without mercy. Mercy, however, is seen as a good thing, as something that corrects the merciless nature of justice.

How wrong you are.

Let’s first define justice, so that we know exactly what we are talking about. Justice is when good is victorious over evil. Justice is when good deeds are rewarded, exactly as much as they need to be. Justice is when evil deeds are punished, exactly as much as they need to be.

Justice is not only when a perpetrator of a crime is punished, and his victim is restituted. Justice is also when the power of God stands guard over the righteous ones, protecting them from evil, not allowing them to become victims in the first place. Justice is when one’s righteousness is a shield that protects him from all harm. Justice is when your evil deeds expose you to harm, in exact proportion with the gravity of the deed.

Justice is when one’s good and evil deeds are weighed separately, and the punishment for evil is such that it allows the good in the person to prevail and overcome evil, instead of destroying the good together with evil. Justice is also when trickery and deception are seen through, and the truth is known.

There is nothing more beautiful or merciful than God’s sword of justice. There is nothing I would like more, in this life or the next, than to be judged by this sword, without mercy.

Some people think that God, being the greatest and the most powerful, is somehow the most distant, inhuman, cold in his justice, not able to understand the human situation and view it with mercy, and so they seek the refuge of saints, the lesser holy beings, who are somehow closer to them and thus presumably better able to understand them and to forgive them.

But this is so wrong. God is not the greatest in the sense that he is most distant, bigger than the biggest object, more powerful than any weapon. No, God is the greatest because he is the underlying reality of all. God is the greatest not only because he’s above the galaxies of the Universe, but also because he’s between every two atoms that make up your mortal flesh. When your thoughts move, they do so in God. God knows you more intimately than you know yourself, and much better. He knows what you would ask if your mind were clear enough to do so and in knowledge of the greatest good you could possibly imagine, and beyond. The saints, they are the distant beings. You need to contact them, you need to call their attention, you need to explain things to them. They don’t know you, they are so far away, because they are more human, distinct from you, but God is already here. Your brain is made up within his thought, your feelings whirl the substance of his spirit, your most intimate desires and longings are known to him before you become aware that you have them. You think that your self is the closest to you, that you know yourself best, but God is closer, and knows you better. You cannot even imagine what it feels like, because you would probably instantly die of pure joy if you were to truly feel that.

That is why I would take his justice over anyone else’s mercy. You trust in mercy of human-like beings with human-like traits all you want, but I will stand to be judged by the perfect justice of the one who knows me better than I know myself.

By willing to be judged without mercy by the sword of perfect justice, I discover that I am the hand that wields it, and that it is the greatest mercy.