It’s not justice to justify the wicked, and it’s not justice to condemn the innocent. It’s not justice to justify criminals like Jacob Blake. It’s not justice to condemn good police officers. It’s not just an injustice—it’s an abomination before the Lord.
Proverbs 17:15 says: “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.”
Last month in Kenosha, Wisconsin, two police officers responded to a 911 call from Jacob Blake’s ex-girlfriend. She made the 911 call because Jacob Blake had stolen her car keys after he violated a restraining order she had filed against him.
She filed the restraining order against him a month earlier in July, after Blake allegedly broke into her home to violently and sexually abuse her. So when police officers arrived at the scene, they already had a warrant to arrest him.
However, when the police officers attempted to arrest Jacob Blake, he resisted arrest. He fought the police officers as they tried to pin him to the ground near the passenger side of the car. The police officers apparently tasered him, but Blake managed to fight them off, and he started walking towards the driver seat of the car.
Following Blake from behind, the police officers grabbed their guns and pointed them toward his back. They ordered him to stop, but he didn’t comply. Then one of the police officers attempted to pull Blake away from the car—just as Blake was opening the driver side door—but he couldn’t restrain Blake, and he shot Blake several times in the back—which subsequently paralyzed him—when Blake reached into the car to grab, apparently, a knife.
Immediately, social justice activists and Democratic politicians—including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris—claimed the incident was yet another example of racist police brutality against black people. The NBA and other major sports leagues temporarily suspended their games in protest for Jacob Blake. And as it’s become the norm all summer, the incident prompted protests and riots in Wisconsin and other American cities—all because our culture has become committed to justifying the wicked and condemning the innocent.
Our culture celebrates wicked people as if they’re innocent people, and it condemns innocent people as if they’re wicked people. Apparently, it doesn’t matter that the police officers wanted to protect a vulnerable woman from abuse, it doesn’t matter that Blake repeatedly resisted arrest, it doesn’t matter that Blake could have harmed or killed the police officers with the knife—it doesn’t matter. Since the police officers are white, and since Jacob Blake is black: the police officers are supposedly guilty of racist police brutality.
It’s alarming that our culture is more outraged by good police officers who shoot and injure black criminals than they are outraged by (black) criminals who kill good police officers. And it’s also alarming that our culture is also much more outraged by what police officers did to Blake than what Blake allegedly did to his ex-girlfriend.
But that’s because critical race theory or social justice isn’t concerned about helping victims of injustice—it’s only concerned about harming perceived oppressors. That’s why the mainstream media, leftist politicians, and social justice groups like Black Lives Matter attack Jacob Blake’s perceived oppressors, the police officers, while they ignore his alleged victim, his ex-girlfriend.
Nevertheless, anyone who justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous is an abomination before the Lord. Anyone who justifies criminals and condemns good police officers is an abomination before the Lord—that includes Black Lives Matter, the media, and increasingly, many professing Christians.
All of us should remember the words of Proverbs 17:15, and we should also consider Proverbs 17:13, which says: “if anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house.”
If we want evil to depart from our culture, we shouldn’t return evil for good—we shouldn’t condemn innocent people.