When Wrong Is a Right

In 1958, two Virginians named Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested for the crime of being married. Richard was white. Mildred was not. Under Virginia law, they could either spend a year in prison or leave the Commonwealth and not return together for twenty-five years.

The law used to punish them had a respectable name: the Racial Integrity Act. “Integrity” is a good word. But beneath that noble language was an unjust law that mistreated people made in the image of God. Today, the injustice seems obvious. But that is how moral blindness works. Evil rarely introduces itself as evil. It borrows better words.

A legislature can pass an unjust law, a court can enforce it, and voters can approve it, but none of those things can transform evil into good. Psalm 94 confronts exactly this possibility when it speaks of wicked rulers who “frame injustice by statute” and “condemn the innocent to death.”

So what should God's people do when wrong becomes a right?

Psalm 94:20–23 teaches us that we can trust God in an unjust world because man cannot overrule or escape the justice of God.

The Laws of Man Can Promote Evil

Government is a gift from God. Scripture teaches that rulers are meant to restrain evil and promote good. But because rulers are sinners, they can turn that good gift upside down. Instead of using law to restrain evil, they can use law to promote it. They can take what is morally wrong and declare it legally right.

That is what Psalm 94 describes. The psalmist sees rulers using the machinery of government to oppress the vulnerable. Eventually their injustice leads to the shedding of “innocent blood.”

That phrase should get our attention. Throughout the Old Testament, the shedding of innocent blood is among the most serious charges God brings against a society. Psalm 106 even uses the language to describe the sacrifice of children.

The same fundamental injustice occurs through abortion. An unborn child has committed no crime and harmed no one. Yet our laws permit that child's life to be intentionally ended.

And this November, Virginians are being asked to decide whether abortion and other forms of “reproductive freedom” should receive constitutional protection.

The proposed amendment would add a new section to Virginia's Bill of Rights establishing a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” If approved, this amendment will do more than simply preserve Virginia's current abortion laws. It will expand them and enshrine them.

Because the right belongs to “every individual” and governmental burdens must satisfy strict constitutional scrutiny, existing regulations could face new legal challenges. Those might include parental-involvement requirements for minors or regulations affecting pregnancy-resource centers. Because the amendment also includes “fertility care,” questions could arise about future restrictions involving the creation, use, or destruction of human embryos. And because its language is broader than abortion alone, courts would ultimately have to determine how far the new constitutional right extends.

Those consequences are not all automatic. Some are potential legal implications that would depend on future lawsuits and judicial interpretation. But that is precisely why the amendment deserves careful attention. The actual constitutional text matters, not merely the summary voters see on the ballot.

For Christians, the larger principle reaches beyond this particular amendment. Government does not determine morality. Something does not become righteous because legislators pass it, judges uphold it, or voters approve it. Christians must bring every law and political proposal beneath the authority of God's Word.

Human rulers can legalize something, but they cannot make God call it good.

The People of God Must Persevere in Faith

But what happens when Christians do everything lawfully available to them and injustice still prevails?

The author of Psalm 94 did not have an election in which he could remove the rulers oppressing God's people. Perhaps he sometimes felt completely powerless to change his circumstances. Yet he could still say, “But the LORD has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.”

Those first three words change everything: But the LORD.

The rulers may be wicked. Innocent lives may be taken. Injustice may be written into law. But the LORD.

The psalmist's confidence was not rooted in his ability to control his circumstances. It rested in an unchanging God. The Lord was still reigning. The Lord was still righteous. The Lord was still faithful to His people.

That is where Christians must ultimately stand as well. We should speak for the unborn, pray, care for women and children, support ministries that protect life, and make thoughtful use of the lawful opportunities God gives us to influence our society. But our ultimate hope cannot rest in Richmond, Washington, courts, legislatures, or ballot boxes. Elections matter, but they are not sovereign.

Whether a particular law passes or fails, God remains God. His Word remains true. Human beings still bear His image. The church still has a mission. Jesus Christ is still King.

And Psalm 94 promises something more. God is not merely a refuge from injustice; He is the Judge who will finally answer it. Verse 23 says that God will bring the wickedness of unjust rulers back upon them. Human judges eventually become the judged. People may escape justice temporarily, but no one escapes it forever.

That truth should comfort us, but it should also humble us. If perfect justice were the only thing God offered sinners, none of us would survive. We may never have written an unjust law or entered an abortion clinic, but every one of us has broken God's law. We all need mercy.

And that brings us to Jesus.

Matthew tells us that religious and political authorities condemned Jesus to death even though He was innocent. Judas confessed that he had betrayed “innocent blood.” Pilate declared himself innocent of Jesus' blood while permitting His execution. It is Psalm 94 played out in a Roman courtroom: rulers condemning the innocent while attempting to declare themselves righteous.

But Jesus' innocent blood was shed for guilty people. At the cross, the judgment we deserve fell upon Him so that sinners could find refuge in Him. That grace is available to the woman who has had an abortion, the man who pressured her, the doctor who performed it, the politician who promoted it—and every other sinner who comes to Jesus with empty hands asking for mercy.

Richard and Mildred Loving eventually lived to see Virginia's unjust law overturned. We do not know which injustices we will live to see corrected.

But we know injustice will not have the final word.

The Lord is our refuge. His justice is coming. And Jesus Christ is King.