Who Gets To Define Morality? - Luke 23:23

But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. - Luke 23:23


    The title passage describes a people lost in a moment of overwrought emotion, urged on by anger, duplicity, and conspiracy.
    On Monday, May 25th, 2020, a black man named George Floyd was brutally murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin. What has transpired since that dark moment has been pasted across our televisions: the wanton destruction to countless American cities by anarchist’s demanding ‘justice’ for George Floyd and black Americans in general.
    No one who has seen the terrifying video footage of Floyd’s death can deny the fact that it didn’t have to happen and that the officer involved and the three officers who looked on were completely out of control, much like the crowds destroying and setting fires in our cities. Officer Chauvin believed he was administering justice when he placed his knee upon Mr. Floyd’s throat for 8 ½ minutes while the man died. The raging crowds are ‘urgent demanding with loud cries’ a justice of their own making by physically attacking and killing law enforcement officers, terrorizing the population, and destroying everything they can get their hands on. And this brings us to the point: how do we define justice as a moral imperative? What shall be our bedrock, our very foundation of morality? “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” - Judges 21:25.
    For approximately 3,500 years we have had the Then Commandments as given to Moses by God. Yes, people still broke the Commandments and sinned over the ensuing years but the Commandments were the accepted standard for righteous and moral behavior. Few would argue that it is wrong to murder or lie. Few would argue that it is appropriate behavior to honor one’s parents. Those were just three of the accepted standards for human conduct. Accepted, that is until the notion of moral relativism crept into the human psyche. Men like Nietzsche made the claim that “God is dead,” dismissing even God Himself as a  reliable source for moral claims. “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” - 2 Timothy 3:1-5. The Apostle adds a warning at the ending of his passage. Many of those now destroying our cities would be wise to heed it. So what then are we to make of the human source of morality?
    We must come to one important understanding: the moral imperatives of God did not find their source in surveys, committee meetings, or the popular vote. They come from the character of God Himself! They are part of His divine attributes including goodness, mercy, and justice.
Man is always declaring ‘and justice for all.’ But is it God’s justice we seek or our own version of justice? The justice and moral imperatives we boast of are tainted by our own depravity. The human interpretations of justice, liberty, and freedom do not accurately define the true nature of those terms. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” - Isaiah 5:20.
    Any human determination as to the foundations of morality is bound to be riddled with leanings, subjective agendas, and biases based on the current popular trends. In other words, there is no foundation for morality. This is why only God’s version of moral authority meets the definition that all mankind can benefit from. The very gravitas of true moral authority demands that it come from our unchanging God rather than the sin-born volatility of man since our depravity defies the sober restraint required to meet the litmus test for righteousness.
    Turning back to the pandemonium plaguing our nation, it seems clear that the cold-blooded murder of a man by a ‘law enforcement officer’ and the subsequent anarchy which followed is proof positive that mankind is incapable of developing and practicing moral grace without the hand of God!  So the question becomes: whose version of morality should we be looking to for the answers to our current enigma? Will we adopt the moral imperatives of Derek Chauvin or that of the riotous crowds?  For the moment, their voices have ‘prevailed.’
    The truth has been with us for over 3,500 years - “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” Psalm 127:1.