Social media exploded when medical experts confirmed what the meme lords, those modern-day prophets, have known all along: Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself. Yet that isn’t our focus today.
I find it spectacular that the story has been kept alive by these cleverly constructed memes; it’s one of the most important stories of the decade, and it should be shouted from the rooftops. But there’s a part of me that cringes every time I see his face or his name. Sometimes it feels like we’re turning him into a martyr rather than a once-potentially-useful monster—a parable demonstrating how black the human heart can be.
Recounting Epstein’s crimes, the powerful politicians and businessmen implicated, the strings that were pulled to keep his story underground for years prior to his arrest, and how he never stood trial for the countless image-bearers he destroyed, one begins to get the sense that the scales of justice aren’t unbalanced–they’re starved.
When Human Justice Fails…
It feels as though the same authority structures that were responsible to protect and render justice to Epstein’s victims have failed them as much as they failed him. He will stand before no jury of his peers to answer for what he did. No terrestrial court will pass judgment on him. No firing squad to send him to his Maker—and make no mistake, that is what he deserved, not as an emotional impulse on my part but as a matter of objective justice (more on that to come soon). Yet none of this will come to pass.
It seems to us that Epstein (not to mention everyone he was going to expose) has escaped justice.
He hasn’t. He won’t. They won’t.
…God’s Justice Never Does
“Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.”
Luke 12:2-3 ESV“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
Revelation 20:11-12 ESV
We do not live with eternity in mind. We fix our eyes on the temporal, the temporary. We don’t see that eternal throne passing judgment on all that happens in the dark and in the light. And even as I write this, I know that for some of you there is a tinge of bitterness at this. Sometimes we think of the judgment of God at the end of the world as some conciliatory pacifier for when “Plan A,” our human courts, fail.
That eternal throne is no conciliation prize: it is the fountain from which all true justice flows and the substance of which our human courts, on their best days, are but a shadow. It is the day on which all accounts are settled and all wrongs are put right. All the sins of all sinners will either be imputed to and atoned for by Christ, or punished eternally in hell. No sin will be swept under the rug, no divine eye will wink.
For the believer, for anyone who has suffered unjustly, this is a comfort. For the lost, this ought to be a terror. This day is not only for billionaire pedophiles, it is for all those who break the Law of God and do not flee to the pardon He has provided in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
Epstein’s killers may think they have escaped judgment in this life for their sins; that remains to be seen. But if they do, they are escaping only a shadow of what is to come. Whatever they, or we, think we have gotten away with, we can be sure that there’s a day coming where God will visit justice. On that day, the only refuge is Christ.
I can think of no better way to put a capstone on this thought than to quote the Man in Black:
“Well, you may throw your rock, and hide your hand / Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man / But as sure as God made black and white / What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light”
Johnny Cash, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”
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