A Society Without Crime
CRIME is a parasitical disease that has been sapping the strength and vitality of human society for ages. It is like a giant octopus whose frightful tentacles reach into nearly every part of human society. Its corrupting influence is often seen even in high positions of worldly government. Outstanding examples of what happens when it gains complete control of a government are seen in the bloody record of human suffering left by totalitarian regimes of recent decades.
Like many hidden diseases of the human organism, crime flourishes and spreads beneath the surface of society. Although its poisonous presence is revealed by regular news reports of robberies, embezzlements, rapings, murders, gang fights and so forth, the extent to which society is corrupted by it is not generally known. The occasional prickings by investigating committees bring a lot of putridness into the open from places where crime may not have been suspected. Shocked public opinion may start a cleanup campaign, forcing crime to retreat from the investigated area, but when things quiet down it will begin snaking its way back.
Despite police efforts, major known crimes in the United States continue to grow. From 1946 to 1957 they increased at a rate that was three times as fast as the nation’s population increase. The population increase for persons under eighteen since 1952 was 22 percent, but during the same period arrests of such persons increased 55 percent.
Crime is not confined to juvenile delinquents, corrupt politicians and the blackguards of the underworld. Average persons considered as upright citizens are often exposed as being criminally dishonest. Consider, for example, the widespread practice among employees of stealing from their employers. In the United States alone employee dishonesty costs businesses from 500 million to one billion dollars a year.
Any person that loves righteousness should be sickened by the corrupt state of modern society. He should be revolted at the noisome disease of crime that has spread through it and corrupts it. No wonder that God, through his Word, commanded Christians to have no friendship with the world. To have friendship for it would make one an enemy of God. (Jas. 4:4) But because modern society is corrupt, it does not mean that a society without crime is impossible. It does not mean that humans cannot live in a society that respects Scriptural principles, that is morally clean and upright and that is united in Christian love instead of being divided by hate, envy, maliciousness and strife.
A society without crime can be a reality, but it cannot be brought about by police efforts or by groups that try to reform criminals. It cannot be produced by politicians or by the united efforts of the world’s governments. The job is too big for any of them. It is a task that only Jehovah God can perform. It requires a completely new system of things—a new world. The change is foretold at 1 John 2:17, which says: “Furthermore, the world is passing away and so is its desire, but he that does the will of God remains forever.”
God’s heavenly executioners will root out and destroy all who persist in following unlawful desires. No amount of chicanery on the part of a criminal will bring him escape from the execution of divine judgment. Note how the Bible long ago foretold God’s purging of the wicked from the earth: “But the transgressors themselves will certainly be annihilated together; the future of wicked people will indeed be cut off.” “For the upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.”—Ps. 37:38; Prov. 2:21, 22.
Certainly the One who locked in the atom the stupendous energy that man is now tapping in his nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs is capable of locating and destroying every living criminal and every persistent violator of divine law. Although a person may have succeeded in hiding his criminal acts from the eyes of other humans, he cannot hide them from the eyes of God. “There is not a creation that is not manifest to his sight, but all things are naked and openly exposed to the eyes of him with whom we have an accounting.” “The sins of some men are publicly manifest, leading immediately to judgment, but as for other men their sins also become manifest later.”—Heb. 4:13; 1 Tim. 5:24.
That a society without crime will follow God’s destruction of the present wicked system of things is assured by the type of government that will rule mankind then and by the type of people that will inhabit the earth. As you will note at 1 John 2:17, previously quoted, “he that does the will of God remains forever.” Those that do the will of God are not the ones that contribute to the corruption of modern society. They are the ones referred to at Proverbs 2:21 as the “upright” and “blameless” that will be left over in the earth after God has cleared it of the wicked. Jesus referred to them in his sermon on the mount when he said: “Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth.”—Matt. 5:5.
The government that will rule these “mild-tempered ones” that do God’s will is identified in the Bible as the kingdom of God. It is a heavenly government with Christ as King. With all mankind under the Kingdom rule crime will not be able to corrupt that New World society of righteous humans. Then it can be said: “Loving-kindness and trueness themselves have met each other; righteousness and peace themselves have kissed each other. . . . and righteousness itself will look down from the very heavens.”—Ps. 85:10, 11.
Let him judge the afflicted ones of the people, let him save the sons of the poor one, and let him crush the defrauded. In his days the righteous one will sprout.—Ps. 72:4, 7.