Quite a few years ago, I spent about six months down at 201 Poplar. No, I wasn’t incarcerated—I worked there. On my last day, I thought it would be fun to get my picture taken in a judge’s chair, so I asked a court clerk friend of mine if he could make that happen. At 8:45 am, fifteen minutes before the whole “all rise” thing, I made my way into the courtroom through a door behind the judge’s desk. To my surprise, the place was packed. I mean shoulder to shoulder, crammed to capacity. As I sat down and looked out, what I thought would be a fun photo op turned somber very quickly. These people staring up at me had all been accused. They were going to be judged. They knew that punishment awaited them.
The sinner is in a cosmic predicament. God, the source of truth, good, and called by the Bible, “holy, holy, holy,” cannot allow the integrity of perfect justice to be compromised. If he did, he would be untrue to himself, which would mean he was imperfect, and you can see how it all unravels from there. Instead of meting out his justice upon sinners whom he loved, he poured it out on his perfectly just Son, the only possible substitute. What an amazing thing to ponder!
Here are some lyrics by John Newton that offer a fresh take on God’s justice:
Let us wonder; grace and justicejoin and point to mercy's store;when through grace in Christ our trust is,justice smiles and asks no more.
A courtroom scene is very familiar to most of us (thanks to television). We know what it means to throw one’s self on the mercy of the court. We know what it sounds like when the judge smacks his gavel. And we know the tension as the jury foreman says, “We the jury, find the defendant ________.”
Because of Christ, we not only hear the words, “not guilty,” but justice actually smiles.
