We all love a good trial.  Our forefathers were spot-on in describing man as having a “legal frame.”  Consider the evidence.  Think about our viewing habits.  Most trending shows revolve around crime or courtroom drama.  And lest you think this love of trial drama simply the undue influence of media, recall the last time you cut the cake at a children’s birthday party.  “His piece is bigger!” “She got more icing!”  “I wanted the corner piece!”  “It’s not fair!”  There is no more aggressive prosecutor than a small child lodging an accusation of unfairness.  Children are powerful lawyers because man has a legal frame.  We are born with it.  We do not learn it.

Made in the image of a just God, we are wired to demand justice.   But the fall corrupted our understanding of it.  Instead of understanding justice as conformity to God’s will, we index it to our own desire.  Few of us decry the privation of others as unfair.  But when we feel wronged, we loudly demand justice.  But what if we got it?  What if we got justice, not according to our own want or will, but according to God’s standard – a standard which penetrates beyond our words and actions to our thoughts and attitudes?  

We love fictional crime drama because it satisfies our need to see justice done, without complicating it with the complexities of our own sin.   In sixty minutes, confusion gives way to clarity.  And good triumphs over evil no matter what means it uses to get there.   But our lives are not so tidy.  In our real story, we are fugitives facing justice none of us can bear.   Yet the scales of God’s justice do not weigh the arguments for and against our guilt, but God’s justice and His mercy.

It is remarkable how much legal imagery the Bible uses to picture our condition.  The Old Testament anticipates a redeemer who will set prisoners free.  In the New Testament, both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are pictured as advocates, God the Father is often likened to a judge. Redemption depends upon a declaration of judicial righteousness.  And our condemnation is set aside in Christ.   In a well-known passage we read.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, … so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:23-26

History’s greatest courtroom drama is recorded in the Bible in Matthew 27.  Following an irregular grand jury indictment, Jesus is brought before the criminal court on trumped up charges from religious rivals.  And in Pontius Pilate’s courtroom we see the greatest miscarriage of justice in history. 

Everyone is guilty – the judge, the prosecutors, the jury – everyone that is except the one on trial.  He alone is innocent.  Evidence is ignored.  And the judge is captive to public opinion and his own corrupt history.  Despite his declarations of Jesus’ innocence, Pontius Pilate condemns Jesus to death and compounds injustice by releasing a man who is truly guilty of all the charges leveled against him.

As spectators, we recoil at this apparent travesty of justice.  That is until we realize that we are not just spectators. Jesus is not a hapless victim of human injustice, but a willing sacrifice to divine justice – justice that is rightly ours to bear.   It is not just Barabbas’ cross that Jesus bore, but ours.   God is just – His justice cannot ignore our crimes or allow them to go unpunished – but in His mercy He is the justifier of those who have faith in Christ.  Because of this we can have peace with God and with one another.  This my friend is good news.

Join us as we examine Matthew 27 and consider how greatest courtroom drama in history unfolds Christ’s condemnation for our guilt and pardon. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.