Rev. Don Campbell
Acts 20:1-3; Romans 1-3
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
“ACQUITTAL DOES NOT MEAN ‘INNOCENT'”
O. J. Simpson was acquitted of murder, but few believe he is innocent. His acquittal may have resulted from sloppy work by the prosecution, skillful tactics by the defense, or by jury nullification, which occurs when “a jury returns a verdict of “Not Guilty” despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation charged. The jury in effect nullifies a law that it believes is either immoral or wrongly applied to the defendant whose fate they are charged with deciding.” I will leave the Simpson case to the lawyers and historians.
There is a word from God on the issue “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:5, ESV). Justifying the guilty does not make the guilty innocent and condemning the righteous does not make the righteous guilty.
Does God not play by the same rules? God certainly never condemns the innocence, but Paul says that he does justify the ungodly (Romans 4:5). There is a basis for God’s justification of the ungodly, and it is not the nullification of his own law. “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin’” (Romans 4:5-8, ESV).
When God acquits (justifies) us, he does not say that we are not guilty. Rather, he forgives us of sin and no longer counts it against us. God justifies on the basis of the redemption that is in Christ: “[F]or 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, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26).
Jury nullification justifies the guilty but it perverts justice. God is both just and the justifier because he has laid on Jesus the sins of us all.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 55:3-7, ESV).
CONNECTIONS
1. Because human systems are always flawed, the guilty sometimes go free and the innocent get locked up or even executed. A “trier of fact” is the “judge in a bench trial or jury in a jury trial that carries the responsibility of determining the issues of fact in a case.” Who will be the trier of fact on the day of judgment?
2. What shall he use to try our cases? (Revelation 20:11-15).
