Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Good News of the Judgment
Commentary
for the April 29, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson
"In
the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead..." 2 Timothy 4:1a, NIV
Several times over the course of my life
I have had the opportunity to spend time in court and learn lessons from the
legal system in my community. As a young man without a lot of driving
experience, I was ticketed for failure to stop at a railroad crossing in
Oregon. There was no train and only a sign that said railroad crossing, but the
law in that county required that a person stop before proceeding. While there
was not a train, a town, or any other traffic in sight, there was a police car
hiding in the trees, and I was ticketed. However, when I showed up in court,
the officer did not, and the law at that time prohibited conviction based on
hearsay evidence. The officer had to be present in court to be available for
cross examination. Since he did not show, the judge dismissed the case based on
a presumption of innocence.
I was relieved, but later in life I
discovered that "loophole" was plugged and now the presumption in such
misdemeanor traffic cases is guilty as is codified in the law regarding
photographic enforcement of speeding in school zones. Consequently, there is no
longer a requirement for the officer to be present since he can only verify
what is already presumed and is hardly likely to say he should not have cited
the driver.
The Municipal Traffic Court is an open
court, so it is possible for those without business before the court to go and
observe. The judge is usually lenient on those who are willing to admit their
offence and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. Mitigation is typically
offered where the fine is reduced. For those who protest their innocence the
judge is far less lenient since they are already presumed guilty and have an
uphill battle to prove otherwise. Once I came before the court with
measurements I had done at the scene of the infraction and cited how the
traffic cameras had not been set up in accordance with statute. The judge
refused to consider the evidence I presented, and he was right to do so. I was
not an impartial authority, and he had no way to question my data. At that
point, I realized the cost of a professional certification of the measurements
would far exceed the amount of the fine and accepted the judge's verdict as the
better route. This is why the saying in the United States is that justice is
for the wealthy. A wealthy person would have no problem absorbing such costs to
prove a point. I was not that person. I learned from that experience to accept
the mercy of the court for a lesser fine, especially since my guilt had been
predetermined.
Courts presume a system of laws that need
adjudicating, whether misdemeanor traffic laws or laws dealing with felonies
like murder, extortion, and kidnapping. Those laws are like a treatise on what
nefarious activities people are willing to pursue to advance their own
interests above that of their fellow human beings. But if courts presume laws,
the opposite is also true. Laws presume a need for adjudication. The laws
precede the courts, for without the laws, the court has no basis to render
judgment.
We see this biblically from the very
beginning. There was only one law then: do not eat from the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil.[i] This was the
simple and direct yet powerful foundation of every legal system we have today.
Its establishment came from the mind of God, who already knew the outcome of
the law's existence. As the law foreshadowed, it was violated. We are not told
how much time passed before it happened, but that is irrelevant for the law
assured by its existence that it would eventually happen, else there would be
no need for such a law. Once the transgression occurred, the foundation of the
other part of the system, the courts, was established as well, for God passed
judgment on the first pair in Genesis. Who else could judge? Adam and Eve could
not because they were the ones charged as transgressors. The serpent could not,
for it was a co-conspirator. After God's examination of the guilty and their
admission of their failure, sentence was passed on all three. The evolution of
the legal system had begun, and murder was soon an early addition to the
statutes when Cain killed his brother Abel.
The weakness in the system was a failure
to establish an enforcement arm that would bring the people before the judge
for their transgressions. The Bible does not say how evil became so widespread
as humanity multiplied on the earth. When some became strong enough to resist
enforcement that may be when the system broke, much like organized crime gangs
today corrupt law enforcement through bribery and intimidation. In any event,
once the system broke, the only way to re-establish it was to start anew. For
humanity when things get so bad, the only recourse is usually revolution with
the idea of wiping the slate clean. In effect, this cleansing is what God did
with the flood. There were not enough caring people left to foment a successful
revolution to re-establish order. God offered the only hope of a fresh start.
People were no longer willing to submit to him for judgment of their
law-breaking. As a result, they were convicted in absentia. Sentence was
passed. Too late they realized the costliness of their disdain for the court.
This story, whether one believes it is literal
or metaphorical, is for admonition. Our entire court system, derived from that
early example in Eden, is a prophetic device that reminds us of two facts. If
there is a judgment, there must be laws that preceded it, and if there are
laws, there must eventually be judgment. We do not like to admit that reality
because we all on some level are scoff laws. We exceed the speed limit because
we have calculated the odds are in our favor against getting caught. We may
feel like antelope crossing a crocodile infested river that there are not
enough police to catch all of us, so we tempt fate and ignore the law. We think
we are only playing around with misdemeanors anyway. But the felon makes the
same calculations and weighs their chance of being caught before proceeding
with their crime. That we all make those same calculations reveals why the
Bible says we are all sinners, transgressors of the law. The traffic law
breaker shares the spirit of the murderer and vice versa. Despite a functioning
court system and the ability of law enforcement to bring transgressors before
the court, despite having a higher percentage of our citizens incarcerated than
any other major country, we still have plenty who make the same calculations,
decide they can break the law without penalty and proceed to do so.
The laws do not exist independent of our
behavior. For that very reason, the idea that they are done away with in any
real sense is ludicrous. One would have to terminate humanity to end the law.
Therefore, the law's existence, as always, proceeds to judgment. While Paul is
correct in stating there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ,[ii] the law
still exists for them as well else no one could fall from grace. We may drive
the speed limit for years, but the speeding law does not relent nor change in
its pursuit of all, knowing that either intentionally or mistakenly
transgression is foretold. Those who say the law is no longer needed do not
understand its purpose. Their transgressions will go before them to the
foretold judgment. But those who see themselves as perfectly abiding by that
law also do not understand its purpose. Like I learned in traffic court, they
will one day come to understand that the only logical relationship to the law
and the judge is to admit guilt and rely on any mitigation the court may offer.
In our case the judgment is convened at
the end of the road for our planet just as it was for the people of Noah's day.
We are forewarned that horrible things will precede that day. When we see the
earth going through the labor pains of trying to give birth to that day with
natural disasters, wide spread plagues, and extreme weather events, we can,
like people did in Noah's day, go on as though everything is normal, ignoring
an impending judgment that our very legal code foreshadows and come crashing
head first into the law that never really went away, despite our scoffing. Or
we can admit our condition and what is coming and allow Christ to set us free
from the shackles of condemnation that the law places on us to carry us to
judgment. The good news is the choice is ours.