Lessons from the Casey Anthony Trial – Part 2

Lawyers are important, and defendants need them desperately. Someone once said, “He who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” Casey Anthony’s lawyer, Jose Baez, was vilified for incompetence, and most legal minds leveled a barrage of criticism against his ineptitude, but Baez left the courtroom in stunning and smiling success.

In retrospect, Baez becomes a towering legal giant who knew exactly how to keep his client off the stand and pound wedges of doubt into a sympathetic jury. Casey Anthony never said a word in her own defense, yet Baez got total acquittal in the most serious charges of murder.

The need for defense is seen even more so in the highest court of guilt or innocence before Heaven’s judge. Turning this into a biblical illustration, I thought of our great Advocate who pleads our spiritual case before the court of Heaven and its Judge, the Lord God Himself.

We are all guilty of sin. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Of obvious universal guilt, Rom. 3:19 declares, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (emphasis mine)

As pathetic, guilty sinners, we are accused from at least four sides.

First, we are guilty before God. Second, we are accused by our own consciences. Rom. 2:15 says that the law is written in our hearts and our conscience also bears witness. Paul also wrote, “Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.” (Rom 14:22) Third, we may be accused by others whom we have offended (Matt. 5:23).

Finally, there is Satan himself. Rev 12:10 calls him “the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night.” The original Greek word for “accused” is “kategorus.” “Kata” means down, and the market in that day was the “agora,” or as we’d say, the town square. The meaning is to be publicly charged with crime in the marketplace, or literally, to be put down in plain sight.

So the guilty sinner can be facing four prosecutors. How do we get out of that?

There is solitary deliverance through forgiveness in the blood of Christ and His resurrection power. The New Testament provision is justification, which means legally proclaimed righteous. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:1) The old explanatory phrase is “Just as if I’d never sinned.”

The result of this is found in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” In the Greek, “no condemnation” is also a legal word meaning, literally, “no adverse sentence.”

How precious is God’s promise, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:17) The Psalmist had it right in Psalm 103:12. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

All of this is wonderfully focused in 1 John 2:1: “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The word for advocate is “paraclete” or “one called along side to help.” It is translated “comforter” four times elsewhere in the New Testament. Christians have the best lawyer in the world—the Holy Spirit of God, the Comforter. All four prosecutors are countered, and the verdict is always “Not guilty on all counts.”

The old song says it well on behalf of the guilty sinner. “Guilty, vile, and helpless we; Spotless Lamb of God was He; ‘Full atonement!’ can it be? Hallelujah! What a Savior!”

Another says, “Calvary covers it all, My past with its sin and stain; My guilt and despair, Jesus took on Him there, And Calvary covers it all.”

And still another reads, “No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him, is mine; Alive in Him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach th’ eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own.”

What a wonderful verdict from God: “Not guilty on all counts. Case dismissed.”

Dave Virkler