Articles
Lawyers
I’ve heard many Christians say, “I could never be a lawyer.” They aren’t usually referring to the obstacle of required intellect or years of schooling. I know this because the Christians usually follow up their statement with, “Unless I was a prosecutor. I could do that.”
There is a moral obstacle for many Christians in defending people whom they know to be guilty. Their conscience would tear them up if they ever made a living doing something like that. But being a prosecutor? Those are the good guys. They stand up for the law. They put bad guys behind bars. We could do that job and still sleep well at night.
All of that makes sense to me. I’ve been right there thinking the exact same things. But I’ve got a problem. While the thoughts resonate within me, they keep clashing with things I read in the Bible.
Lawyers are bad? Isn’t Jesus the best lawyer ever? “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (I John 2:1). The advocate is the person who stands by your side in the trial. He’s your defender. Those are pictures and descriptions for what we call lawyers in our court system.
I think most of us can appreciate a lawyer who defends someone who has been wrongfully accused, but is that the case here? Are we innocent? Not at all. The condition in which Jesus stands as our Advocate is “if anyone sins” (I John 2:1). We are guilty. Jesus knows it. He defends us anyway, and He is such a powerfully effective Advocate that the ones who He defends will avoid paying for their sins.
On the other hand, prosecutors whom we admire and idolize find their parallel in Satan. He goes by many names. Devil means deceiver. But Satan means accuser. The prophet Zechariah once wrote about a judgment scene revealed to him. “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him” (Zech. 3:1). That’s what prosecutors do, isn’t it? They are the ones who throw out the accusation and strive to prove a person’s guilt.
Care to join me in being a bit baffled? It makes so much sense to hate the lawyers and praise the prosecutors. But the Biblical picture is so much different than that.
I suppose the key difference is that Christians today look at lawyers and prosecutors from the perspective of being law-abiding, righteous citizens. Defendants, on the other hand, feel an intense need for a good lawyer and deeply despise prosecutors who seem to be “out to get them.” And so, if we look to the final day of judgment from the perspective of being the worthless, guilty criminal (which we all are), then having an outstanding lawyer becomes more important than anything. At the same time, we look across the aisle and see Satan and sneer because he is trying to condemn us to a punishment we do not want to face (even if we do deserve it).
But still, somehow, we praise prosecutors and despise lawyers. Perhaps, we need to rethink that a bit.
One thing I have learned from my limited time in the courts system. There is nothing more important for a defendant (innocent or guilty) than to have an outstandingly effective and committed lawyer. Recently, there was a person who probably had the best lawyers in town. Unfortunately, this person did something that caused the entire defense team to quit. What a disaster! If you have Jesus as your Advocate, you are going to be set free unless you break your relationship with Him and He no longer will represent you. Whatever you do, don’t let that happen.
