WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT LAWYERS
I worked 23 years as a legal secretary except when I was sick. (When I was sick, I was an illegal secretary.) I know, that’s a groaner! Just couldn’t resist it though. But from here on out, the rest of this essay is very serious and I hope it will provoke some serious reflection on your part.
At one time, one of the attorneys I worked for had a client who was always coming in because he got a lot of DWIs and his license would be taken away from him and he would come in to get a hardship drivers license from the Court.
(Let me digress from my main point here for a moment. My brother was killed by a drunken driver and I have no patience with them and I believe hardship driving privileges should never be allowed. But this was years ago and unfortunately this was a very common practice back then.)
So back to the point of this column. The client had plenty of money and paying for the legal representation was no problem to him.
However, eventually the attorney was appointed to be a judge and the next time the client came in, the attorney told him he could no longer represent him in court because a judge has to leave his private practice as an attorney while he sits as a judge. The client became very upset and offered the attorney twice his usual fee but the attorney told him there was no way he could represent him in court as his attorney.
So much for the parable. Here is the meaning.
When we become a Christian, Jesus becomes our lawyer i.e. our advocate before God the Father (who is our judge). I John 2:1 says: "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate (lawyer) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
In the courtroom of God, the Devil is the accuser - the Prosecuting Attorney. Even aft, RED WORDSer we repent of our sins, he is constantly reminding us of them and he accuses us before the Father. You can read that in Revelation 12:10.
But Jesus is our advocate, our attorney, and in that courtroom He stands at the right hand of God and intercedes for us and if we have repented of our sins, we are not condemned before God.
The Bible says that after death, or the Second Coming of Christ for those who are alive when He comes again, we will ALL stand before the judgment seat of God - no exceptions. And we are once again in the courtroom but Jesus is no longer our attorney. He is the Judge. John 5:22, 26-27 2 Tim 4:1 If we have repented and confessed our sins and accepted Him as our Lord and Savior, we have nothing to worry about. But if you died without repentance and confession, you will face the judgment, alone and without representation.
And there is one standard by which we all will be judged, it will be the same for everybody. It won’t make any difference what church you attended, or whether you even went to church - whether you were a member or not. How you were baptized, whether you spoke in unknown tongues or not, whether you listened to a male or a female preacher.....all the little things that divide us right now will make no difference at all.
We will be judged by all the Words Jesus spoke which first and foremost will include what He said to Nicodemus: “Ye MUST be born again!” And all the other things He said about repenting of our sins and confessing them before God.
It is simple and, like the plan of salvation - easy to understand. You want to know how God will judge you? Just find a Bible that has the words of Christ in red and read them. That’s it! Not what a Bible commentary said, or a preacher said, or the creed of your church says, or what you find in a study Bible with notes by somebody else. It will be Jesus’ own words that we will be judged by.
Right now, today as you read this, Jesus is your attorney, your advocate. He is interceding - pleading - with the Father not to listen to the Accuser, but to look at whether your name has been written in the Book of Life. If you have repented of your sins, it will be there and you will stand justified** before the Father.
(It’s easy to understand being justified. When you confess* and repent of your sins, you will be justified** - another way of saying “just as if I’d never sinned”.
It is God’s will that we should not sin after we have been forgiven, but if you sin after being saved, and the devil comes back to accuse you, you have an advocate. 1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But after we die and when we face judgment and expect Christ to forgive us as He always did before, he will say (like the judge in my story of the lawyer) - I am no longer your attorney and I cannot forgive you. I am now the judge and I will now judge you according to the words I spoke and which are recorded in the Bible.
*meaning of confession and repentance.
To confess your guilt in a court of law means you agree with the charges laid against you. When we sin, we are sinners in the eyes of God. To confess that means that we agree with God that we are sinners and therefore we must repent.
Repentance means “to turn back and go the other way - NOT to continue the way we were going just so we can repent over and over, but to turn around, change our life direction, and go the other way.
Have you been born again? Have you confessed your sins and repented of them? Are you still going in the right direction now? Only you can answer these questions. No pastor nor priest can answer for you. Please think about this. It really is a matter of life or death.
©Joan Rowden Hart 2021
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