Several years ago, millions of North Americans were glued to their TV sets day after day watching the O.J. Simpson murder trial. After months of arguments and cross examinations of witnesses, the prosecution and defence presented their final summations and left the jury with the responsibility to weigh the evidence. The twelve men and women deliberated for a couple of days and to the surprise of many returned a verdict of not guilty. Most Americans felt that this was a miscarriage of justice. There was no doubt in their minds that the man was guilty of first-degree murder.

I’m not going to give you my opinion on the matter. I simply want to point out what such verdicts mean and what they don’t mean. Simply because the jury returned a verdict of not guilty did not necessarily mean that Simpson was innocent. In fact, acquittal in a court of law really says nothing about the moral guilt or innocence of the defendant; it merely says that the prosecution has been unable to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime in question. He may well have committed it, but the evidence is deemed insufficient. By the same token, if the jury had declared O.J. “guilty,” it would not necessarily have made him guilty. Many innocent people have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Legal declarations of guilt or innocence are exactly that: legal declarations! They are not necessarily moral evaluations.

I say this by way of introduction to show that there is a striking parallel between the legal status of a defendant who is acquitted in a human court of law, and the legal status of a redeemed sinner before God’s bar of justice. When Scripture speaks of sinners being justified it means they are declared “not guilty” in the court of heaven. That’s not all it means, but that is the aspect the apostle emphasises in this passage.

The theme for our sermon is: Justification - God’s Marvellous Gift to Man
1. its unlikely beneficiaries;
2. its legal foundation;
3. its only prerequisite.