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blogging, faith, humor, insanitybytes22, legal advice, opinion
Something I really wish I could teach people is the difference between civil and criminal court. They are two completely different things and it really matters when it comes to our worldview and our faith. Criminal court determines someone’s guilt or innocence, “beyond a reasonable doubt”
Civil court is only about righting a wrong based on a, “preponderance of evidence.”
It’s also kind of critical to know this difference when attempting to understand the Bible. In ancient days there really was no “criminal court,” in the sense that we did not give criminals a fair trial, an opportunity to defend themselves, protect their rights, nor did we bother to focus on guilt or innocence. Such notions didn’t exist at all. There was no need to examine the evidence. You were simply guilty as charged.
Barrabas was not sitting in jail, awaiting trial when Jesus was arrested, he was sitting in jail awaiting execution. The thief on the cross did not first have a fair trial. None of that existed.
Going to court, receiving a “judgement,” in those days was far more about civil court. Civil court almost always deals with property rights. People are sometimes perceived as property belonging to the the tribe, the kingdom, or somebody else, but there is no actual “crime” being investigated. It is not about sending people to jail. It is not even really about determining guilt or innocence. Picture the persistent widow or the baby in King Solomon’s tale. The widow was trying to get her property back and the mother was trying to get her baby back. Civil court is about restoration, the righting of wrongs, not necessarily punishment and sending people to jail.
In the modern world, it is almost the complete opposite in our perception. A good chunk of us are not even aware of the existence of civil court at all! We think “court” is all about being a defendant in a criminal trial. We are all about the rights of the accused, almost as if we are potentially them. “Don’t judge me,” is a modern cultural statement, that stands in stark contrast to the persistent widow camping out at the courthouse and annoying everyone to the point of finally granting her a much desired “judgement.”
King David reflects this truth too, almost begging the Lord to judge him. “Search my heart, oh God…” He is actually praying for judgement, for restoration, for the righting of wrongs. He is not launching a criminal defense.
A judgement is a really good thing, it is restorative justice. You took my baby, my farm, enslaved my husband, whatever. I want my property restored to the rightful owner. I seek a judgement, a restoration, the righting of wrongs. I want a higher authority to step in and give me my stuff back. Whether or not the bad guy was ever punished was completely irrelevant. In fact, most likely he never was in days of old, beyond having to return your property, on account of the fact that he was likely well off and powerful enough to have taken it in the first place.
Petty thieves usually never made even made it to court, they were simply guilty as charged with no chance of redemption. A judgement was only for civil court, for the weak asking for protection from the powerful. This continues today to some extent, like when people petition the court against a multi national company that poisoned the water. They are seeking a judgment, justice, the restoration of what was stolen or taken from them, or compensation for the harm done.
The purpose is not retribution, vengeance, or persecution of the bad guy. That may well happen sometimes given the flaws of humanity, but the goal of civil court is completely different and really has nothing to do with punishing criminals at all.
In the Bible, the purpose of “judgement” was to set the captives free. Israel is freed from Pharoah due to the Lord’s judgement. A higher power (literally) stepped in to right a wrong against an enslaved people, to restore what had been taken, to reclaim His property. The primary goal of the Lord’s “judgement” was to set my people free, not to punish Pharoah.
Here’s another truth, a crime is never a crime against an individual, it is a crime against the state. Or a crime against the district or the commonwealth, depending on were you live. Individuals NEVER file charges in criminal court. You do not decide someone needs to be prosecuted and just go “file charges” against them. That is sloppy language we use, but charges must be filed by the state, by an officer of the court. You are at best, a victim, or a witness. If the state decides NOT to file charges against someone, too bad. You do not have the authority to do it yourself in criminal court, that is not how it works.
Given these truths, this reality of our modern justice system and our ancient one, no Christian should ever hold people in judgement in a bad way, as if you are the one in charge and tasked with determining guilt or innocence and punishing criminals. No Christian should hold their own selves in condemnation either, as if you are the defendant in a criminal trial trying to prove your guilt or innocence.
And absolutely, do NOT ever flit about the internet in a self righteous rage condemning people to hell and pretending you have the power to revoke their salvation. I call that a breach of authority as in, you ain’t God and you aren’t authorized to impersonate Him. I shouldn’t even have to say this, but let me tell you, the internet is a wild frontier and, “by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” I witness this behavior at least a half dozen times a day.
Besides just generally not displaying that you are a self righteous lunkhead with poor self control, it is also not a good idea because it demonstrates a really poor understanding of why Jesus Christ came and what “judgement” actually means. It does NOT mean being a hauled before a judge and sentenced for your crimes. God is not sitting up in the sky wearing judicial robes, scowling while He decides whether or not to condemn you for your great sins. God doesn’t have to zap us with a giant thunderbolt, consequences are built right in to the system. The consequence of acting like a self righteous lunkhead is that you are a miserable creature devoid of grace. Nobody is punishing you or condemning you, you just create that reality for yourself when you behave that way. Stop it.
We actually pray eagerly for judgement, meaning asking the Lord to be restored, delivered from our woes, healed and set free. It’s a good thing, not a punishment. We are requesting a favorable judgement like one might get in civil court. In the US Constitution we are actually granted the right to petition our government for, “a redress of grievances.” “Redress” means remedy or set right , compensation, we the people are not the criminals in the equation. We are seeking the righting of a wrongs, justice, a favorable judgement.
Sometimes people don’t understand me when I say this, but I’d much rather sin against a Holy God because His judgement is always honest, fair, full of mercy, and He knows my heart. He is good, not spiteful. People will condemn you to hell because their coffee is cold. They will damn you on the highway because you’re driving too slow in their lane. They will suffer a bout of indigestion and hold the entire room in condemnation. People are vile sometimes. The thing is, we aren’t supposed to be emulating other people, we’re supposed to be emulating Jesus. Jesus came to set the captives free. That would be us.
Does God have a criminal court? Perhaps, but none of us are an appointed officer of that court. We have not been granted that authority. I love the saying, “if God did not send His only Son to condemn the world, what makes you think He sent you? ” That truth is to be found in John 3:17.
I am an epic fail at managing to share this one tiny bit of legal advice, but I strongly encourage you to ponder the differences and to explore what it means to be in civil court winning a redress of grievances, rather than a defendant in a criminal trial, and how one can help others to discover this truth, too. It can be life changing.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I gotta remember this line: I love the saying, “if God did not send His only Son to condemn the world, what makes you think He sent you? ” More great wisdom, IB!
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Thanks, Pastor Randy. 🙂
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To me, having a trial for criminal and civil is equivalent to double indemnity. I’m not a fan.
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Ah, you mean when someone is found guilty and sent to jail, and then also sued for damages? I guess I haven’t seen much of that. Most criminals ere don’t have any money, so there’s no motivation to go after them civilly.
I am pleased about double jeopardy however, about not prosecuting someone for the same crime twice.
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My bad! Double jeopardy is what I was thinking of. So….. As much as I think OJ did the crime, once he was found not guilty, that should’ve been it.
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That’s the thing, Rob, the requirements, the standards for guilt in criminal court are much stronger. You might be just as guilty as can be, but if the prosecutor with held evidence or the cops dropped the ball somewhere, your guilt cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt, which means you cannot be convicted.
In civil court however, they only have to ponder the evidence, because nobody is going to jail and your freedom is not going to be taken away. The standards are much lower, because nobody is seeking a conviction that will interfere with your freedom and liberty. It’s about restitution and damages, not guilt or innocence.
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I understand, but I don’t agree with it. It’s as though you get two tries against you, with a lower threshold.
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LOL! Well, one of the easiest ways to avoid civil court is to have no money. I’m sure there are a few exceptions, but for the most part one must be a well off celebrity like OJ was, a government entity, or a company with some assets.
What annoys me about it all is that now we have created insurance companies, so like to go pressure wash the neighbor’s deck in theory requires liability insurance in case he wants to sue me. Knowing my county, I’d probably need a permit too, and then an environmental impact study.
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We do have an 8th Amendment that prohibits that, but sadly the Legal Establishment these days is also big business, so the Constitution gets ignored. We can’t let law stand in the way of lawyers’ profits after all.
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Isn’t the civil/criminal court analogy affected by the views of one’s choice of churches?
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Perhaps! I’m going to claim to be right here though, on account of the fact that some things are just objectively true and not a subjective matter of opinion or a secondary issue we can just choose for ourselves. We have some well documented history about the nature of courts in the ancient world and we have some written laws and the US Constitution that define the nature of our modern legal system.
Of course, people are deeply flawed, so not even perfect systems work perfectly when there are people involved in them. All manner of injustice and corruption and just plain wrongheadedness has infiltrated both the legal system and our religious institutions, probably for thousands of years at various points in time.
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And “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes” is built into our DNA ..? If you will forgive me …
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Interesting observation. One of our big problems when we read the Bible is that we tend to interpret the Bible from our own perspective instead of the perspective of the people to whom it was originally written. Had not thought about the difference between our court system and that of Biblical times. Thanks!
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True, Tom. Some of the passages about slavery and rape can be hard on modern eyes, but if you understand that given the times and the culture, these are actually attempts at humanitarian improvements. These are protections, attempts to enforce humane treatment. It is easy in the modern West to not realize how brutal and barbaric people can be to one another, and to go and judge these things through modern, Western eyes.
I just listened to a celebrity testify about how her rights had been infringed upon because her ability to attend wine tasting events had now been curtailed. It was the ultimate First World Problem. That’s an extreme example, but many people genuinely have no idea what it is to actually live unprotected among people who are not governed by some shared moral laws.
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The fact that so many people genuinely have no idea what it is to actually live unprotected among people who are not governed by some shared moral laws is deeply ironic. Most of these people complain about the barbarity of the Bible, but they don’t know enough history to realize that the relative lack of barbarity in our society is due to its Christian heritage. Due to the lack of Christians, that, unfortunately, changing.
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They had trials by the elders or kings in Israelite law. People weren’t presumed automatically guilty. That’s why the cities of refuge were created, so that it could be determined whether a person accused of murder was guilty. Same with a woman accused of adultery. She was brought before a priest. In that case, God determined whether she was guilty, but it was still a trial. She was not automatically considered guilty just because her husband said so. There are also a couple of verses that mention the necessity of having two or three witnesses to convict a person of a crime worthy of the death penalty. I know the system was different than what we have today in the US, but it was still a judicial system that didn’t automatically assume guilt.
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Well, much of what we read in the Bible about Jewish law was an attempt to make improvements and set some standards for what was an appalling system of brutality and guilt before innocence. The cities of refuge were for the innocent, accidental homicide and such, so as to protect them from revenge killings. Even back in ancient Greece there was no prosecutor, no rules for evidence, no right to launch your own defense. Roman law of course was just brutal. So while there may have technically been something they called “a trial” they were pretty much based on the idea that somebody makes an accusation and you are simply guilty. Most of the discussion was just about how to punish you.
And yes, women accused of adultery were often convicted based on nothing more then one person’s say so. A husband did not have to present his case at trial because there was no trial. She was considered guilty. That continues to this day in many parts of the world.
What we do see a whole lot more of in the Bible is the lessor courts, the settling of disputes, what we today would call civil court. Jewish laws do a good job of explaining these courts and their purposes, which were about resolving disputes before they became huge conflicts that created community instability.
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The funny thing is this morning my daily Bible reading went over some of these laws, such as having to have 2 or 3 witnesses in order for someone to be convicted of a death sentence. Otherwise, I was working off my (often) bad memory. Yes, God’s laws were so much more advanced than the surrounding world that I can’t understand why God haters find them difficult, to the point of very bad misrepresentation, esp regarding the trial a woman accused of adultery. That was so that she couldn’t be stoned to death based only off her husband’s word! But I guess if people don’t believe in God, then they won’t believe he would rescue the innocent, either.
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That is funny! I love how God will put things on my mind and then everything I encounter for the rest of the day seems to be related.
Some of the passages in the Bible are clearly trying to correct a cultural injustice, like we see in 2 Chronicles, “And said to the judges, Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgment. Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the Lord our God, or partiality or taking bribes.”
So right out of the gate we know that showing partiality and taking bribes was somewhat common, or there wouldn’t be any need to mention, “Hey, don’t be that guy.”
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Reblogged this on clydeherrin.
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Thank you, Clyde.
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Insanitybytes
Murder cases in ancient times seldom went to court in ancient times, Iff someone was murdered, it was understood that it was a duty for family members to avenge the murder.
Similar to what gang’ members are doing in Chicago in our contemporary times.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
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Thanks, Rudy! You are right. Appreciate the link, too.😊
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