Justice seems so rational, so easy, so organized. But justice is nothing like that at all. My friend’s eyes filled with tears as she told me her experience of serving on a jury. Her grief was deep and her emotions were intense.

She did not feel guilt. She knew without a doubt that she had done the right thing. The entire jury was fully convinced of the defendant’s guilt. It wasn’t doubt which troubled her. What felt so wrong was the resolution to his guilt. The jury gave him the most lenient punishment in hopes that he would turn his life around quickly. This they agreed upon too. But it would be tough where he was going to make such a change. His life choices had brought him to this place. He would face five long years in prison to pay for what he did. It was a sentence the prosecutor and his victims were most unhappy to accept.

Her grief and sadness were not about a case that wasn’t argued well, or things had being carried out in an unjust manner. Her grief was in the knowledge that a resolution had not necessarily been met. The kind of justice offered came nowhere close to solving the problem of this man’s (or any man’s or woman’s) propensity to sin.

Our manmade laws of justice are completely inadequate to resolve the sins committed in this world. In fact, the law leaves us all without hope of justice. It is completely unjust that I should break the law by going five miles over the speed limit on my way to work. According to the law I should be punished and eventually have my driver license removed for ignoring the exact law that is written for me to follow. If I seek to make myself just through following the laws of my country or even the laws given by God to Israel, I will end up in the same place. As Paul put it to the Galatians, I will end up in a prison.

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:23-24).

You see, the faith described is what was missing from my friend’s encounter with justice. Justice put the man in prison, but left him there, even if he gets out in five years as his sentence requires. Though justice was served, it meant prison. Faith is the only resolution that will set anyone free from prison.

The weight of her actions was heavy on her heart. That man may not know it, but when my friend sat on the jury for his trial, he gained an intercessor who would probably never contact him, but would anonymously pray him through the next five years he spent in prison and the rest of his life. She knew that he was in prison long before he was sent there and that he would remain imprisoned by the law until he comes to be justified by faith. The law’s justice will never free a man; we are justified only by grace through faith.