September 11, 2017
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Reading along with us in Deuteronomy? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 19 (ESV)
“When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, 2 you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lordyour God is giving you to possess. 3 You shall measure the distances and divide into three parts the area of the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.
4 “This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past—5 as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live,6 lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past… Continue Reading
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18The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst
Jesus is our city of refuge
Here we see the justice maxim of “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:38-39)
It appears that Jesus overturned or nullified the Law. But did He?
Here’s a good resource: https://www.gotquestions.org/eye-for-an-eye.html
And another, from the same website: https://www.gotquestions.org/law-of-retribution.html
Justice is something we learn
What a great picture of God providing cities of refuge as a concrete expression of Him being a God of refuge! He is always a place to run to whatever the condition we are in or the circumstances we find ourselves in. And in Him we find everything we need for life and godliness!
And I was struck by v20, that the rest of the people will see the strict punishment that comes for being a false witness and not replicate that behavior. First, when we consider the importance of witnesses in bringing about justice, false witnesses corrupt the process. But second, notice how strict punishment causes people to avoid poor behavior. I do believe one reason our criminal justice system is in such a mess is that often times the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.