Refuge
This week's study is a throwback to the Old Testament, in Numbers 35:16-29:
These verses follow a bit of God's law describing cities of refuge. Back in the old days, grace was a place. If you accidentally killed someone, the friends and family of your victim had a legal right to kill you for it. But two wrongs don't make a right when it's an accident, so God gave the Israelites a way out. They could flee to the city of refuge and be protected there. By fleeing to the city, the killer was making two useful public statements:
1. I deserve to die for what I did.
2. By confining myself to this city that is not the city of my birth or yours, I am proving with my actions that I will never again cause harm to someone you care about.
The verses we're looking at this week add useful clarity to that system of grace and refuge. The cities of refuge were not a license to kill. It wasn't a free for all, where you could do anything you wanted as long as you got over the county line before the bumbling sheriff apprehended you. The cities of refuge were mercy, legal charity for people who made bad, regrettable decisions. They weren't a magic potion that allowed people to be evil with impunity by warding off all bad consequences. They were hope for the penitent.
Paul talks a bit in the New Testament about the perversity of sinning in order that grace may abound. This is the same God who spoke to him, speaking to the Israelites thousands of years earlier and basically saying the same thing: "Don't mock me by trying to manipulate me."
For instance, if you were working in the field with a wooden or metal tool and you struck someone down and killed them, that was murder. Swinging a deadly weapon at someone is no accident. It's one thing to accidentally drop a rock on someone, but it's another thing entirely to beat someone down with it and bludgeon them to death. The first is an honest and tragic mistake. The second is murder.
If we have the power to harm others, we need to be aware of that and shape our behavior. Jesus talks about this when he condemns those who cause others to stumble in their faith. The anointing of authority is a metal rod in our hands. We have to be mindful of what it can do if mishandled. Bad motives and a lack of self control, when combined with the power God gives us over each other, can kill, perhaps even eternally. That's not to say that there isn't grace for us, only that God sees murder and manslaughter differently and so should we.
The law also says that if someone ever leaves the city of refuge and goes back to live where they came from, the victim's friends and family have every right to strike them down and kill them. In essence, a killer who does that has either forgotten why he needed refuge in the first place, or has decided he no longer needed it. Either he's saying he didn't deserve to die after all, or he's saying that he doesn't have to prove that he won't kill again. The city of refuge isn't a place you visit. It's where you go to live when you will die if you stay in the place you left.
When we say that God is our refuge, what do we mean? Do we enter arrogantly, like the murderer who plans to mock the bereaved from atop its walls, having manipulated the system for his own gain? Or do we cast ourselves at its gates, desperate to enter before the just accusations against us result in our well-deserved death? Is it a prison we're eager to escape when we think nobody remembers, or do we have the humility just to be thankful to be alive?
“‘If anyone strikes someone a fatal blow with an iron object, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death. Or if anyone is holding a stone and strikes someone a fatal blow with it, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death. Or if anyone is holding a wooden object and strikes someone a fatal blow with it, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when the avenger comes upon the murderer, the avenger shall put the murderer to death. If anyone with malice aforethought shoves another or throws something at them intentionally so that they die or if out of enmity one person hits another with their fist so that the other dies, that person is to be put to death; that person is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when they meet.
“‘But if without enmity someone suddenly pushes another or throws something at them unintentionally or, without seeing them, drops on them a stone heavy enough to kill them, and they die, then since that other person was not an enemy and no harm was intended, the assembly must judge between the accused and the avenger of blood according to these regulations. The assembly must protect the one accused of murder from the avenger of blood and send the accused back to the city of refuge to which they fled. The accused must stay there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.
“‘But if the accused ever goes outside the limits of the city of refuge to which they fled and the avenger of blood finds them outside the city, the avenger of blood may kill the accused without being guilty of murder. The accused must stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest; only after the death of the high priest may they return to their own property.
“‘This is to have the force of law for you throughout the generations to come, wherever you live.
These verses follow a bit of God's law describing cities of refuge. Back in the old days, grace was a place. If you accidentally killed someone, the friends and family of your victim had a legal right to kill you for it. But two wrongs don't make a right when it's an accident, so God gave the Israelites a way out. They could flee to the city of refuge and be protected there. By fleeing to the city, the killer was making two useful public statements:
1. I deserve to die for what I did.
2. By confining myself to this city that is not the city of my birth or yours, I am proving with my actions that I will never again cause harm to someone you care about.
The verses we're looking at this week add useful clarity to that system of grace and refuge. The cities of refuge were not a license to kill. It wasn't a free for all, where you could do anything you wanted as long as you got over the county line before the bumbling sheriff apprehended you. The cities of refuge were mercy, legal charity for people who made bad, regrettable decisions. They weren't a magic potion that allowed people to be evil with impunity by warding off all bad consequences. They were hope for the penitent.
Paul talks a bit in the New Testament about the perversity of sinning in order that grace may abound. This is the same God who spoke to him, speaking to the Israelites thousands of years earlier and basically saying the same thing: "Don't mock me by trying to manipulate me."
For instance, if you were working in the field with a wooden or metal tool and you struck someone down and killed them, that was murder. Swinging a deadly weapon at someone is no accident. It's one thing to accidentally drop a rock on someone, but it's another thing entirely to beat someone down with it and bludgeon them to death. The first is an honest and tragic mistake. The second is murder.
If we have the power to harm others, we need to be aware of that and shape our behavior. Jesus talks about this when he condemns those who cause others to stumble in their faith. The anointing of authority is a metal rod in our hands. We have to be mindful of what it can do if mishandled. Bad motives and a lack of self control, when combined with the power God gives us over each other, can kill, perhaps even eternally. That's not to say that there isn't grace for us, only that God sees murder and manslaughter differently and so should we.
The law also says that if someone ever leaves the city of refuge and goes back to live where they came from, the victim's friends and family have every right to strike them down and kill them. In essence, a killer who does that has either forgotten why he needed refuge in the first place, or has decided he no longer needed it. Either he's saying he didn't deserve to die after all, or he's saying that he doesn't have to prove that he won't kill again. The city of refuge isn't a place you visit. It's where you go to live when you will die if you stay in the place you left.
When we say that God is our refuge, what do we mean? Do we enter arrogantly, like the murderer who plans to mock the bereaved from atop its walls, having manipulated the system for his own gain? Or do we cast ourselves at its gates, desperate to enter before the just accusations against us result in our well-deserved death? Is it a prison we're eager to escape when we think nobody remembers, or do we have the humility just to be thankful to be alive?
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