Stern Words
Here in Leviticus 24
we get a few stern cautionary statements.
I went to listen to David Platte’s simulcast message last evening. In it he made a very good statement. God uses warnings to bring about the promise
of God. In the same way that we warn our
kids not to do things to help keep them on the path of safe living in the world
– so God uses warnings for us. So when
we read these warnings in this chapter, it is with the intention of keeping us
on the straight and narrow that God gives us these.
After a few words
about oil and bread (which I will leave for another day), we hear words against
blasphemy. The punishment for blasphemy
may sound a little steep at first.
Ordinarily in the Bible we hear that the punishment for sin must be
equal to the sin, but never greater. It
is called the law of retributive justice - often called lex talionis. Retribution must be just, not greater than
the original crime.
But is that true with
blasphemy? When a person curses God, is
being stoned a punishment equal to the crime?
From a worldly
perspective, the punishment seems far worse than the crime. Why should I lose my physical life for saying
a few words? Clearly analyzing this from
a worldly perspective is not the way to go here. So let’s look at this from a spiritual
perspective.
Blaspheming God is
essentially breaking the relationship with God.
It leads to separation from God.
We have just seen how the greatest attribute for God’s priests is
holiness – and we defined holiness as separation from the world for
God. Therefore, what is
blasphemy? Blasphemy is separation from
God for the world.
Blasphemy leads to
spiritual death. Blasphemy against God
is a type of spiritual murder. Seen in
this perspective, it is understandable why blasphemy is taken so
seriously. When we allow blasphemy to
exist in our culture we are allowing the disease of spiritual death to linger
within us like a leprous disease.
Now, I’m not saying
that we should up and stone everyone who says anything bad about God. That kind of action doesn’t go with the laws
of our own land and that action would actually lead to the limiting of our
proclamation rather than enabling our proclamation. However, we should still take very seriously
this idea of blasphemy.
Blasphemy is not
something to be taken lightly. If
someone in your life blasphemes against God, be careful about your interactions
with them lest you find yourself being contaminated by that spiritual leprosy
yourself! A blasphemer is not someone to
be trifled with. It is one thing to do
ministry with those who have not heard the Gospel or those who are weak in the
Gospel – those are the ones to whom we are called! But it is another thing entirely to make
willing company with those who are actively speaking out against God! That should be done with the most extreme
caution.
Lex Talionis
In a way, this leads
us back into the law of lex talionis that we find at the end of this
chapter. It is the basic principle behind Leviticus 24:17-23. I think we all get that concept, so I won’t
belabor the point. But what I do want to
pick up in this passage is that the law applied not just to the Hebrews in the
land but also to the sojourner as well.
When people come into our presence, we should make it known that the
rules that we apply to ourselves apply to them as well. Christians have become far too “tolerant” in
that we have grown to accept the behaviors of anyone and we tolerate them even
in our churches!
No, I’m not speaking
of simple complaints that we often hear such as misbehavior during worship,
improperly dressed parishioners, or people in the world taking our love for
granted. Rather, I am speaking much more deeply of the ways that we
allow the patterns of the world to creep into our churches. Americans
have become complacent – and we have likewise grown to accept complacency in
the church. Americans have learned to
accept the "average" (and even sub-average) and we have likewise
grown to accept that in the church.
We accept a low bar
when it comes to worship attendance. We
accept a low bar when it comes to worship participation. We accept a low bar when it comes to having a
devotional life. We accept a low bar
when it comes to communal prayer. We
accept a low bar when it comes to spiritual conversations among the community.
We have turned away
from the bar that God sets for us and have grown far too comfortable with our
own bar. God calls us to be holy –
separate from the world for Him. That’s
God’s bar. We let ourselves be content
with telling people they just need to give an hour of their life to darken our
doorway. We tell the sojourner that it
is okay simply to be in our presence.
No! As Paul says often, let it
not be so! We should call the sojourner to become like us, not just be in
our presence! Why have a community if we’re
not going to invite people to imitate the community presence?
The sojourner is
expected to follow God’s laws rather than expecting God’s laws to change.
We should not stand for the lowering of the bar; we should be encouraging those
around us to rise up to the bar that God has set for us! Following God is not about doing the minimum;
it is about giving God the maximum. It
is about setting up expectations – even in the midst of lex talionis (just
retribution).
The greatest
application of lex talionis now comes. God has given us Himself: His
Son. Jesus died for our sake. He died for me. He died for you. Is that not enough for you to want to give
Him your life in return? One life for
another – isn’t that what this passage is getting us to learn is
acceptable? Is that not the bar of holiness to which we - you and I both
- are called?
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