Theological Commentary: Click Here
What I love
about this chapter is the successful mixture of law and grace. We don’t have too much law so that there is oppression. Neither do we have too much grace so that
there are no consequences. We have
balance, as we would expect with a perfect God.
We start
with the city of refuge concept. The
city of refuge is a place that someone can flee to in the instance that a life
was lost. For the record, I think it is
really important that we understand the specific circumstance of the city of
refuge, as many in our culture want to take this idea and use it to save anyone. The city of refuge was specifically for the
person who was involved in a case where life was lost. It was a place that a person could go until
it was determined whether the loss of life was a manslaughter or a murder. It was a place where the perpetrator of the
crime could go until a jury of his peers – the congregation – could be gathered
to judge his crime.
No harm
could come to the perpetrator while he was in the city of refuge. No vengeance could be taken until the trial
was held. Here is one dynamic of
grace. The city of refuge was meant to
protect people until judgment could be determined.
Once
judgement was determined, we have the law and consequences come forth. If the person was guilty of murder, not even
the city of refuge could protect the person.
The murder was executed for their crime.
Now we see the law come in and consequences are meted out.
The perpetrator
of manslaughter – a crime where someone died and there was no evidence of
forethought to the crime – could be protected within the city. These people would be considered safe within
the walls of the city. The crime of
manslaughter was not punishable by death within a city of refuge. The perpetrator of manslaughter could live
out a full life within the city of refuge.
Here we see more grace.
We do have a
condition where the perpetrator of manslaughter could be put to death. Should such a criminal leave the city of
refuge, they could be caught and have vengeance applied by the family of the
victim. In fact, the Bible is clear that
such an act of vengeance would not even incur any guilt! This means that while the perpetrator of
manslaughter was safe within the city, they could never leave the protection of
the city. The city of refuge became both
a place of refuge as well as a jail for them.
There are consequences applied, even in the greater context off
grace. Here we see once more that there is
the balance of the law.
This is a
very important chapter for me to remember as I try to balance the law and grace
in my life. I must pursue the greater
context of grace. God is incredibly
gracious to me in my life, I must demonstrate God’s grace to others in their
life through my actions. However, there
is a problem with only extending grace.
When the balance of the law is removed, there are no consequences. Then the balance of the law is removed, we
have a self-entitled society that thinks of the individual ahead of the
collective. In fact, in a truly
off-balance society, we end up with a society that thinks only of itself and
never of the other. As we see in this
chapter, we must try to always remember that grace and law exist in balance
when we are living a godly life.
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