Exodus 21

Just because something exists, does not imply that it is God's highest and best desire for His creation. If we want to see the Lord's perfection, we will have to wait for heaven. Here below, God has made accommodations for sin in his laws concerning matters such as poverty, marital unfaithfulness, violent anger, and even out-of-control beasts. None of these sad problems are features of heavenly existence. But the Lord cares about them, and so He addresses such specific realities in His Law that He gave to Israel through Moses. These “cases” help us to see that His concern for righteousness goes beyond the general principles in the Ten Commandments, extending to the details of our relationships with one another.

There is no slavery in heaven, though we may happily refer to ourselves now as bondservants of Jesus Christ. But slavery was an important fact of life in the world of both the Old and New Testaments. If a slave could get his freedom, he was encouraged to do so. See 1 Corinthians 7:21. But freedom from bondage only to die of starvation would not have been the Lord's better blessing upon the enslaved poor. God regulated slavery for the nation of Israel. It was to be a limited institution to help a poor man back to freedom and appropriate self-government. Every seven years the Israelites were to free their Hebrew slaves. If someone desired to stay under the care of a master, there was a way to do this and to preserve family ties according to the free choice of the one who asked to remain with his master. There were important limits on what a master could do with his slaves, yet God takes no pleasure in the buying and selling of human beings under any circumstances, no more than the Lord rejoices in cancer taking the life of a man. In this world of sin and death, a world that feels the touch of the Lord's curse against Adam and his descendants, poverty and illness are real. The Lord insists that there be a way to see that the poorest and weakest are fed and clothed, and that they even retain marital rights that give them a hope for a new generation.

The Lord made provisions for mercy to those who might take a life accidentally in His Law, but He also insisted that someone be put to death in Israel who murdered another with malice or who assaulted an elderly parent. The Lord would not tolerate those who stole the weak and sold them into bondage. They were to be put to death along with any who knowingly purchased people from those who were kidnappers. The death penalty in these and other cases was not a cause for rejoicing. It was a sad necessity until the day when all sin would be removed from the earth.

Not every offense resulted in capital punishment. The Lord knew about the messiness of the anger of men toward one another. Every problem could not be solved by putting all the parties to death. But people needed to be careful when they took up arms against a neighbor. If they fought and killed in Israel, there would be a reckoning. Wisdom and discernment would help a judge to weigh the matter well. Some would only have to compensate their victims for the pain they had brought upon them. Others would lose their lives because of their callous disregard for the life of a neighbor.

God was governing His people in the real world, the world of sin. His Law for Israel was not for some perfect world, but for this one, the world where people abuse the weak, and where the powerful employer may suppose that there is no limit to the way that he can use those who are beneath him. God stepped into the mess of human relationships and spoke.

The Lord cared for the slave. He had a right interest in the unborn child. He appointed an orderly system of justice for His nation so that people were not left to their own scheming and power. There would be judges who heard cases and made determinations according to His Law.

While there are enduring principles in His Law that are so closely connected to who God is that they can never change, much of the case Law in the Torah was given for Israel only, and only for a specific period of time. It was the Lord's provision for life under the sun in that time and place. You hit your slave so hard in the face that he loses his eye, then that slave goes free. That was not because slavery was wonderful, or because the specific sanction would always be the best way of civil justice. It was a powerful Word from God that carried a very serious warning to the rich. They could not do everything that they might want to do.

We are longing for something more than a system of handling the sad disputes that rise up in this world of sin, guilt, and loss. It is good to have some system of justice to address the appropriate care someone should have concerning a violent beast in his charge. But Christ did not die so that we would know what to do with the owner of an ox when that animal is known to be in the habit of goring. Christ died so that one day, even the lion will lie down with the lamb.

We don't ultimately want to know what should be paid if a goring ox kills a man's slave. We want a new world where slaves of God are declared to be His beloved sons in Jesus Christ, and where there is no fear of deranged men or beasts. We are looking for something better than restitution. We desire the full joy and security of eternal life. This is God's highest and best plan. In order to win this for us, the Son of God came into this world of sin and danger, and He redeemed us with His blood.