Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

is Exodus 21:28-32. Although I’ll read through verse 36. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Exodus 21 beginning in verse 28. If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If however the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death.

However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded. This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter. If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay 30 shekels of silver to the master of the slave and the bull must be stoned. If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay 30 shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull must be stoned.

If a man uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit must pay for the loss. He must pay its owner, and the dead animal will be his. If a man’s bull injures the bull of another and it dies, they are to sell the live one and divide both the money and the dead animal equally. However, if it was known that the bull had the habit of goring, yet the owner did not keep it penned up, the owner must pay animal for animal, and the dead animal will be his.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we pray now that your Holy Spirit would illuminate this text for understanding and help us to understand the things that you have contained in these laws of the Old Testament. We pray, Father, that we might indeed have open ears to hear your word—ears that are opened or circumcised by your Holy Spirit—and a heart open to receive the instruction, the rebuke, the admonitions that are contained in this text, but also the encouragements in it.

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, it’s kind of pleasant being outside, isn’t it? If you happen to wander away during the sermon with your eyes to the beautiful scenery behind me, that’s okay. But always think of trees as a man reaching up to God in the heavens. We’re the planting of the Lord. The scriptures tell us they’re a picture of us—evergreen, life-bearing Christians. The grass, we just had a reference in the responsive reading that we’re grass.

It’s a reminder of our mortality. The grass dies off at least every winter and comes back the next year. So have those thoughts, and as the wind wafts through, we’ll try to remember that the spirit of God is compared to the wind in the scriptures. And when wind comes, it’s a picture of the movement of the Holy Spirit. I pray that he might not blow my notes away.

All right. We are considering the laws of the covenant, and what I want to do today is basically look at three aspects of this particular law. First, the immediate aspect of what does it say about civil statutes? And then secondly, what are the implications for a broader range of subjects than directly the ox and his owner? And then third, we’ll see in this, I think, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ—who tells us that all of the Old Testament, all the scriptures, speak of him. We’ll talk about that today.

Now first, then: this first overlay is “What is justice?”

You know, Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” Not because he wanted to know the truth, but because he was asserting the fact that truth was irrelevant to the proceedings in which our savior found himself. And in those proceedings, Pilate being a political man asserted that truth was irrelevant. Well, justice is very relevant to our day and age. And the scriptures tell us what justice is. We recall that in Exodus 21:1, we’re told that these are the judgments which you shall set before them—the laws, the civil statutes, in other words.

And so this text tells us that while our salvation does not come through political action, we do not have the luxury of saying that the scriptures don’t compel us to think about civil politics and to be involved in it to a certain degree—to the end that it might reflect the crown rights of King Jesus in that sphere as well as in every other sphere. The scriptures repeatedly speak of Christ as king. And because of that, we must look to his law for a description of what justice is.

Hebrews tells us, and we’ve talked about this before, that every word spoken through angels proves steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward. So if we want to ask what is justice in the case of a beast killing a man, the text before us will tell us just that. And if nothing else, these texts have an obvious implication or application, and that is that we might pray for and try to see affected our civil laws reflecting what justice is according to God’s word.

Now, I have a reference on your outlines to House Resolution 2436 and Exodus 21:22-26. You’ll recall that when we preached on Exodus 21:22-26, those were the laws about if two men strive and a woman who is pregnant gets hit accidentally, the men are held liable—whoever hits her, not just for her health and well-being, but for the health and well-being of the unborn child as well. House Resolution 2436 seeks to implement to some degree this portion of biblical law.

It is now passing through the judicial process in our nation’s halls of justice, and we should pray, I think, for its passage. It is a bill that says explicitly that if the unborn child is damaged or hurt in the context of a federal crime, then the person is also held liable for the damage to the unborn child. So it would be a law in our nation’s books that affirm the personhood of the unborn—and yet it makes exclusions from the law for abortion, etc.

You know, it’s a bit goofy in a way—bit schizophrenic—but nonetheless it seems good that the civil government says that the unborn child should be protected from violence that’s done in the commission of a crime. The scriptures would go further and say the child should be protected even in the commission not of a crime but of an accidental harm to a woman and child.

I also have a reference on your outline to Oregon ballot measures 68 and 69. Ballot measure 68 modifies somewhat a bill passed in 1995—that took effect in 1995—that requires prisoners to work. One of the requirements of that particular statute that’s on the books in Oregon is that the prisoners are to use some of that compensation to pay back victims—to make restitution to victims. I don’t know how well that’s working out, but it is on the civil statutes of our state.

House measure, or the referral rather to the legislature—to the people, the ballot measure number 69—is a victim’s rights bill that includes in a list of victim’s rights the right to restitution from the perpetrator of a crime against a victim. These are measures that we should support, I think, and are ones that we should be thankful to God are happening, because they do indicate a movement toward the implementation of biblical law, at least in these two areas. And these texts that we read today will give us more in terms of an implication for civil government, referencing this relationship of animals to men and the harm done to them.

Now, I read the last four verses even though we’re not going to talk about it, to sort of give you the context of these verses. You can look at this as three basic cases or sets of priorities in these eight verses. First are injuries inflicted by animals—injuries to men. The second set, which we’ll deal with next week, are animal loss due to someone’s negligence. A man digs a pit, doesn’t cover it up, an animal is killed.

So animal loss due to a man’s negligence. And the third is an animal killing another animal. So you can see the law of God is quite comprehensive when dealing with violence relative to animals—now dealing with the violence they do to men, the violence that men do to animals by their negligence, and the violence that animals do to one another. So God has these civil statutes sketched out for us, and we should see reflected in our laws these same statutes.

Let’s talk then about this first overlay: “What is justice when it comes to animals doing violence to men?”

Now with verses 28 through 32, the first thing we want to say is that a beast that kills a man is to be executed. Quite simply, that’s what the text tells us. Turn, if you will, to Genesis 9:1-7, and we’ll see the kernel that grows into this piece of legislation in the Noahic covenant—God speaking to Noah.

In Genesis 9, beginning at verse one, we read: “So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.’”

Okay, so created order is under dominion of men, and animals and beasts—whether in the heavens or on the earth or in the water—under the dominion of the earth. These are all said to be properly fearful of men. They are given into our hand. Verse three: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.” So your food includes both animal flesh as well as plant material. But the animal flesh, you can’t eat it with its life, which is in the blood. The life of the flesh is in the blood, the scriptures tell us later in Leviticus.

And it’s a picture, I think, that when we eat food, it’s got to be dead. So that we recognize that it’s only the grace of God that gives us nourishment from dead things that he tells us to eat. I mean, you got to make sure the animal is dead. You have to bleed the animal so that the life represented by the blood is totally gone, as it were, from the beast, and then you can eat it.

So God, in essence, commands that we eat dead things. You know, you got this health food stuff, and some people say you want to take the fruit off the tree as quick as possible, grind it up in a blender, and throw it down before it dies. See, that’s a perversion of God’s truth. God says that we get strength even from the physical elements of food by his grace and by his grace alone.

Reading on, verse 5: “Surely for your life blood I will demand a reckoning from the hand of every beast. I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother, I will require the life of man. See, the life of man is the image of God. Whosoever shed man’s blood, he goes on to say, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, multiply in it.”

The blessings of multiplication and abundance in the earth are tied explicitly to man being seen as the image-bearer of God. And because man is the image-bearer of God, not only does God hold men accountable for loss of life or damage to another man, but he holds the beasts accountable as well. He says he will require of every beast an accounting—or accountability or responsibility—if they take men’s lives.

So that’s the kernel of truth that kind of blossoms forth into the legislation that we read here in Exodus 21. Really, it’s a fairly simple restatement: that animals that kill men must be put to death.

Now, this used to be somewhat common in medieval times. But I should quickly add that only in Western Bible-believing cultures was this common. You see, cultures that don’t believe in the scriptures, typically in their rebellion against God, hold the created order to be autonomous. And because it’s autonomous, it’s not responsible for its actions. So if a lion kills a man, well, that’s just what they do. You see? Or if an ox gores a man, that’s just what they do. It’s, you know, the responsibility of somebody else to get away from him, but it’s not the responsibility of the ox or the lion.

Well, the scriptures say that’s wrong. And Western cultures, unlike non-Bible-believing cultures, developed a view of responsibility of animals. And it was apparently quite common—or at least somewhat common—in the medieval period for animals to be put on trial for damage that they had done to men. Tax dollars were used to provide public defenders of a sort for the animal. If there was no owner around to take responsibility, a trial would be held and the animal would be either dismissed or it’d be executed like it was a man.

There’s a book that was originally written in 1906 and reprinted in 1987, and the title is *The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals*. On its cover, it had a painting done in 1385 of a pig being hung. And this pig was dressed in a jacket, and you know, so in 1385 this was, you know, not uncommon, and it was a subject that the artist decided to make a painting of.

And so that’s the development of Christian culture—it moves in the direction of holding animals responsible for violence done to men, both based on Genesis chapter 9 and also on the specific case laws of Exodus 21.

Now, as a culture, we can expect then that as a culture moves away from its Christian roots, it moves away from this doctrine or teaching. And indeed, we’ve seen in our lifetime the removal of the kind of restraints—the ability of men to kill coyotes, for instance, that harm people. Now the civil magistrate says, “No, you’ve got to kind of live in peace with these people.” They’ve reintroduced wolves into areas that they know the wolves will eventually stray into populated areas.

And so we see our culture moving away from this truth. We see our culture moving in the direction of nature being autonomous and as a result nature being unaccountable. But the word of God would have us look otherwise at these truths. The word of God says if a beast kills a man, he is definitely to be put to death. And that’s because the scriptures assert the responsibility of beasts in the same way they assert the responsibility of men.

An odd thought for us today. We tend to accept the modern scientific notion that beasts are little kind of environmentally determined mechanisms that are just programmed and really don’t have a sense of anything. Well, if you have a dog and have ever chastised your dog and the dog’s done something it knows is wrong and it slinks away, you know, they do have somewhat of a sense of doing things wrong.

And so when a beast perverts the order—subverts the order that Genesis 9 says is to be in place, that men are to be over and have dominion over beasts—and when the beast throws off his fear and kills a man, then the beast is held responsible.

Another factor in this, I think, is the concept of expiation. The death of a man provides blood guiltiness on the land, and to remove that blood guiltiness a price must be paid. In Deuteronomy 21 we read that if a man is found dead and they can’t determine who killed him, that a heifer is to be slaughtered by the elders—not by the priests, by the elders—to make civil expiation, as it were. Expiation means to remove God’s wrath and anger.

God’s wrath and anger reaches down to us when we harm other people. When harm is done to another man or woman—an image-bearer of God—and particularly when death is involved, God’s anger flares out and expiation must be made, including expiation and responsibility due to animals who sinfully kill men.

Okay, one comment about the manner of the bull’s death: that is, that he’s to be stoned and his flesh is not to be eaten. In Matthew 21:44, we read that Jesus—speaking of himself—says, “Whoever falls on this stone will be broken, but on whoever it falls, this stone will grind him to powder.” Jesus is the rock cut without human hands. He’s the altar stone and the offering on the altar stone. Jesus is the rock of all rocks, and he is the judgment upon those creatures of his that are to be executed.

We see it as the rock that is Christ executing the beast being portrayed by the stoning of the congregation. Again, in 1 Peter 2:5, we are told that we are living stones being built into a dwelling place for God—a holy priesthood. We’re living stones. The stones are identified with the people of God. And when we stone—when a man was stoned or a beast was stoned—the full picture of that is the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ through his people, individually and then corporately as well, in the stoning of the responsible beast or man.

Okay, so that’s the first obvious civil implication. Secondly, an irresponsible owner of a beast that kills a man is to be executed or forced to pay a redemption price. It says here that if the man didn’t know his ox was dangerous, he’s not culpable. But it tells us that if he knew—and actually it says not only if he knew, but if he knew by means of a warning—verse 29: “The bull had a habit of goring. The owner has been warned but has not kept it penned in, and it kills a man or a woman,” then the owner also is to be executed.

Now, the bull is still executed. The bull is still held responsible for his action, okay? But the owner is held responsible as well. Now, the civil statute requires a warning to the man, and we could spend some time talking about what does it mean for a man to know that his ox has gored someone? What does it mean to warn him? It could be a civil citation. Some men believe this. Some men believe that the bull had to have gored before in the past, not just exhibited dangerous behavior. But the central point is that if you know that your ox is dangerous and you don’t pen him up—or you pen him up in such a way as he’s able to get out—you’re held criminally liable for the death that bull brings to a man, and you’re executed.

Now there is an option, however. There is an option to the execution, and that is that in verse 30, “However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded.” So it doesn’t say that he shall surely be put to death. This is one case where a person is actually killed as a result of a man’s action, and yet the death penalty is not mandatory.

You’ll remember that Numbers 35:31—remember young men in the young men’s Bible study a couple weeks ago, I mentioned to you Numbers 35:31. Put it away in your head. It’s an important verse. It says that if you’ve committed murder against a man, that you cannot—your life cannot be ransomed. You can’t pay composition—a legal term meaning the payment of money to cover an offense. You can’t do that in the case of murder. But in the case of this sort of manslaughter, we could call it, a ransom is allowable under certain conditions.

Again, commentators differ about what the conditions are. It seems like it’s not up to the man to say whether or not he is either executed or pays a ransom. Of course, he would never choose execution then. But it seems like it’s up to the victim and the judges to determine if the man should be executed or if a ransom can be paid for him, and the size of that ransom.

Now, we think that because of the verses that we’ve just looked at—in terms of the woman and the unborn child—and the language there said “whatever the judges determine” is then paid to the woman or her husband for injuries that occur that are not significant. In other words, that don’t bring about death or major injury. But in any event, the judges are the ones who make this determination of ransom.

And it seems then that in this case, the same thing is true: that the judges would determine whether the man should pay a ransom or whether he should be executed for his culpability. I cite Exodus 21:12 there as a reminder that there are various of these passages that say that a man shall surely be put to death—”dying he shall die.” That’s not the verbiage here. So in terms of the hierarchy of death penalty offenses, this is way down at the bottom, where you can hinge between the death penalty or the ransom of the person who is culpable—their life.

So a penalty could be put upon him of money, and he would redeem his life—buy back his life, as it were—from execution by the payment of this money. Not to the courts, of course, but to the victim—to his estate, in other words.

Okay. Third implication for civil laws: the irresponsible owner—himself, not his son or daughter—is liable when he allows his beast to kill a son or daughter. Okay. And you may say, “Well, that’s okay. What’s the point of that?” It is interesting that it cites this in verse 31: “This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter.”

Why is that put there? Well, I don’t know that I know all the reasons, but I think at least one important reason is to distinguish biblical law codes from pagan law codes. At about this same period of time, the Code of Hammurabi was written—which was not a biblical law code, but a law code of another culture, another society that was not God-fearing. In the Code of Hammurabi, it had many of the same sorts of statutes that Exodus 21-23 have, but with major differences.

And in the case of an animal killing someone else’s son, the owner of the animal, if he was negligent, it was his son that had to be put to death. Or if the daughter of a man was killed, then his daughter was to be put to death. Now, the scriptures say no. The scriptures say here that if the son or daughter of a man is killed, nonetheless, it’s the owner of the bull himself who is held accountable or responsible—not his son or daughter.

Deuteronomy 24:16 says that “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers. A person shall be put to death for his own sin.” Very important biblical truth that distinguishes biblical cultures and their laws from pagan cultures. The family is not ultimate in this sense. People are treated as individuals in the sight of God. The family is a reality. It’s a real institution by God. It’s a very important institution, but it is not preeminent in all things. And here people are treated as individuals and held responsible as individuals.

Fourth implication: the set redemption price for the life of an irresponsible owner of a beast that kills a slave is 30 shekels of silver. And we read this in verse 32: “If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay 30 shekels of silver to the master of the slave and the bull must be stoned.”

So we have set out for us here a number of laws regarding oxen goring or killing men, and then the various things that happen if certain conditions are met. This condition: remember, the owner must have been irresponsible. He knew his ox was dangerous, or he’d been warned, and yet his ox kills a female servant or a male servant, and he is now required to pay 30 shekels of silver. In this case, there is a set valuation for the life of the servant.

Now, one reason for this, I think, is that the servant is in a worse position, once more, than a free man. The servant is in a little more danger. It costs less for a man to have his ox kill a servant or a slave. And so, you know, when there’s not as great a penalty attached to something, we’re not as careful. So the servant is a little bit more in danger of being gored. And that, again, is an incentive—a strong incentive—for a servant to achieve freeholder status.

Just as we talked about when the servant could—and in many cases should—be beaten, they might achieve maturity. So here the servant’s life is a tough one. And the scriptures want it to be tough because it doesn’t want to perpetuate slavery. It wants to move servants—move slaves—to a position of being freeholders.

Now, in Leviticus 27:1-7, there are a series of valuations or estimates of what a man’s life is worth. I guess you could think of it as an adult male. The estimation is set at 50 shekels of silver. And so the 30 shekels for a slave is right in the mid-range between a very young child and an older adult male. So it’s kind of a mid-range estimation, and it’s set for us here. I think one of the reasons it’s set for us here has to do with its typology relative to the Lord Jesus Christ, which we’ll talk about in just a few minutes.

So that’s the obvious civil implications—the different cases that should find their way into the civil statutes of a Christian culture.

Now remember, these are case laws. They are laws that operate from a particular case or set of circumstances, and they articulate a series of principles or truths that can be applied in a broader range. Let’s say, for instance, that the ox gores you, but he doesn’t kill you. What would be then the result? Well, I think we can say that, remembering the case law—if two men fight and does damage to another man, that he’s got to pay for his medical expenses and his economic expenses both to him and to his employer. I think we could say that if the owner knew the ox was goring, if it was an irresponsible owner, he’d be responsible to pay your medical costs, and he’d be responsible to pay for your lost time at work as well.

Well, and so these are other civil implications of these laws that we could draw out in many and varied degrees. The validity of leash laws, medical costs of dog bites. You know, it talks about an ox, but the ox is the case that develops the truth for, I believe, all beasts—because Genesis 9 tells us that the principle doesn’t relate just to ox, but to all beasts or animals or creatures.

So if a dog kills a man, the same thing is true. If he was known to be dangerous, if the owner is irresponsible, he’s executed. The dog bites a man, owner knows about it, he’s responsible to pay for the expenses of the wound, etc. The validity of leash laws: a culture can say, a society can legitimately say, that dogs are a menace or a nuisance. They have the capability of perverting this order and actually attacking men, and therefore we want all dogs on leashes.

Or we could draw a broader implication of the text. That while it uses the life of man as the ultimate example, the damage done by any beast to another man’s property would also fall under the same rubric, it appears. And so to prevent that from occurring, people can require that we all be responsible owners of our dogs by having them on leashes.

We could say too that, as long as we’re talking about dogs, we have a responsibility to understand the temperament and nature of the creatures that we’re responsible for. Most of us just have pets. If you’ve got a cat and you know it’s psycho and claws out people’s eyes, you’re responsible for that. How are you going to know? Well, you got to know your pet.

It was interesting. We were at a building committee meeting Thursday night, and Richard mentioned that Arthur had bought a dog and was talking to Chris W. about it, and Chris told him about the temperament of that particular mixture of breeds in that dog and that it could be an aggressive dog. Well, see, now Arthur has increased responsibility or culpability—assuming that his dad fulfilled his responsibility, which I’m sure he did, to tell Arthur this. Arthur has increased culpability for that dog, should he get aggressive and bite someone. He knows the inbuilt temperament of the beast. He knows what he has to do now and was given a series of instructions by the good Dr. Wilson on how to keep a pet like that from becoming overly aggressive.

And that’s clearly an implication of this law: to know our beast. We’ve got a dog too. We have to understand what damage she could do around us and be responsible owners of our pets—to do whatever we can, both to train them and restrain them, from damaging someone else or their property.

And so that’s the case. Now, in case of farms like the Foresters, they really have a lot of work to do. They’ve got bees. When you got more bees than just a dog or a cat, then you got to know what they’re like. You got to know potential damage, and you’re responsible to take care of the problems.

So there’s lots of implications—civil implications—from the text here. I talk here about stewardship of construction equipment. And you’re saying, “Well, now wait a minute. You’re going from an ox down to a dog and now down to a bulldozer. What’s the deal?”

Well, the principle of responsibility of people over things that is their property extends out to inanimate objects as well. In Deuteronomy 22:8, there we have a familiar verse to most of us: “If you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt or bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.”

So you bring that same guilt—blood guiltiness—on yourself. If you have a house or entertain a place of entertainment—let’s say a deck—and don’t have a railing on it, you have blood guiltiness. If someone falls off that and is killed or is hurt, you’ve got responsibilities.

So if you have inanimate objects that you’re in control of, and they end up, because you’ve been irresponsible, affecting damage or loss to a person, you should be held liable for those things. This is a very relevant issue. Friday night at the men’s meeting, George Schubin was talking about this big earthquake they had in Turkey. Many people died, and he said that there was one series of apartments that were all built by the same general contractor, I guess, and they all just collapsed and killed people in them. And there was a mob after him. They wanted to hold him responsible.

Well, according to the scriptures, mob action isn’t correct, but the civil magistrate—if there was really shoddy construction that does not protect the life of people—now I don’t know about an earthquake, but if there’s, for instance, these people put this structure up in such a way that they knew it was going to collapse at some point in time and we were killed by it, they should be executed. That’s another civil law implication from the text.

Couple of brief notes before we go on to point number two. Note that the Mosaic law is built on the scaffolding of the Noahic covenant. Where did we go to see the kernel of this truth? We didn’t go to the law given to Moses. We went to the covenant made with Noah. Now, dispensationalists usually will say that we’re under the Noahic covenant—or some refer to it as the Noahic covenant. In any case, I call it Noahic. That we’re under the Noahic covenant, not the Mosaic covenant. They say that there’s this general covenant given to all mankind in Noah’s time. Well, the fact is that this law—which many would say is sort of crazy, holding a bull responsible—one of those obscure Old Testament arcane laws that shouldn’t be put into effect today. It finds its origin in the very explicit wording of Genesis 9, that God gave to Noah in the context of the general command to replenish the earth and to be blessed in the context of doing that.

That’s where we find the kernel of this truth—the same place we find the kernel for not eating the bull. I should have mentioned that the bull can’t be eaten as food. Why? Because the bull is unclean. The bull is identified now with murder. And if nothing else, the manner of execution doesn’t allow for the bleeding of the bull, and thus renders him unclean and unfit for food.

Matthew Henry talks about how it’s the animal’s greatest privilege to serve man in the created order. And it’s the animal’s privilege to be eaten by man. And that privilege is taken away by this death of the bull that has killed a man—by him being stoned and not being able to service man by the gift of his flesh to man.

So anyway, the Mosaic law is built upon the Noahic scaffolding. And of course, we believe that generally speaking, that’s the way the scriptures work. You know, the word of God as a reflection of his character. God says, “This is what I’m like.” He reveals himself to the patriarchs. He reveals himself before that in the Noahic covenant as demanding certain things. These things are then fleshed out and articulated in more definition through the Mosaic covenant, and then is applied to us by looking at how it’s applied in that time and seeing how we apply it today—those same truths in our day and age.

There’s a continuity of biblical law from beginning to end because it’s a reflection of the character of God in particular settings.

Secondly, note that the repeated affirmation of the preciousness of human life is here presented to us as God’s image-bearer. Commentators are filled with comments about this text and this particular truth of this text. Matthew Henry, for instance, says this: “As an instance of God’s care of the life of man, though forfeited a thousand times into the hands of divine justice. In other words, what care does he have for us, since we’re such sinful awful beings? And yet he does, because of the work of our savior. This is an instance of God’s care of the life of man, and in token of his detestation of the sin of murder. God would keep up in the minds of his people a rooted abhorrence of the sin of murder and everything that was barbarous or tended to reduce the life of man.”

So again, as we saw with these earlier statutes—that I’ve stressed several times in sermons—God wants us to have a very high valuation of human life and be very careful in our dealings, and not just our dealings, but the dealings of our beasts and creatures under our command in terms of the harm they can provide to men.

John Calvin said: “God descends even to the brood animals so that if they injured anyone, by their punishment, men may be more and more deterred from shedding blood. If then an ox that had killed a man should be kept, men would undoubtedly grow hardened in cruelty by beholding it.”

Calvin says if you let an ox kill a man and you don’t kill the thing, then what’s going to happen is people have less and less regard for the preciousness and the importance of human life. Now that should, you know, strike us like a big blow in the chest—contrasting such a culture in the scriptures with the culture we live in today.

I think here of abortion. We’re not just letting bulls kill people or do damage and remain alive in this culture. We let men kill other men and thus bring about an incredible harm—hardening of ourselves to the taking of human life. We could also talk about video games and the movies and television. You know, we’re not politically correct liberals who want to remove all violence so-called from TV, but we must think about the implications. If God saw it as so important to bring down men’s hardness through this execution of animals—as Calvin correctly, I think, notes—shouldn’t we take great care in the upraising of our children and in our own minds to be careful not to see human life devalued all around us?

Why do shootings at Columbine happen? Well, it’s a multiple set of reasons, but one reason, of course, obviously certainly is that human life has been devalued, and that primarily through Roe v. Wade. So the scriptures have much to say in this particular text: to both admonish us individually, to rebuke our culture in its failure to protect human life, and then to give us the encouragement of a God-given set of civil statutes that are quite easily applied in our context—that we should be praying for and implementing, at least in the context of our homes and church.

And that’s what I want to talk about next: our homes and our churches.

“Does God take care for oxen?” This is a portion of 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 10.

The second overlay then, the second set of applications—now moving away from the civil applications—are to the doctrine of a non-absolving but limited responsibility and the implications of this for the church and for the family. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 10:

“It is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.’ Is it oxen God is concerned about?” That’s the NIV translation. I believe that the King James is “God take care for oxen,” or does he say it all together for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt this is written—”that he who plows should plow in hope and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.”

Paul says that the reason altogether that this verse is there—about oxen in the Old Testament, the case law—is to protect men, or for the benefit of men who work and who thus derive benefits from their labor. And specifically, he makes application to the apostolic ministry. He says that if you labor with people and provide services to them, then certainly you should be able to support yourself from that labor.

So he says that the general truth is that God, relatively speaking, doesn’t care about oxen. Does he care for ox? No. He’s saying he wrote it all together for our sakes—for people’s sake. Now it’s a relative thing. God cares for all of his created order. He cares for oxen that no men see out in the fields. But by way of importance, the important truths of this text shouldn’t just be in terms of the responsibility of the ox. It should help us to think through the implications for the church, the state, and for the family.

And we’ve talked about the state a little bit, and we’ll talk briefly now about the implications for the church.

Now, if Paul makes this direct correlation between oxen—you know, those are the ones who thresh out the grain, who are raising up a harvest for God—you know, raising up men and women, boys and girls, raising you up in maturity to be God’s planting, as it were. That’s what oxen do. They thresh this stuff, and they produce a crop. And Paul then relates this to the pastoral ministry. Well, maybe we should think then about the implications of this ox and the pastoral ministry as well.

And let me just, before I go on, let me explain the somewhat confusing heading I put on here. I say “a non-absolving responsibility.” In other words, the responsibility that the owner has doesn’t absolve the ox of his responsibility. Right? Ox is responsible. Owner might be responsible under certain conditions, but his responsibility—not to pen the ox in—doesn’t absolve the ox of his responsibility. It’s a non-absolving responsibility, but it’s limited responsibility. Every owner is not responsible for the action of his beast. It’s only if he knew the beast was dangerous that he’s held responsible. Okay.

Now, some implications. Let’s say you’ve got a pastor—an ox—and as he’s threshing out the grain in the church, he tramples on people. He gores the members of the congregation or the members of another church. Well, it seems like he’s to be held responsible for his actions. And as Chris talked about in his last sermon or two on 1 Peter—elders, while being functional superiors in the context of the local church, themselves are submissive to the great shepherd by means of the mechanism of other men, both in the congregation to a certain degree but also in terms of a presbytery—a view of a mixture of pastors who hold themselves mutually accountable in the context of covenants.

So we have a covenant with Christ—the sovereign covenant church. And Mark Horn and the elders at RCC are mutually accountable to each other. He’s a member of the presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Pacific Northwest presbytery. He’s held accountable by those men. And the implication of this is that if two out of the three elders at RCC, or if an elder at RCC, sees another one doing damage to a sheep—member of the flock—and doesn’t do anything about it, he’s held responsible before God.

I think that’s a legitimate application. If a presbytery knows that an elder, or a set of elders, or a man in their—under their direct jurisdiction—is goring men, ignoring the people that they’re supposed to be serving in the context—and refuses to stop them—that I believe these scriptures plainly point to their culpability before God, and that they should suffer punishments from God—and will and do.

We could talk about the state as ox and the church’s owner. It’s a bit of a stretch, I suppose, but the church has an obligation to instruct the civil magistrate when it is sinning. When the civil magistrate is allowing oxes to gore men and not doing anything about it, the magistrate is responsible, but the church is responsible for bringing this message of the responsibility of the civil magistrate according to Exodus 21 to them.

And so the church that refuses to witness to the truth—for instance, of the unborn life being precious in the sight of God—is a church that has culpability for not informing the ox of the civil magistrate as he gores the unborn children through its laws. Through his laws, the scriptures say we have a responsibility—an obligation of witness. If you see something going wrong and don’t do anything about it, you are held liable. That’s one of the basic truths or principles in this text.

The owner knows the situation exists. He has got a heightened responsibility because of his stewardship responsibilities over the ox, and he is held liable should he fail to witness to the truth that his ox is dangerous—by penning him, training him, or warning other people about him. And I think the same is true of the church of Jesus Christ. Judgment begins at the house of God because it is held more responsible, just like the owner is. Doesn’t absolve the sin of the civil magistrate. It’s non-absolving, but it is a doctrine of responsibility. It has implications for the church and state. It also has implications for the family: the son as ox, and the parents as owner.

Okay, the son is ox. You know, clearly, if God is going to hold ox responsible for hurting other people, he’s going to hold humans responsible. We know that. So the implication here is that if you have stewardship responsibilities in terms of your children, in the same way that you’re to understand the temperament of your pet, you should know the status of your children well enough to know if they’re going to do harm to other people.

And we’re talking now about physical harm. We could broaden it out to sins of speech, sins of theft, sins of property, but certainly in terms of physical harm, the parents have an obvious responsibility to restrain a child. They have a non-absolving child—isn’t absolved of his guilt if they don’t do their job. But they do have a responsibility before God to produce restraints upon the child if they know that he is dangerous.

And if the child goes out and the parent knows about it, and knows the child is dangerous, and kills someone, I think the scriptures say the parent ought to be executed if they haven’t done everything they could to restrain that child.

Now, Deuteronomy 21:18-21—we won’t turn there, it’s the laws of the incorrigible child. We’ve talked about those several times in the last month or two. They limit this responsibility of parents. I mean, Exodus does as well. It’s only if the owner knows the ox is dangerous. It’s only if the parent understands that the child is dangerous. I mean, the child can just snap one day, quite unbeknownst to the parent. The parent’s not liable. It’s a limited liability.

Or the other way the liability ceases is when the parent takes the child to the civil magistrate and says, “He’s no good. He’s three strikes and he’s out. He’s incorrigible. He’s old now. We thought when he grew up he’d grow out of this foolishness, but he continues to threaten us with violence. He hits us. He gets drunk. He’s a danger to the community, and he ought to be stoned.” The parents have a limited liability, and this clearly points out to us in cases of their children. Their liability goes so far and no further. Parents are not to see themselves as responsible should their child come up to this sort of status.

In the case law in Deuteronomy 21, there is no punishment put upon the parents. It’s not the parents, it may or may not be the parents’ fault. If it is, the parents’ problem is as they’re raising the child.