Dennis Tuuri

If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. If the thief is found breaking in and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun is risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If the theft is certainly found alive in his hand, whether it is an ox or donkey or sheep, he shall restore double.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word and pray that you would illuminate it to our understanding now. Help us, Father, to know your law so that we wouldn’t forget it. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. Nursery people can be dismissed to go to the nursery if they have need of that.

We just recited in Psalm 119:153, “Consider my affliction and deliver me for I do not forget your law.”

Well, we live in the context of a culture that doesn’t even know the law in order to forget it. And I don’t just speak of the pagan culture around us. I speak of the Christian culture. It’s almost as if we think we got it easy as New Testament Christians. We only got a Bible that’s about this big instead of this big. And sometimes we want to go back to that earlier stuff to sort of read some interesting stories and stuff, but an awful lot of that detail stuff we don’t really have a need for that because, you know, we got ushered in when the manual was a lot shorter, short manual.

Well, of course, that’s not true. Jim Jordan taught us at family camp. What we should obviously know is there is no inspired middle page between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Certainly the coming of Jesus changes everything and brings things to fruition and fulfillment. But it cannot be properly understood. Salvation cannot be properly understood without a basis in the revelation of God in all 66 books of the Bible.

So we’re trying to train ourselves in the law of God to know what we should do when we engage in sin or when our children engage in sin, when church members engage in sin—what’s the point of these laws? What is their application to us?

We, at this point in Exodus 22 beginning at verse one, we begin a new section dealing with property and specifically restitution statutes. If you want to know in the Bible where restitution is essentially summed up, it’s in these verses we’ll be considering for the next month or two: Chapter 22 of Exodus, verses 1-15. Some say verses 1-17. Others say verses 16 and 17 have to do with the seduction of a virgin and the payment of a dowry—if, regardless whether the father of the girl wants her to marry the fellow who seduced her or not—the payment of a dowry is required. And some people see this as restitution for the theft of her virginity. And so then it would be all 17 verses, first 17 verses of Exodus 22.

So we begin a new section here dealing with property. Now we said that at the end of chapter 21 we really had the affirmation of private property. We have it here in very marked terms. We’ll have a series of statutes beginning with the ones this morning that deal with the private property rights of people, laws against theft as we’re talking about today specifically, and, as I said, principles of restitution.

So property is very important for us. We’ve moved out of the first section relative to servitude and the movement toward freedom in God’s word to the second section, laws against violence, and now the third section, laws explicitly designed to promote and protect private property.

T. Robert Ingram, who wrote an excellent summation of the law of God in a book that he wrote many years back, “God’s World Under God’s Law,” says this about the importance of the ownership of property:

“The ownership of property is exactly what dominion is. The power to own anything is peculiar to man. To own anything is to have control over it. There is no such thing as a distinction between private and public property since no one but an individual or a corporate body of individuals can own anything. It is a human power. It is the crown of man’s created glory rather. It is the image of God who is Christ, under whose feet are all things in heaven and on earth.”

So, maybe in a rhetorical overstatement, yet nonetheless, Ingram points to the great importance of property in terms of the responsibility of men to exercise dominion under the Lord Jesus Christ. So these statutes protecting property should be quite important to us.

Now I have a little review again as we build up our understanding of God’s laws that we don’t forget it. We don’t want to forget it. So we review it occasionally. And, as we did last week, I provided you a review here of the first two sections.

Remember, the first section of Exodus, of the case laws beginning in verse two of Exodus 21, deal with freedom. It’s the first section. The next section deals with violence. And I put in here protection for the life of the image bearer in verses 12-14 of Exodus 21. The honor due parents and other image bearers of God. The work or vocation of man—you don’t want to steal from him time, through hurting him or his freedom, and reduce his vocation or work.

So work and vocation and dominion is central to the being of man. That’s why we have liberty to exercise dominion under Christ. Peppered throughout these are exhortations of various means in terms of freedom. The law of God moves us from a servitude state, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, into freedom. That is the essential movement of God’s law.

We talked about the protection of the image bearer’s future with the pregnant woman who is hurt in a scuffle in verses 22-27. The protection of dominion of the image bearer and stewardship responsibilities of the image bearer. We talked about that last week.

So a way to sum up these various sections of case laws in the first two sections dealing with servitude and then with violence, and now we move into a whole third category dealing with property and restitution.

I wanted to just briefly talk about a few verses that I didn’t get to last week in terms of the open pit. And the reason I want to do this is to once again reaffirm that throughout the law of God, this idea of the lex talionis—talon judgment—some people refer to them as eye for eye, tooth for tooth, punishment fitting the crime—is peppered throughout scripture. And frequently this is placed in the context of pit laws or open pits that men dig for enemies.

In the case of the case law, it was a pit that was inadvertently left open, or I should say it wasn’t intended to trap someone. But remember that this law is given in the direct context of the exodus from Egypt, and therefore the connections back to Joseph in Egypt, in the pit in Egypt, the pit of his brothers, would be discerned in this way. And I want to just read briefly a couple of other scriptures.

In Psalm 9:15, we read that “the nations have sunk down in the pit which they made, in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught.” So the pit in the scriptures is a picture also of the depths of hell into which the nations themselves fall.

Now, this is important because the nations round about Israel, so some people hold, were not responsible to implement these kind of laws we’re talking about. And yet, it says they’re going to suffer talon judgments from God because of the pit they dig for God’s people.

Verse 17 defines this on a little better terms: “The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God turned into hell.”

And then there’s a prayer that this might happen in verse 19: “Arise, O Lord, do not let man prevail. Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men.”

Talon judgments are good. They bring men to a realization of God’s justice and judgments in history, in time, for their particular actions. And when that happens, God brings them to a sensibility of their crimes and, in many cases, to repentance for them.

Again, in Psalm 85:5, “the proud have dug pits for me, which is not according to your law.” So the law of God is referenced. They’re not supposed to do that. They’re supposed to cover up even a pit that isn’t intended to harm someone. So when they actually dig a pit for you to fall into, that is a gross violation of the case laws of Exodus 21. And then the prayer goes on to be rescued from God because of that.

Proverbs 28:10 says that “whoever causes the upright to go astray in an evil way, he himself will fall into his own pit.”

So, do you see, like I said last week, that the open pit brings with it a whole understanding? When we have knowledge of it, of a danger, and do not communicate it to people who could fall into it, then we’re culpable for our knowledge—not just of pits, but in general. And so the church is culpable when it instructs its members, for instance, that abortion is not a sin. The individual person who commits abortion is still held liable. But the church itself that counsels in that way has led somebody into an open pit.

“He himself will fall into his own pit.” God’s judgments are real and permeate history.

Again, in Jeremiah 18:20, “they have dug a pit for my life. Remember that I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them. Therefore, deliver up their children to the famine. Pour out their blood by the force of the sword. Let their wives become widows and bereaved of their children. Let their men be put to death that their young men be slain.”

Now, some people wondered why we closed last Sunday with Psalm 83. This is why. Because Psalm 83 is a depiction and a prayer of God’s people that he would indeed bring his judgments upon those who dig pits for Joseph or the greater Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ, or those who are covenantally in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So men that attempt to harm God’s people or God’s elect—we pray that they might indeed suffer the vengeance of God upon them for their deeds.

When we come to the communion table, it’s an affirmation of our blessedness in Christ, but it’s also an affirmation that judgment comes to those who do not believe on, do not accept Christ’s agenda, and who he is. And so in Revelation, there are two pictures of feasts going on at the same time. The marriage supper of the lamb is put in contrast with the fowls of the birds of the air plucking the flesh of God’s enemies.

So communion asserts that God brings peace to his people, but it also asserts that he brings judgment, even unto death, to his people who are in rebellion against him. And so it’s proper to think of these open pit statutes in relationship to the communion table and the judgments that they bring.

Now, the reason I wanted to read this Jeremiah text is that we raise our young men up singing Psalm 83 and they like to sing it. But remember that Psalm 83 is at the end of a process according to Jeremiah. Jeremiah says, “I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.”

So we see somebody in the context of the visible church or in the context of our culture who are in rebellion to God and hurting God’s people. Our first thought, our first impulse, should not be that they be destroyed or turned into hell. Our first impulse is to plead the blood of Christ for his elect and to go before God seeking their good and to turn away God’s wrath from them by bringing them covenantally into the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our first impulse should be witness or evangelism. And as the nations or peoples stiffen their neck to that grace of God, then and only then is it proper to pray for the talon judgments of God to be made manifest in the context of the history in which we live.

Ecclesiastes 10 is the last verse I wanted to mention here. We read in verse 8 of Ecclesiastes 10, “he who digs a pit will fall into it. Whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a serpent.”

We’re going to talk about theft. And in Exodus 22, the way it describes theft is if a man breaks into a house. The idea is digging through either the wall, the sod wall or the mud wall that’s created on a house, or the construction of those houses was such you could literally dig into the side of a house. There wasn’t the sort of stick frame construction that we have. It’s more like the block construction that I saw in Poland, for instance.

So the word used for breaking into a house and stealing is to dig into the house. And it’s the same idea as Ecclesiastes 10, verse 8, rather. Verse 8 says, “Whoever breaks through a wall.” Okay. What’s he doing? He’s trying to steal something. He’s breaking into the house. Same terminology.

And he is put in the same category as somebody who digs a pit and then falls into it himself. The talon judgment to those who dig pits, and either fail to cover them or intentionally dig pits causing harm, is mirrored in Ecclesiastes by the talon, the retaliation, eye for eye judgments that come to them who break into a house.

Okay, a serpent bites them or, in the case of the civil magistrate, he’s to execute certain punishments against thieves who break into houses. So the point is Ecclesiastes gives us a link between these open pit laws and now the breaking into house laws. And the link is the talon judgments of God.

Again, the talon judgments of God.

Meredith Kline, writing in an article published in the Westminster Theological Journal, says this: “Clearly articulated in biblical law, the talion principle of eye for eye and life for life is foundational to the temporal, human administration rather, of justice as prescribed by God in scripture for both the common grace state and the Israelite theocracy as well as in the direct execution of judgment by the Lord himself.”

And what he’s talking about there is the common grace state. He refers there to Genesis 9. You know, we’ve talked about that last week: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. In the image of God made he man, because man is an image bearer of God.”

Talon judgments come against him because of his rebellion to God and his sin. So, and then he, in terms of the Israel theocratic state, he’s talking of the case laws we’re seeing, and he sees them as a piece. Then even Kline, who is by no means what we would call a theocrat or a theonomist, sees that the principle of talon judgments are true in every aspect of the history of man—the Noahic period, the Mosaic covenant, and then by way of application to our day today.

So underlying this stuff we’re going to talk about in terms of restitution and theft is the idea once more of talon—eye for eye, tooth for tooth—judgments against man.

Now I read another commentator this week who says this: “As transformed in the New Testament, the negative law against stealing becomes a gracious principle of Christian stewardship. The Christian is stealing if he is not a good giver.”

Surely it can be recognized that this is not Mosaic legislation. He’s talking here of Ephesians 4:28, a passage most of us are quite familiar with: “Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”

And this commentator says, “Well, that’s not Mosaic legislation. Must be the Mosaic law, these case laws of Exodus 21, 22, and 23. They’re not for us.”

Now, what’s his problem? Can you think through that? What’s his fallacy he’s making here? Can you think through it a little bit? What would your answer be to someone who told you that? “Well, yeah, it says that in Moses’ law, but in the New Testament, we’ve got this beautifully transformed thing. Restitution is out of out of the picture. Now, the idea is whoever stole is supposed to labor that he can have stuff to give to people and be gracious in his giving.”

Well, the answer to that is that Exodus 21-23, as we’ve said all along, are statutes. They’re given to the civil magistrate, and they do have, you know, religious or ecclesiastical applications and personal applications. But there are statutes given to the civil government. They immediately follow the Ten Commandments. They’re an integral part of it. And they say what the civil magistrate should do under certain circumstances.

The text from Ephesians is given to Christians in terms of their walk in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, of course, our walk is a Spirit-filled walk, a life-giving walk, not simply the negative sanctions that the law, that the civil state is supposed to bring to men. There’s a failure on the part of the commentator to think through what the scriptures say to the civil magistrate on one hand and then to the man who is trying to live out a full Christian walk on the other.

When you see that distinction, Ephesians 4 is obvious throughout the Old Testament as well. It’s in Leviticus where we’re supposed to love our brother and love our enemy and we’re supposed to do good to people, just like Ephesians 4 tells us how to—in case we’ve stolen. So Ephesians 4 really buttresses, I think, the laws we’re going to look at here in Exodus 22.

One other comment before we begin an actual discussion of the text. I said last week that it’s interesting to look at the way this law code—God’s law code—compares to other ancient law codes. The Code of Hammurabi is one such code. I’ve mentioned it several times. And the Code of Hammurabi held that if you stole from a king or from a church or religious institution, you had to make 30-fold restitution. And if you stole from an average guy, it was 10-fold restitution. And if you didn’t have any enough money to pay back the 30 or 10-fold restitution, off with your head—you’re executed.

You can see where the law of God is much more gracious, much more geared, not at a stringent punishment mentality, but at producing again that movement from a servitude, slave mentality that the thief has to a free man’s mentality. That the person who doesn’t engage in theft has this movement is portrayed.

We’ll see as we look at the implications of what these laws tell us how beautiful they are compared to the stringent Code of Hammurabi as an example at this particular time period in history of men.

All right. So now, having given you that introduction, let’s look at the five cases involving theft that begin this section on property in Exodus 22. And first thing is there are three cases concerning theft and restitution. We’re going to divide up the order in which we treat these a little bit for thematic reasons.

These cases are given to us first in verse 1. Verse 1 tells us that there is multiple restitution for the theft of ox or sheep that is sold or slaughtered. Look at verse 1: “If a man steals an ox or a sheep,” that’s the first condition—he’s stolen something. And secondly, “slaughters it or sells it.” That’s important. We’ll see why in a couple of minutes. But that’s the two-fold condition here, okay?

The condition is not just stealing an ox or sheep, but slaughtering it or selling it. Then the result of that condition, what the magistrate should mandate and what we should voluntarily do: “he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.” So multiple restitution—four-fold for a sheep, five-fold for an ox—if an ox or a sheep is stolen and sold or slaughtered.

Secondly, another case law here involves slavery for the impoverished thief. At the end of verse 3, speaking now about this thief: “he should make full restitution. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”

So the thief becomes a servant, a slave. If he cannot make the five-fold restitution of an ox that he slaughtered, as an example, he doesn’t have enough money, he doesn’t have enough goods and services—he’s sold into servitude.

And our Savior seems to indicate in Matthew 18:23 that this kind of servitude—okay, theft servitude—is not subject to release in the seventh year the way that normal servitude was. Our Savior says that he won’t come out until he’s paid every last penny. Referring to this kind of servitude. And that sort of makes sense. I mean, if it was a sabbatical year of release and you’re a thief and you knew the sabbatical year was coming up in three months, you would go at your trade. Yeah. So, the idea here is that you’ve got to make restitution. And if you can’t, slavery is mandated until the restitution is made.

A lot better, isn’t it, than the death penalty that Hammurabi would put. Again, God’s law is gracious. God is slow regarding his wrath. He’s long-suffering regarding men. He gives them time to repent. And it’s only when incorageability marks their lives that they’re then executed for these sorts of crimes. Okay?

And then the third case involves double restitution for the theft of an ox, donkey, or sheep that is found in the thief’s possession. Verse 4: “if the theft is certainly found alive in his hand,” didn’t slaughter it, didn’t sell it, “then whether it’s an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall restore double.” Restore double.

So, these are the three case laws involving theft and the different degrees to which they’re found.

Now, let’s talk a little bit then about degrees of restitution in the Bible. We’ll go a little broader now than just these immediate verses to flesh out a fuller picture of the laws of restitution so that we can know God’s law, so we won’t forget it when it comes around to applying it to ourselves, our children, our friends, a member of church, or when we seek to change the civil statutes of the cities in which we live, okay.

Degrees of restitution. First, 120% for a self-confessed thief. I guess I have you giving you some scripture references here, and we won’t take the time to read them now, but Matthew Henry, commenting on Leviticus 6:4, says this: “It was afterwards provided that if the thief were touched in conscience and voluntarily confessed it before it was discovered or inquired into by any other, that he should make restitution of what he has stolen and add to it a fifth part.”

A fifth part. So the idea here is you stole something. You took your brother’s, I don’t know, wallet and stole five dollars, and you read your Bible or the spirit of God moves upon you. You say, “Wow, that was a bad thing to do.” And now you go back to him and you say, “You know, I’m really sorry, but I stole five dollars from you.” And he says, “Double restitution. I want ten.” And you say, “No, actually not. What you get is twelve.” Or if it’s five dollars you stole, you add the fifth part, it’d be six dollars that you would recompense to your brother, because you’ve been touched in your conscience.

As Matthew Henry says, you’ve been convicted by God, and there’s a reward, as it were, for coming to your senses quickly and confessing your sin quickly, okay?

And I don’t know, maybe we could make application of this to other forms of chastisement we would give to our children. Maybe if they confess their sin, that would get them several spankings fewer than if they will not confess to it. You have to give them a number of spankings. Maybe that’s the idea. But in terms of theft, the word of God provides for adding a fifth part or 20% back if you’ve been touched in conscience.

Now turn to Leviticus 6:4 and 5. We will read these two verses for a particular reason. This is where one set of these verses is found. Leviticus 6:4 and 5.

Verse 4: “Then it shall be, because he has sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore what he has stolen, or the thing which he has extorted, or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which he found—in other words, that he didn’t return and he should have returned—or all that about which he has sworn falsely. He shall restore its full value and add 1/5 more to it, and give it to whomever it belongs on the day of his trespass offering.”

Okay? So, in Leviticus—Leviticus is about the offering system, but it contains this case that gives us more information about the laws of restitution, the talon judgments to men that steal. Gives us more information by citing this fifth part added back if a person confesses his sin on his own. And it puts it in conjunction to his trespass offering.

And what that sets up for us, if we know the law of God, is a double kind of action on the part of the thief: to make restitution on a horizontal level, to make things right there. He restores what he stole and adds back a penalty price to himself. But also to make restitution on a vertical level to God. His trespass offering is the picture of that.

You can’t pay God back enough for stealing from him. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can make that penalty. He is the trespass offering. He’s the sin offering. He’s the whole burnt offering. He’s the peace offering, okay.

So, you see this double action when men come to their senses and repent. It involves, you know, pleading the blood of Christ to the Father. But it also involves—there’s no distinction that does not rule out. In fact, it’s in conjunction to—making restitution for what you’ve done against another person.

Do you understand that? That’s very important, because in our day and age, you know, so much of the Christianity that permeates our churches in America today and around the world focuses totally on the sacrifice of Christ and sees no application to what we’re to do in terms of restoring our fellow man. And that’s very important as we’ll kind of come back to that point at the end of the sermon today and talk about the implications of what this double thing going on means, okay.

So, the first level of restitution is 120%. If a person comes to their senses on their own and goes back and confesses to the theft and restores it.

The next level is 200%—theft of inanimate objects found in one’s possession. And we just read about that in verse 4, right? You haven’t sold it, you haven’t slaughtered it, you got the cows still, you got the sheep still, you restore it. Bible says if you’re caught, and that has to happen, you got to pay back twice.

Now, if you come to your senses first, they don’t have to come looking for you, you got to pay back sheep and 20% of its value. But if they come looking for you and find it in your hand, you haven’t disposed of it, it’s double restitution, whether sheep, ox, donkey, or, in verse 7 of Exodus 22, whether it’s inanimate objects as well.

Verse 7 says this: “if a man delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep, and it is stolen out of the man’s house, if the thief is found, he shall pay double.”

So, normal theft is two-fold restitution.

There’s a couple of other cases though of 400 and 500%. And this relates to the theft of sheep or oxen not found in the man’s hand. And we just talked about that a little bit. Special case for sheep: if you have it still and you come to your senses, the sheep plus 20%. If you have it still and they find you, sheep plus another sheep. Two-fold restitution. If you’ve slaughtered it, killed it, or sold it to somebody and they find out you stole it—now it’s four-fold restitution for the sheep. In the case of an ox, five-fold.

So, do you understand the distinctions here? Come as your own confessor, found out but you haven’t disposed of the animate creature—double restitution. If you have, four and five fold restitution for an ox and a sheep specifically.

And then finally, there’s a 700% restitution prescribed apparently in Proverbs 6:30 and 31: “people do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold. He may have to give up all the substance of his house.”

Now, it could just be that this proverb says that even if you’re a thief, you got to fully make restitution. But it seems like in the context of Proverbs 6, the Proverbs of Solomon, this is a kingly proverb, and it seems like it probably is a kingly civil statute. Not sure of that, but it seems to be that the most obvious meaning here is that the person who’s poor and steals as a result of his poverty has a higher degree of restitution than anybody else. Why would that be?

Well, remember the context for this. This is in the context of a theocratic state where poor people are given special privileges, in a sense. They are singled out as a class. They’re to be given the gleaning portions of one’s field. They’re to be given no interest loans that are released or redeemed in the sabbatical year or every seventh year. They’re given a portion of one’s tithe is given to these poor people. They’re the recipients of God’s grace in a number of ways.

And for them to be too proud to feed themselves by means of God’s grace and a handout from God and instead steal from another image bearer and deny his dominion rights over property—that’s a grievous sin, a high-handed sin against God. And so it seems that’s why it’s a 700% restitution, okay.

So, those are the degrees of restitution. And then after these three laws, we have two cases in the midst of these laws, actually, concerning the act of breaking and entering. These are found in verses 2 and 3.

Verse 2: “If the thief is found breaking in and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed.” And then verse 3: “If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed.”

It seems that the most obvious reading of this is that the thief breaking in at night is subject to—the owner of the property can defend himself and his home using deadly force if necessary, at night, and there’s no bloodshed upon him. There’s no blood guiltiness to him. But self-defense from a thief with the sun risen on him may not include the thief’s death.

So here, even in the context of these laws that are punishing thieves, there’s a protection given to them, in the case where the sun is risen upon them.

Now, nearly all commentators think that the distinction here is if the crime is committed at night or if the crime is committed during the daytime. And that seems to be what’s going on.

Jim Jordan, as I note in your outline, goes a little further in this, recalling that the sun rising—it’s kind of a—it doesn’t say “during the daytime” or “during the nighttime.” It says “if the sun is risen on him.” And this language reminds us that the sun rising is a picture of knowledge. In Genesis 1, the sun, the distinction between light and day—you can see things in the sun. The sun rising means increased knowledge and ability to identify things.

So if the thief is breaking in during the day, you can see who he is. You don’t got to put him down. You can always go find him later. You can see that he’s not trying to do you harm or not trying to kill you. He’s just running away with a candlestick or whatever it is. And so the identification or knowledge of—the sun rising on him should be a deterrent from you from killing him.

Again, we’ve said that throughout these case laws, human life—because it’s the image-bearing aspect of man—is protected. The protection of life is what we’re particularly motivated to protect and preserve.

Now, the other way that Jordan looks at this sun rising is that, and we’ve talked about this with Jacob when he crosses Peniel—the sun rises on him as he crosses Peniel to go into the promised land—his strength. Psalm 19 says that the great Jesus, the greater Samson, the greater Nazarite warrior, rises with the strength of the rising sun. Gideon rose with the strength of the rising sun. So, the sun rising on someone could mean the ability, you have an ability as a homeowner to overpower him. You have power or strength with the sun rising.

I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but the point is there’s a limited ability for self-defense. You have to take into account whether you can safely refrain this thief from stealing or catch him or if you need to, in some cases, shoot him or attack him in such a way that he ends up dying.

Our intent should not be to kill him in either event, okay.

So, those are the case laws regarding restitution in this portion of scripture and also laws regarding both the dangers of nighttime thievery, but also the protections to the thief. He’s not supposed to be killed. He’s supposed to make restitution.

All right. So, let’s talk a little bit about some of the truths emphasized in these cases.

First, the importance of the protection of private property. I’ve talked about that a little bit last week. I talked about it at the beginning of the sermon. This cannot be overemphasized. We live in the context of a world where private property is more and more seen as really not being private property, and the civil state is not doing a whole lot to protect you in your property.

So we need to make the rather obvious assertion that in the scriptures, private property is essential to the identity of dominion man, and the law of God takes great pains—a number of verses here, 15 or so—to protect private property of dominion man. And so it should be a major function of the civil magistrate not to educate the population, not to provide health, education, and welfare, but to provide safety—their citizens in their homes for themselves and for their possessions.

Secondly, God’s means of protecting private property. If it’s important, then we should look to God’s means, God’s system of how this is to be done. And his system is restitution and the death penalty.

This system used to be our system to a certain degree. In Massachusetts in 1736, the first offense of theft was punished by a whipping and a fine to the person. The second offense of theft involved three-fold restitution. I don’t know why they weren’t right on target, but they had the general idea. Three-fold restitution. In addition, the second time you stole something, you’re required to sit on the gallows with a rope around your neck for one hour, because the third time you stole, your trip to the gallows was real. You were executed.

You see, they put together the laws of restitution from Exodus 22 and the laws for incorageability—one who curses or strikes at his parents. Understanding that from the Deuteronomy text that refers to incorageability, that an incorageabletha thief or whatever he’s doing wrong is an incorageabletha person who really is in rebellion against authority, marked so by a demonstration of three thefts, to be executed.

So God’s way of protecting private property is primarily restitution, with the warning out there—the rope around your neck when you steal. You should be worried about the rope around your neck as you were literally in Massachusetts in 1736.

This restitution is certainly a restoration to the person who has been stolen from of his private property. Gary North says that there are three costs of the victims that are restituted by these laws.

First, the restitution of the value of what he had. The sheep, you get the sheep back. The dresser drawers, you get it back.

Secondly, compensation for his suffering in losing the items.

And third, compensation for costs of detecting the thief. You see, if you’ve got something stolen, you get more back than you originally had. But as anybody who’s ever been the subject of a break-in or a theft knows, you lose more than just the item. You lose the time taken to figure out what’s going on, time to detect the loss of the item, et cetera, et cetera.

So God’s system of restitution is not simple restitution. It is real restoration back to the individual victim of what he has lost in its fullest sense.

The scriptures, in citing these laws on restitution and restoration, give us the essence of justice. Justice, the scriptures tell us, is defined by God’s word. God’s word defines justice in terms of theft, in terms of restitution and restoration to the victim, and restitution and punishment for the thief.

The prison system that we have, of course, does nothing to affect restoration or restitution, nor does it remedy the crime against a victim, nor does it really remedy the criminal. Instead, it seeks to rehabilitate them.

The law teaches us, and now I’m quoting from Matthew Henry: “fraud and injustice, so far from enticing men, will impoverish them. If we unjustly get and keep that which is another’s, it will not only waste itself, but it will consume that which is our own. It’ll waste itself. You steal from somebody, you’re going to lose the thing you stole if the law is operating properly. Not only that, but you’re going to lose a portion of your original substance as well. Crime doesn’t pay when you have a biblically mandated restitution system in place by the civil magistrate. Crime doesn’t pay.

In relationship to this, the prison system we have today is completely out of sync with that. And one of the practical applications of this sermon on these particular case laws is that we should pray to the end that we could implement, as a community and as individuals and as a church, and then seek to see implemented in the civil government, the kind of fifth part and double restitution that the law of God requires.

The prison system is a complete mess. You know, Dennis Peacock was here years ago, and he said, “You know, you really want to do newspaper evangelism. You read the newspapers and you see what God is plowing up and what men are failing at. And then you bring to the culture God’s message of how that’s to be fixed.”

And if you follow the siting controversies for the new prisons, at least in Oregon, over the last few years, you know, God is ripping up that system big time. And people are very frustrated with the prison system. They should be.

The prison system as it exists today, not in its medieval setting, but as it exists in America, has its roots in improper or bad theology. The Quakers believed that everybody had an inner light in them, and that if you did something wrong, what you needed to have happen to you is to be put in a monastic cell, become a monk for a while. You’d meditate on your sins, and you’d come out a penitent man and a better man because of it.

See, a prison cell has its analog in the Quaker monastic cell. And the man in jail is in what they call today a penitentiary, because they’re trying to make him penitent by isolation, by giving him time out, right? That’s what we’re supposed to do with our kids. Time out is what you give to a criminal, because everybody’s good. And if man is basically good and he’s given time out for what he’s done wrong, he’ll come to his senses. The inner light will shine, and he’ll become a penitent.

But the scriptures say not everybody is good. In fact, everybody is evil. Man is positively given to suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness. He’s positively given over to the dominion of Satan and sin. And it’s only in Christ that we’re redeemed from those things.

So you put a felon in prison with a bunch of other prisoners. Typically what happens is he comes out a better thief. He comes out of a job training program with other thieves and other bad guys. He’s been penned up like an animal for a number of years. He comes out more brutish than he was. And he was a brute already by stealing to begin with. And he comes out more brutish, more given over to theft.

And so the prison system is a mess. And it’s time for the church of God to say, “We gave this culture an open pit in the bad theology of Arminianism as found in the expression of the Quaker theology that gave this country the modern criminal justice system, so to speak. We gave you an open pit, civil magistrate. We’ve got to tell him that. And we’ve got to tell them this is the real solution to the problems of criminal justice.”

Pray for my ministry in that area. Pray for this biblical ballot measure voters guide. We’ve done this before. We’ll keep hitting at this issue. It’s not enough though. We each need to think about ways that we can try to implement this in our own culture. But also ways we can talk to our legislators in such a basic area that the civil magistrate is given to do—protection of life, protection of property rather.

And in this matter, God’s system is the wise way to protect private property. Man’s ways fail in the grace of God. They fail because he doesn’t want us to hold on to a failing system.

All right. Third, a basic truth that we find in these case laws: two-fold restitution, restoration of punishment, talon judgment. Kind of hinted at that with the Leviticus passage earlier. But you know, when we talk about restitution or restoration—if it was simple double restitution, that would be one thing. But the scriptures call, usually, for double restitution. And I think what this is: the first thing you give back to the owner is by means of restoration. But the second thing you do—the second sheep you have to give to the owner, the sheep you stole from—it’s punishment to you. That’s getting a little bit of your property, your dominion, chunked away from you because of your sin. It’s punishment.

So God’s system of criminal justice is restoration-oriented, but it is also punishment-oriented. It has these two aspects to it.

Matthew Henry says that the thief must both satisfy for the wrong and suffer for the crime. Two-fold restitution.

As I said before, in the Leviticus text, the wrong done to God is satisfied by sacrifice. The wrong done to man is satisfied by restitution. And again, not to the state, but to the victim—not to the state, but to the victim.

Restitution involves both compensation and retribution. The victim is compensated. The criminal is punished, okay.

Fourth on your outline: a system of deterrence and rewards. It’s just beautiful the way God writes these civil statutes. First of all, the thief is deterred from nighttime theft because he knows if he breaks in at night, the odds are greater that he’s not just going to have to make restitution. He’s going to die for his crime. House owner can blow them away or shoot them through with an arrow or club him or whatever it is.

So, there’s a deterrence built into a properly known and applied system of criminal justice based on these case laws. There’s a deterrence to nighttime burglary.

Second, there’s a reward for self-confession. You know, the guy comes to his senses and then he only has to pay back 20%. So, the grace of God is moving and not immediately causing him to pay a larger restitution sum.

So there’s a deterrence against nighttime theft. There’s a reward for confessing your sin before you’re found out. And then third, there’s a reward for not disposing of the stolen creatures, right? You steal an ox, you steal a sheep. If it’s been killed—why, you were sold—then it’s four or five-fold restitution. And if it hasn’t been sold, it’s in your hand, two-fold. So what’s your motivation? Your motivation is not to transfer stolen property. It’s to maintain it. It’s not to kill it or destroy it. It’s to maintain it.

You see, God is keeping it in your safekeeping and providing a system whereby repentance becomes easier for you.