It must be remembered, JR, that God's revelation to man was progressive. It was misunderstood by the ancient Hebrews. They interpreted God's dealing with sinners as retributive, while Christ reinterpreted God's law as restorative.JR wrote:If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put into corrective punishment; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.13 If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put into corrective punishment. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.14 If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with refiners fire and put into corrective punishment, so that there will be no immorality in your midst.15 If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put into corrective punishment; you shall also put the animal into corrective punishment' (Lev.20:12-15 NCV)
I strongly advise reading Derek Flood's book Healing the Gospel
Derek also indicates that the apostle Paul, also, does just as Christ did. Paul was addressing a people who were crying out for God's vengeance against sinners. He argued in his letter to the Romans, that the justice of God is restorative rather than retributive.
Flood, Derek (2012-08-06). Healing the Gospel: A Radical Vision for Grace, Justice, and the Cross (Kindle Locations 284-298). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.Derek Flood wrote:CENTURIES OF READING THE Bible through the culturally dominant lens of punitive justice are hard to shake off. We read the word “justice” in our Bibles and simply assume that it is referring to punitive justice. But if we can manage to take a fresh look at scripture, and in particular the New Testament, what we will find is that the master narrative of the Bible—God’s salvation in Jesus that all of scripture points towards—is rooted in a model of restorative justice. As a case in point, let’s consider the book of Romans, which has long been considered to be Paul’s masterpiece, and one of the clearest articulations of the Christian gospel. A traditional Lutheran reading of Romans understands Paul to be addressing the problem of a guilty conscience: How can guilty sinners facing God’s wrath instead find a gracious God? As important and valid as Luther’s questions may have been in his own context, recent scholarship has drawn attention to the fact that this is not at all Paul’s point. That is, Paul is not addressing people who wanted (like Luther) to escape God’s wrath and judgment. Quite to the contrary, Paul is addressing people who are crying out for judgment, who longed for God to come in wrath and punish sinners. Paul is addressing a religious audience that has embraced the idea of punitive or retributive justice, and arguing against their perspective. In other words, Paul’s argument in Romans is that righteousness comes through restorative justice instead of retributive justice.