OT Law vs Grace...

[Jason]

I've noticed a trend lately among the more caustic non-believers that I have encountered. Many of them have taken to memorizing what we might call "severe" portions of OT scripture, usually having to do with stoning children or homosexuals, or about female menstrual laws (usually added for humor). Now I usually dismiss those who argue just to make their case without any regard for nuance in their thinking. However, I will admit that it's more difficult to dismiss one portion of the challenge. Unlike these unbelievers I mentioned, I actually believe God gave those laws to Moses. But moving on from that, I'm still forced to ask the question: Why don't we stone rebellious children and homosexuals today? I'm not sure it's as simple as saying, "Well, Jesus changed all that."

If God gave Moses a righteous, just form of law... then why not uphold the sanctioned stonings today? It makes sense to do away with ceremonial laws since they appear to have been pointing to (and fulfilled in) Christ himself. But don't we Christians usually argue that the "moral aspect of the law" is to be upheld today? Since homosexuality and rebellion are considered moral choices, why are we more lenient on those issues? Sure, Christ put an end to the law of death, according to NT scripture, but Jesus pulled most of his teachings from the books of Moses. "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "love your enemy" are both OT mandates and could be considered part of "the law." So why did Jesus yank those commands forward, and not the other moral obligations, such as stoning the rebellious?

I've heard it reasoned that we don't use that form of judgement any longer because we're not living in a theocratic society like ancient Israel was. But is that true? Is not the church itself a theocratic society, governed by God himself? It would then seem that, according to this explanation, stoning the rebellious could be allowed inside a close-knit Christian society if governmental laws don't prohibit it (such as Pope-rule in ancient Europe). And yet Jesus says if the rebellious person doesn't listen even to the church's admonition, the person should be left alone to fend off the adversary. Why not stone him?

Now, of course I'm being tongue-in-cheek about some of this and, for the record, I don't condone stoning the rebellious. But I'd love to hear a discussion on why some of the moral obligations of the OT are not carried out nowadays. To the unbeliever, I say that those conditions were given by God directly to Israel (one nation) for a season of time, and I don't know why those laws were chosen, but it was never God's idea for them to be universally binding on every generation, whether Jew or Gentile. After all, God didn't ask the Jews to prosthelytize the surrounding nations back then. Does anyone have a better answer than me?

[Paidion]

Stoning children, cutting off hands of women, etc. is not a moral imperative, nor a moral obligation, nor a morally neutral act, nor morally permissible. Suggesting that these things are morally right "because God commanded them" is ludicrous. God didn't command them. Jesus wasn't willing to stone the woman taken in adultery — and He bears the very stamp of the Father's essence. (Hebrews 1:3)

[Jason]

Thank you, Paidion. I realize you are not among those who believe these OT laws were actually commanded by God and I respect that. I guess I'm looking for answers from the more "orthodox" perspective because they/we are the ones who have something to reconcile here. And not to veer too far off topic, but the "woman caught in adultery" is a sketchy passage and may not be true account. It's earliest appearance (which, I think, actually appears in Luke's gospel) carries a pretty late date (9th century?). It may be a genuine passage, but I wouldn't stock any important doctrines upon it.

[Perry]

Jason,

When you say non-believers do you mean atheists? If so then the answer is actually pretty easy.

[jeremiah]

perry,
do you have "the universe doesn't care what happened to any of those people, so why should you?..." in mind when you say that?

[Perry]

perry,
do you have "the universe doesn't care what happened to any of those people, so why should you?..." in mind when you say that?

Not sure. I certainly wouldn't say it that way, but that might be your interpretation of the upshot of what I would say.

I would say, if a person is an atheist, how can they make any claims about the morality about what the people in the Old Testament did one way or the other? By what standard of morality do they make claims that, say, stoning a homosexual is immoral?

[jeremiah]

perry,
yeah man, yours is definitely more precise and tactful. but i think they spring from the same root. so yes i agree completely.

grace and peace...

[Jason]

Hi, fellas. I'm not so much interested in how to debate this issue with an Atheist, which is why I made the point about dismissing those who argue from pretense or shallow thinking. I laid forth some arguments, from the perspective of a Christian who wants to know (innocently enough) why we don't stone homosexuals or rebellious children today, since that was considered just and right at one point in history. Does the law about stonings have anything to say about the heart of God? If so, why? If not, why not? Jesus said a rebellious person should be shunned by the community to fight the adversary alone. If that's the just way to deal with homosexuals and rebellious children, then why wasn't that instituted in the Mosaic Law instead of stoning?

[mikew]

The law does reflect God's heart in many ways but I don't think the present era requires us to enforce the OT law upon people today. One problem with such effort to enforce this law is that the law of Moses was given to Jews, not to Christians. Another problem is that the law was given for the narrow purpose of preserving Israel until the time of Christ. We'll look at this latter point.

Israel was given land in the midst of a corrupt land that had to fill up its inquity before God could judge it. Then, after the Exodus, God judged those nations.

The Law of Moses then sought to limit the tendency to fall into the behavior of the surrounding nations. I believe that the Law of Moses gave Israel enough sense to stay out of the worst of trouble, where such trouble would have required earlier judgment on Jerusalem and the Israelites. God therefore sought to reduce divorce and idolatry and other sinful acts. Israel was supposed to stay relatively well behaved, but even Israel, with the availibility of the law and the guidance of prophets, still fell into idolatry.

(Other laws were probably typical laws for any society regarding murder, stealing, and land. The civil laws in the Bible do represent true justice instead of the inbalance shown in laws in other societies. Some societies, for example, work by fear and excessive punishment -- I'll speculate -- such as cutting off someone's hand for stealing a loaf of bread.)

So the laws of Moses pertaining to stonings most likely addressed a certain concern to preserve Israel until the time of Christ. We may learn some sense of things that are immoral, but we are not given the power to enforce these laws. This power would come only by being an Israelite under the old covenant.

[Singalphile]

Random thoughts:

1. I do reckon that the punishments are meant as some kind of example or illustration for us.

2. What was the best means of implementing the death penalty back then? I doubt that the method of carrying out the execution (burning or stoning) is of any importance. It was probably just the best way to do it at the time.

3. As you say, the Christian church is analogous to the nation of Israel. If those OT laws were meant as a model of criminal punishment for us - and I don't think they were - then they would only be required by the church among Christians. But it seems not quite the same now. We're not "citizens" of the kingdom of God in quite the same way that an Israelite was a citizen of Israel.

4. If God dealt with Israel more or less as he deals with us today (i.e., not micro-managing), then he may have required or caused their government to enact those penalties in order for the nation to survive to fulfill God's purpose... which it did. See mikew's post.

5. Those laws can perhaps give us an idea about what behaviors are most harmful to a community.