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The Sixth Commandment I
Please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 20, verse 13.
This passage says very simply “You shall not murder.”
Now, let’s go back for a moment to three points made at the beginning of this series.
First, the real intent of the law is that we would love God with all of our hearts, and love our neighbor as ourselves. So, when we see the command, you shall not murder,” let us keep in mind its real meaning and purpose within the greater law of love.
Second, these commandments, as drawn out in both the positive and negative sense, i.e., do this, don’t do this, give fuller meaning and direction to that larger overarching commandment to lover our neighbor.. That is, they tell us what it looks like to love our neighbor.
Third, love of neighbor is not an optional matter for the Christian. Without love of neighbor, and without obedience to those commandments that teach us what it looks like to love our neighbor, then there is no love of God, and there is no saving faith.
OK, so let’s turn to this specific commandment, “you shall not murder.” The ESV and NIV and NASV bibles read this way. You may be more familiar with the wording of the King James Version, “Thou shalt not kill.”
The word translated here as “murder” or as “kill” is the Hebrew word “ratzah.”
The word is found 40 times in the OT, mainly in what we might call the “legal” material, that is, material having to do with laws and punishments for crimes.
The word is used mostly in reference to personal and intentional killing, but it also refers to cases of unintentional killing, what we might consider the careless or accidental killing of another person.
In almost every case it is used to refer to an offence punishable by death, or one where the offender must seek protection in a city of refuge.
The word is not same word used more generally for killing, slaying, slaughtering an animal, killing and enemy in war, or killing a person as a punishment for a capital offence.
Therefore, since one of these more general words is not used, the commandment should not be read with the sense “one human being should never under any circumstance kill another human being.”
The translation “you shall not murder” is much closer to the intent of the commandment.
This means that this commandment should not be used by those arguing against capital punishment or by those arguing that a Christian should never serve in a war where he might be called upon to kill another person.
There may be good arguments against capital punishment or against Christians fighting in war, but the sixth commandment should not be one of them. It just does not apply.
Now, let’s look specifically at the types of offences prohibited by the sixth commandment in its narrowly applied negative sense.
I’ll be relying on several Scriptural passages – Exodus 21, Deuteronomy 19, Numbers 35, and Leviticus 19.
What can we glean from these Scriptures? What do these passages from the OT civil law prohibit? How is this commandment applied in the legal setting of the Old Covenant civil law?
First, there is personal killing with intentionality, what we might call premeditated murder.
Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die (Exodus 21:12-14).
And if he pushed him out of hatred or hurled something at him, lying in wait, so that he died, or in enmity struck him down with his hand, so that he died, then he who struck the blow shall be put to death. He is a murderer (Numbers 35:20-21a).
The Hebraism here is “he is murders is one who “ratzahs.”
But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. And if he struck him down with a stone tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. Or if he struck him down with a wooden tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death (Numbers 35:16-18).
Now in Hebrew law there may not be the same level of premeditation as we would general require for first degree murder. For example, in the passage just read, a man strikes another with enmity, with one’s hand or with a weapon, with or without malice aforethought, that is, with or without a plan to do so, and it is still a capital offence.
Second, this commandment applies to what we would call criminal negligence.
When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death (Exodus 21:28-29).
Third, and perhaps most intriguing to us, the commandment seems to refer specifically to accidental killings.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment (Numbers 35:9-12).
This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past— as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live, lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities (Deuteronomy 19:4-7).
But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or hurled anything on him without lying in wait or used a stone that could cause death, and without seeing him dropped it on him, so that he died, though he was not his enemy and did not seek his harm, then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these rules (Numbers 35:22-24).
So, even in the case of what we might call accidental killing, the one who kills another accidentally has to spend what could be most of his life in a special city of refuge, in a kind of internal exile, lest the “avenger of blood” find him and take vengeance upon him.
Before I speak more to the matter of accidental killing, let me comment on this “avenger of blood.” This in an ancient near-eastern concept which sounds cruel and primitive to our ears, but as we shall see at its root is the sanctity of human life made in the image of God.
We read this morning the Scripture from Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”
The life for life aspect of this sounds gruesome and primitive to us, but that is to some degree because we have lost the sense of the extreme sanctity of human life.
But the avenging of blood, the taking of life of the one who has taken life, was not just an indifferent act of the state in the Old Testament. It was an act of the immediate family of the victim. This person who would avenge the blood of his family member would pursue the one who had done the killing unless the person found refuge in a city of refuge. There he would be safe. The law protected men and women from vengeance who had killed accidentally. Interestingly, real murderers would try to take advantage of this and flee to cities of refuge.
But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die. Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you (Deuteronomy 19:11-13).
I might add that in none of these cases could a person be out to death on the testimony of one witness. Rather it would take the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Now let’s go back and look at the question of accidental killings.
At first glance it seems downright absurd to punish someone for something done by accident, just as it seems absurd to tell someone not to have an accident. Accidents by definition aren’t premeditated or willed, so to appeal to a person’s will in this way seems strange at best. But then, upon deeper inspection, maybe it’s not really so absurd.
So we tell someone going off in a car, “Be careful; don’t have an accident.” We also have a saying, “that was an accident waiting to happen.” Or we may read an article in the Readers Digest, “22 ways to prevent accidents in the home.”
What God is saying I think is this:
Do not be careless when human life is at stake
Do not be negligent when it comes to human life
Be very conscientious and careful about life
The point is that great care must be taken when our neighbor’s life is involved. To love my neighbor is to actively careful about his physical well being.
You see, there is something almost holy about your neighbor – whatever his age, gender, race, or sexual orientation, whether your neighbor be in his mother’s womb or in a nursing home, whether he be rich or poor, black or white or oriental, whether he be a model citizen or a pain in the neck.
There is a something set apart about your neighbor. This does not mean that your neighbor is holy is the moral sense. He may be a scoundrel. It means that there is something very special about him, even your vilest most hell bound neighbor is holy in this sense.
Imagine an exquisite antique vase, painted with gold and turquoise paint, made in 200BC in Egypt, purchased by your great great great grandfather in 1790 and for 200 years passed down through your family. It is worth a fortune, but that does not matter. It will never be sold. It can’t be replaced. It is set apart. Its value is what it means to your family.
It sits there in a special place in the corner of your living room on a sturdy table.
Billy walks into the front door. “Hi mom.”
He tosses his baseball glove into the chair in the living room. He didn’t see the cat in the chair. The glove hits the cat right on the spine. The cat meows and springs up on reflex, hitting the lamp by the couch. The lamp starts to fall. Billy, seeing this out of the corner of his eye has an adrenaline rush. He springs for the lamp.
But just as he does he steps on a skate left near the door by his little sister Sarah. Falling, he slams with his shoulder into the couch as the lamp hits the floor, breaking only the bulb.
But the couch, because of the impact, slides about 10 inches on the hardwood floor, knocking into the other end table, and causing the lamp on that table to fall, right into the table holding the vase.
The table jolts a few inches, and as it does the vase starts to wobble in a slow circular manner, the wobble getting flatter and flatter each rotation.
Mom enters the room, “Billy, what on earth…”
And she sees the vase. Life goes into slow motion. She starts to run toward the vase but as in a dream she can’t seem to get going in time.
The vase right before her eyes takes it’s last final wobble and begins its fatal slow motion fall.
It crashes on the hardwood floor, smashing into a thousand pieces, just before her outstretched arms arrive.
Billy peers over the arm of the couch, absolutely horrified, stricken with guilt.
“Billy! The vase.” “Look what you’ve done.”
Now Billy at this point would be greatly relieved to learn of the existence of a “room of refuge” to which he could flee for a few years.
The vase was holy, and the avenger lies before its smashed remains.
Likewise human life is holy.
There are two extremely important passages which speak to this, the one in Genesis 9, and the other in James 3.
In Genesis 9:6 as part of God’s instructions to Noah and to humankind in general after the flood, we read
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image (Genesis 9:6).
And again in James 3:7-10, in a section having to do with how we are not to use our tongues, we read
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so (James 3:7-10).
Human life, all human life, has a unique sanctity about it because it has been made in the image and likeness of God himself. Sometimes we talk about this likeness in terms of our role over creation. But in this sense we’re talking about the essence of who we are as beings. We are made to bear the stamp of God’s image, to be a kind of representation of Him in creation. Even when we abuse our role and fall into sin that image is still there.
This is why, in the end, we are to love our neighbors, because our neighbor is God’s image bearer.
This is what we are to be careful and respectful and to a certain extent filled with awe and fear when human life is at stake – because God’s image bearers are involved.
This is why the Christian has the answer to the question about the sanctity of life, not the materialist, not the atheist, not the Darwinist. If human beings are not made in God’s image what we’re left with is an ethic of power, pure and simple.
Human beings are God-made and God stamped – no matter how unformed or deformed or retarded or comatose.
To strike out against human life is to strike out against the maker of human life.
Only God has the authority to take away human life. You see, bearing God’s image is a privilege granted by God himself. Only God has authority to void that privilege, either directly, or through his delegated authorities such as the civil authority.
In the case of murder it is because of the supreme sanctity of the life of the victim that the murderer loses his privilege to live.
You know, like that boy staring in horror at the broken vase, we know instinctively that human life has this certain holiness and specialness about it, just as that vase had a certain specialness and holiness about it.
Except in the case of the extreme sociopaths, the consciences of most people are horrified at the taking or abusing of human life.
So we come up wit ways to assuage our consciences when we want to mistreat or demean or disassociate ourselves from other types of persons.
We come up with names for them, euphemisms, some derogatory terms which helps our consciences reduce the guilt we otherwise couldn’t handle.
We have euphemisms for unborn children, mentally ill people, people of different races or ethnicities or religions.
This is what we do to live with ourselves. We dehumanize others so as to belittle or harm them and somehow sleep at night. This should not be.
Jesus reminds us in Matthew 5 that to have malice in our hearts or ill will toward our brother is to bear the same guilt before God as if we had murdered our brother.
To hate, to carry malice, to put down, to wish harm to, to insult that which is holy whether directly or indirectly or indirectly just shows us how far we have to go to be what calls us to be. We as Christians should be in the business of promoting and protecting and preserving human life.
We should be proclaiming the sanctity, and sanctity means holiness, of human life. And we should be proclaiming the sanctity of human life, not just one Sunday a year, but all year round every day, in our every day actions and decisions.
We should be working as salt and light in our society to see that human life is not endangered or neglected or forgotten or cast aside or abused.
And we should be praying that God would change our hearts, in order that we would not have ill will toward one another or toward our neighbor but rather that we would seek our brother and our neighbor’s safety and well being.
This is the core of what it means to love our neighbor.
In the next messages we will look at more specific examples as to how this can be done. And we will see ways how we can avoid harming our neighbors.
Between now and then remember this: next to the Christian person in whom dwells the very Spirit of the living God, your neighbor is the holiest thing you will ever see in this life. Treat him that way.
Amen. |
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