“The Bible is the story of two gardens. Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. In the first, God sought Adam. In the second, Jesus sought God. In Eden, Adam hid from God. In Gethsemane, Jesus emerged from the tomb. In Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death. From Gethsemane, Jesus went to a tree that led to our life.

Satan was never invited to the Garden of Eden. He did not belong there. He was not wanted there. He slithered as a snake into God’s garden and infected God’s children.

That’s all he’s done since. Hasn’t he entered a few of your holy gardens?”—Max Lucado, The Encouraging Word Bible      

The land belonged to God and the people living on it were His tenants. Their sins not only grieved the Lord but also defiled the land, especially the sins of sexual immorality and murder. The shedding of innocent blood was a terrible crime in Israel and laws were given to convict the offender deter the sin. 

Deuteronomy 21

Atonement for an Unsolved Murder

If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who the killer was, ² your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. ³ Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke ⁴ and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck. ⁵ The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. ⁶ Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, ⁷ and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. ⁸ Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent person.” Then the bloodshed will be atoned for, ⁹ and you will have purged from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Marrying a Captive Woman

¹⁰ When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, ¹¹ if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. ¹² Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails ¹³ and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

The Right of the Firstborn

¹⁵ If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, ¹⁶ when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. ¹⁷ He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.

A Rebellious Son

¹⁸ If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, ¹⁹ his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” ²¹ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Various Laws

²² If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, ²³ you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Do you see Jesus yet again in this passage as we have throughout Deuteronomy?  Read verse 8 again.  That this ritual relates to Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross is clear from the elders’ words, “Do not charge your people with the guilt of murdering an innocent person.” On that tragic day when Israel asked to have her Messiah crucified, Pilate washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” and the people replied, “We will take responsibility for His death—we and our children” (Matt. 27:24, 25).

Like that innocent heifer, Jesus died for the nation and even prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus fulfilled God’s will and upheld His holy law:

• Jesus died for the sins of the world (John 1:29; 1 John 4:14),
• Jesus died for the church (Ephesians 5:25, 26),
• Jesus died for the people of Israel: “For the transgressions of My people He was stricken” (Isaiah 53:8).

The entire ritual speaks of the grace of God, for man’s works could never earn God’s forgiveness. The young calf had never been worked, the ground in the valley had never been tilled, and the elders, judges, and priests had done nothing special to earn God’s forgiveness for His people.  It is by God’s grace alone that we are saved from our sins by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Our Savior, and Our Lord!

God wanted His people to enjoy living in their land, and the secret of this enjoyment was obedience to His will.  Trust and obey for there’s no other way…to please God and for all to go well with us even when we struggle through tough times.  God is with us always and knows our hearts and needs.  In all circumstances, it is wisdom to trust and obey the Lord.  He knows what He is doing!

“If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son…” is a beautiful story that is parallel to Jesus’ story of the prodigal son.  Warren Wiersbe writes;

“This “law of the prodigal” helps us understand one aspect of our Lord’s parable, the fact that the father ran to meet his son (Luke 15:20). In the East, it isn’t customary for older men to run. Of course, the father’s love for his son compelled him to hasten to meet him, but there was something else involved. The news of this boy’s wicked life in the far country had certainly drifted back to his hometown, and the law-abiding citizens knew that he had disgraced their city. Seeing the boy approach, the elders at the gate might have been tempted to refuse to let him in, or in their anger, they might have picked up stones to stone him! But with the father holding the boy in his arms, kissing him, and welcoming him, the elders could do nothing. Had anybody thrown stones, they would have hit the father. This speaks to us of Calvary where God took our punishment for us that He might be able to welcome us home.” Wiersbe Study Bible

THIS is grace.  Oh how this touches my heart!

“All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.” Romans 5:20-21, MSG

Jesus reversed the curse!  Since the fall of Adam and Eve to evil’s deceptions and disobeyed God; we were born under a curse from God to all mankind.  The rather gruesome symbolic act of hanging the guilty on poles after stoned reminded the people that God cursed people who committed capital crimes. The apostle Paul applied this truth to our Lord’s death on the cross: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)”” (Gal. 3:13). Those who trust Christ cannot be condemned by the law (Gal. 3:10) because Christ bore that curse for them. 

THIS is the love, mercy, and grace of our God through Jesus Christs, His Son—our Messiah who saved the world of all our sins. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

To those who say the Old Testament is obsolete and no longer applies is one who has not read and studied what God is saying to us.  God was, is, and always will be God. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega—He was there at the beginning and will be there the end.  From Genesis to Revelation, God wants us to love Him back.

How great is our God!?  How tremendously grateful are we for God? Pause to praise!

Lord,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you are, all you have done and all you will do to make us all you want us to be and enjoy in You.

In Jesus Name, Amen