Exodus 22:16 20 Introduction Remember that we re working our way through The Book of the Covenant, which has two parts: the Words and the Rules (or, the Ten Commandments and the Righteous Judgments). The righteous judgments model how the Ten Commandments are to be applied in the life of God s people, and especially what true justice and righteousness looks like when the commandments are broken. So, we read in verse sixteen: I. Exodus 22:16 If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her Which of the Ten Commandments is this Righteous Judgment applying? Well, it s the Seventh Commandment: You shall not commit adultery. But how can this be? The 7 th Commandment specifically says, You shall not commit adultery, but here in verse 16, we re clearly not talking about adultery. Adultery is when a married person has physical relations with anyone other than his or her spouse; or we could say, when a single person has physical relations with someone who s married. Even a single, unmarried person can commit adultery. But the common denominator is that in all adultery, there s an existing marriage somewhere, and now physical relations have happened outside the bounds of that specific marriage that already exists. In Israel the punishment for all adulterers whether single or married was death. Now, in Israel, there was something called betrothal. When a man and a woman were betrothed to each other, they were actually called husband and wife. 1 But what made the period of betrothal unique from the rest of the marriage relationship was that the husband and wife were not yet living together, and had not yet had physical relations. So, what happens if you re betrothed and you have physical relations with someone other than your husband or wife (or if you re single, and you have relations with someone who s only betrothed)? Even though this might not technically be called adultery (adultery seems to assume a marriage that s fully consummated), it s still physical relations outside the bounds of a specific marriage relationship that already exists, and so the punishment for this act is still death. We read in Deuteronomy: Deuteronomy 22:22 27 If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor s wife Let s be clear that what we re talking about here is a one-time physical act that doesn t physically harm anyone (if both were willing parties), and the punishment for this one-and-done act is death! But why would this be? Isn t this pretty extreme? 1 Therefore, in order to get out of a relationship of betrothal, it would be necessary to actually divorce your betrothed husband or your betrothed wife. (cf. Mat. 1:18-19) 1
In the Bible, the marriage bed is the physical sign and seal of the covenant relationship. Let s think about some of the other covenants in the Bible. The sign and seal of God s covenant commitment to Noah and his physical seed was a bow in the sky aiming upwards. The sign and seal of God s covenant relationship with Abraham and his physical seed was circumcision. The sign and seal of God s covenant relationship with Israel as a nation was the Sabbath. The sign and seal of God s covenant relationship with the Church as His new creation is the bread and the cup in the Lord s Supper. And so, also, the sign and seal of the covenant relationship between a man and a woman in marriage is the physical union of the marriage bed. The sign and seal isn t the same thing as the marriage itself. Not at all. But the sign and seal consummates the marriage relationship, and cements it, and renews it, and expresses in a powerful, and beautiful, and wonderful way the one-flesh union that God creates in every marriage. God gave us physical relations not only for procreation, but for the hallowing, and the strengthening, and even the preserving of the covenant relationship of marriage. Therefore, when God says, You shall not commit adultery, the point of this command is not primarily about forbidding lust, and self-gratification, and sexual immorality (though it does do this!); the primary point is the hallowing, and the strengthening, and the preserving of marriage. And this is important! in God s plan, the hallowing, and strengthening, and preserving of marriage is essential for the hallowing, and strengthening, and preserving of the entire covenant community. If marriage is part of the bedrock of society in general, then this is especially and even more so the case for God s Covenant people. Adultery happens to be the most fatal of all the blows to marriage. Adultery is the single sin that strikes at the very heart of marriage itself. And so it s the specific sin of adultery that s highlighted in the Ten Commandments. But now that we understand the true concern of the 7 th commandment which is the hallowing, strengthening, and preserving of marriage by the faithful stewardship of the covenant sign and seal of marriage now, we can see how this commandment actually forbids any and all sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage. Remember, the point here is not to treat the physical union itself as something dirty, but rather to celebrate it as something truly amazing, and wonderful, and beautiful as something given to us exclusively as the sign and seal of the covenant of marriage. That s why sexual activity even between two unmarried persons is, in effect, an undermining and assaulting of marriage itself. It may not be quite the fatal blow that adultery is. It may not strike so directly at the heart of marriage as adultery does. But it still erodes and undermines the very essence of marriage. Therefore(!), the clear danger of any and all sexual activity outside of marriage is that it erodes and undermines the well-being of God s entire covenant people. Some may say that this is making a mountain out of a mole hill, but surely this only reveals our own foolishness, and shortsightedness. Adultery strikes at the very heart of marriage, and can t be undone, or redeemed, or made up for in any way. Therefore, for the preservation and safeguarding of the group, all 2
individual adulterers must be cut off from the Covenant Community. Let s go back and read Deuteronomy 22 with some words included that I left out last time: Deuteronomy 22:22 24 If a man is found lying with the wife of another man [adultery], both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her [adultery], then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones So you shall purge the evil from your midst. See how God s concern, here, is with Israel! God s concern is that the leavening, permeating, corrupting effects of adultery must not be allowed to take root in the midst(!) of the Covenant people. 2 So, if adultery strikes at the very heart of marriage, and can t be undone, or redeemed, or made up for in any way, then what about physical relations between two unmarried people? II. Exodus 22:16 17 If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins. Notice that it s the same act. The same thing happened physical relations between two people who aren t married. The only difference is that in this case, neither of the parties was already married. We say, the only difference, but notice that this was the difference between life and death. Have relations with someone who s married, or with anyone other than your current spouse and you die. Have relations with an unmarried woman, and you get married. That s a pretty big difference in outcome! But can you see, now, the reason for this difference? Physical relations between two unmarried people is still an attack on the institution of marriage, but, unlike adultery, the deadly effects of this attack can be undone, or at least very much lessened. The man who seduced the girl must now give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. Now, in the case of the girl who was seduced, she seems to have been willing, even if she was still being taken advantage of. But we also read in Deuteronomy twenty-two: Deuteronomy 22:28 29 If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days. We have so many hurdles to get over in understanding these verses. First of all, we shouldn t be thinking of a situation like we might have today on the streets of Chicago. Whoever this man was, he was, in a very real sense, family. I m not talking about incest, here; I m talking about the family of Israel, and the children of Abraham. Whoever this man was, he was a part of the Covenant Community a part of the clans and family of the Jewish people. As hard as it may 2 This is the key difference between Israel s law code and the similar (sometimes identical) law codes of the nations. Likewise, this difference also helps to explain the sometimes more severe and sometimes less severe judgments in Israel s law code as compared to the law codes of the surrounding nations. 3
be for us to comprehend, this would have made a huge difference. Second of all, just because a woman was unwilling to be with a man who was not her husband doesn t mean that she wouldn t have been willing, in the end, to take that man as her husband. Once again, our culture is massively different in all sorts of ways, and at every level maybe in some ways for better, maybe in some ways for worse, and maybe in many ways for neither better nor worse. But the reality is that a woman in Israel who was taken against her will, would not necessarily have been unwilling to take that man as her husband, and subsequently enjoy a happy marriage. Finally, the unstated assumption, here, is that the father still has the right of refusal, just as he does here in Exodus. If he sees that this marriage would not truly be in the best interests of his daughter, he can decline the marriage, but still require an amount of money to be paid to him equal to the bride-price for a virgin. Now, it s really important for us to understand what this bride-price is. This wasn t a price tag for an object or a piece of property. Far from it! In most cases, it seems that the brideprice was essentially security given by the groom for the future of his bride. It was a good faith payment that showed his intentions to support and provide for his bride in the future. And so it seems that in some way, the bride-price that was paid to the father, actually belonged, ultimately, to the bride. We know that Jacob didn t have any money to offer his Uncle Laban, so instead, he worked fourteen years for Laban s two daughters, Rachel and Leah. (cf. Gen. 29:18, 27) Then, we read in Genesis thirty-one: Genesis 31:14 16 Rachel and Leah answered and said to [Jacob], Is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father s house? For he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money. All the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. Not only did the father receive a good faith payment from the groom, but it seems the father also gave gifts to his daughter (or to the groom for the benefit of his daughter). So we read in Joshua fifteen: Joshua 15:16 19 (cf. 1 Kings 9:16; Gen. 24:50-53) [Caleb] gave [Othniel] his daughter as wife. When she came to [Othniel], she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, What do you want? She said to him, Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. We clearly don t have daughters, here, being treated as chattel or property quite to the contrary! But even when we understand that, we still just need to get over our cultural elitism and arrogance. Honestly, if we can t do that, there s much of the Bible that we ll never be able to truly appreciate. So, what is the bride-price? In the end, it was really a formal recognition in that culture of the sanctity of marriage and the life-long commitment that marriage requires. (cf. Stuart) The bride-price functioned as a sign of the true worth and value of a bride. I would suggest that it especially recognized her dignity as one who was morally pure and clean one who had not prostituted herself in loose living. 4
Maybe, now, with all this background, we can make more sense of our passage this morning. If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. This man and woman have just had physical relations, which is the sign and seal of the covenant of marriage. Therefore, one way to protect the covenant community from this degrading attack on marriage was to require that the man pay the brideprice and take the girl to be his wife. But, even in the (probably unlikely) situation where a father refuses the marriage, the man was still required to pay the full amount of money equal to the bride-price for virgins. Notice that this isn t technically the bride-price because the man isn t actually marrying the girl, but it s specifically an amount of money equal to the bride-price for virgins. So what does this payment mean? Well, I think it s clear. It s a vindication of the girl s honor, on the one hand (cf. Gen. 20:16; Deut. 22:20-21), and my assumption is that the money given to the father is still ultimately for the benefit and well-being of his daughter. On the other hand, this virtual payment of a bride-price is also a very costly and very public acknowledgement by this man of the true sanctity of marriage which he has just dared to violate. So, is there still a sin, here, that calls for ultimate justice and punishment? Yes. But in terms of the here and now, the girl and her family have received vindication and payment, and most importantly for us this morning, the potential destructive effects on the rest of the covenant community have been undone. I believe it s only when we understand God s concern for the larger group for the preservation and well-being of the entire covenant community that we can understand some of the different temporal judgments that God gives. Death for physical relations that violate an existing marriage. Marriage and/or the payment of a bride-price for immoral physical relations that violate no existing marriage. The very different judgment in each case is exactly what was necessary for the ultimate preserving of marriage, and so therefore for the preserving of the entire covenant community from the leavening, permeating, destructive effects of sexual immorality in their midst. Understanding this enables us to see again the infinite wisdom and justice of all God s righteous judgments. It s precisely in this light that we have to read the next three verses: III. Exodus 22:18 20 You shall not permit a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the LORD alone, shall be devoted to destruction. Here s a collection of three sins requiring the death penalty. These aren t the only sins requiring the death penalty (cf. adultery!), but this short collection is a reminder that for the protection of the larger group there are some overt and blatant sins which demand that those who commit them be cut off from out of the midst of the community. Notice how the penalty of death is worded in three different ways: You shall not permit to live shall be put to death shall be devoted to destruction. The point is crystal clear: These are sins which require the offender to be put to death if the larger covenant community of God s people is to be protected and preserved. Conclusion So, what do these things mean for us, today, in the New Covenant community? 5
It s essential to know that the penalties and judgments given in the Old Testament were all given in the context of a mixed Covenant Community. The community wasn t marked off by inward spiritual regeneration, but by outward physical descent so by its very definition, the group was mixed (it included both believers and unbelievers). This helps us to understand two very important things: First, since the community wasn t marked out by inward spiritual regeneration and the new birth (it included even unbelievers), therefore the penalties and judgments all had to do with the more outward and blatant criminal acts, and then they were graded accordingly (adultery receives a far more severe penalty than sexual immorality in general). But God had promised His people, Israel, that one day He would make them a new creation. In that day, the group would be marked out by spiritual regeneration (they would all be born again), and so this would allow Gentiles to be incorporated with them in a single New Covenant community a new and recreated Israel. We are living today in the days of fulfillment. The Church is the recreated Israel this is the New Creation that God promised to His people in the Old Testament defined no longer by outward, physical descent, but rather by inward, spiritual regeneration. So what does this mean? It means that today the practical requirements and expectations for life in the community (the group) are far, far, far higher than they ever were in the old group. Because of the elevated, supernatural nature of this new creation, because we are now defined as a born again and regenerate community, even the less overt, less criminal sins can now have a leavening, poisoning, corrupting power that they didn t have in the Old Covenant community. Sexual immorality was just as sinful under the Old Covenant as it is today, but in the world of the New Covenant community, sexual immorality is even more intolerable and potentially corrupting than it ever was before. So, Paul says in Ephesians chapter five: Ephesians 5:3 4 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Let me put it this way: God hasn t changed, but because of the miracle He s worked in this New Creation, creating an Israel where everyone is born again, naturally, then, the expectations of the members in this community correspond completely to what s expected of all those who ve been truly born from above. So what does this mean? Should we be practicing capital punishment in the Church today? Should there even be more capital offenses in the New Covenant community than there ever were in the old (like the death penalty for foolish talk and crude joking)? Not at all! The same reality that raises the bar for all who would claim membership in the New Covenant Community the same reality that actually results in more sins with a leavening and corrupting power in the group is also the very reality that eliminates any need for capital punishment, or even for many of the other judgments that we read about in the Book of the Covenant. When you have a group (a covenant community) that s defined by outward, physical descent, then there s a sense in which the only way to remove a person and his corrupting influence from out of the midst of the community is to put him to death. But now that we have a Covenant Community defined by inward, spiritual regeneration, the death penalty is no longer necessary or appropriate. (I m not talking about the appropriateness of capital punishment in the civil sphere.) In this New 6
Covenant community, there s another way, entirely, to very effectively remove a person and his leavening, corrupting influence from out of the midst of the community. Titus 3:10 11 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him. 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14 15 We command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Matthew 18:17 If [a brother] refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. We re not just talking about giving someone the silent treatment or the cold shoulder. This is about being expelled from fellowship in the covenant community, barred from the Lord s Table, and excluded from all the saving (not justifying) means of grace that can only be found inside the community. Paul uses some pretty terrifying language to describes these realities when he writes to the church in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 5:4 5 (cf. 1 Tim. 1:18-20) When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. It may be difficult for us to see, but in many ways excommunication from the New Covenant community should be fully, equally as terrifying as the death penalty in the Old Covenant community. In fact, when Paul describes the removal of the unrepentant brother from the midst of the New Covenant community he actually quotes the Old Testament, using language that refers almost exclusively to the death penalty. 1 Corinthians 5:11, 12 13 (Deut. 13:5; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21, 22, 24; 24:7; cf. Deut. 19:13; 21:9; Judg. 20:13) I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? Purge the evil person from among you. As a member of this New Creation, I can t see my sin only in terms of its danger to me, but rather also in terms of its danger to the community of its leavening, corrupting power and influence in the midst of God s New Covenant people. This is true for all of us, but I know especially for me and the elders as leaders in the community. When my sin becomes evident to the body, or is brought to the body, and I still refuse to repent and heed the loving warnings of the community, then the Church has a solemn and urgent responsibility to remove me from its midst. 7
Is God still zealous for the preservation and protection of the group from the leavening, permeating, corrupting influence of sin in its midst? Consider the example of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter five. (Acts 5:1-11) Consider what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11: 1 Corinthians 11:27 30 (cf. 3:16-17) Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner [while undermining unity and love in the body] will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself [to see if he is upholding love and unity in the body] and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. Is God still zealous to preserve and protect the group from the leavening, permeating, corrupting influence of sin in its midst? He is, INDEED! And this ought to be an intensely sobering reality for all of us in terms of how we think about our own sin, and also in terms of how we respond as a body to sin, and the hardened, unrepentant sinner in our midst. Paul writes to a church that was not taking the sin in its midst seriously: 1 Corinthians 5:6 8 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. As we come to partake of the Lord s Supper, we have a powerful reminder of God s zeal for the holiness of His people, but also of God s ultimate redeeming purposes for His erring child. In the end, the goal of all God s discipline is that we might not ultimately be condemned along with the world, but that we might repent and be restored. (cf. 1 Cor. 11:32; 2 Cor. 2:6-8; Gal. 6:1) How wonderful to know that God is patient toward us, not willing that any of His erring children should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9) How truly wonderful it is to know that: 1 John 1:7 9 If we walk in the light, as [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23 24; cf. Jude 24-25) 8