Why does the Law of God prescribe the death penalty for all these crimes? In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells us why – to “purge the evil from among you” (Deuteronomy 13:5; 19:19, 22:21, 24; 22:24). And in the days when the people of God were defined largely by ethnicity, by membership in one of the twelve tribes of Israel, well, the only way to cease being an Israelite was to die.

Of course, with the coming of Christ, that’s no longer the case. The very first generation of Christians included many Gentiles, and today people from every tribe and tongue and nation are part of the Body of Christ. That’s why, in our reading from I Corinthians 5, Paul says that they way we “remove the wicked from ourselves” is now simply to exclude from our fellowship those who claim to be Christians but who live in flagrantly immoral ways. In short, we are treat such obviously unrepentant sinners as unbelievers – as those who need to be evangelized – not as Christian brothers or sisters.

So, what can Christians learn from this rather bloody Old Testament passage? In the first place, we should realize how heinous God considers all of these crimes to be. Kidnapping others, enslaving and selling our fellow men, is obviously a horrible abuse of those who are made in God’s image (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7). Just so, our modern law codes make the same sort of distinction we see in Exodus 21:12-14, punishing those who are guilty of premeditated murder much more severely than those who kill someone else by accident or in a fit of passion. But we all agree that there must be a penalty for those who destroy, or even enslave an image of God.

But notice this: Moses tells us that those who curse their parents, or go so far as to strike them (Exodus 21:15, 17) are not to be tolerated, much less excused for mere youthful indiscretion. The Law thus applies the same serious consequences to those who break the Fifth Commandment as it does to those who break the Sixth: failure to reverence our parents, is thus somehow just as bad as kidnapping or premeditated murder.

And if you think about it, that does make sense: in God’s eyes, undermining the stability of society, and thus putting the life and liberty of all of His people at risk, is just as serious as directly depriving an individual of those same things.

So perhaps we increasingly irreverent Americans should take this to heart. Maybe we should not be so quick to dismiss the wisdom or the traditions of our ancestors, even if they were not as technologically savvy or as racially enlightened as we consider ourselves to be. Maybe showing kindness and grace and even reverence to the brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone before us, to those who faced the trials and temptations of life but remained faithful, is another way we can demonstrate our humility – acknowledging that stand in the same need of the same God to save us and to keep us as faithful as they were.

Exodus 21:12-17 (NASB)

12 “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.
13 “But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee.
14 “If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar, that he may die.
15 “And he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
16 “And he who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.
17 “And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.