“You must not deny justice to a poor person among you in his lawsuit. Stay far away from a false accusations. Do not kill the innocent and the just, because I will not justify the guilty. You must not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and corrupts the words of the righteous. You must not oppress a resident alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be a resident alien because you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes you come across a passage of Scripture that seems pretty straightforward on an initial reading. A bit closer of an inspection confirms this, but it can also help us see what made sense in the beginning with a little more depth and clarity. These verses once again remind us of the inherently just nature of God’s character. Let’s talk about what’s going on here, and then put them in the bigger context of the larger passage here at the beginning of Exodus 23.

I think we’ll just walk through what we see here and go from there. The first part of this passage gives the other side of v. 3, which we looked at on Tuesday. There, God told the people not to show favoritism to a poor person in a legal setting. In other words, don’t give a poor person special advantages in court just because he’s poor. Here, though, He tells them to make sure they do in fact see justice.

Poverty can act like a magnet. It draws people in and keeps them locked in a cycle that can spin along for multiple generations. Everything starts to work against them. I know of a young couple who dropped out of school when they found out she was pregnant. Now they have no jobs, no real family, none of their parents are involved in their lives at all, they have no car, they don’t even have their driver’s licenses, they have no education, no home (they are staying with relatives), and no real hope to fix any of those things. As much as we might like to think the system is designed to help people in a situation like theirs, it can also work against them. Even when it is intended to help, when the only examples they’ve ever seen up close are of people making the kind of decision that result in poverty’s perpetuation, things stay pretty bleak looking even in spite of the help they receive. Thankfully there are some believers in their life who are going out of their way to give them help and hope.

It is easy for a culture to start to look down on poor people like this as bearing less dignity than wealthy people who are seen as able to contribute more to a society and an economy than they can. The wealthy put themselves in places where they can shape the system in their favor and often at the expense of the poor. This happens in societies all over the world. God is telling the people here who will form the basis of the nation that was to be known by His name in no uncertain terms that this should not be how they operate. Everyone is to have access to the same just judgment no matter what their particular socioeconomic status happens to be.

The first part of v. 7 is yet another restatement of the ninth commandment. Don’t accuse anybody falsely of anything. But God doesn’t just say that. He’s more explicit and extreme than that. Don’t simply avoid making false accusations of another person, stay far away from that particular line. Don’t go anywhere near such a thing. When someone starts off down that line, don’t follow them. In fact, race in the other direction. If you are in a conversation, and the conversation begins to drift in the direction of making false accusations of another person, look to find an exit from the conversation as quickly as you can. God wanted for His people to pursue a path of honesty that allowed them to be a high trust society. High trust societies are more stable and more just than those with a low trust among the people.

The end of v. 7 looks at first glance like it is a restatement of the sixth command to not murder. I think, though, that there’s more going on here. The first clue to this is that God uses the word Hebrew word translated “kill” here and not “murder.” This is not talking about the premeditated taking of an innocent life. The second major clue is that the first part of this verse is talking about not making false accusations. Given the context here, it is more likely that God’s command to not kill the innocent or the just is talking about situations in which a capital punishment is assigned to an innocent person. If two people are accused of murder but only one of them is guilty, and if the wrong person is found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death for it, the other person should not expect that God is going to consider the matter settled.

The implications of God’s promise to not justify the guilty at the end of the verse are even broader than that. It isn’t just that God will hold the individual who made the false accusation resulting in the unjust death of this innocent person accountable for the death, the entire society that allows this to happen will be considered guilty by God. Looking at this particular verse through the lens of the new covenant forms one of the more convincing arguments against capital punishment in my view. At the very least, the fencing around such a punishment should be enormously high. The burden of proof should be exceedingly large. Putting someone to death for a crime they did not commit makes an entire society guilty of that person’s unjust death. That’s not a weight we want to bear if we can possibly help it.

The next part in v. 8 sticks with this legal setting but shifts gears to bribery. Bribes are a corrupting influence on any society. The laws against such things should be strict and strictly enforced. More than that, God wants for His people to recognize and understand that they should avoid taking bribes not just because they might face legal punishment for doing so, but because it isn’t right in the first place. They neuter the ability to trust that a decision was justly made. People who are otherwise committed to what is right and good and true can be drawn away from that path by their willingness to take a bribe. Now, on the briber’s side of things, the reasons for attempting to pay a bribe are obvious. If you can put someone in a position of legal power over you in your debt, they are far more likely to be persuaded that you didn’t really do anything wrong than otherwise. If you are in a position in which you might receive a bribe, you must absolutely not take one ever. If anything being advanced in your direction even looks like it might be intended for that purpose, stay far away from it. You must not be in anyone’s debt. God wanted for His people to reflect His character of justice in all of their dealings. Establishing a culture in which bribery is an accepted practice makes this impossible to achieve.

The final part here is a reminder for the people that this ethic of justice God is trying to build into them from the ground up must extend not just to the members of their society who are like them, but to everyone. If there are immigrants living among them, they are to be afforded the same amount of justice as those who are there naturally. Keep in mind that when we see the phrase “resident alien” this is talking about what we would understand to be legal immigrants or green card holders or even naturalized citizens. But, while those who have chosen to enter a nation illegally should absolutely be held accountable for their decision, and even though a particular nation is right to exercise judgment over who and how many immigrants can dwell within its borders, the treatment they receive from a particular nation should be just. We are sometimes called a nation of immigrants. The vast majority of our population wasn’t born here if you go back far enough. Because of that, all immigrants should be treated as we would expect to be treated in their shoes. The laws that exist should be applied and enforced fairly and evenly.

Okay, let’s take just a second here at the end to put this all in the larger context of the verses we have spent this week examining. One of the most important things God was trying to build into His people was a sense of and commitment to justice. This was, again, because He is just. His character is fundamentally just. Justice is defined by who He is. He wanted His people to reflect His character in a way that was accurate and honest. The reason for this was twofold.

First, He wanted it for them. Societies that operate on the basis of His character are better than those that don’t. Notice, I didn’t say that societies that claim to be Christian are better than those that don’t. That’s not the same thing as history has unfortunately borne out many times over. Societies that claim to be Christian but which do not operate on the basis of God’s character are going to be no better and will often even be worse than others which do operate with a genuine commitment to justice. When we stay within the lines of God’s character in our dealings with one another, though, that makes for a better society for everyone.

Second, God wanted it for the nations around them. God wanted them reflecting His character accurately and well so that the nations around them could see what He was like and be drawn to Him because of it. God’s purpose in forming Israel as a nation was always a missionary one. This is right in line with what He had promised to Abraham so many centuries before. He was going to make a great nation from his descendants (his spiritual descendants as Paul would later understand it, but for now his physical descendants) who He would bless to be a blessing. All the world was going to be blessed through Abraham’s descendants.

Through a new covenant lens, both of these purposes are still in operation today in and through the church. The church is the body of Christ. It is the group of people who bear the name of Jesus who have been called out for the purposes of advancing His kingdom on earth. The church should be operating on the basis of the character of God so that we are together experiencing the joy of God’s kingdom as a body. We should also get this right, though, so that the world around us can see and experience what God is like such that they want to follow Him as well. We should be a mirror of who God is so the world can see and know. This means our getting God’s character right in our dealings with the world around us is really, really important. If we portray His badly, people aren’t going to properly understand who God is and will understandably reject Him because of it. This will be to their harm and our shame. And, as God observed here, He will not justify the guilty including those guilty who claim His name as their banner. If, as followers of Jesus in the church we don’t get God’s character right in all of our dealings, there will be consequences for that. Let’s make sure we do.