Our scripture reading this morning is Exodus 21, verses 28 through 32. Exodus 21, verses 28 through 32. Let me just say a few words before I read it, so you have a sense of where we are in the scriptures. In Exodus 20, we have the account of the Ten Commandments, which God gave to Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai after they had come out of Egypt. And in Exodus 21, 22, and 23, at least the first part of chapter 23, we have a section of the Law of Moses, which deals primarily, not entirely, but primarily with what we would consider civil issues about relationships of one person to another in society, and it's in this context, in the midst of this section of the Mosaic Law, that we read our text this morning. Exodus 21 beginning at verse 28. Hear the word of God. 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 shall also be put to death. If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him. If it gores a man's son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to this same rule. If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. This ends our reading of God's word. There are many texts of scripture that we read, and immediately it's clear to us why this text is important. Many texts we read, and it's clear as day what its relevance and its application is for us in our Christian lives. And this is probably not one of those texts. In a congregation of this size, the odds are probably pretty good that there are a handful of you who grew up in proximity to oxen. But for most of us, that's not the case. And the odds are pretty good that none of us this last week were worried about our oxen goring somebody else. And probably none of us even had a close call getting gored by an ox. And so we read a text like this and many others like it in this section of scripture and we do wonder a bit as to what its importance is for us as Christian believers of the 21st century, especially in a relatively urban area. Now, as we think about this text, it may be helpful to keep a couple things in mind that the New Testament tells us about the law of Moses. The New Testament tells us a lot about the law of Moses, but there are a couple of big picture considerations that it sets before us that help us to read a text like this. One of the things that the New Testament tells us, and I think here of what Paul says in Romans 7, is that the law of Moses was holy, righteous, and good. You see, the law of Moses reveals the justice of God to his people then and to his people now. Now, we understand that this law was given to Israel under the old covenant and it was meant for them. God did not give it to be the law per se of the United States or any other society and yet even that being the case we recognize that in this law God's justice shines through. There is much that we learn about our own just lives and about the justice of any human community. There's another thing that the New Testament tells us, another big picture thing the New Testament tells us about the law of Moses. And here I think of what Paul says in Galatians 3. In Galatians 3, Paul says that God gave the law of Moses in order to imprison his Old Testament people under sin, to put them in bondage to their sin. You see, God's justice is so clear, it is so perfect, it is so penetrating that this law showed God's people their sin in a way that was inescapable. It dug down deep. It showed them their rebellion against God. Now, the purpose of this was not to put God's people in ultimate despair, But what Paul explains is that this law which imprisoned them under sin was their tutor, it was their guardian, it was their instructor unto Christ. It was a way that God prepared his old covenant people for the coming of their Messiah. It showed them their great, their profound need for redemption from sin that only, that only the coming Messiah could provide. Now, that's very helpful for us as we consider the text before us. Because as we look at these five verses before us, just at these five verses, we can see God's justice shining through. We can see very clearly the perfection, the equity of the justice of our God. And yet, we also see in this justice of God, we also see that as we hold this up to our own hearts, to our own minds, to our own conduct, we see that we don't come out looking very good. We see that if all we had was this law of God, if all we had was the justice of God shining through, we would have no hope. And so we are encouraged as New Testament believers to see even in these verses how much we need a Savior and how grateful we are that God in the fullness of time has indeed sent His Son to show forth the justice of God so perfectly, but also His grace and His mercy to us. Let's look first at these five verses in light of the first thing that I told you about the New Testament, the justice of God. The law of Moses is holy, righteous, and good. And we can see that in these verses set before us. Now consider first verses 28 and 29, the first two verses of this small section of scripture. There are two scenarios that are set before us. There's actually in some ways one scenario, but there are two different details to it. In the big picture, there is one scenario. An ox gores a human being, a man or a woman, and that person is killed by this ox. But you'll note in verses 28 and 29 that there's a difference in detail. In the first situation, Verse 28, the owner of this ox did not know that he had a wild, violent ox on his hands. The ox had never done something like this before. And so he didn't take any special precautions. And out of the blue, this ox gores someone and this person dies. It's a great tragedy. But you see, the owner of this ox is not held guilty. There is no punishment that is imposed upon this man, because he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't know that this was a danger, and so there is no penalty. But you'll notice the difference then in verse 29. In verse 29, we find the same thing happens. The ox gores another human being to death. But you see here, the owner of the ox, he knew better. This ox had shown signs of being violent before, his neighbors had warned him. They said, hey, there's your ox. Your ox is dangerous. You better tie that ox up. And he failed to do it. He was negligent. And sure enough, the ox gores someone on his property and this person dies. But what happens here? Here, the owner of the ox is held guilty. He is brought before the judges and he is condemned. He's actually condemned to death because of his negligence, another person has died. And so he, in the intensity of God's justice, in the purity of God's justice, this person receives the death penalty for his sin. And you can see here, can't you, the justice of God. There is a distinction made between the person who knows what he ought to do and fails to do it, and the other person who didn't know that there was any danger and so did not commit any sin. There's a distinction made between these two people, and we can see the justice of God in making that distinction among people. Now you can also see the justice of God as we move to the next verse. In verse 30, we find a different way of handling the penalty when the ox gores and the owner knew that he had a violent ox on his hands. Let me read verse 30 again. If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him. What's going on here? In this situation, we have a guilty ox owner. The penalty is death. But here, presumably, the family members of the person who is killed come and say, don't put him to death. Let's impose a fine on him. It'll be a ransom price for his life. Pay us, and his life can be spared. Do you see the justice of God here? You see what's going on? Put yourselves in the shoes of the family members of the person who died. Your loved one has just been taken from your lives because of the negligence of this ox owner. Now, there might be a real sense of satisfaction by seeing this ox owner put to death. You might have a real sense that justice has been done, vengeance has been served. However, what's your life going to be like now? Imagine that this is the primary breadwinner of your family. This is your father, perhaps. This is the one, this is the strong arms of the family. This is the one who goes out and puts bread on the table. This is the one who goes out and takes care of the fields. This is the one who takes care of your animals, who fixes your home. What are you going to do? Losing this family member might mean terrible poverty for you. And so, you might go in to say, you know what, even though there might be a sense of satisfaction in seeing this ox owner put to death, it'd be a lot better for us if we received a monetary payment. We would be taken care of, at least for an extended period of time. So you see, the law of Moses gives this option to the family. A different penalty. And you can see the justice of this, can't you? You see, the law of Moses doesn't only care about giving justice, about imposing justice upon the wrongdoer. The law of Moses cares about the victim. The law of Moses cares about the victim's family. It cares about provisions for those who have suffered a great loss. So here we see another side of the justice of the law of Moses. We see the justice of God shine through. Now consider verse 31. Verse 31 gives us another angle, another perspective on the justice of God that we find here. Verse 31 says this, Now that verse might strike us as being a little odd when we first read it. You see, in previous verses it's told us that if an ox gores a man or a woman, here's what you should do. And now, verse 31 says, if it gores someone's son or daughter, follow the same rule. And we think to ourselves, well, if it's the same rule, why do you need to say it? If it's the same rule, if you didn't say it, wouldn't we just follow the same rule automatically? And the answer is, not necessarily. You see, in the law of this time and place, in the laws among Israel's neighbors, people's sons and daughters were not necessarily treated like full human beings. If your son or daughter was killed in an accident, it may very well be that you are treated as having suffered a loss of property. And so if nothing was said here, Israel might assume, well, if our son or daughter is gored by an ox, then we should receive a payment as if there's a loss of property. But the law of Moses says no. If a boy or a girl is killed, it's treated just the same as if it's a fully grown adult. We're not going to treat this boy or girl like a piece of property, like his or her father's property. We're going to treat this boy or girl like a human being. It's the full penalty if a boy or a girl is killed. Here again, we see the justice of God's law. A boy or a girl, just as much a full human being with human dignity as the boy or girl's parents. Now at this point, if you're thinking ahead to verse 32, you might think this doesn't work very well anymore. Because verse 32 says, if your slave is gored by the ox, pay 30 shekels of silver. Seems to treat the slave like a piece of property. I want to come back to this in just a moment. So hold your thoughts on that for a couple of minutes. Let me say now one other thing about the justice that we see here in Exodus 21, verses 28 through 32. There's something different about the way this law is given. from the way that we typically think of what law should look like. What do you think of if someone said to you, law? What would you expect to find? Probably most of you have never even cracked open the Civil Code of California. But what would you expect to find if you opened it up? What is our conception of what law looks like? Well, you would probably expect to find a lot of rules. Do this. Do that. Don't do X. Don't do Y. And you'd find clear penalties attached to them. A fine for this. Probation for that. Imprisonment for that. But if you look at these verses before us, and in fact, if you look at Exodus 21 through 23 as a whole, this is not how it works. If you have your Bibles open, if your eyes just scan the pages around here, you'll find most of the paragraphs begin with words like if, or when, or whoever. You see, what this section of God's law does is it gives us cases. It gives us situations. It says, now, if these circumstances take place, someone does this, then here's how you respond to it. This is called case law. These aren't just a bunch of rules. It gives us cases. Now, when you think about that, it puts a new spin on reading and understanding and practicing the law. Imagine you had a conflict with your neighbor. There's a particular set of circumstances that have happened between you and your neighbor. And you want to know how to resolve it. Imagine you're an Israelite long ago, and you wanted to go to the Mosaic Law to figure out what do you do? How do you resolve your conflict? What are the odds that your situation matches exactly any of the situations, any of the cases described here? Almost zero. Your case is probably unique. There are details that don't match anything found here. What if you don't have a problem with a goring ox? What if your neighbor's goring ox is not the problem? What if you have a problem with your neighbor's biting dog? What do you do? How do you resolve that conflict? There's nothing about that here in Exodus. Well, you see, you need to understand how case law works. Case law gives us these situations, gives us the resolution to them, but it's not meant to be comprehensive. What it's meant to do is to teach us how to think rightly. It teaches us general principles of justice. In this kind of situation, here's how things work. And so when we read this, what we're supposed to do is to say, oh, yeah, I see how that works. If I have this kind of conflict, this is the way we handle it. You learn principles. You learn the way that things are done. But you see, that takes wisdom. It takes good judgment. It takes a sense of discernment to know how to take the cases that are given and to figure out how they apply in this new kind of case that isn't described. But you see, that's a way of letting us know that the justice contained here in the law of Moses was not easy for Israel to keep. It would have been easier if God had just given Israel 500 rules that cover everything. They might think learning 500 rules would be hard, but you could do it. If you gave yourself enough time, you could learn all the rules, but it's not so easy to learn wisdom. It's not so easy to learn discernment and good judgment. But you see, if you were to obey the Mosaic law in its entirety, if you were to put it into practice in all of your life, for all of your conflicts, you would have to be a very, very wise person. you would have to have really good judgment. And we see that that's demanding. That is what is asked of God's people as they were to put God's law into practice. And that brings us to this other point. You remember, the New Testament tells us not only that we see the justice of God shine through in the law of Moses, but we also see our sin. The law of Moses imprisoned God's people under sin for a time until the coming of the Messiah. And just as we look at these verses, we can see how it does exactly that. Consider a couple things in these verses that show just how sinful, just how fallen this world is. And in fact, just how fallen and sinful God's holy covenant people were. A people set aside from all the world to be God's treasured, special possession. For one thing, let's get back to verse 32. Verse 32 says that if the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned. Now, that's sort of a troubling verse, isn't it? For one thing, there was slavery in ancient Israel. And God's law actually prescribes rules like this for treating slaves as if they're something a little bit less than full human beings. They're treated like the property of the master. That bothers us. And in some ways, that should bother us. But you see, brothers and sisters, the law of Moses was not given to solve every social problem. It was not designed to bring an end to every problem in this world. In order to understand this better, perhaps think about the case of divorce. Perhaps you remember the story in the Gospels. Jesus was teaching about divorce and remarriage, and his disciples were surprised. They were even shocked, and they were surprised at how strict Jesus was about divorce and remarriage, and they said, well, Moses, you know, Moses gave us these rules about divorcing our wives, and Jesus said, Moses permitted you to do that because of the hardness of your heart. You see, this is one of those things that the law of Moses was not designed to solve every problem. It was not designed to solve every marriage and family problem. The law of Moses permitted divorce, even though it wasn't God's ideal, because of the hardness of hearts. Something like that seems to be going on here with the slave laws. You see, if you were a slave in this time and place, if you were a slave at this time, you would rather be a slave in Israel under the law of Moses. than in one of the neighboring nations under their laws. It was much more humane. But still, God permitted slavery for a time for his people. It's a reminder to us. This is a really sinful world, and Israel was a sinful community, and even God's holy law was not designed to solve every problem. You know what else reminds us of the sinfulness of the world? and the sinfulness of Israel as a community? Well, did you notice how the ox was to be treated? The ox who gored another person to death. We've been talking about the human players so far. But did you catch how the ox was to be treated? The ox was to be stoned. Now, I'm not a farm boy. I have no authority to be talking about how oxen are to be treated. But I'm pretty sure of this. there are got to be easier ways to kill an ox than stoning it. That would take a lot of effort, a lot of people, especially if you've got a violent ox on your hands. And yet God's law says that if the ox does this, you stone it. Why? What difference does it make? Well, in the law of Moses, people were sometimes stoned. They were stoned for the most serious of crimes. It was a sign of God's curse, a sign of the rejection of the people who were stoned. The ox is treated like a criminal. But you see, the ox who gores demonstrates just how sinful and fallen this world is. Think back to Genesis 1. What did God call human beings to do from the very beginning? He called human beings to exercise authority, to have dominion over the other creatures. They were to subdue the other animals. In a sinful world, I'm sorry, in a perfect world, an unfallen world, there would not be goring oxen. Human beings would have those oxen under control. But it's a fallen world. Oxen are killing human beings. The world is not the way it ought to be. You see how the Law of Moses makes so clear the state of the world under sin. People of God, as we consider these laws that are set before us here, we must recognize that the justice of this Law of Moses was good and right, but it could not take away the sin and wickedness from this world. As good as this law was, as much of the justice of God shines through it as it does, it could not give what the human race really needs, what it ultimately needs. You think about the penalty here. An ox gores another human being to death. What would be, what would be the ideal? What does this human community that has been affected, that has been wounded by this violent act, what do these human beings really need? They need the dead man or the dead woman to be raised to life. That would bring true restoration. That would bring true healing. But what does the law prescribe? What is the just measure? Put another human being to death. Not only will one family suffer from the loss of a loved one, a second family will suffer the loss of a loved one. The justice of God means that two people, rather than just one, meet their life's end. This text reminds us that if we had only this law, if we had only the justice of God that shines through this law, it's not going to come out well for any of us. Do you like justice? Well, we all like justice as an ideal, don't we? You ever heard a political candidate go on the air and say that he's going to elect him because he's going to promote injustice in society? No, we all love justice as an ideal. And we all love justice when someone's done something wrong to us. Oh, we have a real passion for justice then, don't we? But what about when we do something wrong to someone else? What about when we say something or do something that harms our neighbor? Well, we're not quite so sure we like justice as much then, do we? Justice doesn't sound like such a great bargain when we're on the other end of it. And think for a moment. Think for a moment about what the wrongdoer here really did. That is, the owner of the goring ox. Was the owner of the goring ox malicious? It doesn't seem like it from anything said in the text, does it? This owner of the ox is not described as having a training ground for making killer oxen. He hasn't lured his enemy onto his property and stuck his oxen on him. What do we have? We have someone who is careless. We have a procrastinator on our hands. Yeah, he was warned. Someone said to him, you know, your ox is kind of violent. You better do something about that. He says, yeah, yeah, I know. I'll do something about it. But, you know, the weather is not really good right now. I think I'll wait until summer. He was warned, and he said, yeah, you know, I've got all these other projects out in the field. Got to make sure I got the harvest this year. I'll get to it later. He waited. He was a little careless, procrastinated. Someone's dead. Have you ever been careless? Have you ever been careless with someone's life? Well, if you're over 16 years of age, and you've ever driven a car, you've been careless. with someone else's life. Who of us who's driven a car can say that we've never, ever been careless, never, ever looked to the back seat to talk to our kids, never, ever fooled around with the radio, looked at the radio instead of looking at the road, and yet you're careless driving even for a moment, and someone could be dead. That's a sin in God's sight. That's a violation of God's law. And the law of Moses says carelessness that endangers someone else's life. Death penalty. We start thinking about God's justice. We start thinking about the penetrating nature of God's law. Who of us would have much confidence in coming out looking good at the end of the day? Well, people of God, shortly after, Paul in Galatians 3 said that God gave the law to imprison his people under sin, to hold them in bondage in sin. Paul says at the beginning of Galatians 4, that in the fullness of time, he sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. We may not give much thought to that. Christ was born under the law. He was born under the law of Moses. What does that mean? Well, for one thing, it means that he was born obligated to keep that whole law of Moses. And as we've just seen, that's no small task. And we know that our Lord Jesus Christ did it perfectly, without sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ, think about this now, our Lord Jesus Christ was never even careless, never careless for a moment with someone else's life. He kept this and all of God's law perfectly. Think about the righteousness and the holiness of your Lord in that light. But you know what else it means for Christ to come under the law? It means, as Paul also explains in Galatians, that he came under the curse of the law. Though he did nothing to earn the curse of the law, he came bearing the curse of the law because of our sin, because of our transgression of God's law. Christ was never careless, even for a moment. But you were. We have been careless over and over and over again, not to mention all the other things that we've done. And our Lord Jesus Christ bore the curse for all of it. We deserve the death penalty. Every time we're careless with someone's life, Christ bore that penalty. He bore every one of those sins in his body on the tree. In that light, can't we understand why our Lord cried out in such agony in the Garden of Gethsemane? why he asked that if it was possible that his father would take that cup from him, he bore the curse of the law for us and for all of our sin. Praise God that he has sent us a Savior in the fullness of time. Believers in Christ, one of the glories that we enjoy as people of the new covenant is that God no longer places us under the law of Moses. He no longer gives to us a law that relentlessly reminds us of our sin. That drives us under the condemnation of God's judgment. He no longer puts us under a law that requires us to put each other to death. Think about that. Under the old covenant, God's people were required to take up the sword against each other and put each other to death. Even for carelessness. Praise God that he does not put his church under such a difficult and burdensome law. And yet, praise God even more that he has not simply lifted us up from under the law of Moses, but he has freed us from every curse of God's law, from every curse of God's judgment. Praise God that we no longer stand before him as guilty for carelessness or for any other sin. As the people of God, as those redeemed by his grace, we are called to live in this world, to pursue justice in our own relations with one another, as God gives us opportunity in this world. And yet we ought to remember that even our best striving after justice cannot save this world. It cannot raise the dead. It cannot restore those who are killed to their family members. If you want to see justice that saves the world, we look to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, to that perfect justice of our Lord who kept God's law in its entirety to the justice of God that poured out his wrath upon his own perfect beloved son. And yet in that cross, we see not only the purity of God's justice, but we see the abundance and the magnificence of the mercy and grace of our God who has placed the curse of all of our sin upon our Savior. Praise God for that. May we rest in him and may we pursue justice knowing that true restoration, true righteousness is found only in Christ our Lord. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for your law which you have given. Lord, we look at these laws which in many ways are so mundane, which deal with such ordinary issues, the ordinary conflicts of life. And yet in them we do get this glimpse of the profundity of your justice, how you are concerned about a just payback for sin, how you are concerned about the well-being of victims. Oh Lord, we marvel at your justice, And yet, as we look at ourselves, as we hold up our own lives against the strictness of its demands, Lord, we humble ourselves before you. We recognize that were you only a God of justice, a God who did nothing but pay back wrong for wrong, none of us would have any hope before you. How we thank you for sending your son, that he came under the law. Lord, you did not just forget about your justice. You did not say, you'll just forget about it. Lord, you satisfied all of its just demands. But you did so in your son, and we look to him. We cast all of our burdens, all of our guilt, all of our condemnation upon him. And we thank you for the assurance that we have because of this. We pray, O Lord, that you would give us a desire to live just lives here and now. To handle ourselves with decency and equity, with orderliness here in this world. And Father, may we never be fooled into thinking that we can bring true healing to this world through such efforts. Oh Lord, may we cling to the great gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we trust in our Savior and find in Him all of our hope and all of our consolation. We pray this in His name. Amen.