cities of refuge

I emailed this to my inlaw  but i thought this might be some food for thought for other people as well.

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Deut 19:11-13

11 “But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities, 12 then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. 13 You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.

Matt 5:21-22

21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

Matthew 5:21-22 was not meant to impersonalize the act of ACTUALLY KILLING someone.  The death penalty was indeed there for bloodshed.  It was there for other crimes as well, but hating someone was not one of them.  Hatred and anger are often passing emotions.  There was/is the sacrificial system in place for Christians (fka Jews) who fail to be loving and generous all of the time.  The death of Jesus is not primarily a payment for crimes that are so sick they stink up the earth for generations infinity.  His death is for crimes that we ourselves often undermine and overlook, crimes that, collectively, cause far more stench than anything Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy ever did on their own.

I can't find the verse, but it says somewhere in the law of Moses something to the effect of

if he killed his neighbor and did not hate him in his heart, he shall go free.

I think it might have been Deut 19:11-13 but I'm pretty sure there were others, and I'm not finding them at the moment.

If nobody is aware that the killing man had hatred for the victim, then this law can't possibly apply.  There is no indication that the assembly needed to kill or should have killed the hating man prior to the point of killing.  And usually, although exceptions abound, like always, a death does not get inflicted upon someone because of one singular event.  A person who gets to be 9 years old and hasn't learned enough self control for that not to be true of them will probably get a nasty reputation well before they get inducted into adulthood.

You also might notice that the death penalty is there for people that physically murder whereas the disregard for our fellow man as God's image bearers, although it carries consequences, is not treated with the same severity.  That, to me, indicates that God cares far more about us than we might sometimes be tempted to think He does.   Of course, the consequences for a person who intends to spit on the pattern that Jesus set for us and does not reconsider and have some semblance of belief in the provision of God to rescue from that...those consequences are actually much worse than those a person who sheds blood faces.  We can't make ourselves love God, but we do have the power to avoid hardening our hearts and at least be open enough to listen to what people are saying and be sincere in our evaluations.

  Praise be to Jesus that although the stench of our sins is indeed far more than any elite Hollywood Hills air freshener can cover over, Jesus Christ has paid for it, and not only that but He has given us a hope for a future so bright we'd need shades just to be near it, and a peace that endures through whatever dust and decay we experience in the meantime.