We’re going to need everything we’ve learnt from the last couple of passages today. We’ve seen how our circumstantial context might affect things (e.g., the centralisation of sacrificing animals, Lev. 17); how the law is designed to show us what God is like; how the biblical context affects our interpretation (particularly the ministry and teachings of Jesus), and that Jesus himself is our ultimate arbiter in terms of interpretation. We’ll add another: holiness – in other words, being set apart. Part of the reason for the law, and of what it means to follow Jesus, is that we are to be distinctive. More on that later!

Today’s passage is about consequences. We’ve seen some of the issues before, others not, and still others are expressed more generally, but the theme is the same – ‘if you, then this’. The word ‘consequences’ is key. The phrase the passage uses is that their “blood will be on their own head”. But we still need to consider the wider context, and see what Jesus has to say: As Psalm 119.160 reports, “The sum of your word is truth” (ESV). Alternatively, what does the whole counsel of God’s word reveal?

A good starting point is Genesis 2.17, where the first humans are told that if they eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they “will die”. Not, “I will kill you”, but “you will die”. It means we own our consequences, and that God does not dish them out like some over-zealous school prefect.

But there’s more. One of the scenarios (Lev. 20.10) is referenced in John 8.1-11, where the woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus (we don’t have space to address the palpable unfairness here, the absent male culprit apparently off the hook already)! The key point for us is that even consequences seem to be subject to the mercy of Jesus. Yes, the law says something – but Jesus says something else. We see this explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard it said…but I tell you…” (Matthew 5.33, 38, 43). He also seems comfortable with legislating for our imperfection: the ideal (Matthew 19.6) being compromised by Matthew 5.20. In fact, the whole of the sacrificial law (particularly in early Leviticus) is legislating for our imperfection – as is the cross!

We are to be distinctive. Jesus clarifies this too: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another” (John 13.35). The Pharisees operated by the love of the law; Jesus by the law of love. Which do we choose?

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Father God, thank you for your love for me – and the world. Amen.