Grace to Offenders

Grace to Offenders

God’s Law points the way to grace.

Exodus 21:28-31

“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 also shall 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.”

Parents may not have been responsible for the behavior of their children, but owners of large animals were held accountable for their beasts. Animals were not to be “blamed” when they harmed humans; however, they were not to be excused, either. An animal that gored or butted had either to be restrained or, if it could not be restrained, destroyed—and its owner held accountable in the most severe manner.

However, note the hint of grace in this statute: a man whose ox gored another to death could be ransomed from death, presumably, if the survivors of the dead person agreed. There is in this, I think, a kind of foreshadowing concerning how we must today, in this age of grace, regard the harsh penalties of the Law of God. By extending a form of grace to those deserving harsh punishments, we do not excuse them; nor do we simply wink at their offense and thus affront justice. We simply exact punishment and achieve justice in a different way. However, the nature of the transgressor—for example, if such crimes have been habitual or if they persist—frees a society to impose harsher penalties for any subsequent violations of the Law.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.