We’re hearing a lot today about “the rule of law”, which reminds me how different the Ancient Near Eastern understanding of “law” was from our own. In fact, we are closer to the understanding of the Jews in the first century than the Jews in the first century were to their ancestors just 500 years earlier. This is because of the end of the Ancient Near East and the introduction of western ideas into Judaism via Persian then Greek then Roman culture.
In short, the Ancient Near Eastern understanding of “law” was “royal propaganda”. Whether the law of Moses or the Code of Hammurabi, people understood the rules and the statutes and the commandments to be revelation of their king. Be fair and just and honest, not because the Code says you must but because Hammurabi is the sort of king who is fair and just and honest. How do we know? Look at what his code says, for what his code says reveals something about him.
This was Israel’s understanding of what they received at Mount Sinai. Rather than a list of rules one could put in checklist form, the law—or more accurately, the Torah, or the Teaching—revealed the character of YHWH God of Israel. They were to be holy as YHWH is holy, not as the law itself is holy. Keeping a list of rules was never the point of the covenant given at Sinai, for one could conform to a list of rules without actually conforming to God’s character. This is why Jesus could criticize the Pharisees for tithing from their window garden while missing the entire point. Sure, after picking nine mint leaves they set one aside for the Lord and after harvesting nine sprigs of dill they set one aside the for the Lord, but what did he say?
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”
Matthew 23:23 ESV
Giving a tenth of your mint leaves is much easier—and less messy—than being just and merciful and faithful. Our propensity is to replace the Lord as the standard by which we are measured with a standard we control. This is why the rich young ruler was initially happy: he had not committed adultery and had not murdered and had not lied about others and had honored his father and mother. Still, Jesus told him he had broken the entire law for his love for his riches prevented him from loving his neighbor. It’s much easier to measure whether you had murdered someone than whether you loved your neighbor.
For this reason, I’ve been dreading something—but only a little. I knew the time would come when I would be asked what I think about something going on in the world of politics. I knew it would come and I knew my response was the sort of response that could get me canceled in the minds of a very vocal group in our world. Some time ago I posted the following observation on a particular social medium: “I have never known a person who was both spiritually mature and politically partisan”. This was an observation of something I have never experienced. I’ve never known a person who was spiritually mature and who was politically partisan. I’ve known spiritually mature folk and I’ve known politically partisan folk, but the Venn Diagram of these two groups is two circles that do not touch.
The push back was a bit surprising, for it focused entirely on the meaning of “partisan”. I think the real disagreement was what it means to be spiritually mature. I suspect many assume if you keep the rules, then you must be spiritually mature. If you give a tenth of your mint, dill, and cumin, and if you avoid murder and adultery and false witness then you are spiritually mature. If so, Jesus was wrong to criticize the Pharisees for they would have been the most spiritually mature people in his day—but they weren’t. For all their tithing and their law-keeping, they were lost. They had zero spiritual maturity, for spiritual maturity is thinking like Christ.
The aim of spiritual maturation is not conforming to a list of expectations, but becoming like Christ. To be spiritually mature is to think like Christ, to act like Christ, to love like Christ. Let me illustrate this for you.
Imagine you are an Israelite living in the land of Canaan. The land is yours for it was given to your ancestor Abraham. You, along with your fellow Israelites, had entered the land with the law of Moses governing your thinking. The law was not a list of rules but was God’s self-revelation. The law revealed what God himself is like. Rather than conforming to a list of rules, each Israelite was to become like God. How did they know what God is like? The law revealed him! The reason murder is wrong isn’t because the law said it was wrong. The reason murder is wrong is because God is not the sort who would take life unjustly. How do we know? The law says, “You shall not murder.”
If you focus entirely on the rule you would miss the point. This is where the Pharisees went wrong. They had so focused on the law of Moses as a list of rules they forgot it was actually the Torah—the Teaching. The law taught what God is like and they were to become like God. The rules and commandments and statutes showed them what God is like. They were not arbitrary rules, but teaching points showing them how to be like YHWH God of Israel.
Let’s pick a totally and completely random bit of God’s self-revelation in the law of Moses. Let’s pick the topic of, oh, I don’t know…how about sojourners? Sojourners are foreigners who ended up in the land of Israel for all sorts of reasons. What does the law say about this? To ask another way, what does the Teaching given by Moses reveal about God himself in this issue?
Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:19 ESV
Just as God loved those who sojourned in the land of Egypt, so Israel must love those who sojourn in the land of Israel! That makes sense. They should treat others the way God himself treated them. Again, the law is God’s self-revelation! But what is a sojourner? Fortunately we have HALOT—the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. It provides glosses of words. It isn’t a dictionary, for dictionaries attempt to provide a technical definition of words whereas a lexicon shows how words are actually used in a given body of work. Here’s how HALOT explains the word translated “sojourner”:
גֵּר is a man who (alone or with his family) leaves village and tribe because of war, famine, epidemic, blood guilt etc. and seeks shelter and residence at another place, where his right of landed property, marriage and taking part in jurisdiction, cult and war has been curtailed
HALOT, גֵּר (ger)
There’s a lot there! A sojourner is one who leaves behind his native land for a variety of reasons. War, famine, and epidemic are readily understood. Entire people groups moved for these reasons. It also mentions blood guilt. A sojourner is one who flees legal problems. In the ancient world vengeance for a dead family member was common. If you’re out chopping wood and your axe head flies off the handle and kills a man, his family might come after you, seeking to take your life. A sojourner includes those who flee such “blood guilt”.
Further, sojourners seek shelter and residence in another place where they would be free of war and famine and epidemic, etc. This was Israel in Egypt! They went to Egypt because of famine. In Deuteronomy 10:19 God reminded them they had been sojourners in Egypt. The new place, however, is specifically said to be a place where one has no right of landed property, no right of marriage, and no right take part in jurisdiction, cult, and war. They have no inherent “rights” in the land where they seek shelter and safety. This means an American “fleeing” Michigan to go to Nevada wouldn’t be a sojourner, for he or she would still have all the rights of being an American. A sojourner necessarily went to a land in which such rights were not guaranteed. A foreigner would not be immediately welcomed into a family through marriage and could not immediately own property and could not join the army and could not participate in government and established religious systems.
To sum up, a sojourner was one who fled a bad situation to find safety in a new land where he or should would not be able to participate as citizens of that new land. When Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to avoid the murderous clutches of Herod, they sought shelter and residence in a land where they had no right of landed property and could not take part in jurisdiction, cult, and war. When they returned to Israel, they returned as natives of the land and the time of their sojourning came to an end.
See again what God had to say to Israel about sojourners, keeping in mind the land of Canaan had been given to the people of Israel. It was their land. It was where Israelites would be natives. God revealed something about himself in Leviticus and emphasizes the land is Israel’s land:
When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV
Notice he repeats his identity: I am YHWH your God. He’s not merely giving them rules to follow; he’s revealing himself. What is he revealing about himself? His love for strangers who sojourn among his people! When a person or group of people, whether a family or a group who didn’t know each other prior, sojourns in Israel, having fled war, famine, epidemic, blood guilt, et cetera, Israel must not mistreat the sojourner. In fact, they must treat the sojourner as a native Israelite! This doesn’t mean they are, in fact, native Israelites. Such a person may well be uncircumcised and therefore unable to participate in Passover, but God tells Israel they must love him as they love themselves. Why? They were once strangers sojourning in Egypt. Even more, they must love the sojourner because he is YHWH their God. It is because of who God is that they must love the sojourner.
The land was Israel’s land, given to Israel by God himself, yet God himself says others have a right to it. When someone flees another country for all sorts of reasons and seeks shelter in Israel, God’s people must treat that person as a native of Israel. There is no instruction for the right way for a sojourner to enter the land. The Torah of God simply assumes they would—and why wouldn’t they? If God’s people obeyed him and became like him, their land would be a land of incredible prosperity and peace! Of course people would flee the chaos of the nations around them and pursue the peace and safety of dwelling among God’s people!
God tells Israel they must love that person as they love themselves. The reason is not because some rule requires this. The reason is because God is the sort who loves sojourners and seeks their protection and blessing. Israel must learn to think and act and love like God thinks and acts and loves. Anything short of this is evil and unbecoming of those who would be God’s people.
At its core, sin is being unlike God. We tend to think of sin as something you do but it’s also something you are. If your thinking is not like Christ, your thinking is sinful. If your actions are not like Christ, your actions are sinful. If your love is not like Christ, your “love” is sinful. Even if your outward behavior appears to conform to the list of rules found in the law of Moses but your inner life does not reflect the character of God, you’ve missed the entire point of the law. The whole point of the Torah, the Teaching, was to show us what God is like. We are under the new covenant and we have God’s full and complete self-revelation in the person of Jesus. Rather than the Ten Commandments, we have Christ. Spiritual maturity is becoming more like Christ, which is seen first and foremost in thinking like Christ.
What does Christ think about sojourners? God hasn’t changed; the Lord revealed what he thinks of sojourners throughout the law of Moses. That hasn’t changed. To think like Christ is to treat the stranger who sojourns with you as a native among you. To think like Christ is to love the stranger as yourself. We see this understanding in the life of Jesus. In Luke’s Gospel a lawyer attempted to trip up Jesus, trying to get him to say something that could be used against him.
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Luke 10:25-27 ESV
To be spiritually mature is to have the mind of Christ. What is the mind of Christ? The Lord told him he had answered correctly. The whole of the law and the Prophets rests on these two commandments—love the Lord and love your neighbor as yourself. Then we read the lawyer’s response.
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Luke 10:29 ESV
Notice how the lawyer seeks a way around the law. He acknowledged what the law said, but he sought to justify himself and his way of thinking and his state of being unlike Jesus by asking who his neighbor is. He was attempting to clarify exactly who Jesus was claiming the law applied to. Surely it only applied to those the lawyer wanted to love! You know the story. Jesus told him the story of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans were those who who didn’t belong. They weren’t “full Jews”. The Samaritan—the one who had no right to be in the land of Israel—was the neighbor the lawyer was supposed to love. God doesn’t change!
Whether we’re reading Scripture or watching the news, we should think like Christ. If we respond to what is in the news and what we read in Scripture with, “Yeah, but…” we’re just being like the lawyer who said, “Yeah, but who is my neighbor?”
You may have noticed I’ve not said anything about any current events or current public policy. I’ve tried to show what it means to think like Christ. If a person’s response is to argue for a particular present-day application of this text, I would suggest that such a “yeah, but” response is not thinking like Christ. The truth is one can either think like Jesus or one can think like an American. You cannot think like both, for as Jesus himself said, you will either hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and a political party. We must seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. That is, we must make God’s kingdom, his way of doing and being—and thinking—first in our minds and in our hearts.