Who May Carry Out the Penalty

Two parts of the challenge have now been answered: sacrifice and circumcision. The third part remains.

“The Torah commands that certain sinners be stoned. If you say the Torah still stands, then you have to stone adulterers. You are not doing that. So you are picking and choosing like everyone else.”

It is a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer. The answer is the one we found for sacrifice. The Torah said not only what should be done, but also where it should be done, and by whom.

Who Held the Stones

Picture a driver who sees another car run a red light. He is angry, and rightly so, for the law has been broken. He chases the car down, pulls it over, writes out a ticket in his own hand, and demands payment on the spot.

No one would call that keeping the traffic law. The law against running red lights is real, but the law also says who enforces it. An officer stops the car, a court hears the case, and a judge passes the sentence. The angry driver who takes the penalty into his own hands has broken the law in the very act of trying to enforce it.

The Torah works in the same way. Its penalties, including the death penalty, were never handed to whoever happened to be standing nearby. They belonged to an appointed court.

Deuteronomy 17:8-9 If a matter be too hard for you for the judgment (mishpat מִשׁפָּט mish-pawt'), between blood and blood, between judgment (din) and judgment (din), and between plague and plague, matters of disputes in your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses in it. And you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days, and you shall inquire, and they shall declare to you the word of the judgment (mishpat).

The steps come in order. A hard case arises “in your gates.” Then “you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses in it.” There “you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days.” And then “they shall declare to you the word of the judgment (mishpat).”

The Hebrew uses two words for judgment in these verses. Mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט) is the judgment, the verdict, the right ruling. Din (דִּין) is the case, the cause brought to be judged. Both lead to the same place, up to where the LORD chooses, before the priests and the judge of those days, and that is where the verdict was given.

The Torah itself, then, built a road from the crime to the sentence. Judges were appointed “in all your gates” (Deuteronomy 16:18), no one was put to death except “at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 17:6), and a case too hard for the judges went up to the priests and the judge at the place the LORD chose. Without them there was no lawful verdict, and without a lawful verdict there was no lawful punishment.

That court does not exist today. The priests are not serving in the place the LORD chose, and the judge of those days does not sit. The authority to pass the sentence lay with that court, and when the court is gone, no private person may take up that authority and use it for himself.

Where the Sword Went

What, then, of the evil that still happens? Does it simply go unpunished?

The New Testament answers that question directly by placing the power to punish with the governing authorities. Chapter 8 touched on the opening of this passage, and here it is in full.

Romans 13:3-4 For rulers are not a fear to good works but to evil — do you want to have no fear of the exousia ἐξουσία ex-oo-see'-ah(authority)? Do what is good and you will have praise from it, for it is a servant of God to you for good; but if you do evil, fear — for it does not bear the sword in vain, for it is a servant of God, an avenger for orge ὀργή or-gay'(wrath) to the one who practices evil.

Paul calls the ruling authority “a servant of God to you for good.” It “does not bear the sword in vain,” and it is “an avenger for orge(wrath) to the one who practices evil.” The word exousia (ἐξουσία) means authority, the right to act. The sword, which is the civil penalty, rests with that authority, and Paul does not hand it to the believers.

The community of believers is given an authority as well, but it is a different and much smaller one.

1 Corinthians 5:12-13 For what is it to me to krino κρίνω kree'-no(judge) those outside? Do you not krino(judge) those inside? But those outside God krino(judges); and "Remove the wicked person from among yourselves."

This is the church’s authority over its own members who persist in evil: it can put them out. It is not given stones. It is given the power to remove someone from its fellowship, and no more.

There is no gap, then. Nothing in this picture asks a believer to take a stone into his own hand.

The Woman in the Center of the Court

One scene in the Gospels bears directly on this. A woman is brought to Yeshua.

John 8:3-6 The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him; but Yeshua stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He did not hear them.

Their question was “What then do You say?” and John tells us why they asked it: “testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him.” It was a trap.

John 8:7-9 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Yeshua was left alone, and the woman where she was, in the center of the court.

They had come with a question meant to trap Him, and He gave them back a condition. One by one, “being convicted by their conscience,” they went out, “beginning with the older ones.” Then He spoke to her.

John 8:10-11 Straightening up, and seeing no one but the woman, Yeshua said to her, "Where are those accusers of yours? Did no one katakrino κατακρίνω kat-ak-ree'-no(condemn) you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Yeshua said, "I do not krino(condemn) you, either; go your way; from now on sin no more."

What Yeshua did here matters, and so does what He did not do.

He did not carry out the penalty. Neither He nor anyone else threw a stone. “I do not krino(condemn) you, either.” The word krino (κρίνω) means to judge, to decide a case, and in that moment He did not pass the sentence on her.

Nor did He abolish the commandment. He did not tell her that adultery no longer mattered, or that the commandment was finished. He said, “from now on sin no more.” The commandment “you shall not commit adultery” stood exactly where it had always stood. He sent her away, not into freedom from the commandment, but into a new life within it.

That is grace, and it is grace that leaves the standard standing. The woman went away uncondemned, with a clear word to sin no more. The scene so often used to say that Yeshua set the law aside shows the opposite. He set aside the stones, and He kept the commandment.

Keeping All of It

The three parts of the challenge can now be put together.

“You cannot pick and choose” is true. And keeping all of it means keeping each commandment in the place, at the time, and by the person that the Torah itself appointed for it.

When there is no temple, not offering sacrifice is keeping the Torah. When there is no court, not carrying out the penalty is keeping the Torah. These are not exceptions invented to escape the hard parts. They are the Torah’s own instructions, read all the way through.

What the challenge misses is that none of this is a reason not to keep the Sabbath, the food laws, and the Ten Commandments. The absence of a temple does not touch the Sabbath. The absence of a court does not loosen the food laws, nor does it make it right to dishonor one’s parents. Those commandments never depended on a temple or a court. They depend on the person who hears them.

Yeshua said as much in the Sermon on the Mount, in words we read closely in Book 1:

Matthew 5:19 Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever keeps and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.

The angry driver who writes his own tickets is not keeping the law. Neither is the driver who decides that, because he may not write tickets, he is now free to run every red light in town.