Joshua 20:1-9: A city of refuge

Joshua 20:1-9

                            Hebrews 2:14-18

Cities of Refuge

We live in a sinful world.

I don’t need to convince you of that.

The clearest evidence that we live in a sinful world is that people die.

Death is the consequence of sin.

Sadly we live in such a sinful world that the “sanctity” and “preciousness” of life has also been lost.

Millions of babies are killed in the womb each year, because they are just an “inconvenience” for people’s lifestyles.

Life is cheap.

Some babies are killed in the womb in each year because they have some sort of “defect”. And so the baby born with down syndrome or some other defect is somehow devalued.

We live in a society which neglects older people.

They are considered past their used by date.

We live in a world where some would consider some lives more valuable than others. Some lives are considered more expendable than others.

Adolf Hitler considered the lives of Jewish people expendable back in the 1930s and 1940s, as he squeezed millions of Jewish people into a gas chambers and slaughtered them. 

Why?

Because he didn’t acknowledge the “sanctity of all human life”, in fact he didn’t even consider a Jewish life human…he just considered them pigs to be slaughtered.

Friends, all lives are precious, all lives are valuable.

This is the basis of what we believe.

In Genesis 1:26, it tells us:

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God, He created him,

male and female he created them

Friends, the value of a human life doesn’t come from the colour of the skin, it doesn’t come from where you were born, it doesn’t come from what you do, it doesn’t come from how healthy you are…..no, the value of human life comes from an external source, it comes from God who made human beings in his image.

You are valuable because God made you, and he made you in his image.

All human beings, whatever shape and size they come in, have infinite value, because all humans have been made in the image of God.

And God values each and every human life, so much so, that if someone took the life of another human, then God demanded a price would have to be paid, justice would have to be served.

Just look at what God said to Noah after the flood, this is from Genesis 9:6

Whoever sheds the blood of man,

By man shall his blood be shed

For God made man in his own image

God made it clear after the flood, that if someone took someone else’s life, their life would also be taken……a life for a life.

This is the law of retribution, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.

Now, this law of retribution helped to maintain fair justice.

And so the man who lost his eye in a fight, could not go and kill the whole village of the man who did that to him…….that would be vengeance on steroids. The vengeance would just spiral deeper and deeper.  There would never be a balance of justice!

No, the law of retribution, an eye for an eye, a life for a life, was a way that true justice could be served without vengeance spiralling out of control.

Now, that sounds good in theory, but we know we live in a grey world, we know accidents happen, and so what do you do when someone is killed by accident, what if a life is taken by accident? What happens then?

What happened in the days of Joshua?

What if, like the example given to us in Deuteronomy 19:5-6…..what if, two blokes went out into the forest to cut some wood, and as one of them was swinging the axe, the axe head flew off and hit the other bloke in the head and killed him.

What happened then?

There was no hate between these brothers, there was no intention to kill, the axe flew off and this man died. One man had unintentionally killed another.

Should his life be taken?

He had taken the life of another, but it was an accident?

Now, in the days of Joshua, if you were a family member of the bloke who died, (the one who had the axe head hit him) you may have wanted to take justice into your own hands. And if you followed the law of retribution, you would have every right, an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life, and so you would find the man who killed your family member and you would kill him. His blood would be avenged.

However, because there was no intent to kill……it was an accident, justice was carried out in a different way.

God, in his mercy, made provisions for a person who had unintentionally committed manslaughter, which meant he could escape the death penalty.

What could this man slayer do, after the axe head had flew off and killed his friend?

1.        He would run

He would run because he knew that his man’s family would soon be after him to avenge for his blood.

He would run to one of the six cities of refuge that God had set up across the promised land.

There were six cities of refuge he could run to, but obviously he would run to the one closest one.

These cities of refuge were Kadesh, Shechem, kiraiath- arba, Bezer, Ramoth and Golan, and they were spread evenly across the land.

By the way, there is extra biblical evidence to suggest the roads to these cities where well sign posted and so people would have known how to get there and more importantly they could get there quick as they escaped those who wanted to avenge their blood.

So one, the axe thrower would run, and two….

2.        Then when he arrived at the city of refuge, he would present his case to the elders of the city.

“Look, I was chopping some wood with my mate Dave in the Forrest, when the axe head flew off, hit Dave square in the eyes and killed him. It was an accident, I like Dave, I didn’t mean to kill him, the axe head is normally on tight, I don’t know how it came loose, I didn’t know what to do, so I ran here….”

The elders would hear his case and take him into their city under their protection……and so if those people who were seeking revenge came to the city, the elders would protect him from them as he awaited a fair trial.

Now, when the manslayer had gone through due process and he had a fair trial, his life would not be taken from him, but he would still be punished.

He would have to stay in this city of refuge until the day that the high priest died. He wouldn’t be allowed to go back to his family and village and if he ever did leave that city of refuge then his life was again fair game for the avengers of blood. He was no longer under the elders protection.

The family could avenge the blood of their family member by taking his life.

Now, we can’t take this judicial system and apply it exactly to the Australia we live in today. For example we don’t have cities of refuge, but we do have prisons. We don’t have cities of refuge but we do have police custody while someone is awaiting trial.

And so we can’t take this system from Isreal thousands of years ago and apply it directly to our system here in Australia today,

However, there are some timeless principles we can still apply today.

The first timeless truth is this:

God’s justice and mercy applies to all people

God’s justice and mercy applies to all people

Just look at verse 9 with me:

These were the cities designated for all people of Israel and for the stranger sojourning among them.

You see friends, these cities of refuge were both a place of protection or refuge but also acted as a prison at the same time. These cities of refuge where places where both God’s mercy and God’s justice could be executed for all people. These places protected all people from their avenger and so God’s mercy was open for all people, whether Israelite or foreigner, and at the same time, these places is where God’s justice was executed, as the person who had took a life was held prisoner.

God’s justice was executed for all people, both Israelite and foreigner.

The Israelites didn’t get any special treatment because they were Israelites, NO, all people were judged on what they had done and punished according to their crime, whether Israelite or foreigner.

Friends, the scriptures tell us in Romans 3, that we all stand guilty before God. We are all sinners, we all fall short of God’s glory. None of us stand before God more or less guilty than the person next to us. NO, we all are in the same boat. We all deserve God’s judgment, we all deserve death. Some are not more deserving than others, we are all equally as guilty, we all equally deserve death.

None of us can plead our innocence.

And yet praise God, each of us has equal access to God’s mercy through the great high priest- Jesus.

Did you notice the clear shadow of Jesus in this passage from Joshua?

Look at verse 6 again with me:

And he shall remain in that city until he has stood before the congregation for judgment, until the death of him who is high priest at the time. Then the man slayer may return to his own town and his own home, to the town from which he fled

In other words, the only way the man slayer could return home, was when the current high priest died, otherwise, they would be trapped in the city of refuge forever.

Now remember, there was only one high priest in Israel.

He was the priest who went into the tabernacle once a year, on the day of Atonement and a made a sacrifice for all of God’s people. He made sacrifices for all sins, those intentional, those unintentional.

Aaron who was Moses’ brother-in-law was the first high priest.

And so when the high priest at the time died, all the man slayers who were in the cities of refuge could be set free and go home.

It is almost like the life of the high priest paid for the life of not only the person that was killed, but also the life of the person who accidently killed him. The death of the high priest avenged the blood that was spilt.

Both the life of the person who was killed was respected and the life of the person who accidently killed him was respected.

Both lives where respected.

The life of the high priest paid the price for both the slayer and the slayed.

What a beautiful picture of the gospel.

Just look at Hebrews 2:17 with me:

Therefore he (Jesus) had to be made like his brothers in every respect (fully human), so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

Friends, this is the gospel- the good news.

Jesus, God’s one and only son, became human, so that he could truly pay our debt, one human life for another. Jesus acted as our high priest, so that when he died on that cross, he died the death we deserved for our sins, he paid for all our sins, he absorbed them onto his body.  He made a propitiation for our sins.

And just like the manslayer was totally dependent on the high priest’s death for his freedom, we are totally dependent on the death and resurrection of Jesus for our freedom.

But Jesus is even better than the high priest of old, who died and stayed dead, because

Jesus, our high priest not only came back to life, but get this, he paid for all our sins, those things we have done intentionally wrong, those things that have been unintentional, those things which may seem big, and those things which may seem small….Jesus died for everyone one of them.

Not only that, but he has prepared an eternal home with him, and which we get a glimmer of now, as his spirit dwells in our hearts.

And yet perhaps even better than all of that, is this.

It doesn’t matter what sins you have committed

It doesn’t matter whether they were intentional or not

It doesn’t matter what you have done

It doesn’t matter where you come from

It doesn’t matter what family you come from

No, the only requirement for you to receive God’s mercy, to have forgiveness, to have all your guilt and shame taken away, to have life with God, is to acknowledge that you, like me are a sinner, who needs a saviour.

We need to run to him, our refuge, our strength.

We need a high priest who has paid the price for us- His name is Jesus.

Let us pray.