2 Timothy 3:16 says “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” Exodus 23 is no exception. These are the Words of God.
Exodus 23:1-18
vv. 1-3
We are told not to spread false reports (v. 1), join hands with wicked men, fall in with the many to do evil, bear witness in a lawsuit to pervert justice, nor be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. These are all examples of perverting justice.
Not only are we told not to spread false reports, this goes further and says we are not to receive false reports (v.1). It is a Christian virtue to be wisely skeptical meaning we should not be easily and quickly swayed by unverified reports or rumors or one side of someone’s story (Prov. 18:17).
We are to refrain from even receiving the false report and we certainly want to make sure we are not becoming a malicious witness and perverter of justice by spreading the lie. As Christians we are to be believers and proclaimers of the truth.
In verse 2 we are told not to fall in with the many to do evil or side with the many so as to pervert justice. Mob-justice or mob-rule movements are rampant in our culture right now and they demonstrates that we are a people that has perverted justice.
You see this in socialist movements where the rich or private corporations are vilified simply for having more than the mob. They are deemed evil and guilty simply because they have what the mob wants. In verse 3 we are told not to be partial to the poor just because they are poor.
You see this mob-justice mentality in the me too movement where a woman can claim victimhood and the accused be deemed guilty by the mob with no trial. In our culture right now any one of us (especially men) could be accused of sexual misconduct and the accusation alone would carry enough weight to completely wreck your public reputation and career.
You see this in the racial injustice movements where people are content to vilify and condemn based solely on the color of skin or nation of origin.
You see this in the homosexual and gender-bender movements and where sodomites and transvestites claim victim status when faithful Christians merely do not approve. All you have to do to be accused is to withhold your approval and blessing on their wickedness.
It is way too easy, for Christians especially, to have a knee-jerk reaction, to sympathize with those claiming victimhood, without actually doing the hard work of pursuing justice.
Why does God twice here warn not to be partial to a poor man? Because He knows that people will be tempted to favor the one who most appears to be a victim, or who we feel the victim is.
Offense and victim status can be weaponized and this is precisely why God warns us not to be partial—He knows this weapon of claiming victimhood will be used on us.
Proverbs 18:17 says “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”
So for example if you hear of a young black man being shot by police, as a Christian, your first response should not be a smug attitude that says he was probably a thug, neither should it be outrage at the police. Rather, your response should be, “What are the facts of the case?” Your response should be to pursue justice no matter who it favors.
As bible-believing Christians, you need to be ready for people to bear false reports against you and your fellow brothers and sisters, claiming you offended them or that you victimized them by your faithful adherence to the Holy Word of God.
This is happening all over the western world and even right here in our country. Christians are being accused in legal courts of victimizing sodomites, feminists, transvestites and all kinds of other sexually perverse so-called “victims”. Part of our charge here from Exodus 23 is to refrain from perverting justice.
You may be accused of being on the “wrong side of history.” You may find yourself facing the mob or the court or the congress. But you, Christian, are charged by God Himself (Ex. 23:2) that you would not fall in with the many to do evil or to side with the many to pervert justice.
It does not matter what the LGBTQRS alphabet brigade or any other mob demands, we merely obey our Father who at the end will say to you either “well done good and faithful servant” (Mt. 25:23) or “depart from me you worker of lawlessness, I never knew you” (Mt. 7:23).
vv. 4-5
This is an example of loving our neighbor and specifically, loving our enemy. When Jesus preached the sermon on the mount and He says (Mt. 5:43-44), “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…’”,
He isn’t saying that the Old Testament law taught us to hate our enemies. He is actually aligning Himself with the Law and opposing the pharisee-approved, narrow definition of neighbor.
You may remember the interaction Jesus had with the lawyer who was trying to justify himself (Lk. 10:25-37). He asked Jesus “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds with the parable of the good samaritan and flips the script at the end of that parable and asks the lawyer, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor?
Of course the lawyer knew the correct answer, and wisely answers the one who showed mercy. In that parable the ones who passed by refusing to show mercy failed to be neighbors. Yet by God’ standards in the Old Covenant right here in Exodus 23, they were required to stop and render aid—to be a good neighbor, even to love their enemy.
The God who never changes is the same in the sermon on the mount as He is here in Exodus 23. He expects His people who have been shown great mercy, even while we were His enemies, to likewise show great mercy to our own enemies.
Now, lest we forget what we read in the first three verses, God, in the next verse, lovingly repeats Himself. You shall not pervert justice. It has been said, and I couldn’t agree more, that the besetting sin of modern american Christians is being nice.
vv. 6-9
These verses (vv. 6-7) revisit the charge to not pervert justice but to rather judge as we have been judged. Again we are told not to favor the poor or the perceived victim but with clear sight, judge rightly.
We tend to excuse perverting justice because it feels to us like showing mercy. We excuse perverting justice because we assume (thinking we know better than God) that the only way to let the world feel like we love them is by putting our thumbs on the scales and giving the guilty a free pass. But that is neither right nor safe. We are to uphold justice, not pervert it.
“Do not to kill the innocent and righteous… (v. 7)” We are warned that God will not acquit the wicked. This should especially be a bone-chilling wake up call to any of us who would not actively oppose and speak out against our nation’s wholesale torture and slaughter of pre-born persons—who have been unjustly sentenced to death and heinously and cruelly murdered in what should be the safest place for them on the planet—their own mother’s womb.
Remember well Church that the first sin of Adam was not that he took and ate of the fruit, but that he stood by silently watched as the mother of the living sinned before God (Gen. 3:6).
Again we are told (v. 8) to uphold justice, this time by refusing to be bribed in order to subvert the cause of the one who is actually in the right.
This is followed by a charge (v. 9) to refrain from oppressing sojourners and implies we are to remember where we have come from and to show the same mercy that has been extended to us.
One relevant question is whether or not this speaks at all to our view of modern day immigrants and to our politically charged immigration debates. And the answer is that it absolutely it does.
We can have debates on immigration policy, border security, border walls, etc. But as Christians we may never forget the mercy from our Heavenly Father while we were sojourners and slaves and even enemies.
vv. 10-12
These verses lay out the divine instruction for work and rest. Every seventh year we are to let the land rest, and every seventh day, after we have worked six days, we are to rest.
These are examples of ceremonial laws that, in Jesus Christ, are redeemed and take on new forms. Remember Jesus says He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Mt. 5:17). This means that while Sabbath laws may take on new forms, the command to keep sabbath is no less applicable to us in the new covenant in Christ Jesus.
When it comes to rest for the land, we see in these verses that God was concerned with more than just good agricultural practices. He was concerned with the benefit that would be gained by the poor as well as animals.
We are also, not suggested, but commanded to rest weekly from our regular work. And again, God’s concern even extends to the people we delegate work to as well as beasts of burden. God is concerned that all who work, even the animals, receive weekly rest.
Unfortunately this command is one that isn’t taken as serious as it should be and often times we make excuses for why we don’t observe sabbath rest. But think about this, when you are making those excuses, you are making them to the all-wise Creator and all-loving Father who commanded us to keep the sabbath holy (Ex. 20:8).
All the way back in Genesis at the creation of the world is where we are first introduced to sabbath rest. At creation God set the pattern and the day. However, like I said before, sabbath laws are redeemed and fulfilled in Christ and do in fact take on new forms because the incarnate Son of God—the Word made flesh—was the catalyst for a new creation.
And this is actually why we gather for worship, not on the seventh day (Saturday) like in the old covenant, but on what John calls the Lord’s Day, the resurrection day, the first day. Because just as God rested after His creation work, Jesus rested after His re-creation work, and so we rest in the new creation on Sunday, with the Lord of the Sabbath (Mt. 12:8).
vv. 13-18
First He says we are to keep our lips pure from naming the names of other gods, and then God lays out ceremonial laws that Israel, at that time in history, is to keep. Again, these are examples of laws that are fulfilled in Christ and now in the new covenant, take on new forms.
The laws here that are surrounding observance of three festivals for which every male in Israel is to appear before the Lord God. These festivals are kept in Christ and we observe them every week by coming to the Lord’s table which is the only feast we are commanded to keep in the new covenant (1 Cor. 11:23-26). We will come back to this but first lets briefly look at the feasts.
These three festivals are religious in nature and at the same time they are linked to one another as they relate to the nations agricultural cycle.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread (or Firstfruits) was observed at the time of the barley harvest in March or April. The passover is observed one day before this festival begins. The passover lamb that is to be eaten is what Exodus 23:18 is talking about, along with a week long fast from leaven.
What we must understand now in the new covenant, is that the passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a celebration that points us to the Lamb of God and to His sinless sacrifice and to our gracious redemption.
Fifty days after the passover lamb is slain and the first fruits of the barley harvest are waved before the Lord, comes the Feast of Harvest, which is also known as the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. This is a celebration of the wheat harvest as well as other grain crops.
In Leviticus 23:17 we see that during this festival the law requires an offering of leavened bread that would be a firstfruits to the Lord. So the first festival was that of un-leavening while Pentecost initiates and celebrates a new leaven.
We know that during the time of Jesus this was a celebration of God giving His people the law at Mt. Sinai. And in Acts 2:1-39, we are taught that this old covenant festival is ultimately a foreshadowing of the gift of the Holy Spirit, that God poured out on the day of Pentecost.
So like a better Moses, Jesus ascended up to the Father, but what God sent back down is not mere law on stone like Moses received. Instead, we are given the Holy Spirit who would impress the law of God upon our soft, regenerated hearts and like leaven that leavens the lump, the Spirit would begin to grow us up into Christ and grow and expand His Kingdom. Forever and Ever! World without end!
Again, leavened was forbidden at the first feast but commanded at the second. Even though Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper at Passover and Unleavened Bread which pictures for us a seven day de-creation where the old leaven of Egypt or sin and death is cleared out, the second feast pictures for us a new harvest, a new leaven, a new creation.
Jesus says from His Heavenly throne (Rev. 21:5), “Behold, I am making all things new.” Or as Paul declares (2 Cor. 5:17), “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
The third feast that all the males were required to appear in Jerusalem for was the Feast of Ingathering (also known as the Feast of Booths). It was during this feast, that celebrated the final gathering of the harvest, that Israel, over the course of seven days, was commanded to sacrifice 70 bulls.
Perhaps God arbitrarily chose 70 bulls to sacrifice or perhaps this is pointing us back to Genesis 10 where the generations of Noah’s descendants are listed out to describe 70 nations which were representative of (if not literally) the entire world.
In fact, in Zechariah 14:16-19 we are told that after the day of the Lord all nations and the families of the earth will be expected to keep the Feast of Booths.
In other words, this feast is ultimately pointing us to Emmanuel, God with us, and the Lord of the Harvest who would receive the nations as His inheritance. Yes, people from every nation, tribe, and tongue, but more than that, He will save the Nations.
Hear the words of John the Revelator (Rev. 21:23-27).
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Invitation to the Lord’s Table
As we prepare to come to the Lord’s Table, I want to sum up again these three feasts and help us to see that each time we come to the Lord’s Table we are celebrating the fulfillment of what these three festivals were ultimately pointing us to.
Remember Exodus 23:18 says we are not to leave any of the slain lamb until morning. Well if you look back at Genesis 1 you will see evening precedes morning. It is dark before the dawn and this is precisely how the Jews calculated their days. Us moderns count our days from midnight but the Israelites’ day began at evening (around 6pm).
This is also a type of the old covenant as a whole. In a sense you could understand the entire old covenant as the dark night before Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:2) arises, who is the Light of the world (Jn. 8:12).
These three feasts are kicked off with the death of a lamb and a seven day de-creation and un-leavening. But we are not left empty and without leaven. No! The feasts go on to point us not only to a de-creation but also to the re-creation, the new creation in Christ and the new leaven of the Spirit (Acts 2) and of His Kingdom (Mt. 13:33).
We are pointed to a new Sabbath on the eighth day, Sunday, the day of our Lord’s resurrection, when the body of sin and death were nowhere to be found. And they are pointing us to the final victory of Christ and of His gospel when God will gather the nations that He has purchased not with the blood of bulls and goats that had to be offered year after year, but as sinless the Lamb of God, He purchased them with his blood one time and for all.
Christians, as we come today, we are proclaiming to the nations, the victorious death of the Lamb who was slain that they and you may and must come from darkness to light and from death to life. So as you trust in Him, come and welcome to Jesus Christ.
Charge To The Congregation
Please stand and receive your charge. In the beginning God placed Adam and Eve on the earth and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion of the earth. They were the leaven. But they fell. And so God sent Jesus, the better Adam and by His Holy Spirit, He has made a new humanity in His new creation. Your charge is this, be leavened by the Spirit. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and obey Him. Refuse to pervert justice. Gather on the Lord’s Day with the church to worship and to war. And in all this leavening go out into the world and be leaven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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