May 4, 2025 - Leviticus 24:19,20 - "An Eye For An Eye"

Leviticus 24:19,20

"And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again."

Many today decry this law as being passed. They say it's outdated. They say it's brutal and inhumane. They say we ought to love. Even though someone's taken another man's life, we ought to still love them and not respond in kind. What's happening is that justice is being sacrificed on the altar of love, and there's no exaction of justice for the crimes of men. You wonder why things are the way they are today. We build prisons instead of doing what the scriptures say, and there are consequences. There are consequences whenever you trifle with justice, whether in the courts of men or God's justice as He sets it forth in His Word.

First, when you trifle with justice, you've perverted it. That means that every generation that follows, there's going to be that much more ignorance concerning what justice is. From our growing up to today, you look at how far we are removed from justice in our laws of the land and the things that pertain to justice that are so far removed from this Word and what's revealed here.

Second, even worse than that, it blinds men as to the true nature of God as a Just God. You talk about, in our day, people not understanding the sovereignty of God, they don't understand the justice of God because they don't see an example of it in our society. Those who have been set up as judges to establish justice, if a person wants to get off the hook, all he has to do is keep appealing until he finds somebody who will agree with his case, regardless of whether justice has been satisfied or not.

There's no true concept of God's justice with regard either to the salvation of sinners or to the condemnation of sinners. How does God save sinners justly? He does it through the death of a Substitute. He's not just closing an eye and saying, okay, I know they're sinners, but I'm going to forgive them anyway, because I love them. No, for God to be just and justify sinners in salvation, there had to be an answer to His justice. That's what this whole message of the Gospel is about. It's the good news for sinners that there has been an answer to it. When God opens a sinner's eyes to see it, they rejoice.

God's salvation must be legal and just. And the Good News is that His justice has been completely satisfied. God put his own Son to death that He might be a Just God and Savior. Now that's justice! The same apjustplies to the just condemnation of sinners as well as those whom God saves. People ask this question all the time: "How could God send sinners to hell that He created?" The answer is that He loves His righteousness. Without a substitute, without a ransom, without a just payment for sin, the sinner is going to know nothing but the eternal wrath of God. God must require justice, either at the hands of His Substitute, Christ, or at the hands of the sinner. If it's at the hands of a sinner, even an eternity in hell would never be enough to pay for the sin of one man. That's how just God is. That's why it's eternal condemnation.

There are three aspects of Gospel truth that we see concerning God and His justice satisfied for elected sinners, not all, but those of His eternal choosing (Romans 9:15-27). First of all, the Lord's righteousness. Second, His justice. You ask, aren't those both the same? They are similar but separate, and the distinction is important. Third, His mercy.

First, the LORD’s righteousness refers to His moral perfection, the holy standard by which He judges all things. It is not a righteousness that He requires from man for salvation, for all have sinned and come short of it (Romans 3:23), but the righteousness which He has imputed in Christ, when the LORD Jesus earned and established it to God, His Father's satisfaction. This righteousness is revealed in the Gospel (Romans 1:17), fulfilled by Christ's perfect obedience to the law on behalf of His people, and imputed to them freely by grace, and received through faith when the Spirit of God reveals Christ in the heart of the elected sinner. It is this Righteousness that justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5), not by their works, but by Christ alone.

Second, His justice refers to God's holy requirement that sin must be punished. God cannot deny Himself; He cannot clear the guilty without a satisfaction made. Therefore, in Christ, justice is not set aside but fully upheld. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), meaning Christ bore the guilt of His elect and endured the wrath they deserved. The cross is where justice and mercy met, for God is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). Justice demanded death for sin, and Christ paid that debt in full for every soul chosen in Him.

Third, His mercy is the free and sovereign expression of God’s love toward the unworthy. Mercy does not contradict justice but flows from the satisfaction of it. God does not save sinners at the expense of justice but through it, having laid their iniquities upon His Son. Mercy is God’s delight (Micah 7:18), but it is always exercised in Christ. He shows mercy to whom He will (Romans 9:15), and all to whom He shows mercy, He draws to Christ, justifies, regenerates, and glorifies. Therefore, salvation is "not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy" (Romans 9:16).

These three—righteousness, justice, and mercy—shine brightly in the Gospel of Christ, all harmonized in the glorious work of redemption, all glorifying the triune God in the salvation of His elect. Leviticus 24:19–20 required exact justice, not vengeance, but restitution. Christ, as the divinely appointed Substitute, endured the full measure of Divine justice due to His people. In Him, the law was vindicated. So the death of Christ satisfies the "eye for eye" demand—not by enacting it against sinners, but by enacting it upon the sinless Christ in their place.