Moses and the Midianites

God’s treatment of Midian in Numbers 25 seems harsh, but we need to understand that a serious spiritual battle was going on. If the spiritual powers of evil had been able to win this one, God’s plans for Israel would have been seriously set back. The background information relevant to this issue can be found in Old Testament Violence and God and War. My book called Kingdom Authority is important too.

The Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea was an not just a military victory, it was an important spiritual victory. The Egyptians chased the Israelites out of their land. Spiritual powers were not interested in slaves, so they had ignored the Israelites. So when they were shut out of the land, they were mostly evil-spirit free. God wanted them to stay that way.

The attacks by Sihon of the Amorites and Og of Bashan were military attacks. With the Lord’s help, the people were able to defend themselves and defeat the attackers.

Numbers 22-25 describes a much more serious battle. The Midianites with support of the Moabites launched a spiritual attack against the children of Israel. They first bought in a prophet called Balaam and paid him to put a curse on the Israelites. However, Balaam was slightly honest, and open to the Lord’s voice. When the Lord told him to bless Israel and not to curse them he did as he was told. When Balaam had completed his last oracle/prophecy, it seemed like the Lord has achieved a mighty victory over the spiritual powers of evil that controlled Midian (Num 23-24).

Unfortunately, these spiritual powers had another trick up their sleeve (Num 25). They sent attractive Moabite and Midianite women to seduce the Israelite men. One of the women was a daughter of one of the leading men of the Midianites (Num 25:15)Then once they had engaged in sexual immorality, they persuaded them to join in the worship of Baal of Peor, an evil spiritual power. This incident was not just an orgy that got out of control. It was an intense spiritual attack. When they committed adultery and worshipped Baal of Peor, they gave the Cosmos Dominator that controlled this false god and the spirits that worked with him permission to enter their lives and control them. This would have been a disaster, because Israel would have gone from being relatively evil-spirit free to being controlled by powerful spirits.

Because Jesus had not yet died on the cross, Moses did not have the ability to cast these demonic powers out. So God had to do the only thing that he could do to defeat the spiritual powers. He told Moses to kill the leaders of the people who had committed adultery and expose them in daylight. Once these men had died, the evil spirit that had entered them left and went back to where they had come from. The people of Israel stayed away from them to keep spiritually false.

The spiritual powers of evil over-reacted and attacked the rest of the people who had sinned with a pestilence/plague. Once these 24000 had died, these spirits had to leave them, because the rest of the people had chosen to stay loyal to God, so they could not enter their lives.

God told the Israelites to treat the Midianites harshly. This is not the way he likes working, but he had to deal with a situation where his plans were under threat due to an intense spiritual attack. He said to Moses,

Harass the Midianites, and attack them; for they harassed you with their tricks by which they seduced you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian (Num 25:17-18).

Moses was not just defending the people of Israel against a military attack. He was dealing with a clever spiritual attack, with very few spiritual weapons, because he was operating prior to cross when the spiritual powers of evil had not yet been defeated. His people were being spiritually harassed. They only way that he could deal with this was to use physical force against the leaders who had made the people vulnerable to this attack.

God then told Moses to engage in war against the Midianites (Num 31:1-2). They would be living close to the Israelites and would continue to be a spiritual threat to the Israelites. The last thing did before he died was to organise a battle against the Midianites. They killed the kings of Midian and the women who had tried to seduce them into the ways of evil.

After the battle, the men who had fought had to cleanse themselves to protect themselves from picking up evil spirits (Num 31:19-24). Eleazer, the priest, told them what to do. Any soldier who killed anyone, or had touched anyone who was killed had to remain outside the camp for a week. On the third and the seventh day, they had to purify themselves and their clothing. They did this to ensure that they did not carry any evil spirits back into the camp.

Any gold, silver, bronze, iron tin and lead that they had captured had to be passed through a fire. This burning purified the metal and ensured that evil spirits did not come into the camp on the metal that had been used to make idols.

This battle was one of the few which was not started in response to a physical attack. However, it was a defensive battle. It was fought to overcome a serious spiritual attack that put God’s purposes for Israel at risk. Harsh tough action was needed because the threat was serious, and the consequences of losing were terrible.

Since the cross, we have powerful weapons for dealing with the spiritual powers of evil. So we no longer need to engage in this kind of war. Christians who use war for spiritual purposes have failed to understand the cross. We now use spiritual weapons for resisting spiritual attacks.

God and Violence (14) God’s Silence

When Jesus was serving in the world, he would not let the demons speak. The first one he encountered called out,

What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24).

The demons’ words were correct. Jesus is the Holy one. He had come to destroy the power of the spiritual powers of evil. Jesus could have said, “You are dead right”, but he did not. He commanded the demon to be silent (Mark 1:25).

Jesus did not allow the powers of evil to control his revelation of his character or his plans. Jesus did not want to be associated with the word “destroy”, because it would be misunderstood, even though it was true. He wanted to associate his ministry with the word redeem, which was much more positive. He did not want to give the demons to gain glory for themselves by proclaiming the truth.

The same principle applied in the Old Testament. God does not give glory to the spiritual powers of evil. He does not want them given any glory. So he does not ascribe all the violence and evil that they are doing to them. The result is that he often gets blamed for the stuff that the powers of evil were doing. He prefers to remain silent about their actions in the world, because he does not want them getting unnecessary glory. Although he could blame them, he remained silent, even though it means that he often gets blamed for things that he has not done.

This complete series of posts can be read at God and Violence.

God and Violence (13) Voluntary Law

The system of government that God gave in the Laws of Moses is entirely voluntary. There is no provision for the use of force to coerce people into complying with the law. We are so used to the existence of police and military power to enforce the laws of nation that we assume that the same system of coercion existed in the Laws of Moses. The surprising truth is that they are totally missing.

God did not establish any group or agency to enforce the Laws of Moses. His laws are entirely voluntary. People will obey the law because they are committed to God’s covenant and wanted to receive the benefits that flow from it.

• The Law of Moses does not have any agency with police powers. There is no police force to arrest people who broke the law.

• There are no prisons in the Laws of Moses. They only mention of prison is in Numbers 33:34, where the people held a person in custody while waiting for God to show them what they should do about Sabbath breaking. This was not a general justification for imprisonment. There is no provision for using imprisonment for punishment.

• There is not compulsory taxation in the Laws of Moses. The people were to share their tithes with the Levites and the poor, but there was no organisation to enforce and deliver the tithe. Each person would decide which poor people they would share their tithes with. If someone refused to tithe, the Priests and the Levites had to power to enforce it.

• There is no bureaucracy of executive power in the Law of Moses.

• God gave laws required the cancellation of debt and the return of land after seven years and at the time of the Jubilee. However, he did not establish an agency to enforce these requirements. He expected the people to freely act on these laws, because they loved God and were committed to the covenant.

• Judges could specify financial restitution for various crimes. However, they did not have the power to enforce the payment of this restitution.

Pressure to act on God’s laws would come from the rest of the community. However, the only power that the community had was to exclude someone who failed to acknowledge the law and decisions of judges from their community. Belong to a community was a privilege. If people refused to honour the covenant that was the basis for the community, they could be excluded from the activities of the community.

More at Voluntary Justice.

God and Violence (12) God-breathed

God inspired the scriptures, but humans wrote them using the language and words that were familiar to them. The Holy Spirit spoke into their minds, but they wrote his thoughts in their own words. His ideas were quite radical, so he often had difficulty getting them to write them down correctly.

When the Holy Spirit was inspiring the scriptures, he was engaging in cross behaviour. He was doing an important task with people that he did not control. He could put thoughts in their minds, but he could not make them use the words he wanted. Sometimes writers used a word that was not the best one for what the Holy Spirit was wanting to say. Provided that the word conveyed the meaning, he would make do with what they put. We must seek the meaning he wanted conveyed.

Moses was responsible for recording the Laws for Society. The only law that he knew was what he had learnt from the Egyptians. Their laws were ugly, ruthless and vindictive. He had also learnt a bit about God from his mother, but his knowledge was limited. The Holy Spirit gave him a set of laws that was radically different. Getting Moses to write them down accurately was extremely difficult.

Moses probably thought that the laws he wrote down were harsher than they were. The Holy Spirit was getting him to record a set of laws that were less violent than he expected. This was cross behaviour, because the Spirit was committed to working through a human who limited his ability to communicate.

Moses sometimes used words that were not exactly right, but the Holy Spirit went along provided the word supported his meaning. We have to look behind what Moses wrote to understand the message the Holy Spirit was communicating. We have to find the ideas that the words carry for him, even if Moses did not understand them. The key question is “What was the Holy Spirit saying to us here?”

Hebrew words often have a range of meaning. Moses often intended the harsher meaning, but the Holy Spirit wanted a milder meaning. If we read the Old Testament with violence in our hearts, we will get the violent message. If we listen to the Holy Spirit as we are reading, we will discover his pure message.

God and Violence (11) Misunderstood

The violence in the Old Testament has been misunderstood due to poor translation and interpretation. Much of the violence attributed to God was actually initiated and perpetuated by the spiritual powers of evil. Part of the problem is translation. Traditional translations often choose the most violent possible translation of the worlds. There are three reasons why they do this.

1. Justification for Israelite violence. The Israelites perpetrated violence that was not commanded by God. Violent translations of God’s commands justify that violence, incorrectly. This feeds through to support for Israeli violence in the modern world.
2. To support empire and political power. Once Christians began colluding with the Roman empire, they needed a justification for the violence of the Roman army. They found it in harsh translations of the Old Testament. This reason is still used in support of military power and empire in the modern world.
3. Harsh translations of the Old Testament allow people to justify seeking revenge in their personal circumstances.

We need a much better translation of the Old Testament that would help us to understand better what is happening (see Spiritual Warfare during the Exodus).

God and Violence (9) Last Resort

Because God uses violence to accomplish his purposes, we cannot say that he is absolutely opposed to violence. In situations where he has limited authority, this is the only way that he can get his will done. He seems to be able to use evil to restrain evil. In this way, he uses evil to achieve good. We do not have his wisdom, so he forbids from trying to do the same (Rom 12:21).

God sometimes had to allow his people to use violence to protect themselves from being defeated by the spiritual powers of evil. Killing the Midianites is an example. The women had seduced the men once before and nearly destroyed the nation, so Moses could not risk that happening again. They would be more subtle and clever and harder to resist the second time.

However, it is clear that God strongly prefers not to use violence. He would sooner convict people and change their hearts by the Holy Spirit. However, because people are free, that is not always possible. In a world where he had limited authority, because he had given authority to humans who had lost it to the spiritual powers of evil, he sometimes had to use violence to accomplish his purposes.

God only uses violence as a last resort. He is perfectly wise, so he knows when it is justified. In the same way, humans should only use violence as a last resort. We do not have the same wisdom as God, so we are at risk of using violence when it is not appropriate. In most situations, violence is not the best option.

God and Violence (8) Desperate Situation

Before judging God, we must understand how desperate the situation was during the Old Testament age. Humans had given the spiritual powers of evil a free rein and they took full advantage. Prior to the flood, they nearly destroyed the earth. The flood got rid of some of them, but the rest still had authority to be on earth.

Through Abraham and Moses, God established a people in a small area of land, but it was still touch and go. If Egypt had recovered and attacked them in the wilderness, the new strategy would have come to an end before it got started, so it was just as well the Egyptians enemies were destroyed. Likewise, if a powerful empire had invaded and destroyed the Israelites once they were in the land, all would have been lost.

Jesus death on the cross is unbelievable. A god allowing himself to be tortured, tormented and killed by beings that he created is a bizarre idea. We are now so familiar with the cross, that we take it for granted, but it was a shocking event. Gods do not allow the objects they have created to harm them. The fact that Jesus had to die shows what a serious threat the spiritual powers of evil are to life on earth. If Jesus had been killed by Herod as a baby, God’s bold strategy of coming as a baby would have failed. I do not know if he had a Plan B, but it hard to imagine what it might be, once his son was dead (Matt 21:33-45).

The gospels say that Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross. Paul explains that it was the spiritual powers of evil who did it (1 Cor 1:2). That is why the world was so dark. The crucifixion was not just a nasty incident by a brutal political power. It was a tense moment in a brutal struggle that had been going on since the beginning.

The situation on earth was desperate, so desperate that the God who had created it had to die. It had been desperate from the time of Adam’s sin until Jesus was raised to heaven. God had limited authority on earth. He had to do what did, or just surrender the earth to the spiritual powers of evil as a permanent possession. God refused to do that, so he did what did, even though it was nasty at times.
Modern critics are looking for the cross-like behaviour in the Old Testament. This is the wrong way around. They should be looking at the Old Testament and seeing the desperation that made the cross necessary.

Some of the things that God had to do in the Old Testament do not reflect his character, except for his desperate love for the earth and the people that he had created. When he did what needed to be done, he acted in a way that is contrary to his character. That was a cross he had to bear to deal with the mess that humans had made. He loved us so much, he was willing to appear evil to rescue us.

The cross does not really reveal his full character either. It was a clever trick that fooled the spiritual powers of evil. They walked into it and deserved what they got, because they are tricky, but deceit is not what a good person does. The cross caused terrible suffering for God’s son. That is not what a loving father does, but in this case God was desperate.

I see his character more fully revealed in the ascension and outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that allow him to work in the hearts of a people who love him because he loves them. That is his true nature.

Humans put God in a situation where had to act in ways that are contrary to his character. It is a bit rich for us to criticise him for not complying with our standards of behaviour.

God and Violence (7) Purpose

God had to use the spiritual powers to accomplish his purposes. Of course, he can use evil spirits if they do his will by mistake, but he cannot make them do things they do not want to do. They are in rebellion against God, so they prefer to do the opposite of what he wants. However, they love violence so they are quite happy to engage in violence, even against other evil spirits that are opposed to God too.

The spiritual powers of evil are not very smart and mostly do what they have done before. If God puts an idea in their minds, they will usually run with it, if it provides an opportunity for them to be violent. The powers of evil love violence so they are quite happy to use violence against their own side. One was happy to be a deceiver when God suggested that to him, because he wanted to destroy a king (1 Kings 22:22).

God uses powerful evil nations to accomplish his purposes. He uses bad nations to destroy evil nations. For example, he used Cyrus of Persia to destroy the Babylonian empire. So while God, might not have organised the violence, he colluded with violent nations to accomplish his purposes. He had no alternative, because he had such limited authority on earth. No other means were open to him in the situation.

While the spiritual powers are doing evil, God seems to trick them into doing what he wants them to. He can accomplish his purposes by manipulating them to destroy other evil. He does not make them more evil. Instead, he gives them ideas to change the direction of the evil that they would be doing evil anyway. They switch from meaningless evil to doing evil that allows God to achieve his goals in the world.

God uses the spiritual powers of evil to accomplish his purposes. They are often extremely violent. They led Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea, where they were destroyed. Could God have stopped this from happening? I don’t think so. He did not have any authority once the Israelites had departed, so the powers of evil had a free hand to destroy the Egyptian army. I presume they did it for their enjoyment. However, it did have the benefit of protecting the children of Israel from being pursued by the people that they had escaped from.

God and Violence (6) Limited Authority

During the Old Testament age, God had limited authority on earth. He had given humans authority over the earth, but they surrendered it to the spiritual powers of evil. God had given this authority without recourse, so he could not demand it back when humans messed it up. He had to deal with the spiritual powers of evil, but they had more authority on earth than he had.

To change the situation on earth, God had to fight an enemy that he did not have authority to fight, because humans had given the spiritual powers of evil permission to operate on earth. He could not attack them directly or destroy them, so he had to deal with them obliquely in the spiritual realm.

God’s lack of authority severely limited the scope of what God could do on earth. He was fighting against a ruthless and violent enemy with very little ability to fight back. He sometimes had to resort to using violent nations to hold back the worst of evil and protect his growing work on earth.

God could not touch the spiritual powers of evil while they were working on earth, as they had authority to be there. However, he still had authority in the spiritual realms, so he had to work there, by deceiving and manipulating the powers of evil. Because they are evil and love violence, he was mostly limited to getting them to stir up violence on earth. They were not interested in doing good things, of course.

By persuading the spiritual powers to fight against each other, and getting the strong nations to attack evil nations and empires, he was able to constrain the worst effects of evil on earth. Working in this way was not ideal, but it was better than letting the spiritual powers of evil get out of control.

God does his own dirty work. Humans had allowed the evil powers in, but God did not expect us to force them out. He chose to do the necessary violence himself, so we would not have to engage in violence. He initiates violent judgment when it has to be used so that we do not have to be violent.

God and Violence (5) Unavoidable

God gave authority on earth to humans. When they rebelled against God, they unwittingly handed authority over to the spiritual powers of evil. God was unable to work on earth because the spiritual powers of evil were in control. They embarked on a millennium of evil as they sought to destroy God’s good creation. God could only intervene on earth if humans gave him authority to act and that did not happen very often, so he was limited in what he could do to turn the situation around.

Once God has chosen Abraham and brought his people into the promised land, he had a place where he had authority to work. However, he had to protect his work from the spiritual powers of evil trying to use the power of empires and nations to destroy it. He could not destroy the spiritual powers, because they had authority to be on earth, given to them by humans. So, God had to resist the armies and kings of the nations that tried to wreck his work.

Once the spiritual powers of evil had seized control of the world, violence became necessary. The worst violence was that done against Jesus on the cross. He surrendered to violence in order to break the power of violence and evil. Prior to Jesus, God had to use violence to constrain their actions and prevent them getting out of hand.

The spiritual powers of evil use God’s justice against him. God’s character requires justice. He is publicly committed to doing justice. Even though they do not believe in it, the powers of evil demand justice on earth. Once God said that life is in the blood, they demanded blood for all sins. They used God standards for justice against his people. They demanded that God punish all sin, and if he showed mercy, they demanded the right to execute judgement and punishment on sinful people. In the incident with the Golden calf, God showed mercy, but the powers of evil demanded plague and death (Ex 32:14,35).

Once humans surrendered to the powers of evil, they were owned by them. The spiritual powers of evil refused to give them back to God unless humans paid the price they demanded, which was blood. If humans had done that, they would be dead, which would not help them. God sent Jesus and allowed the spiritual powers of evil to kill him and take his blood to pay the price that they demanded. His death redeemed us because it met the demands of the powers of evil.

Jesus’ violent death destroyed the authority of the spiritual powers of evil to be on earth. The outpouring of the Spirit allowed him to work through love. The spiritual powers of evil still trespass on earth, but God now prefers that we engage in spiritual battle and use the power of the cross to prevent them doing evil, because that is more effective.

God and Violence (4) Our Sake

The truth is that humans are the ones responsible. God created humans and gave them authority over the world. Humans invited the powers of evil into the world, so we are really the ones responsible for the consequences. Humans love to point the finger and blame God for evil, but we are the ones responsible for evil getting a hold on earth, so we cannot shift the blame back to him. Humans are responsible for every evil that occurs on earth. When God takes responsibility for things that humans caused, he carries our burden.

God takes the blame for what the powers of evil do because, if he spoke the truth, he would have to put the blame on humans. He does not want to do that because it would give the powers of evil another reason to accuse and attack us. God does not want to give them any more grounds for hurting us, so he takes the blame to protect us. He is still speaking the truth, as he is ultimately responsible because he created the powers of evil.

This is another situation where God took our sin and carried it. Humans allowed the powers of evil to seize authority on earth, but the scriptures do not put the blame on us. Instead, God carries the responsibility. For example, the spirit of wrath is called God’s wrath, but he should really be called humans’ wrath because it was humans who gave him a place on earth. God chose not to point the finger at humans during the Old Testament age in order to protect them. If he had accused us, that would have given the spiritual powers of evil extra ammunition to use against us.

God carried our burden by allowing the spiritual powers and the people world to blame him for evil. This foreshadowed Jesus carrying our sins and allowing the powers of evil to punish him. He allowed them to punish him, so we would not need to be punished. This is what the Lord had been doing through the Old Testament age. He accepted unjust blame for evil to prevent humans being further harmed by the powers of evil.

God could carry this burden without lying because he created humans and the spiritual powers, so he is ultimately responsible as their designer and maker. If he had not made them, they would not be able to do evil. He takes responsibility for the way that he set up the world.

God and Violence (3) Responsibility

God does not shirk his responsibility for the beings that he created, even when they do evil. The spiritual powers of evil were created by God and then rebelled, so they belong to him. Therefore, responsibility for their actions can be linked back to God. This is why the scriptures often say that God will do something, even though it later becomes clear that it was one of the spiritual powers of evil that did it.

For example, the scriptures often say that “the wrath of the Lord is aroused”. This makes it sound like God is angry. However, wrath is not one of God’s emotions, but an evil spirit called Wrath who loves doing evil on earth (Ps 78:49; 1 Cor 10:10). He is called God’s wrath because God created him, but he is not under God’s control.

In the same way, the destroying angel that killed the firstborn of the Egyptians is one of the spiritual powers of evil. He is called God’s angel because he was created by God and he does not deny his responsibility for doing that. The spiritual powers do great evil, so God takes responsibility for them, even though they had rebelled against him. They were able to kill and destroy because humans had given them authority on earth. Nevertheless, Moses sheets responsibility back to God, because he was their creator. That is a burden that God is willing to carry.

God and Violence (2)

We must recognise that God created a world in which violence is possible.

• Angels are powerful and have freedom to make decisions and rebel. The fall of some angels was almost inevitable. Rebelling against a good God naturally made them evil and violent.

• Humans were created with free will and have the ability to organise and implement violence.

• Humans have the capacity to form powerful nations and armies that can inflict great violence.

God gave freedom to humans and angels, so he deliberately created a world in which it was always possible for evil to break out. I presume he went ahead anyway, because he knew that he could work it for good bringing benefits that far outweigh any harm that rebels could do on earth.

God and Violence (1)

Discussions about God and violence are becoming quite common. Many writers are reacting to the violent portrayal of God in the Old Testament and rejecting it because it does not fit with the picture of God that Jesus gave on the cross.

Types of Violence
Before rushing to judgement, we need to distinguish between at least four types of violence that are contained in the Old Testament:

1. Prophetic warnings of what would happen, if the Israelites rejected God and lost his spiritual and physical protection. It would be very ugly because the spiritual powers are evil and would do terrible things to God’s people. An example is Deuteronomy 28:54-55.
   

   Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.

   During a siege of their city, some men would eat the flesh of their own children and refuse to share it. It was a warning of what would happen if they rejected God and lost his protection. This was not God’s will.

2. Poetic expressions used to make a point. Numbers 23:24 is an example.
   

   The people rise like a lioness;
   they rouse themselves like a lion
   that does not rest till it devours its prey
   and drinks the blood of its victims.

   Balaam prophesied that Israel would be like a lion. He was not saying that God wanted Israel to drink the blood of its enemies.

3. Descriptions of how Israel behaved. Israel engaged in some terrible violence, which is recorded in the Old Testament for the sake of the history, but was not God’s will. For example, Jacob’s sons played a trick on the Shechemites and slaughtered them when they had just been circumcised (Genesis 34). This was not God’s will, but human cunning. There are many other situations in the Old Testament, where the Israelites did evil, which was contrary to God’s will. He is not responsible for this violence.

4. God’s commands and actions. This is the only violence that we should be concerned about. God commanding or doing violence could be a problem.

Marriage and Violence (7)

After reading my series on Marriage and Violence, a reader asked me to comment on Deut 22:28-29.

This verse has to be taken in context of other similar scriptures. The case in Deut 22:28-29 is different from the verses that precede it where the girl is forcibly raped.

It describes a situation where a man “seizes” a girl and lies with her. He Hebrew word for seize “taphes” is not a strong word. It means to grab hold. The man has used minimal force.

The couple are discovered, so it seems that although she was seized, she did not resist strongly (as described in Deut 22:24), but goes along, perhaps out of fear.

Once they had sexual intimacy, the two becomes one, so in God’s eyes they are married. This is why the man is expected to marry the girl. The only way for the girl to avoid the marriage would be for her to divorce the man and annul the marriage.

The scripture provide the girl with strong protection. The man has to pay a penalty of 25 shekels to her father. If did not have that silver, he would have to bond himself to work for the girl’s father until he had earned.

The girl is able to divorce the man, but he is not able to divorce her. So the protection lies in her flavour.

Ex 22:10 still applies. The man would have to pay a dowry to the girl’s father in trust for her well-being. If the marriage does not work out, the girl could divorce him and keep the dowry for her financial support. She would be able to retain the penalty the man paid to her father.
God’s law puts protection in place for a girl in a situation where most cultures would have left her vulnerable.

Marriage and Violence (6) Role of the State

The marriage and divorces certificates provided by government officials are a side show and have no status in God’s economy.

Human governments do not have authority over marriage. They cannot change something that God has established, so Christians should not allow them to define marriage for them. God has already defined marriage and human governments cannot change God's word. Christian marriage should be based on God's word and not on legislation established by a human government.

When people get married, God is the witness to their marriage, not the state (Mal 2:14). Their commitment to each other and their consummation of that commitment is what makes their marriage. Isaac was married to Rebecca when he accepted her as her wife and “took her into his tent” (Gen 24:69). He did not have a marriage certificate from the state, but he was married in God’s eyes.

In the same way, when a husband commits adultery, or persistently assaults his wife, she is no longer bound to him in God’s eyes. It is irrelevant whether the divorce papers have gone through or not.

If a woman who is deserted by an unbelieving husband meets another man and commits to him, and cohabits with him, she is already married to him in God’s eyes. It does not matter, if the state has recognised the divorce or if they are legally married again.

Getting other believers and elders who know the situation to support the person’s understanding of God’s witness will be important to avoid making rash mistakes. Agreement of two or three will be important.

Once a woman or man has left and begun a marriage with a new partner (in God’s eyes) his preference is that they should not go back to a previous spouse (Jer 3:1).

Marriage and Violence (5) Re-Marriage

The topic of marriage and re-marriage is covered in 1 Corinthians 7. The chapter deals with various themes.

• A man should have one wife, and a woman should have one husband (1 Cor 7:2).

• A woman’s body belongs to the husband, so if he assaults his wife, it is probably because he hates himself (1 Cor 7:4).

• A husband’s body belongs to his wife, so if she tells him to stop doing something physical, he must stop (1 Cor 7:4).

• Sexual relations should be by mutual consent (1 Cor 7:5).

• Being single is good, because it gives freedom to go all out for God without being weighed down with family concerns and commitments (1 Cor 7:7,8).

• Not everyone has the calling to be single. If not, they should seek to marry (1 Cor 7:9).

• A Christian couple should normally stay together. If they are having marital difficulties, they might need to stay apart for a while to sort the situation out. They should not rush to divorce, but should work hard to be reconciled. If God is at work in their lives, they should be able to put their sins to death and be healed of their failings (1 Cor 7:10-11). Divorce is not a solution for simple disputes and tensions.

• When a person who has an unbelieving spouse becomes a Christian and their spouse continues to be an unbeliever, the believing spouse should not leave, but remain and love and pray for their spouse (1 Cor 7:12-13).

• An unbelieving spouse might come to faith though the witness to the love of Jesus of their spouse (1 Cor 7:16).

• The marriage covenant is so strong that the faith of a believing spouse can sanctify an unbelieving spouse enough to get them into glory. They same applies to unbelieving children (1 Cor 7:14).

• If the unbelieving spouse refuses to stay with the spouse who has become a believer, they should be allowed to leave. This act of leaving is sometimes called “wilful desertion”. (I presume the leaving spouse would lose the blessing described in the previous point). Leaving a marriage takes various forms. Refusing to allow the believing spouse to be who they are by following Jesus is another form of leaving the marriage (1 Cor 7:15).

• When the unbelieving spouse leaves, the believing spouse is “not bound” (1 Cor 7:15). Paul explains what this means further on in 1 Cor 7:39. While a husband is alive, his wife is bound to him. Once he has died, she is no longer bound and is free to marry any man she chooses. So when Paul says that a believing spouse is “not bound” if the unbelieving spouse departs, he is saying that they are free to marry again.

• When a woman separates from her husband due to adultery, she is free to marry again, because he has wilfully deserted her. Even if he claims to be a believer, he is acting as an unbeliever, so can be treated as one.

• When a man repeatedly assaults or emotionally torments his wife, he has wilfully deserted his marriage promise to protect and care for her, so she is not bound to him, but is free to marry again. Even if he claims to be a believer, he is acting as an unbeliever, so can be treated as one.

• During times of persecution and tribulation, it might be better for young women not to marry and have children, because there is a risk their husbands will be martyred, and they could be left caring for children, without any means of support (1 Cor 7:25-35,40).

• Even in troubled times, sexual attraction can be a powerful force. So even if getting married is a risky thing to do, it is better to marry than to stay single and sin against a potential marriage partner (1 Cor 7:36-38).

• A believer who is widowed is free to marry anyone they choose, provided that they belong to the Lord (1 Cor 7:39).

Marriage and Violence (4) Adultery and Violence

The seventh commandment forbids adultery, but the commandment against murder comes first. It forbids all kinds of assault and violence. There is more in the law about violence than against adultery. In fact, Moses did not enforce the penalties against adultery due to hardness of heart (Matt 19:8). Moses never gave the same opt- out for murder and assault. So although all sin is serious, assault and violence is more serious than adultery. Therefore, if adultery is grounds for divorce, so is assault and violence.

Marriage and Violence (3) Dowry

In Old Testament times, they dowry provided a way for a women to escape from a dangerous marriage. The role of a dowry was different from the modern understanding. A young man wanting to marry a young woman paid a dowry to her father as proof of his diligence, reliability and ability to support her.

He must pay a dowry for her to be his wife (Ex 22:16).

The father retained the dowry, as a guarantee of his son-in-law’s good behaviour. (In some circumstance, he might loan the dowry back to the son and daughter to pay for a house or business, but he would retain ownership of it in trust for his daughter).

Abraham gave costly gifts to Rebecca’s mother and brother as a dowry for her marriage to Isaac (Gen 24:53). Jacob did not have a dowry to give Rachel’s father when he wanted to marry her. He was a dodgy character, so Laban demanded a big dowry to cover the risk. Jacob had to work without wages for seven years to earn the dowry Laban required.

A girl’s father decides what the dowry should be, depending on the reputation of the prospective suitor. When Shechem wanted to marry Jacob’s daughter Dinah he offered to pay a dowry.

Ask me ever so much dowry and gift, and I will give according to what you say to me; but give me the young woman as a wife (Gen 24:12).

Saul was a jealous and foolish man, so he demanded a dowry of hundred dead Philistines as a dowry, when David wanted to marry his daughter Michal (1 Sam 18:25).

When a woman commits to a man and has his children, she puts herself in a vulnerable position. She loses her capacity to earn and by having children she reduces her attraction to potential husbands. The dowry protects her during this time of vulnerability. If they wife has to leave her husband and return to her father, he did not need to return the dowry, but could use it to provide for her financial support.

God recognised that marriage was risky for women and provided a way for them to escape if they were mistreated by their husbands. They could return to their father and know that financial support would be available. It also puts pressure on husbands to honour and respect their wives.

The concept of the dowry was corrupted by the world. It was twisted around and became a payment that a father had to pay to a man to get her to marry his daughter. This was a terrible devaluation of the value of women. It turned women into chattels that could be bought by the highest bidder. It provided no protection for the women once they were married.

Christians should restore true biblical dowry to marriage. It would encourage better behaviour by men, and provide better protection for women.

Marriage and Violence (2) Cancels a Covenant

God does not want a person to be held in a place by a contract or covenant if they will be treated violently. The Law of Moses allows a man who has fallen into debt to bond himself to work as a servant for a person who would pay off his debts in return.

If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye. And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth (Ex 21:26-27).

This command applies to both men and women. A wife has greater freedom than a female bondservant. So if violence sets a servant free, violence must set a wife free too.

Violence nullifies a covenant or contract. When a man is violent towards his wife, his treachery to the marriage covenant annuls it.