Joshua Chapter 20 Verses 1 – 3

•What an odd couple of verses! What is this? Cities of refuge for man-slayers that they may find refuge from the avenger of blood? This all originates back in Numbers Chapter 35. God was laying down details through Moses…beginning in Numbers Chapter 27, God begins to lead Moses through specific governances for the nation of Israel. Inheritance laws, details regarding how daily offerings, Sabbath offerings and feast offerings were to be specifically carried out. Laws concerning how vows were to be established and carried out…even laws concerning the boundaries of the land of Promise…which Moses would never enter.

•And then in Numbers 35, God gives direction regarding someone who had killed someone in error. Accidentally. Today the legal term is Accidental Killing. Killing without intention to kill. Harming without forethought, malice, desire or will. It is when the hands are guilty but the heart is not…but this is not without justice…turn over to Numbers 35 and read with me verses 9 – 28. Wow!

•And who is this “avenger of blood?” Well in the Hebrew, this is gaal or goel. The kinsman redeemer. Maybe this is peaking your interest a little bit, Bible scholars. This avenger of blood would be part of the family, a near relative of the person who was killed. They would be selected or appointed or they would volunteer to be the avenger of blood, charged with ensuring justice, even when the sin was committed in error.

•Other requirements of the goel included the means. The avenger of blood, the kinsman redeemer had to have the means (the ability) to bring about the redemption, and also, the kinsman redeemer had to have the desire to accomplish the redemption. They had to do it on their own free will…

•Now isn’t it interesting, same word, goel, one is the avenger, one is the redeemer, but is that the same? Yes! Because it’s just both sides of the coin! Same office, same task, different vantage point…See on one side, a brother is being redeemed. A lost brother, one that has fallen is being redeemed but on the other side of the same coin, that same brother is being avenged! So the redemption comes through the avengement! The redemption comes through the justice!

•Where am I going with this? You probably already know! Who is our Kinsman Redeemer!? Jesus Christ! Of course He is! Just like Ruth and Naomi and Boaz! Remember that story? Ruth widowed, poor and destitute…can’t marry again because she had already been married and in that culture…well no one would want you then…but along comes Boaz…has compassion on her, feeds her, loves her and takes her to himself when no one else will…and he is a close relative of her deceased husband…he becomes her kinsman redeemer!

•The Goel must be a close relative or kinsman…well Jesus took on human flesh, stepped down, became one of us…He called Himself the Son of Man and we recently studied in Hebrews 2:11 that He calls us “brethren.” Philippians 2 gives clue to the fact that in order to become one of us He had to somehow lay aside His majesty and become a real Brother to James, a real Son to Mary, a full man…Philippians 2:6 – 8…

•Recall, the Goel must have the means to bring about the redemption. Jesus was perfect. The only perfect man that ever lived. The only man that ever was born under the law and yet satisfied the law. Peter calls His blood precious in 1 Peter 1:19…my blood is black with sin…

•The Goel must have the desire to bring about the redemption…John 10:18 says that He laid down His own life…on His own initiative and we see several times where Jesus would openly say, “Father, I don’t want My will, My will in My humanity, I want Your will!” It is clear, the doctrine is sure, the theology is concluded, this is a picture, this goel…of Jesus Christ. One who would take us unto Himself when we are nothing but rejectamenta! One who would trade all that He is to give us life…

•This context though, same word, same Spirit, same Person, and yet the other side of the coin. Jesus came 2,000 years ago to redeem us, our Kinsman Redeemer…and yet also to fulfill justice, the Avenger of Blood. Man sinned. And Psalm 51 is clear, all sin is against God. And so Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, God Himself, the Second Person of the mysterious and Holy Trinity, avenged the blood of Adam, His fallen brother and yet having no other way, no other blood ever, ever was or ever will be that was worthy except His own, is our Redeemer and yet also our Avenger…

•The Avenger of God Himself who lost His son Adam to the sin that courses even through the veins of all men. And so check this out…Jesus became a brother to Adam to avenge even the blood of His own brother on the head of sin…if sin is lawlessness then Jesus is lawfulness and therefore, FULL of the law, the full law embodied…this is going to be important as we move forward…this is such an intricate portrait to paint…hard to put in words and yet not hard to grasp in understanding…

•Now, watch this…Jesus came 2,000 years ago and brought redemption and the beginning of avengement…and yet sin remains doesn’t it…He is about to come again, and this time He brings only avengement…look at these next couple of verses…

Joshua Chapter 20 Verses 4 – 6

•So much going on here…so many parallels, so many types…the city of refuge is likened unto the church…Notice it is confession that gains him entrance…a facing of one’s sin…1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness…you cannot get into this city as the victim…Jesus proclaimed in Mark 1:15, “Repent and believe.” Come to the end of yourself…face your sin…confess it and therefore own it man…and then he is given a place among them…in the city of refuge…a picture of the Body of Christ, a picture of the house with the blood of the lamb smeared on the doorposts…the church…

•And so the Avenger comes, the Goel, the lawful one, the one with eyes of fire…and the Avenger does not destroy them but rather passes over their sin…and then notice he stays until the judgment and until the death of the high priest in those days and then the slayer, the sinner, can go free…all of this happens at one time in Jesus!

•The sinner confesses, repents, enters the Body of Christ, becomes part of the church, stands in the judgment that was dealt to Jesus on the cross, and is free to go because the Great High Priest has come who has no beginning and no end…we haven’t gotten there yet in Hebrews but this idea is fully developed there…that the Old Covenant is dead…and only the New Covenant lives and will never die and with each Covenant, a different High Priest…and so in the Lord…you are FREE to go home man…there is more here but we just don’t have the time…

Joshua Chapter 20 Verses 7 – 9

•So the cities are laid out in accordance with the Word of God previously spoken to Moses…these cities of refuge…these church bodies…I read that a pastor taught once, “Are we the church or are we a club?” The church is not meant to be a place where sinners are comforted in their sin…it is to be a place where they are set free from sin! A place where sin is confessed and dealt with and removed as folks become closer and closer to God…what is happening? The enemy has crept in…and his name is pride. His name is self. His name is strife…our flesh rejects these cities…says we should just be allowed in no matter or allowed home no matter but the Avenger is able and willing…the lawful One…see what I’m saying…

•Spurgeon once said, “The world that hates the church knows not what it does, for it is hating its best friend…” The work of the Word of God in your heart is the only thing ever that can bring you home fully restored…and yet because our flesh boils, it is so often rejected…I run to it. Not because my flesh wants to, but because I can do nothing else…this is the testimony of the few I have learned…so many sleep…so many slumber and won’t wake.

•I can do nothing else but to take His yoke upon me…I can do nothing else but trust in Him and not lean on my own understanding…I can do nothing else but give Him my momentary life…I can do nothing else because He has brought me home…What about you? Are you sleeping?...

•The year was 1829. A man by the name of George Wilson had been arrested, tried and convicted of murder and theft through the mail. Because his family was well known, when he was sent to prison, his family made appeal after appeal. Eventually the appeals reached the desk of the President Andrew Jackson. After he reviewed the files and because he knew the family and their background, and for their account he offered not just clemency, but a pardon to George Wilson.

•They took the news into the prison. George Wilson refused the pardon. He said he didn’t want it because he was guilty and deserved to die. They told him he couldn’t say no to it because it was a presidential pardon. But he said he could and was saying no to it. This is a true story. He refused the pardon. That set forth a tremendous legal battle because that question had never been raised in American history.

•Eventually it worked its way up to the Supreme Court and the decision came down from Chief Justice John Marshall, who said, A pardon is of no effect until it is accepted by the one for whom it is intended. Though it is almost inconceivable that a condemned criminal would refuse a pardon, if he does refuse it, the pardon is of no effect. George Wilson must die.

•And die he did because he would not accept the pardon that had been offered. Have you run to the city of refuge? Have you faced your sin? Or are you running from both…such a powerful picture tonight…that Jesus is our Kinsman Redeemer and by His precious blood, is also the Avenger of God and the law. What is He to you?