Vigilante Justice and Grievances

Gary begins addressing the recent murder of the United Healthcare CEO and how to properly address grievances anyone may have with either an individual or a major social wrong.

Deuteronomy 21:1-9 is a very important passage. It deals with a dead body found in a field. The victim has been murdered, but no one knows who committed it. The elders of the city closest to the field come out to participate in a sacrificial offering in order to remove the bloodguilt from the city. They kill a heifer; the Levites then sacrifice it. The text reads: “And all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O LORD, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel’s charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD” (Deut. 21:6-9).

There was bloodguilt under the Mosaic Covenant, and the way to escape God’s corporate negative sanctions was for both the priests and the civil magistrates to acknowledge before God that they did not know who had slain this victim, that they washed their hands because of it, and they slew an animal to atone for it. They were atoning not only for the sin of murder but also for their own ignorance. They were making certain that bloodguilt did not extend to the society. They were announcing publicly that they did not approve of this murder. And because they did not approve of it, and they sacrificed something valuable to prove they did not approve of it, God brought them out from under corporate judgment.

We must think judicially about this passage. The intent of the passage was to show that God does not hold a community or a society guilty for the acts of an individual that are immoral, if the community takes appropriate actions to suppress the action. That is, if the community passes laws against the practice, seeks to enforce these laws against the practice, and brings sanctions against those who violate the law, then that society is not brought under the judgment of God. The state is authorized to bring sanctions against those individuals who commit such acts against the law of God precisely because of the threat of God’s corporate sanctions. If the state does not take action in the name of God, then God will take action in the name of God and bring the sanctions against the whole society. This is the teaching of Deuteronomy 28: 15-66. This is the teaching of the whole covenant pattern of Old Testament law.

Finally, if societies do not acknowledge this by seeking to suppress illegal acts, God does bring judgment against them. This is why God sent the prophets before the people and before the kings: to warn them. By violating God’s law, the people risked bringing the entire society under the direct negative sanctions of God. They risked captivity to Babylon, they risked captivity to Assyria, they risked military invasion, they risked being subordinate to Moab and Philistia and all the enemies around them. God would bring his sanctions against them all, corporately, if their ordained civil and ecclesiastical representatives did not act humbly and confess their ignorance in the face of an unsolved crime, and attempt as best they could to bring sanctions against evil-doers.

Lone Gunners for Jesus

A biblical response to violent revolutionaries who claim that the individual has the God given right to kill in God’s name, or in the name of natural law (“common sense”). The letters in this short PDF to convicted murderer Paul J. Hill were written before he was convicted. They respond to his printed defense of the use of violence against abortionists as well as to his personal letters to the author (Dr. Gary North).

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Gary begins addressing the recent murder of the United Healthcare CEO and how to properly address grievances anyone may have with either an individual or a major social wrong. Long before Luigi Mangione, there was Paul Hill. Gary North wrote letters to Paul Hill after he killed an abortion doctor which are collected in Lone Gunners for Jesus.

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