The Public Nature of Treason: Purging the Evil Text: Deuteronomy 17:2-7
Introduction: The Culture War is a Covenant War
We live in a time when the word "abomination" is considered an abomination. Our culture has inverted the moral order. What God calls good, they call hateful. What God calls evil, they call a human right. They want a society where every man does what is right in his own eyes, which is simply another way of saying that every man wants to be his own god. This is the oldest temptation, the serpent's lie from the garden, "You will be like God." And the fruit of that lie, then and now, is death.
But we must be clear. The central conflict is not between religion and secularism. The secularist is not a neutral party. He is a deeply religious man. He has his own gods, his own high places, his own priests, and his own sacrificial system. His god is the autonomous self, his high places are the universities and halls of government, his priests are the talking heads on the news, and his sacrifices are the unborn. The conflict, therefore, is not between faith and non-faith, but between the faith of Christ and the faith of antichrist. It is a covenant war.
This passage from Deuteronomy is jarring to our modern, sentimental sensibilities. It speaks of capital punishment for idolatry. Our first reaction, conditioned by decades of relativistic mush, is to recoil. We think it harsh, intolerant, and backward. But this is because we have forgotten the nature of treason. We have forgotten that a nation's life depends on its ultimate allegiance. For Israel, to worship another god was not a private matter of personal preference, like choosing a favorite flavor of ice cream. It was an act of high treason against the one true King, Yahweh. It was a public act of covenant-breaking that threatened the very existence of the nation.
This law is not about stamping out private thought crimes. It is about dealing with public acts of spiritual rebellion that poison the well for the entire community. It establishes principles of justice, due process, and communal responsibility that are profoundly relevant for us today. For the church is the new Israel, a holy nation, and we too must be vigilant to purge the evil from our midst. The methods have changed with the coming of Christ, but the principle remains the same. A holy God demands a holy people.
The Text
2 “If there is found in your midst, in any of your gates of the towns which Yahweh your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God, by trespassing against His covenant, 3and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded, 4and if it is told to you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the matter is confirmed that this abomination has been done in Israel, 5then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed to your gates, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them, and they will die. 6On the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the mouth of one witness. 7The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst."
(Deuteronomy 17:2-7 LSB)
The Crime of Covenant Treason (vv. 2-3)
We begin with the definition of the crime.
"If there is found in your midst... a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God, by trespassing against His covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded..." (Deuteronomy 17:2-3)
Notice the context. This is not a private sin. It is "found in your midst," within the "gates" of the towns. The gates were the place of public life, commerce, and justice. This is a public act of defiance. The crime is described in two ways. First, it is "evil in the sight of Yahweh." This establishes the objective standard. Evil is not a social construct; it is defined by God's character and His revealed will. Second, it is "trespassing against His covenant." Israel was a covenant nation. Their entire existence, their land, their prosperity, their identity, was based on the covenant Yahweh made with them at Sinai. To worship another god was to repudiate that covenant. It was like a wife publicly taking another husband. It was an act of spiritual adultery and political treason rolled into one.
The specific form of this treason is idolatry. This could be the worship of the Baals and Ashtoreths of the Canaanites, or it could be the more "sophisticated" worship of the "heavenly host." The sun, moon, and stars were common objects of worship in the ancient world. They are powerful, predictable, and glorious to behold. But they are creatures. God made them. He put them in the sky as servants, as timekeepers (Gen. 1:14). To worship them is to worship the creature rather than the Creator. It is to exchange the glory of the immortal God for an image. And God says this is something "which I have not commanded." This is the regulative principle of worship in seed form. True worship is not about what we can invent or what feels right to us; it is about what God has commanded.
The Standard of Due Process (v. 4)
Next, God lays down the essential requirements for a just investigation.
"and if it is told to you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the matter is confirmed that this abomination has been done in Israel..." (Deuteronomy 17:4)
This is a crucial safeguard against mob justice and frivolous accusations. Justice is not to be swift and sloppy. First, a report must be heard. But hearsay is not enough. The command is to "inquire thoroughly." The Hebrew here is emphatic. It means to seek, to search out, to investigate with great diligence. You don't take up a rumor and run with it. You do the hard work of establishing the facts. This is the foundation of our entire Western legal tradition. The burden of proof is on the accuser, and the standard is high.
The investigation must determine two things: that the report is "true" and that the matter is "confirmed." The facts must be verified. This is not about feelings or suspicions. It is about evidence. Only when the investigation confirms that this "abomination" has occurred can the judicial process move forward. The word "abomination" is a strong one. It means something that is detestable, disgusting, and utterly offensive to God. Idolatry is not a minor infraction; it is a spiritual stench in the nostrils of a holy God.
The Public Execution (v. 5)
Once the crime is proven through due process, the sentence is to be carried out publicly.
"then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed to your gates... and you shall stone them, and they will die." (Deuteronomy 17:5)
The execution takes place "at your gates," the most public space in the city. This is not a hidden, sanitized affair. It is a communal act, intended to be seen by all. Why? Because the crime was a public attack on the covenant that held the community together. The punishment must therefore be a public reaffirmation of that covenant. It is a solemn declaration that Yahweh alone is God in Israel.
The method is stoning. This was a form of execution that involved the whole community. It wasn't the job of a single, hooded executioner. It was a corporate act. This prevented any one person from bearing the sole responsibility and reinforced the idea that the whole community was responsible for maintaining its covenant fidelity. And notice, the law applies equally to "that man or that woman." God's law is no respecter of persons. Men and women are equally accountable before God for their actions.
The Witness Requirement (vv. 6-7a)
Verses 6 and 7 provide another layer of judicial protection, one that has profoundly shaped our understanding of justice.
"On the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the mouth of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people." (Deuteronomy 17:6-7a)
Here we have the famous two-witness rule. For the most serious penalty, death, the testimony of a single person is insufficient. This is a powerful protection against malicious or mistaken testimony. One person's word against another's is not enough to take a life. This principle is affirmed throughout Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New (Num. 35:30; Deut. 19:15; Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19; Heb. 10:28). It is a bedrock principle of justice.
But there is more. The witnesses who brought the testimony had to be the ones to "be first against him to put him to death." They had to cast the first stones. This is a brilliant and sobering requirement. It forces the witness to take ultimate responsibility for his testimony. It is one thing to make an accusation from the safety of the witness stand. It is quite another to be the one who must initiate the execution based on that testimony. This would have a powerful chilling effect on anyone tempted to bear false witness. If your testimony is going to lead to a man's death, you had better be absolutely certain, because you will be the one to start the stoning.
The Goal of Corporate Purity (v. 7b)
The passage concludes with the ultimate purpose of this entire judicial process.
"So you shall purge the evil from your midst." (Deuteronomy 17:7b)
The goal is not vengeance. The goal is purification. The Hebrew word for purge means to burn out, to consume, to remove completely. Unjudged, public sin is like a cancer in the body politic. It defiles the land and corrupts the people. It is a leaven that leavens the whole lump (1 Cor. 5:6). God's command is to deal with it decisively, to cut it out, so that the community can be restored to health and holiness. The life of the nation depended on its spiritual purity. To tolerate public treason against the King was to invite the judgment of that King upon the entire nation.
Application for the New Covenant Church
Now, how does this apply to us? We are not the civil nation of Israel. The church is not a theocracy with civil power to execute idolaters. The coming of Christ has changed the administration of the covenant. But the principles here are eternal, because they are rooted in the character of a holy God who still hates sin and demands purity from His people.
First, we must recognize that idolatry is still the fundamental sin. Our culture is drowning in it. We worship the idols of money, sex, power, and self. And the church is not immune. We can make idols of our traditions, our buildings, our political causes, or our own spiritual experiences. Anything that takes the place of God as the ultimate object of our worship is an idol, and it is an abomination to Him.
Second, the church must exercise due process in its discipline. When public sin arises in the church, we are not to act on rumor or gossip. We are to "inquire thoroughly." We are to follow the biblical pattern of discipline laid out in Matthew 18, which also involves witnesses. Church discipline is not a witch hunt; it is a careful, loving, and firm process designed for restoration and purification.
Third, the church has a duty to "purge the evil from your midst." The Apostle Paul quotes this very phrase from Deuteronomy when commanding the Corinthian church to excommunicate a man engaged in public, unrepentant sexual sin (1 Cor. 5:13). The form of "execution" for the church is excommunication. It is to put the unrepentant person out of the covenant community, out of the gates of the city of God. This is not done out of hatred, but out of love. Love for God's holiness, love for the purity of the church, and even love for the sinner, in the hope that this drastic act will bring him to repentance (1 Cor. 5:5). A church that refuses to practice discipline is a church that does not love Christ or its own people. It is allowing a spiritual cancer to grow unchecked.
Ultimately, this passage points us to the cross. We are all guilty of covenant treason. We have all gone and served other gods. We all deserve to be stoned. But Jesus Christ, the only innocent one, was taken outside the gate and executed in our place. He took the curse for our idolatry. He was crushed by the stones of God's wrath so that we could be forgiven. And by His death, He purges our sin, not just from the community, but from our very hearts. He is the one who makes us a holy nation, a people for His own possession, zealous to purge the remaining evil from our lives and worship Him alone in spirit and in truth.