Stoning…

Originally posted on September 11, 2009 – by Andre Piet

QUESTION:
At present, the issue of the death penalty by stoning is being debated internationally. Amnesty International is fiercely opposed to it. In the law of Moses, this method of execution is prescribed several times. For example, in the case of blasphemy. Is that not merciless?

ANSWER:
In the law of Moses (“engraven in letters in stone”) we encounter more macabre things. That is why the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 3) also calls it “the dispensation of death” and “the dispensation of condemnation.” It stands in contrast to “the vivifying Spirit” and “the dispensation of righteousness.” “Letter” over against “Spirit.” The “vanishing” over against the “remaining.” Elsewhere the law is called “a shadow of what is impending” (Col. 2:17, Heb. 10:1).

Stones that kill are a shadow of Him Who is called “the living Stone” (1 Pet. 2:4). In type, moreover, we encounter this stone in countless places in the “Old Testament.” Just think of “the stone of help” (Eben-ezer) or “the Cornerstone” or “the Rock” that supplied the people in the wilderness with water. Or think of the stone on which Jacob laid his head, after which he saw heaven opened. The stone that he then set upright “early in the morning” (> caused to rise) and made anointed… Every one of these stones speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, “the living Stone,” “the Firstborn from among the dead.”

Stones that kill are a shadow of “the living Stone.” Like the negative of a photograph, it points to the contrast. Yet there is also a prophetic side to stoning. Then I think of the stone in the book of Daniel, which struck and toppled the gigantic image of gold, silver, copper, iron, and clay. This refers to “the Son of David,” Who in the near future will put an end to the four world empires of Babylon. And speaking of David… was it not he who, with a stone (yes indeed, the fifth from the riverbed!), brought down the blaspheming giant Goliath with all his copper and iron?

In brief, however macabre and dark death by stoning may be, in the shadow and prophetically we also discern in these stones the form of the Son (eben=stone > ben=son).

Delen: