Deterring God's Wrath Against the Nation (Joshua 22:15-20)

Joshua 22

King James Version (KJV)

15 And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,

16 Thus saith the whole congregation of the Lord, What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the Lord, in that ye have builded you an altar, that ye might rebel this day against the Lord?

17 Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we are not cleansed until this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord,

18 But that ye must turn away this day from following the Lord? and it will be, seeing ye rebel to day against the Lord, that to morrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel.

19 Notwithstanding, if the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over unto the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle dwelleth, and take possession among us: but rebel not against the Lord, nor rebel against us, in building you an altar beside the altar of the Lord our God.

20 Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity.

Comments:

When the Israelites mistakenly perceive their brethren to be in rebellion against God, they give examples of God's judgments for previous iniquities—judgments that affected the entire nation. 

God deals with nations corporately, so that even the sin of an individual, such as Achan, might bring God's judgment on a nation as a whole. And so the Israelites say, "Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel?"

While wrong in assuming that their brethren was guilty, the Israelites understood that they could suffer for the sins of others. Thus they say, "and it will be, seeing ye rebel to day against the Lord, that to morrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel."

This should give us pause to consider the deterrent effect of biblical civil punishments. While political conservatives emphasize the importance of deterring criminals, this should be a secondary concern. The greatest concern should not be deterring the wrath of the criminal, but the wrath of God. As Gary North states:

Whenever we speak of deterring crime, we must speak first of the deterrence of God’s wrath against the community because of the courts’ unwillingness to impose God’s justice within the community. The civil government is required by God to seek to deter crimes because all crimes are above all crimes against God. An unwillingness on the part of civil magistrates to enforce God’s specified sanctions against certain specified public acts calls forth God’s specified covenantal cursings against the community. … Only when we clearly recognize the theocentric nature of deterrence—and when we are ready to seek to have it recognized publicly in our civil and ecclesiastical statute books—can we legitimately begin to speak about deterring criminal behavior for the protection of the community.[1]

Notes
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Gary North, Victim’s Rights: The Biblical View of Civil Justice (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), 220, 221.