God or our brother.
Terribly stern is the duty here laid on the person enticed to idolatry. The law is adapted to an age of stern deeds, and to a people living under a stern dispensation. Yet, reflecting on the nature of the crime, on the constitution of the Jewish state, and on the issues to mankind which hung on the slender thread of this one nation's fidelity, it is difficult to see how it could well have been less stern than it is. Its severity was perhaps its mercy. Note, too, that the criminal could be executed only after formal impeachment, fair trial, and conclusively established guilt (cf. Deuteronomy 13:14; Deuteronomy 17:2-8; Deuteronomy 19:15-21).
I. GOD ALLOWS NO CLAIM OF NATURAL AFFECTION TO INTERFERE WITH HIGHER DUTY TO HIMSELF. It is the same stern voice which we hear even in the Gospels (Matthew 8:21, Matthew 8:22; Matthew 10:37; Luke 14:26). The demands of God on his people's supreme and undivided allegiance are not now a whit less rigorous than they were of old.
II. GOD WOULD HAVE US REGARD THOSE WHO DELIBERATELY ATTEMPT TO SEDUCE US FROM HIM AS OUR WORST FOES. They really are so, whether they think it or not. No language is strong enough to paint the crime of seeking to seduce a soul from its allegiance to its God. The guilt of the man who deliberately sets himself to counter-work a child's affection for its parent, and to produce alienation of heart between them, is trivial in comparison with it. The crime is that of soul-murder. For in fidelity to God lies the happiness of life here, and salvation in the world to come. We are not, therefore, to allow any private affection to blind us to the enormity of this crime. Those whom we cherish as dearest are only the more guilty if they take advantage of our affection to betray us into deadly sin.
III. GOD REQUIRES THAT WE DO NOT SPARE THOSE WHO ARE GUILTY OF THIS CRIME. We are no longer called upon—and we may be thankful for it-to impeach our seducers, and lead them out to death. Our religion requires that we return good for evil, that we pray for those who injure us, that we seek their conversion and salvation. But it does not require of us that we do not abhor their conduct, and severely reprobate and denounce it. We fail in duty if there is not placed on all attempts at spiritual seduction the immediate brand of our strongest condemnation.—J.O.