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Parents in the covenant community of Israel had to face the possibility that they might have, at some point, a rebellious son. The son might become so disobedient, in fact, that his defiance and covenant rejection would need the intervention of the community leaders. If this situation came to pass, the Israelites had guidance from Moses as to the course of action.
The father and mother “shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard’” (Deut. 21:19–20).
If the pattern of the son’s behavior had been characterized by such wickedness, then likely the elders of the city—and others in the city—already knew of such rebellion. This meeting at the city gates was a formal event, however. His covenant violations were pronounced. And the men of the city were to put the son to death, purging the evil from their midst (Deut. 21:21). There is a heaviness, an utter seriousness, to the whole proceeding. Unrepentant and belligerent evil reaps what it sows—the dire consequences of sin.
If you follow the narratives in the Old Testament after Deuteronomy, there is no story of the Israelites applying the preceding law to any of their sons. We don’t read about such a meeting at the city gates, we don’t hear those pronouncements, and we don’t see the penalty applied. Is that because Israelite parents wouldn’t apply the law? Perhaps. Or is it because not every case law has to have a corresponding narrative? Perhaps.
The law in Deuteronomy 21:18–21 takes on an intriguing significance when we read it in light of the nation as God’s son. According to Exodus 4:22, we can consider the Israelites to be God’s corporate child, his “firstborn son.” And as such a son, the Israelites were rebellious. Historical narratives in the Torah, and beyond, tell of Israel’s compromised worship and behavior. They were a stiff-necked people. Eventually their broken kingdom fell to foreign adversaries who took them into exile.
We even read language describing the Israelites which recalls Deuteronomy 21. For example, in Ezekiel 2:3, the Lord says to the prophet, “I sent you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. . . . The descendants also are impudent and stubborn.” In other words, the Lord said that they were “stubborn” and “rebellious”—the same description for the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21:20.
So, while there isn’t an Old Testament passage where parents charged their individual son with stubbornness and rebellion, there are places where the Israelites were described that way. They were a corporate son rebelling against their covenant God.
When you move from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you encounter the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and he seems to be the opposite of the son depicted in Deuteronomy 21:18–21. Whereas the son in Deuteronomy 21 wouldn’t obey the voice of his father or mother (Deut. 21:18), Jesus was an obedient son (Luke 2:51).
The significance of Jesus’s obedience was in the fact that not only was he an individual Israelite who was keeping the law, he also represented the nation of Israel as their redeemer and Messiah. He was the true Israel. And as the Son of God, he was an obedient Israelite, not a stubborn and rebellious son.
Yet the Jewish leaders charged him with disobedience. In fact, they called him a “glutton and a drunkard” in Matthew 11:19, the very pair of charges we read in Deuteronomy 21: “he is a glutton and a drunkard” (Deut. 21:20). Though Jesus wasn’t a disobedient son, the leaders considered him one. And they were ready to put him to death too. They believed he was the kind of disobedient son who needed to die. In John 10:31, they accused him of blasphemy and picked up stones.
Near the end of the four Gospels, Jesus died outside the city of Jerusalem, put to death by capital punishment and at the urging of the Jewish leaders and bloodthirsty crowd (“Crucify him! Crucify him!”). But he was no rebellious son. When he died, however, he died for rebellious sons. Though no glutton, he died for gluttons. Though no drunkard, he died for drunkards.
Jesus was the faithful Son, the obedient Israelite. While the Jews and Romans facilitated his execution, the irony of providence was powerfully at work. A substitutionary atonement was taking place. Our sins were being counted to him, and he was becoming the curse for us.
Dr. Chase, what do you make of the relationship between this passage and v.22-23, especially as it pertains to Christotelic fulfillment?