Safe Place (Joshua 20:1-9) (December 17, 2025)

Safe Place (Joshua 20:1-9) Living Life 12/17/2025 Daily Devotional Bible Study

Safe Place

Introduction: Justice, Law, and the Question of Mercy

Welcome to living life. We live in a nation ruled by laws laws established not just to restrain evil but to punish it.
The foundational character of this law in scripture is simple retributive justice.
It's the concept of an eye for an eye and a life for a life.
If you murder then you have to pay with your life.
But what if you kill somebody by accident and you didn't mean to do it?
Should you pay with your life?
The Bible gives exceptions and the Bible says no

if it was an accident you don't have to pay with your life.
Our passage today deals with some of those exceptions showing how God provided cities of refuge just for scenarios just as that.
Here we see how when we deserve punishment God offers us a city of refuge.
In the gospel of Jesus Christ

Scripture Reading: Joshua 20:1–9

Joshua Chapter twenty verses one to nine

then the Lord said to Joshua tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge as I instructed you through Moses so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood.
When they flee to one of these cities they are to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state their case before the elders of that city.
Then the elders are to admit the fugitive into their city and provide a place to live among them.

If the avenger of blood comes in pursuit the elders must not surrender the fugitive because the fugitive killed their neighbor unintentionally and without malice of forethought.
They are to stay in that city until they have stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time then they may go back to their own home in the town from which they fled.

So they set apart Kadesh and Galilee in the hill country of Naftali Checum in the hill country of Eprm and Kuroth Arba that is Hebron in the hill country of Judah east of the Jordan.
On the other side from Jericho they designated Bzor in the wilderness on the plateau in the tribe of Ruben Ramath and Guiliad in the tribe of Gad and Golan and Bashan in the tribe of Massa

any of the Israelites or any foreigner residing among them who killed someone accidentally could flee to these designated cities and not be killed by the Avenger of Blood prior to standing trial before the assembly

God’s Provision: Protection Before Punishment

first we see how God provides these cities to protect his people from revenge and death.
After allocating the promised land God commands Joshua to set aside cities of refuge.
In verse one the Lord tells Joshua to appoint cities of refuge and here the law's clear.
If the killing is intentional the victim's nearest relative the Avenger of Blood has the right to take vengeance.
But if the killing was unintentional manslaughter that's another way to talk about it the avenger would still seek death

and so God made this provision to protect the one who killed the man on accident from being killed without a trial.
And so he would flee immediately to a city of refuge.
He would present his case to the elders of that city and then would receive protection and then a trial would follow.
And if he was found guilty of intentional murder then he would be handed over to the Avenger of blood and the killing.
He would have to pay for the killing that he did.
But if the killing

was determined to be accidental or unintentional then this person was allowed to stay within the city gates and to be protected by from the Avenger of Blood.

The City of Refuge and the Grace of God

See these cities of refuge are examples of God's grace that they saved a killer from the avenging justice that he absolutely deserved.
Think about it. We too certainly deserve God's just avenging wrath for our sin whether intentional or unintentional but God provides a city in which we can find refuge.

When the SIS calls God our refuge and our fortress what he means is that God himself is this fortress city of refuge.
His walls protect us from the just wages of sin which is death.
And when we flee to him God by his grace opens the gates and lets us in.

The Danger of Refusing Refuge

The consequences of not fleeing to Christ are severe and dire when we sin what is our first inclination?
We try to fix and save ourselves from the problem.
When we think that we can handle we can we think that we can handle the avenging consequences of what we've done that things like that happen but the avenger is still coming.
Faith is simply knowing that only God can forgive and protect us from the consequences of our sin.

If we don't go if we don't go to God for refuge Who are we really trusting?
We're trusting ourselves.
If we don't go to God we're trusting in something else to save us and protect us and that's an idol

but we need to go to God our city of refuge and this is precisely why those who refuse to go to the cities of refuge were ultimately killed.

The Death of the High Priest: Freedom Through Sacrifice

The cities of refuge then also point us directly to the Gospel because they provided mercy right there in the law.
While the city protected the manslaughter The law still upheld justice.
The manslaughter had to remain in the city which was a form of banishment a punishment in itself.
He was confined there as verse seven concludes

until the death of him who is high priest at the time See here's the key upon the death of the high Priest The manlaer was free to return home without fear of retribution.
Why is that? That's a really interesting picture isn't it?
That when the high Priest dies the one who is guilty is free to go back.
And this is a profound picture of what is to come when Jesus our great high Priest died for us so that we might be free He took our punishment so that we might be able to go home.

Justice and Mercy Meet at the Cross

See justice and mercy cross at the city of Refuge The law states that a life must be given that you are liable to death for taking a life The mercy and the grace of the Gospel is this.
It is not our life that is taken but the life of the High Priest that is his life was given for our life his death for our death his sacrifice as our sacrifice.
Justice and mercy indeed crossed kissed on the cross of Christ he died to set us free from the avenging justice that we deserve for our sins.

Christ Our Kinsman Redeemer

Ultimately God provides a city of refuge in Christ Jesus who is our redeemer?
The avenger in the Hebrew is the word go el which is the term that we are familiar with in the book of Ruth a kinsman redeemer but it's also used here to describe the kinsman Avenger the closest relative who avenges the death of his kinsman.
And so what we see here is that in the gospel the kinsman avenger who goes after the one who killed the kinsman becomes for us in Christ the Kinsman redeemer

who redeems us from our sins from the guilt that we deserve by actually taking the punishment that we deserve by being avenged in his death.
And in that way he is our kinsman redeemer

and the kinsman avenger that he took our place and bore the penalty that we deserve.

In what ways have you seen communities blessed because of Christian presence?

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Outside the City So We May Enter

The law of refuge hinged on protection within the city walls to leave the city before the high priest died meant death.
Here's the gospel that we are the man slayer who deserves death.
But Jesus came not as our kinsmen avenger to judge us but as our kinsmen redeemer to save us.
He bore the judgment and the punishment that we deserved by stepping outside the gates of the city of Jerusalem suffering the eternal wrath and vengeance of God.
When he died on the cross

he suffered outside the city to win for us an eternal city of refuge and of peace that this is the great hope of the gospel for each and every one of us when we put our trust in Christ Jesus that he went outside the city of refuge so that we may enter the city of refuge and one day that city of refuge that we have in Christ will become the city of glory the new Jerusalem that will come down and that we will be with him in glory.

That's the city for which we look forward to through faith in Christ.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray together Heavenly Father we thank you that in Jesus Christ we have a, Kinsman redeemer who saves us that he is the great high Priest who died for us so that we might be free help us then to look forward to the great city of Refuge the city of glory the city of our God in Jesus name We pray amen.

"We are not promissed certainty in our circumstances, but we are promised certainty in the God of our circumtances. And that in an anchor ofr the soul."