Any Witness Who Refuses to Come Forward When Called by Elders Is in Sin

 Leviticus 5:1, 5-6 lays down a very important rule. "“If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity . . . when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to YHWH as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin." 

This text relates that anyone who is a witness to a sin or sins and refuses to testify against them when called by the officials of God's community has betrayed God, the community, and justice itself. According to this passage, they are in sin. They don't have the choice to testify or not. They don't get to make that decision for themselves because they have reasons. They either testify when called upon to do so or they will remain in their injustice/iniquity/sin. Their repentance demands that they come before the community of God so that the minister can apply the sacrifice to them so that they can be forgiven. They do not get to apply the sacrifice to themselves. They do not get to have their own personal repentance. Their repentance would be willing to testify of all of the truth and nothing but the truth about the sin and confess their sin of unwillingness to come forward earlier. Apart from this, they remain in their sin.

What is worse than this is anyone who not only refuses to testify but then testifies falsely so that the guilty are pardoned by the community but not by God. This is a sin worthy of death. It is considered one of the great abominations to God in Scripture. Those who give false testimony, who become witnesses when they are not witnesses, are damned. 

This is all because God takes justice seriously. It isn't a game to play like the American court system where those who can out-argue and create the most convincing narrative of events wins. You can convince people by intimidating witnesses so that they do not testify of the truth, appeal to emotion and relationships to sway people, attack the witnesses to lessen their credibility in the minds of the jury or judge, etc. Biblical justice comes from the very nature of God and to reject it is to reject God Himself. To reject the biblical process of justice, therefore, is to reject God Himself. To play a game rather than to take it seriously is the occupation of the damned, but the redeemed will seek His face even when inconvenient, when it brings a sword between relationships, when it requires his courage and even his life. 

Our Judicial Decision against Those Who Have Sinned and the Biblical Standards of Justice

 As many who deflect rather than repent, less informed minds have claimed that we broke some form of biblical justice by delivering our warning of judgment. Their reasoning? The accused needs to be cross-examined and we have to name witnesses. So let's address this claim.

1. If names were required, then we can produce those. We were not asked to do so because it was clear that those in power wanted to have an accusation against us without seeking justice on the matter. However, there is no biblical precedent for having to supply names to the masses. The elders who are the judges of the matter, i.e., us, know the witnesses and they are not anonymous. Hence, this accusation thrives on the idea that other people are the judges and need to know the names. Again, they can be provided but the judges have what they need.

2. There is nothing in the Bible that says one must cross-examine the accused if two or three witnesses have testified against them. This is likely due to the fact that the accused will almost always claim innocence and obscure justice by distorting facts, explaining away sins, appealing to emotion, etc., and so the Bible never includes their testimony of themselves. The only time one would include the individual is when there was an accusation rooted in one source. Then, it is a matter of seeing whether the accused will become a witness against himself (thus making two witnesses) or deny the accusation, in which case the tie goes to the accused and the accusation must be discarded as baseless.

However, I was an eyewitness of the accused admitting to the things claimed and so they were cross-examined. In the areas where they were not, rendering judgment upon the basis of two or three witnesses is the only right and just thing to do. Any defense that is not rooted in two or more independent sources (i.e., friends and family that are easily coerced to agree with accused must be seen as one source not two or more) is a travesty of justice.

3. No consensus for the original sins were made by the elders. I gave an opinion based upon what I mistakenly thought had happened at the time. As I have said numerous times, a single opinion of an elder is no better than a single opinion of anyone on a matter. Christ renders judgment through two or three qualified elders.

Biblical justice, therefore, was employed. Christ has warned. Christ will render a verdict concerning those who did not listen to that warning. Anyone claiming that we did not employ biblical justice is either ignorant of the matter, and speaking presumptuously and slanderously, or is a liar and speaking slanderously. Ironically, they are speaking in a manner that does not accord with their own claims of what biblical justice looks like. No one has asked me. Not one person. And I am one of the witnesses of these things, which brings me to the final understanding of biblical justice.

4. A judge doesn't need witnesses if he witnesses the sin. The witnesses exist so that the judge knows what testimony he should accept or reject in order to render a just verdict. If the sin is known by the judge as a witness of it himself then he doesn't need any further witnesses at all. How many witnesses stood against Ananias or Sapphira other than Peter, the judge? How many witnesses called out Alexander the Coppersmith other than Paul, the judge? How many witnesses stood against Korah, Datham, and Abiram other than the judges, Moses and Aaron themselves? If you murder someone in front of a judge in the Bible, he doesn't need to ask around who saw it or is somehow incapable of rendering a just judgment.

Biblical justice is not the American justice system. Our system distorts the truth by allowing lawyers to reconstruct narratives from the accused that confuse the judge or jury and distort reality. It doesn't allow one source, one family, one homogenous group to be more than one witness because slander is testimony. Any one person, family, or group of leaders can construct a false narrative to justify sin and attack the accusers. Whoever is the greatest rhetorician and can circle around the truth the best wins. One side may have logic and the evidence but that isn't really what wins most cases. Instead, the Bible bases its justice on two or more independent sources when a judge did not witness the event himself so that the independent witnesses become his eyes to see what actually occurred. American justice seeks to fight over narratives of the events by utilizing not only witness testimony but the denials of the accused, emotional appeals, ad hominem attacks, a retelling of events that contradict the actual testimony of the witnesses, etc. This is why the American court system is a crap shoot for justice rather than a solid basis for ensuring justice. 

No system is fool-proof but rest assured, we who know the Bible have followed it. We have no need of convincing the peanut gallery who confuses American parodies of justice with biblical, godly justice. If anyone claims otherwise, ask for the verses. They'll either give you some verse that has nothing to do with what they're trying to prove or no verses at all. Because that's pretty much how they defend the guilty, with nothing at all.