NADAB’S AND ABIHU’S
"STRANGE FIRE"
Lev 10:1-20
The solemn and august ceremonies of the consecration of the
priests, and the tabernacle, and the inauguration of the tabernacle
service, had a sad and terrible termination. The sacrifices of the
inauguration day had been completed, the congregation had received
the priestly benediction, the glory of Jehovah had-appeared unto the
people, and, in token of His acceptance of all that had been done,
consumed the victims on the altar. This manifestation of the glory
of the Lord so affected the people-as well it might-that when they
saw it, "they shouted, and fell on their faces." It was, probably,
under the influence of the excitement of this occasion that (Lev
10:1-2), "Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his
censer, and put fire therein, and laid incense thereon, and offered
strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And
there came forth fire from before the Lord, and devoured them, and
they died before the Lord."
There has been no little speculation as to what it was, precisely,
which they did. Some will have it, that they lighted their incense,
not from the altar fire, but elsewhere. As to this, while it is not
easy to prove that to light the incense at the altar fire was an
invariable requirement, yet it is certain that this was commanded
for the great day of atonement; {Lev 16:12} and also, that when
Aaron offered incense in connection with the plague which broke out
upon the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Moses commanded him
to take the fire for the censer from off the altar; {Num 16:46} so
that, perhaps this is not unlikely to have been one element, at
least, in their offence. Others, again, have thought that their sin
lay in this, that they offered their incense at a time not commanded
in the order of worship which God had just prescribed; and this,
too, may very probably have been another element in their sin, for
it is certain that the divinely-appointed order of worship for the
day had been already completed. Yet again, others have supposed that
they rashly and without Divine warrant pressed within the veil, into
the immediate presence of the Shekinah glory of God, to offer their
incense there. For this, too, there is evidence, in the fact that
the institution of the great annual day of atonement, and the
prohibition of entrance within the veil at any other time, even to
the high priest himself, is said to have followed "after the death
of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord, and
died." {Lev 16:1-2}
It is perfectly possible, and even likely, that all these elements
were combined in their offence. In any case, the gravamen of their
sin is expressed in these words; they offered "fire which the Lord
had not commanded them": offered it, either in a way not commanded,
or at a time not commanded, or in a place not commanded; or,
perhaps, in each and all of these ways, offered "fire which the Lord
had not commanded." This was their sin, and one which brought
instant and terrible judgment.
It is easy enough to believe that yet they meant well in what they
did. It probably seemed to them the right thing to do. After such a
stupendous display as they had just witnessed, of the flaming glory
of Jehovah, why should they not, in token of reverence and
adoration, offer incense, even in the most immediate presence of
Jehovah? And why should such minor variations from the appointed
law, as to manner, or time, or place, matter very much, so the
motive was worship? So may they probably have reasoned, if indeed
they thought at all. But, nevertheless, this made no difference; all
the same, "fire came forth from Jehovah, and devoured them." They
had been but so lately consecrated! and-as we learn from Lev 10:5
-their priestly robes were on them at the time, in token of their
peculiar privilege of special nearness to God! But this, too, made
no difference; "there came forth fire from before the Lord and
devoured them."
Their sin, in the form in which it was committed, can never be
repeated; but as regards its inner nature and essence, no sin has
been in all ages more common. For the essence of their sin was this,
that it was will worship; worship in which they consulted not the
revealed will of God regarding the way in which He would be served,
but their own fancies and inclinations. The directions for worship
had been, as we have seen, exceedingly full and explicit; but they
apparently imagined that the fragrance of their incense, and its
intrinsic suitableness as a symbol of adoration and prayer, was
sufficient to excuse neglect of strict obedience to the revealed
will of God touching His own worship. Their sin was not unlike that
of Saul in a later day, who thought to excuse disobedience by the
offering of enormous sacrifices. But he was sharply reminded that
"to obey is better than sacrifice"; {1Sa 15:22} and the priesthood
were in like manner on this occasion very terribly taught that
obedience is also better than incense, even the incense of the
sanctuary.
In all ages, men have been prone to commit this sin, and in ours as
much as any. It is true that in the present dispensation the Lord
has left more in His worship than in earlier days to the sanctified
judgment of His people, and has not minutely prescribed details for
our direction. It is true, again, that there is, and always will be,
room for some difference of judgment among good and loyal servants
of the Lord, as to how far the liberty left us extends. But we are
certainly all taught as much as this, that wherever we are not clear
that we have a Divine warrant for what we do in the worship of God,
we need to be exceeding careful, and to act with holy fear, lest
possibly, like Nadab and Abihu, we be chargeable with offering
"strange fire," which the Lord has not commanded. And when one goes
into many a church and chapel, and sees the multitude of remarkable
devices by which, as is imagined, the worship and adoration of God
is furthered, it must be confessed that it certainly seems as if the
generation of Nadab and Abihu was not yet extinct; even although a
patient God, in the mystery of His long suffering, flashes not
instantly forth His vengeance.
This then is the first lesson of this tragic occurrence. We have to
do with a God who is very jealous; who will be worshipped as He
wills, or not at all. Nor can we complain. If God be such a Being as
we are taught in the Holy Scripture, it must be His inalienable
right to determine and prescribe how He will be served.
And it is a second lesson, scarcely less evident, that with God,
intention of good, though it palliate, cannot excuse disobedience
where He has once made known His will. No one can imagine that Nadab
and Abihu meant wrong; but for all that, for their sin they died.
Again, we are herein impressively taught that, with God, high
position confers no immunity when a man sins; least of all, high
position in the Church. On the contrary, the greater the exaltation
in spiritual honour and privilege, the more strictly will a man be
held to account for every failure to honour Him who exalted him. We
have seen this illustrated already by the law of the sin offering;
and this tragic story illustrates the same truth again.
But the question naturally arises, How could these men, who had been
so exalted in privilege, who had even beheld the glory of the God of
Israel in the holy mount, {Exo 24:1; Exo 24:9-10} have ventured upon
such a perilous experiment? The answer is probably suggested by the
warning which immediately followed their death (Lev 10:8-9): "The
Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Drink no wine nor strong drink when
ye go into the tent of the meeting, that ye die not." It is
certainly distinctly hinted by these words, that it was under the
excitement of strong drink that these men so fatally sinned.
If so, then, although their sin may not be repeated in its exact
form among us, yet the fact points a very solemn warning, not only
regarding the careless use of strong drink, but, more than that,
against all religious worship and activity which is inspired by
other stimulus than by the Holy Spirit of God. Of this every age of
the Church’s history has furnished sad examples. Sometimes we see it
illustrated in "revivals," even in such as may be marked by some
evidence of the presence of the Spirit of God; when injudicious
speakers seek by various methods to work up what is, after all,
merely a physical excitement of a strange, infectious kind, though
too often mistaken for the work of the Holy Spirit of God. More
subtle and yet more common is the sin of such as in preaching the
Word find their chief stimulation in the excitement of a crowded
house, or the visible signs of approbation on the part of the
hearers; and perhaps sometimes mistake the natural effect of this
influence for the quickening power of the Holy Ghost, and go on to
offer before the Lord the incense of their religious service and
worship, but with "strange fire." Of this all need to beware; and
most of all, ministers of the Word.
The penalty of sin is often long delayed, but it did not lag in this
case. The strange fire in the hands of Nadab and Abihu was met by a
flash of flame that instantly withered their life; and, just as they
were, their priestly robes upon them unconsumed, their censers in
their hands, they dropped dead before the fatal bolt.
In reading this account and other similar narratives in Holy
Scripture, of the deadly outbreak of God’s wrath, many have felt not
a little disquieted in mind because of the terrific severity of the
judgment, which to them seems so out of all proportion to the guilt
of the offender. And so, in many hearts, and even to many lips, the
question has perforce arisen: Is it possible to believe that in this
passage, for instance, we have a true representation of the
character of God? In answering such a question we ought always to
remember, first of all, that, apart from our imperfect knowledge,
just because we all are sinners, we are, by that fact, all more or
less disqualified and incapacitated for forming a correct and
unbiassed judgment regarding the demerit of sin. It is quite certain
that every sinful man is naturally inclined to take a lenient view
of the guilt of sin, and, by necessary consequence, of its desert in
respect of punishment. In approaching this question, here and
elsewhere in God’s Word, it is imperative that we keep this fact in
mind.
Again, it is not unnecessary to remark, that we must be careful and
not read into this narrative what, in fact, is not here. For it is
often assumed without evidence, that when we read in the Bible of
men being suddenly cut off by death for some special sin, we are
therefore required to believe that the temporal judgment of physical
death must have been followed, in each instance, by the judgment of
the eternal fire. But always to infer this in such cases, when, as
here, nothing of the kind is hinted in the text, is a great mistake,
and introduces a difficulty which is wholly of our own making. That
sometimes, at least, the facts are quite the opposite, is expressly
certified to us in 1Co 11:30-32, where we are told that among the
Christians of Corinth, many, because of their irreverent approach to
the Holy Supper of the Lord, slept the sleep of death; but that
these judgments from the Lord, of bodily death, instead of being
necessarily intended for their eternal destruction, were sent that
they might not finally perish. For the Apostle’s words are most
explicit; for it is with reference to these cases of sickness and
death of which he had spoken, that he adds (1Co 11:32): "But when we
are (thus) judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be
condemned with the world."
What we have here before us, then, is not the question of the
eternal condemnation of Nadab and Abihu for their thoughtless,
though perhaps, not so intended, profanation of God’s worship, -a
point on which the narrative gives us no information, -but, simply
and only, the inflicting on them, for this sin, of the judgment of
temporal death. And if this yet seem to some undue severity, as no
doubt it will, there remain other considerations which deserve to
have great weight here. In the first place, if this reveal God as
terribly severe in His judgment, even upon what, compared with other
crimes, may seem a small sin, we have to remember that, after all,
this God of the Bible, this Jehovah of the Old Testament, is only
herein revealed as in this respect like the God whose working we see
in nature and in history. Was the God of Nadab and Abihu a severe
God? Is not the God of nature a terribly severe God? Who then is it
that has so appointed the economy of nature that even for one
thoughtless indulgence by a young man, he shall be racked with pain
all his life thereafter? It is a law of nature, one says. But what
is a law of nature but the ordinary operation of the Divine Being
who made nature? So let us not forget that the reasoning which,
because of the confessed severity of this judgment on the sons of
Aaron, argues God out of the tenth of Leviticus, and refuses to
believe that this can be a revelation of His mind and character, by
parity of reasoning must go on to argue God out of nature and out of
history. But if one be not yet ready for the latter, let him take
heed how he too hastily decide on this ground against the verity of
the history and the truth of the revelation in the case before us.
Then, again, we need to be careful that we pass not judgment before
considering all that was involved in this act of sin. We cannot look
upon the case as if the act of Nadab and Abihu had been merely a
private matter, personal to themselves alone. This it was not, and
could not be. They did what they did in their official robes;
moreover, it was a peculiarly public act: it took place before the
sanctuary, where all the people were assembled. What was the
influence of this their act, if it passed unrebuked and unpunished,
likely to be? History shows that nothing was more inbred in the
nature of the people than just this tendency to will worship. For
centuries after this, notwithstanding many like terrible judgments,
it mightily prevailed, taking the form of numberless attempted
improvements on the arrangements of worship appointed by God, and
introducing, under such pretexts of expediency, often the grossest
idolatry. And although the Babylonian judgment made an end of the
idolatrous form of will worship, the old tendency persisted, and
worked on under a new form till, as we learn from our Lord’s words
in the Gospel, the people were in His day utterly overwhelmed with
"heavy burdens and grievous to be borne," rabbinical additions to
the law, attempted improvements on Moses, under pretext of honouring
Moses, all begotten of this same inveterate spirit of will worship.
Nor are such things of little consequence, as some seem to imagine,
whether we find them among Jews or in Christian communions. On the
contrary, all will worship, in all its endless variety of forms,
tends to confuse conscience, by confounding with the commandments of
God the practices and traditions of men; and all history, no less of
the Church than of Israel, shows that the tendency of all such will
worship is to the subversion alike of morality and religion,
occasioning, too often, total misapprehension as to what indeed is
the essence of religion well pleasing to God.
Was the sin of the priests, Nadab and Abihu, then, committed in such
a public manner, such a trifling matter after all? And when we
further remember the peculiar circumstances of the occasion, -that
the whole ceremonial of the day was designed in a special manner to
instruct the people as to the manner in which Jehovah, their King
and their God, would be worshipped, -it certainly is not so hard,
after all, to see how it was almost imperative that in the very
beginning of Israel’s national history, God should give them a
lesson on the sanctity of His ordinances and His hatred of will
worship, which should be remembered to all time.
The solemn lesson of the terrible judgment, Moses, as Prophet and
Interpreter of God’s will to the people, declares in these words
(Lev 10:3): "This is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be
sanctified in them that come nigh Me, and before all the people I
will be glorified."
If God separate a people to be specially near unto Him, it is that,
admitted to such special nearness to Himself, they shall ever
reverently recognise His transcendent exaltation in holiness, and
take care that He be ever glorified in them before all men. But if
any be careless of this, God will nevertheless not be defrauded. If
they will recognise His august holiness, in the reverence of loyal
service, well; God shall thus glorify Himself in them before all.
But if otherwise, still God will be glorified in them before all
people, though now in their chastisement and in retribution. The
principle is that which is announced by Amos: {Amo 3:2} "You only
have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will
visit upon you all your iniquities." And when we remember that the
sons of Aaron typically represent the whole body of believers in
Christ, as a priestly people, it is plain that the warning of this
judgment comes directly home to us all. If, as Christians, we have
been brought into a relation of special nearness and privilege with
God, we have to remember that the place of privilege is, in this
case, a place of peculiar danger. If we forget the reverence and
honour due to His name, and insist on will worship of any kind, we
shall in some way suffer for it. God may wink at the sins of others,
but not at ours. He is a God of love, and desires not our death, but
that He may be glorified in our life; but if any will not have it
so, He will not be robbed of his glory. Hence the warning of the
Apostle Peter, who was so filled with these Old Testament
conceptions of God and His worship: "It is written, Ye shall be
holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on Him as Father, who without
respect of persons judgeth according to each man’s work, pass the
time of your sojourning in fear". {1Pe 1:17}
Lev 10:3 : "And Aaron held his peace." For rebellion were useless;
nay, it had been madness. Even the tenderest natural affection must
be silent when God smites for sin; and in this case the sin was so
manifest, and the connection therewith of the judgment so evident,
that Aaron could say nothing, though his heart must have been
breaking.
MOURNING IN SILENCE
Lev 10:4-7
"And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the
uncle of Aaron, and said unto them, Draw near. carry your brethren
from before the sanctuary out of the camp. So they drew near, and
carried them in their coats out of the camp; as Moses had said. And
Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons.
Let not the hair of your heads go loose, neither rend your clothes;
that ye die not, and that He be not wroth with. all the
congregation: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel,
bewail the burning which the Lord hath kindled. And ye shall not go
out from the door of the tent of meeting, lest ye die: for the
anointing oil of the Lord is upon you. And they did according to the
word of Moses."
Even in ordinary cases, restrictions were placed upon Aaron and his
sons as regards the outward signs of mourning; but exceptions were
made in the case of the nearest relations, and, in particular, of
the death of a son, or a brother. {Lev 21:2} In this case, however,
this permission could not be given; and they are warned that by
public expressions of grief they would not only bring death from the
Lord upon themselves, but also bring His wrath upon the whole
congregation which they represented before God. They are not indeed
forbidden to mourn in their hearts, but from all the outward and
customary signs of mourning they must abstain. And the reason for
this is given; "The anointing oil of the Lord is upon you." That is,
by the anointing they had been set apart to represent God before
Israel. Hence, when God had thus manifested His holy wrath against
sin, for them to have exhibited the public signs of mourning for
this, even though the stroke of wrath had fallen into their own
family, would have been a visible contradiction between their
actions and their priestly position. To others, indeed, these
outward tokens of mourning are expressly permitted, for they stood
in no such special relation to God; their brethren, "the whole house
of Israel," might bewail the burning which the Lord had kindled, but
they, although nearest of kin to the dead, are not permitted even to
follow the slain of the Lord to the grave, and (Lev 10:4-5) the sad
duty is assigned to their cousins, who bear the dead, in their white
priestly robes, just as they had fallen, out of the camp to burial,
while Aaron and his sons mourn silently within the tent of meeting.
This has seemed hard to many, and has furnished some another
illustration of the hardness. and severity of the character of God
as held up in the Pentateuch. But we shall do well to remember that
in all this we have nothing which in any respect goes beyond the
very solemn words of the tender hearted and most compassionate
Saviour, who said, for example, "If any man cometh unto Me, and
hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters he cannot be My disciple." {Luk 14:26} In
language such as this, we cannot but recognise the same character as
in this command unto Aaron and his sons; and if such "hard sayings"
are to be held: reason for rejecting the revelation of the character
of God as given in the Old Testament, the same logic, in the
presence of similar words, will require us also to reject the
revelation of God’s character as given by Christ in the New
Testament.
The teaching of both Testaments on this matter is plain. Natural
affection is right; it is indeed implanted in our hearts by the God
who made us in all our human relations. But none the less, whenever
the feelings which belong even to the nearest and tenderest earthly
relations come into conflict with absolute fealty and submission to
the will of God, and unswerving loyalty to the will of Christ, then,
hard though indeed it may be, natural affection must give way, and
mourn within the tent in the silence of a holy submission to the
Lord.
CAREFULNESS AFTER
JUDGMENT
Lev 10:8-20
"And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Drink no wine nor strong
drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of
meeting, that ye die not: it shall be a statute forever throughout
your generations: and that ye may put difference between the holy
and the common, and between the unclean and the clean; and that ye
may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord
hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses. And Moses spake unto
Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons that were left,
Take the meal offering that remaineth of the offerings of the Lord
made by fire, and eat it without leaven beside the altar: for it is
most holy: and ye shall eat it in a holy place, because it is thy
due, and thy sons’ due, of the offerings of the Lord made by fire:
for so I am commanded. And the wave breast and the heave thigh shall
ye eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with
thee: for they are given as thy due, and thy sons’ due, out of the
sacrifices of the peace offerings of the children of Israel. The
heave thigh and the wave breast shall they bring with the offerings
made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering before the
Lord: and it shall be thine, and thy sons’ with thee, as a due
forever; as the Lord hath commanded. And Moses diligently sought the
goat of the sin offering, and, behold it was burnt: and he was angry
with Eleazar and with Ithamar, the sons of Aaron that were left,
saying. Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the place of
the sanctuary, seeing it is most holy, and He hath given it you to
bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them
before the Lord? Behold, the blood of it was not brought into the
sanctuary within: ye should certainly have eaten it in the
sanctuary, as I commanded. And Aaron spake unto Moses, Behold, this
day have they offered their sin offering and their burnt offering
before the Lord; and there have befallen me such things as these:
and if I had eaten the sin offering today, would it have been well
pleasing in the sight of the Lord? And when Moses heard that, it was
well pleasing in his sight."
Such a judgment as the foregoing ought to have had a good effect,
and it did. This appeared in renewed carefulness to secure the most
exact obedience hereafter in all their official duties. To this end,
the Lord Himself now laid down a law evidently designed to preclude,
as far as possible, every risk of any such fault in the priestly
service as might again bring down judgment. It is not only holiness,
but considerate and anxious love, which speaks in the next words,
addressed to Aaron (Lev 10:8-9): "Drink no wine nor strong drink,
thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of meeting,
that ye die not: it shall be a statute forever throughout your
generations."
And for this prohibition the reason is given (Lev 10:10-11): "That
ye may put difference between the holy and the common, and between
the unclean and the clean; and that ye may teach the children of
Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the
hand of Moses."
It was not then that the use of wine was in itself sinful; for this
is taught nowhere in the Old or New Testament, and as a doctrine of
religion is characteristic, not of Judaism or Christianity, but only
of Mohammedanism, of Buddhism and other heathen religions. The
ground of this command of abstinence, as of the New Testament
counsel, {Rom 14:20-21} is that of expediency. Because, in the use
of wine or strong drink, there was involved a certain risk, that by
undue indulgence, the judgment might be confused or the memory
weakened, so that something might be done amiss; therefore the
priests, who were specially commissioned to teach the statutes of
the Lord to Israel, and this most of all, by their own carefulness
to obey all the least of His commandments, are here warned to
abstain whenever about engaging in their official duties. As
suggested above, it is at least very natural to infer, from the
historical setting of this prohibition, that the fatal offence of
Nadab and Abihu was occasioned by such an indulgence in wine or
strong drink as made it possible for impulse to get the better of
knowledge and judgment.
But, however this may be, the lesson for us abides the same; a
lesson which each one according to his circumstances must faithfully
apply to his own case. For the Christian it is not enough that he
shall abstain from what is in its own nature always sinful; it must
be the law of our life that we abstain also from whatever may
needlessly become occasion of sin. In this we cannot, indeed, lay
down a universal code of law. Heathen reformers have done this, and
their imitators in the Church, but never Christ or His Apostles. And
this with reason. For that which for one carries with it inevitable
risk of sin, is not always fraught with the same danger to another
person with a different temperament, or even to the same person
under different circumstances. In each instance we must judge for
ourselves, taking heed not to abuse our liberty to another’s harm;
and also, on the other hand, being careful how we judge others in
regard to things which in their essential nature are neither right
nor wrong. But we shall be wise to recognise the fact that it is
just in such things that many Christians do most harm, both to their
own souls and to those of others. And in regard to the drinking of
wine in particular, one must be blind indeed not to perceive it to
be the fact that, whatever the reason may be, the English-speaking
peoples seem to be peculiarly susceptible to the danger of undue
indulgence in wine and strong drink. On both sides of the Atlantic,
drunkenness must be set down as one of the most prevalent national
sins.
In deciding the question of personal duty in this and like cases,
all believers are bound, as the Lord’s priestly people, to, remember
that He has appointed them that they should walk before Him as a
separated people, who, by their daily walk, above all, are to teach
others to "put a difference between holy and common, and unclean and
clean, and to observe all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken."
In Lev 10:12-15 we have a repetition of the commandments previously
given, concerning the use to be made of the meal offering and the
peace offering. From this it appears that Moses himself, in view of
the tragic occurrence of the day, was stirred up to charge Aaron and
his sons anew on matters on which he had already commanded them. And
with this intensified care on his part is evidently connected the
incident recorded in the verses which follow, where we read that,
having repeated the directions as to the meal offering and the peace
offering (Lev 10:16-17), "Moses diligently sought the goat of the
sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt; and he was angry with
Eleazar and with Ithamar, the sons of Aaron that were left, saying,
Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the place of the
sanctuary, seeing it is most holy, and He hath given it you to bear
the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before
the Lord?"
It had indeed been commanded, in the case of those sin offerings of
which the blood was brought into the holy place, that their flesh
should not be eaten; but that the flesh of all others should be
eaten, as belonging to the class of things "most holy," by the
priests alone within the Holy Place. Hence Moses continued (Lev
10:18): "Behold, the blood of it was not brought into the sanctuary
within: ye should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I
commanded."
What had been done, as it appears, had been done with Aaron’s
knowledge and sanction; for Aaron then answered in behalf of his
sons (Lev 10:19): "Behold, this day have they offered their sin
offering and their burnt offering before the Lord; and there have
befallen me such things as these: and if I had eaten the sin
offering today, would it have been well pleasing in the sight of the
Lord?"
Of which answer, the intention seems to have been this. In this day
of special exaltation and privilege, when for the first time they
had performed their solemn priestly duties, when most of all there
should have been the utmost care to please the Lord in the very
smallest things, His holy Name had been profaned by the will worship
of his sons, and the wrath of God had broken out against them, and,
in them, against their father’s house. Could it be the will of God
that a house in which was found the guilt of such a sin, should yet
partake of the most holy things of God in the sanctuary?
From this it appears that the judgment sent into the house of Aaron
had had a most wholesome spiritual effect. They had received such an
impression of their own profound sinfulness as they had never had
before.
And it is very instructive to observe that they assume to themselves
a part in the sinfulness which had been shown in the sin of Nadab
and Abihu. It did not occur to Aaron or his remaining sons to say,
in the spirit of Israel in the day of our Lord, "If we had been in
their place, we would not have done so." Rather their consciences
had been so awakened to the holiness of God and their own inborn
evil, that they coupled themselves with the others as under the
displeasure of God. Was it possible, even though they personally had
not sinned, that such as they should eat that which was most holy
unto God? They had thus in the letter disobeyed the law; but because
their offence was begotten of a misapprehension, and only showed how
deeply and thoroughly they had taken to heart the lesson of the sore
judgment, we read that "when Moses heard" their explanation, "it was
well pleasing in his sight."
All this which followed the sin of Nadab and Abihu, and the judgment
which fell on them, and thus upon the whole house of Aaron, is a
most instructive illustration of the working of the chastising
judgments of the Lord, when rightly received. Its effect was to
awaken the utmost solicitude that nothing else might be found about
the tabernacle service, even through oversight, which was not
according to the mind of God; and, in those immediately stricken, to
produce a very profound sense of personal sinfulness and
unworthiness before God. The New Testament gives us a graphic
description of this effect of the chastisement of God on the
believer, in the account which we have of the result of the
discipline which the Apostle Paul inflicted on the sinning member of
the Church of Corinth; concerning which he afterward wrote to them
{2Co 7:11} "Behold, this selfsame thing, that ye were made sorry
after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what
clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea,
what longing, yea, what zeal, yea, what avenging!"
A good test is this, which, when we have passed under the chastising
hand of God, we may well apply to ourselves: this "earnest care,"
this "clearing of ourselves," this holy fear of a humbled heart,
-have we known what it means? If so, though we sorrow, we may yet
rejoice that by grace we are enabled to sorrow "after a godly sort,"
with "a repentance which bringeth no regret."
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