Zealous for the honour of God - Numbers 25
- Simon
- Jun 5, 2020
- 8 min read
Read Numbers 25:1-18
Towards the end of the wilderness journey, within sight of the Promised Land, many Israelite men got into sexual immorality and idol worship with women from Moab. God's anger burned against them and He brought a plague on the Israelites and instructed Moses to kill all those men involved.
Just at the moment that Moses and the leaders are sorrowfully discussing this, an Israelite man called Zimri brought a Midianite woman called Kozbi into the camp, right in front of them.
Phinehas, son of Eleazer the High Priest and great-nephew of Moses, jumped up and went after them with a spear. He followed them into Zimri's tent and drove the spear through both of them.
At that moment the plague stopped, although 24,000 had died, and God credits Phinehas with turning away His anger.
"Since he was as zealous for my honour among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making a covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honour of his God and made atonement for the Israelites" (v 11-13).
So, what can we learn from a scripture like that? Are we to go around killing everyone guilty of sexual immorality? Should all pastors be armed with a spear in case they come across something they think angers God? Certainly not! But what we see in Phinehas, a future High Priest, is someone who thinks for God. Someone whose actions are spurred on by realising how angry God is with a situation. Someone who therefore shares God's view on the evil deeds of his fellow Israelites and, in righteous anger, does something about it.
Zimri and Kozbi were among thousands who had angered God. So why were they the particular objects of Phinehas's anger? Why didn't Phinehas go around thrusting his spear through everyone guilty of fornication?
God had already made His anger known and the leaders of Israel were meeting, in great sorrow, to discuss what should be done. At the darkest moment, these two wandered blatantly and unashamedly into the camp. Undeterred by being seen, they continued towards the tent where they intended to sin further against the faithful God of Israel. This is not just the action of someone who got caught up in it all and decides to go along with. This is someone who is not ashamed to be seen in blatant sin and defiance of God in front of God's representatives.
The anger of Phinehas was stirred. Just as the Lord Jesus showed His righteous anger in removing the money changers and drove sellers from His Father's house (John 2:13-17), Phinehas showed righteous anger for the honour of God's house and His Holy Name in the face of this brazen and deliberate affront to the holiness of God. God describes Phinehas as zealous for His honour, just as John's account quotes Psalm 69:9: "Zeal for Your house will consume me". You might say, "well, Jesus didn't go around killing people!" No, but in both cases the priest (because Jesus is God's High Priest, as Hebrews tells us) acted according to the sin being committed. Under the law, Zimri and Kozbi were guilty of sexual immorality and the penalty was death. In this case, immediate exaction of the judgement of God was necessary and God turned away His anger as a result.
In Jesus' case, perhaps there was an argument that the money changers and dove sellers were defying the holiness of God and His temple. Under the law of Moses that would have been a serious sin. But it was clearly something that these people had been allowed to do by the temple leaders - they were guilty but there was an underlying issue at a higher level. Jesus, as God's priest, expresses God's anger at the situation and drives them out, knocking over their tables and presumably preventing them from doing their trade for at least a short while. All four gospels record this event and the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) place this event at the beginning of Holy Week, just days before the crucifixion.* Jesus Himself was about to die to turn away the fierce anger of God against all our sins.
So for church leaders, and indeed all of us, there is a responsibility to protect the church and the honour of God. This can and should be done in a loving way. We are to love one another and "be kind to everyone... Opponents must be gently instructed" (2 Timothy 2:24,25). We know that gentle instruction characterised the Lord's teaching in His life on earth. But the incident in the temple was a defence of the holiness of God. The writer of Hebrews says "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy" (Hebrews 12:14). That is an important 'and'! There is a balance to be struck between trying to be peaceful and avoiding conflict on the one hand, with defence of God's holy will on the other. We are to "contend for the faith that was once entrusted to God's holy people" (Jude 3) and "Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear - hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh" (Jude 22,23)
So to answer the earlier question, no we don't walk around with literal spears, but we are armed with the Word of God, which is "alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword..." (Hebrews 4:12). That is part of a warning about falling short of the promises of God and leads straight into a description of Jesus the great High Priest! Doesn't Scripture fit together so perfectly! Jesus knows our weaknesses and temptations (Hebrews 4:15) and is "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him" (Hebrews 5:9).
There we have it! Salvation depends on our obeying God and accepting His word. We are saved by faith. If error and sin goes unchallenged, it might lead to the assumption that sin is ok. That God doesn't mind our sins. That God's standards really aren't that high. And if sin becomes tolerated, or at best simply goes unchallenged, how can we preach a gospel that requires a sinner to repent? The word to the Pergamum church in Revelation 2:12-17 directly references this event in Numbers and accuses some in the church of holding "to the teaching of Balaam, who taught the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality" (v14). But not just one church was guilty of this. The word to Thyatira in Revelation 2:18-26 is striking: "I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel ...[who] misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of foods sacrificed to idols" (v20). In other words, the exact same issue that Phinehas dealt with had crept into the first-century church and the Lord announced His intention to deal with it unless there was repentance.
Ultimately, unchallenged sin in the church was (and is) leading to God's judgement. Now, since God does not punish the forgiven sinner, that can only mean that there were many in Pergamum and Thyatira who weren't saved. They were church members but didn't know Jesus. These Scriptures, and many more such as Hebrews 12:16 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, imply that sexual immorality is a sign of someone not being saved. But of course it isn't just that particular sin - just one of sin of any kind is enough for us to fall short of the glory of God. Isn't it sad and frightening that there could be people in your church and mine who may end up facing the awful judgement of God because they haven't repented of their sin and found new life in Jesus?
So what can we do? Whether or not we're a church leader or have any platform to share the Word of God, we must take responsibility to "preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2) and "do the work of an evangelist" (v5). That is not just the responsibility of a pastor but of all God's people. Blatant sin, like Zimri and Kozbi where someone knowingly, obviously and even publicly sins against God, must be dealt with. Firstly on an individual basis (see Galatians 6:1) but openly and collectively if need be (2 Timothy 2:19b). If we fear that someone is slipping away from God, or doesn't know the gospel, we have a responsibility to act. In doing so we are not thrusting a spear through the sinner but encouraging them to let the Lord thrust the spear through their sin and having been made "dead to sin ... made alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). Of course, being able to do this requires that we have examined ourselves and are walking right with God - otherwise our preaching is simply hypocrisy.
It is really important, therefore, to seek God's will when we recognise problems. It might be that the answer is to challenge it directly. Those in leadership should particularly recognise the responsibility of this. However it might be that we bring the word of God (sharper than any two-edged sword) to a person and let the Spirit of God work. Or we may take it to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to act. However we feel called to act, let us make sure that our calling to love and live in peace is balanced with the need to be zealous for the holiness of God. If Phinehas had said "live and let live" or turned a blind eye, more of the Israelites would have sinned and suffered the wrath of God. If Jesus had ignored the money changers and dove sellers, it would have implied approval of what they were doing. If the Lord's words to the seven churches in Revelation had only been positives, they would have continued to allow sin and given the impression that the church was just as corrupt and immoral as the world around them.
We don't know, we're not told, how the seven churches responded to these words, just as we don't know how the churches and individuals that Paul wrote to responded to the epistles. But we can take responsibility for our own response to sin, whether in the home, in the church or in the world around us.
It might set us against popular opinion to challenge abortion and call it sin. It might put us in line with popular opinion to challenge racism and call it sin, although the response to that should never descend into sin itself - the violent protests and looting are not the answer. We should never fight sin with sin.
Ultimately we must remember we are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God, but Jesus offers salvation, regardless of what we have done. No sin is too awful for God to forgive. The church is made up people who have died to sin and seek God's holiness. We will never be completely rid of sin until we are with the Lord in His eternal kingdom, but we can strive to make our lives now as sinless, holy and pleasing to the Lord as possible. In doing so, we can reach out and touch His eternal, perfect and sinless kingdom and enjoy its blessings right here and right now.
*The fact that John places this event so early in His gospel does not contradict it's likely chronology from the other three gospels. Firstly, it is possible that this event happened more than once. After all, Jesus would have come up to Jerusalem several times during His ministry - would He have allowed this practise to continue right up until His final week on earth? Secondly, John takes a different approach to the other gospel writers in presenting the life of Jesus, which means there is no reason to assume that every event is intended to be chronological.
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