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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 25 Chapter
25 shows once again the frailty of The
two sins that plague Beyond
the adultery, the women got these Israeli men to enter into pagan
worship with them, a sin that is probably worse in the eyes of God than
the adultery. One
thing that we should note is that all pagan civilizations incorporated
sex in their worship of their gods.
From the very beginning man has been
mixing religion with sex, and still do.
As a side note, anyone who has ever heard any of Leonard Cohen
songs, will notice that he mixes sex and religion a lot in his lyrics.
He views sex as a spiritual experience, and in one sense of the
word he is right. In
verse 3 we note that these Israeli men worshipped the Canaanite god
known as Baal when they were with these women.
This god was the supreme god of all the Canaanite gods.
He was the god of fertility, thus the sexuality that went along
with Baal worship. The name
Baal means, "lord, possessor, owner, or husband.
Note the connection between the word "husband" and the
word "owner". In
all these pagan civilizations, the wife was the possession of the
husband. In
verse 4 God responds with "fierce" anger.
He tells Moses to have all the Israeli leaders killed in front of
Him so His fierce anger will be turned away.
It appears that one way for God's anger to be soften is for Him
to express anger, and that He certainly did here.
People often do not acknowledge that God can be angry, and for
those who do acknowledge it, they don't understand why God gets so
angry. The simple answer is
that God hates sin, and He does nothing in half-way measures.
When He expresses love it is to the fullest, and the same with
anger. If we could
understand how God hates sin, we might sin less.
I do say "might", because you would think by now that Israel
would understand how God feels about sin, but they keep straying from
their God, time and time again. In
verse 5 we see that Moses had the judges of Israel
find the men who committed the sin.
It was their job to kill these men.
This is a drastic measure, but this does show us how much God
hates disobedience. In
verses 6 to 10 we see a very disturbing incident.
This event is one of many events that critics of the Bible say
the Bible is a very violent book, and in places it is.
If you made a movie out of the Bible and did not edit it, it
would be a triple X and R rated movie.
The Bible does not hide sin and any disturbing events. One
Israeli man had the nerve to bring a Midianite woman, that's one of the
races in We
note that the plague ended with the death of this man and his adulterous
woman. In the very
beginning, God told Adam that in the day he sinned, he would die.
The book of Romans, along with the rest of the Bible, clearly
states that death and sin are link.
They are linked in many ways.
Sin produces death, but as in this case, death ended God's wrath,
as also can be seen in the cross of Christ. In
verses 10 and 11 God commends Phinehas for killing this man and his
adulterous woman. God said
that he had the same zeal for His honour as He does.
We learn a couple of things here.
One thing we learn is that God has zeal, and He commends us when
we have the same zeal. As
Christians, we should share all the feelings of God.
If God is angry with sin, so should we be.
If He loves, so should we. The
second thing we learn is that God places a high priority on "His
honor", and so should we. The
adultery the Israeli men were committing was bad, but worshipping other
gods does not show honor to the nations of the world.
This is what really bothers God, and I say that it still bothers
Him today. If as Christians,
or the church, fail to honour God as we should, He is very displeased.
There are many ways in which we fail to show that we honour God
to the world. One way is
promoting ourselves over Him. Another
way is to not share the way He feels.
When this happens our actions show that we do not honour Him.
I would dare say that one of the biggest problems the church has
today is its lack of honour to the God we claim to serve.
God
relates zeal to honour in this passage.
The two are clearly linked. If
we share God's passion, we honour Him.
If we don't share His passion, we don't honour Him as we should. Verses
13 and 14 are very interesting. God
was so pleased with Phinehas that He
made a "covenant of peace" with him and his
descendents. Note that this
covenant was not just with Phinehas, but with those in his lineage that
came after him. This
covenant concerned a "lasting priesthood" because he made
atonement for Israel. I believe this has strong
prophetic meaning. First
note the word "lasting".
This is not a temporary priesthood.
This is a lasting, or eternal priesthood.
I believe that when God uses the word "lasting" He
means just that – forever. I
see Phinehas as a type of Jesus, especially when Phinehas's act of
violence is seen as an act of atonement in the mind of God. The most
violent act of atonement was seen on the cross of Christ.
As Phinehas drove the spear through the body of the Israeli man
and the Midianite woman, so God did the same to Jesus.
Once again, we see the association with death and sin, both in
this incidence and the cross of Christ.
The supreme act of violence seen on the cross has turned God's
anger away from those who have embraced the cross as their sacrifice for
sin. Phinehas'
stabbing the man and woman with his sword reminds me of the Roman
soldier who stabbed Jesus with his sword while Jesus hung on the cross.
I really do believe this Old Testament incident is a type of
Jesus, is prophetic of Jesus.
In
verses 15 and 16 we see the names of the Israeli man and the Midianite
woman who were killed. For
all of human history this man is known for his sin.
In
verse 16 God told Moses to treat the Midianites as enemies.
God does have enemies. Not
everyone is a friend of God no matter how socially incorrect that is. The
reason for the Midianites should be seen as enemies is because the
Israeli men were tricked by the Midianite women to commit adultery with
them. This was more than
just a slip into temptation. It
was a means by the Midinaites to seduce The
devil uses the same trick today with Christians.
He tries to trick us, deceive us,
infiltrate our ranks, in order to cause us to lose our zeal and
join his ranks. He can be
very subtle at times, and many are deceived and following him without
really knowing it. |