Israel sins by worshiping a foreign deity and
having sexual relations with foreign women, when death was the punishment. (Numbers 25:1-13)
This idolatrous worship is described in terms similar to the earlier
worship of the golden calf, and it is met with the same fate. The report of the
dead does not come until later; the account is interrupted by the appearance of
a single guilty man, taken in the act of intercourse with a Midianite woman;
his death at the hands of Phinehas turns away God's wrath and makes atonement
for the Israelites.
We all
conduct ourselves in a particular way. However we retain responsibility for our
own actions. We may not be responsible for those things which are done to us,
but we are responsible for our choices. We all have our own natural tendency or
orientation towards specific sins.
The
question for all of us is: what will we do with them?
The death and life issues in this story are
fierce. Apostasy brings on God's wrath, and a
great plague that wipes out thousands. One individual sin is avenged in a
grisly scene where the man and woman are run through with a spear, apparently
during intercourse.
Yet that death is seen to make atonement for
the rest of the people, and the plagues are stopped. Indeed, all the Israelite
deaths cease at this point in the book, and Israel can move on to the new land.
Here,
again, we see clearly the biblical teaching that "the wages of sin is
death" (Romans 6:23), not because God desires death, but because sinful
acts have their own dire consequences.
God
allows a single death to make atonement for all, establishing through it a
"covenant of peace" (Numbers 25:12), so new life can begin.
Although
a direct connection with this story is not made in the New Testament, we can
see a parallel in how God the Father did sacrifice His Son. Jesus Christ who
gave His life for our sins and that of the whole world. So that whosoever
believes in Him, confessing his/her sins, asking the Father forgiveness, will
be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, from all unrighteousness. Thank You Jesus!
Hebrews
does interpret Jesus' death as that of a "high priest in the service of
God, to make a Sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people."
(Hebrews 2:17)
Thank
God, the Father, that He provided Jesus as a Sacrifice for our sins. Thank
Jesus that He was willing to suffer and die for you and me. We would have never
made it on our own.
HALLELUJAH.
Amen!
In
God's Service,
Minister
Dr. Trudy Veerman
Copyright © Dr.Trudy Veerman, 1996-2017,
All Rights Reserved.
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