Judgment vs. Mercy

April 5

“Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. And Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the LORD spoke, saying: By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.’ So Aaron held his peace.” Leviticus 10:1-3

Surely these men did not deliberately intend to sin. However, notice how quickly God's sense of justice reacted, striking these men dead in their tracks and burning them to cinders. Obviously, they either did or failed to do something far more serious than ever entered their minds. Is not God's reaction a vivid warning, especially to those who come near Him? Are we not among those who come near Him?

Look at the evidence more closely and observe God's sense of justice. First, these men were the sons of Aaron, and Moses was their uncle. One would think that, if anybody among those two to three million Israelites had a close relationship with God, that family did. So one might think there may have been some leeway in God's judgment, but there was not! God reacted swiftly and violently.

Second, the charge against them was not because they consorted with prostitutes. No human sacrifices were planned or made. The charge was that they used "profane" or "strange" fire.

But we need to look further. Just a few days before this startling event, Exodus 40 reveals the construction of the Tabernacle had been completed and its furniture arranged. Leviticus 1 begins listing the final procedures made for God to dwell in the Tabernacle. In Leviticus 8, the priesthood was consecrated, and in Leviticus 9, they made their first official offering using the Tabernacle and its furniture. Leviticus 9:22-24 says:

Then Aaron lifted his hand toward the people, blessed them, and came down from offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people, and fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

This spectacular and serious event shows the offering's acceptance by God.

To this point, all was well, but we must consider a solemn command given by God to the Levites regarding their responsibilities in Leviticus 6:12-13:

And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order on it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar; it shall never go out.

The altar fire was to be rekindled continually from its own coals, which remained from God's acceptance of the original offering. What was Nadab and Abihu's sin? They used coals from a fire not ignited by God. It was not from His hand and therefore was foreign fire.

If we read between the lines here, we can easily see that Aaron was shocked. He went right to the top of human leadership to get this straightened out, and Moses gave him God's answer: Do not mourn. Do not show any agreement with Nadab and Abihu. Do not show any disagreement with God's judgment.

Why? God's judgments are never wrong. Nadab and Abihu got what they deserved. God saw every aspect of their act as it unfolded. They had added or subtracted to what God commanded and died. They had tried to get by with what they carnally felt was acceptable.

The instruction is clear: Among those consecrated by God to serve Him and His family, His instructions must be explicitly followed. They totally disregarded what He had commanded in Leviticus 6:12-13. There is no ambiguity in the instructions. They had been completely and adequately informed. Each step and each instrument in the process had been designed to teach certain spiritual concepts. They had thought that common fire was good enough, but in their careless, presumptuous neglect, they had blatantly twisted God's Word.

This incident vividly illustrates that the wages of sin is death. Leviticus 10:3 says Aaron held his peace; he knew the judgment was correct. It was a shocking demonstration, but we can be certain that, because God is love and is supremely sovereign in His judgment, His every decision will be as correct as His judgment of Nadab and Abihu, since He Himself is the standard.

God is not a holy terror lying in wait for us to do something wrong, but He provides us examples such as this and several others of what He can do in response to sin. When He responds like this, He is fully justified. He wants us to consider His justice so that we will be better prepared to evaluate our calling properly and then live by faith.

— John W. Ritenbaugh

Our Brother Ritenbaugh has expounded a truth that may not ordinarily be contemplated or discussed among us—or even preached to us in our churches. We live in an age when many teachers, according to II Timothy 3:6,7, are among those “…that creep into houses, and take captive silly women laden with sins, led away by divers lusts, they are ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

The fate of Aaron’s sons shows us clearly something our finite minds do not want to see and our teachers do not want to tell us—our God is holy, beyond our ability to conceptualize. Though He may be patient with us when we pursue our foibles and lusts and when we indulge our half-hearted worship, He is totally justified in making ours the same fate that befell Nadab and Abihu.

How often have we engaged in worship, not out of reverence for the Holy One but as an expression of our own delight in being caught up in the euphoria of the moment? How often have we bent and twisted the unchanging Word of God to attempt to conform it to our will rather than searching it to discern God’s perfect will?

Indeed, we have, like Nadab and Abihu, substituted our human fire for God’s holy fire, and we, like them, deserved God’s instant wrath; but HE was merciful! But HE allowed us to go on in our foolishness another day.

Why? Why would God require the ultimate penalty of Aaron’s sons but allow us to have the opportunity to repent and go forth into a higher plane of loving and serving Him? Without His definitive answer, we may only speculate as to the “Why” of His mercy. Perhaps it is because Aaron is not our father and Moses is not our uncle—we have not grown up at the feet of such mighty servants of God so God expects less of us.

However, that rationale falls apart when we factor in the reality that we, upon coming to faith in Christ, have an even greater One as our Teacher—we have the Holy Spirit who has been sent to “teach us all things,” John 16:13.

Rather than striving to understand the mercy He has extended to us, can we not simply accept it with thankful hearts and go forward into a deeper, more precious walk with the One who has shed His grace upon us? Can we not turn from the flippancy of our faith to the steadfast embrace of our faith and then extol the Blessed One who gave Himself that we might be forgiven even the grievous sin of trivializing the true worship of our Holy God!

The one thing Nadab and Abihu did not have was a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Let those of us who know Him, those of us who have the indwelling Holy Spirit, make our worship truly sacred. Let us never mingle the sublime with the profane, for we have been given a rich treasure of incalculable worth. Let us always cherish God’s “unspeakable GIFT,” II Corinthians 9:15.