Outrage against God’s men never sounded so heroic.

“You have gone too far!” they shouted at Moses. “For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (Numbers 16:3).

The hundreds of men at the entrance lobbied for the people. They demanded notice. Far from peeking around avatars and fake names, these men confronted Moses as men — “well-known men,” in fact, chiefs in their communities, shepherds of families and clans (Numbers 16:2). Their charge: Moses and Aaron have exalted themselves; they rule with confiscated authority. Their logic: all of Israel is holy, every last person. Who is this Moses and this Aaron to speak from on high? This was “Power to the People.”

Did they have a point? Moses, after all, wrote that Israel was to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Did “kingdom of priests” actually mean “sons of Aaron”? Did “holy nation” actually mean “holy prophet”? Had not Moses and Aaron “gone too far” in asserting their authority?

Korah, the people’s champion, thought so. He placed himself at the head of this small army. Shouts swelled, “All in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and Yahweh is among them — come down from your castles!”

Moses, the meekest man on earth, gives us a lesson for today with his reply.

Motives Unmasked

Moses responds with the following steps.

First, he falls on his face. He grew weary of his life as a constant game of thrones. Would Moses have ever chosen this staff for himself? He tried his best to deny it from the start — “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else” (Exodus 4:13). Since then, he has heard the thankless voices repeat, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us?” (Exodus 2:14). He collapses in prayer.

Second, he challenges Korah and his company. He bows before God; he stands before men. He challenges Korah and the other sons of Levi to return tomorrow: “In the morning the Lord will show who is his, and who is holy, and will bring him near to him” (Numbers 16:5).

Third, he unmasks Korah’s motives. Here, Moses gives us our lesson. He diagnoses what Korah’s rebellion is really about — something very different than presented. Korah shouted of equality, of fairness, of removing mountains and lifting valleys. But what did Moses hear?

Hear now, you sons of Levi: is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the Lord and to stand before the congregation to minister to them, and that he has brought you near him, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? And would you seek the priesthood also? (Numbers 16:8–10)

The revolutionists said, “Sameness for all! All of us are holy! The Lord walks among us — why should Moses and Aaron reign?” But Moses heard, “We want the priesthood.”

Korah and his company were Levites (like Moses and Aaron) but not priests. Priesthood belonged to Aaron and his sons. The Levites helped the priests and served in the tabernacle, but they did not possess full access. Discontent festered. Those closest grasp at crowns. Moses hears envy in their talk of equality. They despised not that some were preferred, but who was preferred. They wanted all level so they could rise. Instead of Aaron, Korah.

Scolding Ingratitude

They did not admit their hunger for religious authority. And isn’t it ironic — and, as Moses says, shameful — that those already with distinction led this mutiny? He scolds their ingratitude:

Hear now, you sons of Levi: is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the Lord and to stand before the congregation to minister to them, and that he has brought you near him, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? (Numbers 16:8–10)

“Is your nobility too small, Korah and his complainers, that you stand here and snarl? Has God not separated you for holy service above the other tribes? Do not your sons inherit advantages by birthright?”

They said they were attempting to impeach Moses and Aaron, but again, the prophet strips them bare: “It is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together. What is Aaron that you grumble against him?” (Numbers 16:11). In revolting against God’s authority, Korah and his chiefs revolted against God. Moses did not exalt his brother; God did. For “no one takes this honor [of priesthood] for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was” (Hebrews 5:4).

Blurred Boundaries

Centuries and different covenants separate us from Korah. Yet while the earth swallowed Korah alive — along with his family, his people, and all their goods (Numbers 16:31–35) — the spirit of Korah and his campaign strategy endure.

“The spirit of our age feuds against God’s authorities because it feuds against God.”

The spirit of our age feuds against God’s authorities because it feuds against God. “You have gone too far,” it whispers of those above, “for all are special, every last one of us.” It triggers explosives at the base to collapse categories of parent-child, pastor-sheep, teacher-student, policeman-citizen, elder-youth, employer-employee — crumbling them to our harm. God gives us a world with order for our good — mother over the child, father over the home, king over the nation, pastors over the congregant, and Christ over all. But the Korahs cannot tolerate any Moseses and Aarons, because ultimately they want the Savior’s scepter.

Drunk on Equality

Today, as then, rebellion against God can sound so heroic. We need to be aware of equality’s dark side. This might sound strange at first. Isn’t equality always a good thing?

C.S. Lewis writes in reply, “When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind,” Lewis tells us, “is the special disease of democracy” (Present Concerns, 9).

By this, Lewis did not mean legal equality. Justice sings when confronting a Jim Crow South or an anti-Semitic Germany or the barbarous but now fallen Roe v. Wade. What he means is this spirit of Korah, the “man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other — the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow.” He is what Lewis labels “a prosaic barbarian.”

He goes so far as to say that God designed us to desire distinctions. Even when we overdose on sameness, our veneration always travels elsewhere:

Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead — even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served — deny it food and it will gobble poison. (12)

“We resist flattening God’s good order for the home, the church, and society — especially at the flattery of Korah.”

Our society overdoses on prescription pills. But Christians have the label. We resist flattening God’s good order for the home, the church, and society — especially at the flattery of Korah. Because when we do cave, we extend the new world order designed by shadows and spirits at war with God. And as shown in Korah’s rebellion, even some who scream loudest of equality don’t want it either.

Is It Too Small a Thing?

Shapeless homes and interchangeable churches lower the drawbridge for Korah to invade. The likes of feminism, socialism, LGBTQ+, and smooth-sounding egalitarianism might tell us how special we all are, even co-opting the imago dei. But the plain instruction given to Christian husbands and wives, fathers and children, kings and citizens, masters and servants, shepherds and individual sheep survives.

In Christ, we do not chafe at this. Of all people, we best love just sovereigns, good heads, righteous authorities and their rule. We will not follow Korah’s sweet talk into the earth’s core. If tempted by his rhetoric, hear Christ himself ask us, “Is it too small a thing to you that the living God has loved you, chosen you, redeemed you, and graced you to rule with me in the endless world to come?”

Joab’s charge to play the man still endures, immortalized in Scripture. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:13).

Joab, facing enemies from the front and from the rear, took some of his best men and faced the Syrians ahead. The rest of his army would turn with his brother, Abishai, to meet the Ammonites to their back. Here we find the iconic words of Joab to his brother:

“If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.” (2 Samuel 10:11–13)

This battle scene, equal to the best of Braveheart, Gladiator, or 300, began, if I may comb things out just slightly, with a man’s beard. Or, to be precise, the beards of several bushy men.

Sheered Like Sheep

David had sent several bearded messengers to meet the newly crowned King Hanun of the Ammonites, who succeeded his father, Nahash. David expressed his condolences for the deceased Nahash by dispatching these warm-chinned chums to “console [Hanun] concerning his father” (2 Samuel 10:2). Nahash had remained loyal to David — the neighboring kings kept the peace between each other. David’s delegates extended, as it were, the right hand of good will to Hanun.

A hand Hanun would not shake.

Led by the folly of suspicious counsel, the princes of the Ammonites convinced Hanun that these servants did not come to comfort but to conquer. “Has not David sent his servants to search the city and spy it out and to overthrow it?” (2 Samuel 10:3). And this is where things get rather hairy for the King. How should he respond?

He decides to shame David’s men and make them a spectacle. “Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away” (2 Samuel 10:4). He left multiple cheeks exposed.

Like sheep, Hanon sheered these men. These trees lost half their leaves; these lions, half their manes. When David heard of the barber-ous deed, he sent to meet them because they were “greatly ashamed.” The king acknowledged their humiliation and told them, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return” (2 Samuel 10:5).

And what would David do next? Touch a man’s goat, and it’s time for court; touch a man’s beard, and it’s time for war.

Still Waiting in Jericho

In the twenty-first century, we might miss how hostile this act really was, how deeply shaming for an Israelite man in that day. If King Hanun cut off half of our beards today, it would be considered less shameful than strange. Also, not very effective — for each could just shave the other half off and still fit in with society. So why did this razor cut them to the heart? Why wait outside Jerusalem until it grew back? One historical commentary states, “What may seem like a ‘prank’ was in fact a direct challenge to David’s power and authority, and precipitated a war between the two nations” (336).

And beyond its spitting upon David’s outstretched hand of peace, consider the prominence of the beard in Israel.

First, in Israelite culture, the beard served as a sign of mature masculinity. All Israelite men grew beards; God commanded it, “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard” (Leviticus 19:27). Beards were a facial billboard for manhood, distinguishing men, at first glance, from boys and women.

The full, rounded beard was a sign of manhood and a source of pride to Hebrew men. It was considered an ornament, and much care was given to its maintenance. In fact, the wealthy and important made a ceremony of caring for their beards. Custom did not allow the beard to be shaved, only trimmed (Leviticus 19:27; 21:5), except in special circumstances [such as great lament or distress, see Jeremiah 41:5; Ezra 9:3]. (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 80)

Thus, to cut off the peacekeeper’s beards was, quoting again, to “symbolically emasculat[e] them and by extension David” (IVP Bible Background Commentary, 336). Not to split hairs, but the beards also served as a sign of masculine might: “Beards worn during ancient periods were viewed with great reverence and often symbolized strength and virility” (Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible,158). To hack at it was to hack at a symbol of their manliness.

What of the Beardless?

The connection between manhood and unmown cheeks today has flowed down through church history, like oil running down the beard of Aaron (Psalm 133:2).

Augustine, commenting on Psalm 133, writes, “The beard signifies the courageous; the beard distinguishes the grown men, the earnest, the active, the vigorous. So that when we describe such, we say, he is a bearded man” (Augustine’s Commentary on Psalms, John, and 1 John). Or take Charles Spurgeon, who told his students that “Growing a beard is a habit most natural, Scriptural, manly and beneficial” (Lectures to My Students, 99). Or take ministers during the Reformation who grew manhood’s symbol to defy the celibate, clean-shaven faces of the Catholic priesthood.

Or overhear our day questioned by C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters as the senior demon writes his nephew, “Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females — and there is more in that than you might suppose” (118).

So, what of the beardless?

Rome’s men were clean-shaven in biblical times (as were the Egyptians). When these beardless came to the bearded Christ, they not need grow one to enter the kingdom of God. They, like we, are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone — apart from any strands of good works, lest the hairier among us boast. Of course, on the face of it, beards hold no salvific design, nor are they commanded. Even the shaved can be saved. Nor do beards make us men. Some boys living in basements, addicted to video games and porn, grow beards. But here we walk a fine line. Does this then relegate the beard, that ancient landmark, to a matter of obsolete decoration, of mere preference?

“If you walk according to your God-given masculinity, you are a bearded man, whether you have hair on your face or not.”

I know more than a few godly men who testify that though they try, the fig tree does not blossom, nor is fruit found on the vine. Little islands of hair sprout, but the lands never form the continent. They are more Jacob than Esau — whose mother glued “the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck” (Genesis 27:16) to pass as his hairy brother (and the older did come to serve the younger, Genesis 25:23; 27:15, 42). Chin wigs, my brother, are no solution.

The solution is to be the man God made you to be. Many today, if not most, will not have beards and are not the lesser for it. This article, with all its bearded banter, has nothing negative to say to you. We agree with Shakespeare that, “He that hath a beard is more than a youth,” but not when he continues, “and he that hath no beard is less than a man” (Much Ado about Nothing, 2.1). For if you walk according to your God-given and God-matured masculinity, you are a bearded man, whether you have hair on your face or not. To understand that statement, consider the wonder of why God made beards.

O Beard, Where Art Thou?

Why did God make men with the capacity to grow beards? Why grow beards at all, or why not give them to children and women, like some speculate of the dwarves of middle earth?

Is it not because God delights in the distinctions he made? The day and the night, the land and the water, the heavens and the earth, the man and the woman — “Good.” For centuries, he hid the chromosomal signatures in every cell in our bodies, where only he could delight in them, but he did not leave himself without a witness, even to the unscientific. He shaded the man’s face with his pencil from the very beginning. What ecstasy of Adam observing the beautiful and smooth face of Eve — like me, yet not.

“We paste false beards on women and shave the beards of men, catechizing the children that there isn’t any difference.”

This appreciation is under assault in many places today. Figuratively speaking, our culture dislikes everything about beards. We paste false beards on women and shave the beards of men, catechizing the children that there isn’t any difference. Hair is just hair. With enough hormones, anyone can grow them. Claiming to be wise, we have become fools, exchanging the glory of God for images (Romans 1:22–23) — and now we barter away our own.

That makes literal beards, in my opinion, worth having. Beards protest against a world gone mad. In other words, beards beard. They testify, in their own bristly way, that sex distinctions matter, that manhood will not be so easily shaven, shorn, or chopped by the Huruns of this world. Its itchy and cheeky voice bears witness, “Male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

“I am afraid of your love,” Bishop Ignatius wrote to the early church in Rome, “lest it should do me an injury” (Epistle to the Romans 1.2). It is hard to imagine more ironic words.

Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John, was nearing seventy years of age when he sent the letter ahead of him on August 24 (somewhere between AD 107 and 110). He told them he remained “afraid” of the believers’ love — meaning he was afraid that they would keep him from martyrdom, that they would “do him an injury” by keeping him from being torn apart by lions.

Ignatius sent a total of seven letters to seven churches en route to the Colosseum. This letter to the church in Rome gave his thoughts on martyrdom and extended a special plea for their non-interference in his. Instead of asking for whatever influence the Roman believers may have had to release him, he bids them stand down.

In his own words,

For neither shall I ever hereafter have such an opportunity of attaining to God; nor will ye, if ye shall now be silent, ever be entitled to the honor of a better work. For if ye are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if ye show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favor upon me than that I be sacrificed to God. (2.2)

And again,

I write to all the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. (4.1)

Martyr or Madman?

Michael Haykin’s assessment seems conclusive: “In the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch we possess one of the richest resources for understanding Christianity in the era immediately following that of the apostles” (31). Surveying Ignatius’s letters to the seven churches on the road to Rome, Haykin summarizes three concerns weighing heavily upon the bishop’s mind: (1) the unity of the local church, (2) her standing firm against heresy, and (3) non-interference in his calling to martyrdom (32). The first and second are unsurprising, but what are we to make of the third?

What do you think of a man saying, “May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily. . . . But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so” (5.2)? Who is this Daniel praying not for rescue but looking forward to the lion’s den?

“Christians had been killed in the past, but few with as much enthusiasm.”

Some scholars, Haykin notes, have called him mentally imbalanced, pathologically bent on death (32). Christians had been killed in the past, but few, if any, with such enthusiasm. What right-thinking Christian would write, “If I shall suffer, ye have loved me; but if I am rejected, ye have hated me” (8.3)? Was he a madman?

‘Sanity’ to Ignatius

Did he have an irrational proclivity for martyrdom? Can his death wish fit within the bounds of mature Christian life and experience? If you were his fellow bishop and friend — say, Polycarp (later a martyr himself) — what might you say if you desired to dissuade him?

You might call his mind to the holy Scripture — for example, Jesus’s prophecy of Peter’s own martyrdom (which happened years earlier in Rome). Jesus foretold, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18).

The apostle Peter did not want to go and stretch out his hands in his own crucifixion. He did not want to be dressed by another and “carried” to his death. Granted, he wanted that end more than denying his Master again, but it stands to reason that if he could have ended differently, he would have chosen otherwise.

Or you might consider the apostle Paul and his second-to-last letter before he too was likely beheaded in Rome. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:1–2). He exhorts that prayers be made for rulers that Christians might lead quiet and peaceful lives. Pray for your leaders, in part, that they might be saved — and thus not given to killing you “all the day long” for public entertainment (Romans 8:36).

Ignatius to ‘Sanity’

“But,” the well-taught bishop might have responded, “did not Peter write much of suffering and necessary trials as tests to our faith? Does not God place our faith in the fire (or the Colosseum) that it might be found to result in praise and glory and honor at Christ’s revelation (1 Peter 1:7; 4:12)? Or did Peter not put forward the suffering servant, Jesus Christ, as our example to follow? Or is it not a ‘gracious thing in the sight of God’ to endure suffering for righteousness’ sake — something we are ‘called to’ and blessed in (1 Peter 2:20; 3:14)? And further, did Peter not tell the church to ‘arm’ themselves with this thinking (1 Peter 4:1), and to rejoice insofar as they share in Christ’s sufferings, evidence that the Spirit of glory rests upon them (1 Peter 4:13–14)?

“And what to say of our beloved Paul? Was it not he who was hard pressed to stay, even when fruitful labor awaited him? Did he not inscribe my heart on paper when he said, ‘To live is Christ, and to die is gain,’ and that to be with Christ is ‘far better’ (Philippians 1:21, 23)? And was it not also the case that, knowing he was walking from one affliction to the next, he walked the martyr’s path — against the behest and weeping of fellow Christians who threatened to break the apostle’s heart (Acts 21:12–13)?

“‘Constrained by the Spirit,’ did he not go forward (Acts 20:22)? He testified that he did not count his life of any value nor as precious to himself, if only he could finish his race and ministry to testify to God’s grace (Acts 20:24). He assured crying saints along the violent road that he was ready not only to be imprisoned but to die for the name of Jesus (Acts 21:13). They eventually submitted and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be done’ (Acts 21:14). Will you not imitate them, beloved Polycarp?”

This imagining is to help us get into the mind of the “madman,” as well as to warn us from drawing hasty applications. Though most will not consent so insistently and passionately to a martyr’s death, some will pass by other exits on the way to testifying to the ultimate worth of Christ.

Messiah’s Madmen

What might we, far from the lions of Ignatius’s day, learn from the martyred bishop of Antioch? I am challenged by his all-consuming love for Jesus, a love that the world — and some in the church — considers crazy.

Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let breakings, tearings, and separations of bones; let cutting off of members; let bruising to pieces of the whole body; and let the very torment of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. (5.3)

“If we are madmen, let it be for Christ.”

If we are madmen, let it be for Christ. Should not Paul’s words be stated over our entire lives? “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you” (2 Corinthians 5:13). If we are crazy, it is because of Christ. If we are in our right minds, it is for others to be won to the same madness we have. The love of Christ “controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Oh what a beautiful strangeness, what a provocative otherness, what an unidentifiable oddity is a Christian who loves Christ with his all and considers death to be truly gain. Such a one can see, even behind the teeth of lions, an endless life with him.

I remember a line in the television show that men in the Poldark family were known for being “hasty, sharp-tempered, and strong in their likes and dislikes.” This sentiment has struck me as masculine. Not because God approves of hastiness or sharp tempers (he doesn’t), but because men ought to have something of what lies behind them: strong convictions.

How rare are warm-blooded men of zeal these days, men of strong likes and dislikes — even within the church? When ambitious men of the world spend time around men of the church — men supposedly imaging Christ’s likeness, possessing Christ’s Spirit, and commissioned to win eternal spoils — do we fault them for sensing an absence of purpose, a coolness of flame, a dryness of ambition? Do they see men “who by patience in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality” (Romans 2:7)? Do they feel ashamed of their small pursuits and eager to cast them off for the Christian man’s pulse and existence?

“How rare are warm-blooded men of zeal these days, men of strong likes and dislikes — even within the church?”

Or do they not wonder what these Christian men really wake up for in the morning? It isn’t clear. They’re moderate in their likes; moderate in their dislikes. They remain room-temperature. They never have that look in their eye. They smile and smile, but never laugh from the belly, nor give a firm handshake or word when the occasion calls. That man, that weapon, that sword is beat into a plow.

Relaxing Among Idols

Can you imagine such men sitting by peacefully in Athens in the first century? They rest among the commotion, waiting for friends to arrive. Initially they may have been startled by the many idols bought, sold, and displayed. Beautiful statues of Greek gods and goddesses fill the city, some saying it was “easier to find a god than a man.” This is not true worship, the thought might come. But as a few moments pass, they begin to wonder, What’s for lunch? . . . And what’s taking Timothy and Silas so long to get here?”

Now witness another man of God, a man of strong likes and dislikes, seated in the very same place.

Now while Paul was waiting for them [Timothy and Silas] at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. (Acts 17:16–17)

We can imagine him looking around, tapping his fingers at first. Then we see him begin to sway and nod and take a deep breath. Perhaps he bites his lip; then clenches his fist. A fire is kindled in his chest, fed by the words seared on his heart — “I am Yahweh; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols” (Isaiah 42:8).

Why should these exquisite nothings receive the praise that belonged exclusively to his God? Why do men buy “not-gods” and call them gods? How dare they embrace false deities in the Lord’s marketplace, while breathing the Lord’s air, under the Lord’s sun? Why did their idolatry feel comfortable parading at noonday? What are these but offenses against the Holy One; Philistines mocking to be answered?

He cannot, like so many other men, sit quietly and watch. He must open his mouth and speak of Christ to give vent his fuming soul.

Hunted

Jews were tracking Paul. They recently stirred a mob against him in Thessalonica, then agitated the crowds against him in Berea. They would eventually follow him to Athens as well. If anyone had an excuse to keep a low profile, it was him. If anyone had a reason to take this time “off,” it was him. Yet he did not pour water on the flame from those buckets of “practicality” so plentiful in our own day. Troopless, he went in alone.

He rose to his feet as a man possessed — a man who did not count his life of any value nor as precious to himself, if only he could finish his course and his ministry to testify to the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24). He walked over to the people, looked at a group of potential attackers, and spoke grace. In the synagogues, he reasoned with Jews; in the marketplace, he open-air preached to Gentiles. Not occasionally, but daily.

He soon became a spectacle to the people. “What does this babbler wish to say?” some asked. “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities,” others answered (Acts 17:18). They requested to hear more of this strange teaching, news of this “Jesus” (Acts 17:18–21).

When he’s invited to preach in the Areopagus, he concludes his sermon,

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30–31)

When they heard of resurrection, some mocked. Others said they would hear him again. “But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them” (Acts 17:34).

On Active Duty

When you witness Paul provoked into preaching day after day, what do you see?

When I see Paul risking his life to charge into the hostile city alone, I witness the New Testament equivalent of David running at Goliath, Jonathan and his armor-bearer charging the Philistines, Phineas piercing the rebellious couple, Joshua campaigning into the Promised Land. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” Paul explains, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). According to Paul, our armor, our enemy, our warfare, is not less urgent or real for being unseen, but more.

“Our armor, our enemy, our warfare, is not less urgent or real for being unseen, but more.”

When we hear him standing and heralding to anyone who would listen, there stands one who descends from a lineage of men possessed with God’s own jealousy. God is passionately, rightly jealous for his name on earth; Paul shares that jealousy. God detests his praises going to idols; Paul does too. Paul’s Master did not sit idly in heaven, but came to earth calling for repentance and announcing the good news and becoming good news — how could the servant sit idly after Jesus had proclaimed, “It is finished” (John 19:30)?

And can you see Paul’s great conquest at Athens? Paul took the battlefield proclaiming Jesus — dead and now alive. Some laughed, some procrastinated, but others believed. He walked away with immortal gains — the souls of Dionysius and Damaris and the others won to King Jesus.

Where Flags of Satan Fly

When you consider the man wondering about his lunch and the apostle Paul fighting demons over souls, which man are you more like? Which man do you want to be?

This contrast challenges me because, too often, I find myself identifying with the docile man. “What should I have for lunch?” is the daily theme — while Rome burns, devils laugh, and Christ is belittled or altogether ignored.

But I want to be more alive. I want to feel more concern for Christ’s name. I want to be consumed in the flames of my Lord’s likes and dislikes. I long for my little candle to be engulfed in his forest fire. And I want to turn with vengeance upon any and all distractions from this devotion to Christ. Don’t you?

Don’t you want to look around at the flags of Satan flying overhead and care about Jesus and souls enough to be provoked? The sins of his city so affected Lot that he lived day after day “tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:8). Don’t you want these reminders to affect you and spur you on to greater love, greater prayer, greater boldness?

Stirred by the Zeal of God

What could happen if a group of men and women awoke from complacent slumbers, provoked and sent forth with God’s own jealousy into a community? If more professing Christians felt triggered by idols and shared a “divine jealousy” for the church (2 Corinthians 11:2)? If we obeyed Paul to “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). Genuine love. Genuine abhorrence. Genuine clinging to what is good, stirred by God’s own zeal to do what is good.

With these, under the blessing of God, the world can yet again be turned upside down.

Jesus said, “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14). In the twenty-first century, does his statement seem true to you? Have you found an easier way?

Abraham may have wandered in tents, Paul may have been hunted like a deer, the disciples may have met brutal ends to their earthly careers, and many in the early church may have been slandered, reviled, plundered, fed to lions, burned to light the streets of Rome — “killed all the day long . . . regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36) — but that was then. We have smartphones now. Modernity seems to have done wonders to smooth the way. The narrow path lying between the City of Destruction and the Celestial City seems paved.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) made a similar observation in his day. Though no friend of the Puritans, his short story “The Celestial Railroad” imitates and engages with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In it, he critiques the pillow-soft spirituality of his day (including Unitarianism and Transcendentalism), firing a critique that could have been written yesterday to describe the rampant easy-believism of today.

Celestial Railroad

Wandering through the gate of dreams, Mr. Hawthorne arrives at the famous City of Destruction. Having read Mr. Bunyan on the place, he is rather taken aback, and pleasantly surprised, to find that hostilities between this city and the Celestial City have all but vanished. Former foes shake hands. A pact built on “mutual compromise” has made allies from enemies. Enmity between the two lands is water under the bridge — or rather, a shining railroad over it.

The Wicket Gate, that narrow and impossibly awkward entryway, as Bunyan’s readers will recall, has been replaced by the railroad station itself. Mr. Smooth-it-away — a distinguished gentleman in the enterprise who guides Mr. Hawthorne on his journey — ensures us all that this large building is much better suited to include the broadminded travelers of modernity. And the effect cannot be overstated, as Mr. Hawthorne relays:

It would have done Bunyan’s heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man, with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot, while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood, setting forth towards the Celestial City, as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely a summer tour. (199)

The Celestial Railroad now transports would-be travelers — comfortably and safely — to the renowned City of Light. Individuals from Christian’s birthplace saw to it that no good-hearted pilgrim would ever again leave the city in derision or vulnerable to unsavory conditions and smiling foes. Nor would any carry that dreadful burden upon his back for miles on end — no, as Hawthorne gladly reports,

One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage, I must not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our shoulders, as had been the custom of old, were all snugly deposited in the baggage-car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered to their respective owners at the journey’s end. (200)

The travelers are sent off with their backpacks snugly tucked away, “to be delivered to their respective owners at the journey’s end.” Genius. But this, dear reader, is but the start to the innovations of the Celestial Railroad. Let me relay but a few more to you.

Old Sites, New Conveniences

Lengthy scrolls and books are not needed as tiresome maps along this journey; only a ticket is required. Such is very reasonable and expedient.

To begin the journey, the dreadful Slough of Despond — that bog full of past sins and lusts and fears and temptations and doubts, in which Christian sank and at which Pliable flustered, only to return home — has a new sparkling bridge erected overhead. While wholesome teaching could not fill Bunyan’s slough, Hawthorne tells us, books of morality, German rationalism, modern sermons, and extracts of Plato, combined with a few innovative commentaries on Scripture, sufficed to lay the sturdy foundations to erect the bridge upon (198).

Traveling farther, one discovers that the Interpreter’s House, while still receiving the occasional pilgrim of the old method, was no stop of the Celestial Railroad. Regretfully, Mr. Smooth-it-away remarks, that grand Interpreter grew rather sour, prudish, and prejudiced in his old age (a similar theme for the likes of Evangelist and Great-heart, the latter even “perpetually at blows” with his new collaborators). He could not keep with the times and got left behind.

Hurried Cross

Yes, dear reader, I can hear your question: What has become of the cross where the burden fell from Christian’s back? Let me cite the firsthand account:

We were rushing by the place where Christian’s burden fell from his shoulders, [the] sight of the Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. Live-for-the-world, Mr. Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and a knot of gentlemen from the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. (203)

“Crosses must be carried in every age, and the costs must be considered.”

Rushing past the cross, the passengers revel in their good fortune at finding a way to travel to the Celestial City without leaving behind their precious habits and secret delights. It would be a shame, after all, to lose such desirable pastimes if they could help it.

Yet there are still more improvements upon the old way to display. A tunnel now conveniently travels through Hill Difficult — the excavated ground then used to fill in the Valley of Humiliation. That dreary and gloomy Valley of the Shadow of Death now glows with gas lamps. And should you, with Mr. Hawthorne, regret missing the chance to visit Palace Beautiful — where live the young and fair Piety, Prudence, and Charity — ease your disappointed mind by overhearing,

“Young ladies!” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for laughing. “And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old maids, every soul of them — prim, starched, dry, and angular — and not one of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown, since the days of Christian’s pilgrimage.” (203–204)

These fair maidens of yesterday, again, resisted the hard-won improvements, cherishing ancient, rough, and inefficient paths.

Vanity Fair

What can be said of Vanity Fair? Hear it from Mr. Hawthorne: this wonder of a place has the power to make anyone feel at home.

The “great capital of human business and pleasure” stands as the epitome of everything “fascinating beneath the sun.” The people, Hawthorne finds, are most interesting and agreeable. Concerning the hostility that once led to the unfortunate execution of Faithful, Christian’s beloved companion, they’ve come to see the misstep. These noble and charming and wise people now enter into great camaraderie and trade with the passengers of the Celestial Railroad; indeed, many of them have taken to the railway themselves.

But of all the wonders of the metropolis, Hawthorne relates one that might outshine them all:

The Christian reader, if he had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan’s time, will be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. (209)

Indeed, few places could boast so much religiosity. Hawthorne continues,

In justification of this high praise, I need only mention the names of the Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep; the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-Truth; that fine old clerical character, the Rev. Mr. This-to-day, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-to-morrow; together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment; the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit; and, last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. (209)

Filled with fine-dressing, stimulating people, and endless pleasures to buy, sell, and enjoy — mind you, in such a fine Christian place — the only curiosity was that people would just disappear. So common was the occurrence, Hawthorne relates, that the citizens learned to continue on as if nothing had happened.

Today’s Celestial Railroad

Now, Nathaniel Hawthorne was no Christian, and he wrote antagonistically about the Puritans in other stories (in part due to an infamous family history). But here, he casts stones — almost in sympathy with Bunyan — against the modern religiosity he viewed as shallow, smooth, and deceptive.

Any reader of the story sees parallels today. They had Mr. Smooth-it-away; so have we. They had trains leaving every day to what is thought the Celestial City; so have we. They had people tucking their sins under the caboose, deploring the hard way, wanting merely a ticket to heaven; so have we.

They hurried past the cross of Christ; so do many who claim to be his followers today. How many sermons, small groups, Christian ministries escape this description?

There was much pleasant conversation about the news of the day, topics of business, politics, or the lighter matters of amusement while religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the background. Even an infidel would have heard little or nothing to shock his sensibility. (200)

“False paths, sliding downward, are smoothest.”

Teachers and preachers, once found in the Interpreter’s house, wooing pilgrims with golden crowns and warning them against smooth paths, now create them. Done with the cautions and commands, they converse among friends. His name is not Pastor; it is Jake — just Jake. He does not tell you what God has said; he is there to listen, just another broken sheep like everyone else. He gives comforting homilies and entertaining stories, but the utterance “Thus says the Lord” is far from his lips.

And I fear that, just as in the end of Hawthorne’s dream before he awakes, so in our world, Mr. Smooth-it-away leaves many on steam ferryboats traveling to Tophet (hell). False paths, sliding downward, are smoothest. The true path is not easy or broad — even for societies without much physical intimidation. Our Christ, who carried his own cross, leaves his church crosses to be carried in every age, and costs to be considered. This earth will pass away, but Jesus’s word shall not: “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14).

Have you also found that it can be much easier to pray for your own sins than to deal with others’ sins against you?

With the first, we can confess to our Lord, take up one of his many promises of pardon, and have our souls restored. With the second, the process can be more inconvenient, messier.

With sinners who betray us, who embarrass us, who hurt us in that place we are most vulnerable, it can feel like climbing a mountain to even tell them we forgive them, let alone to forgive them “from [the] heart” (Matthew 18:35).

The fallen mind has a propensity to involuntarily replay others’ offenses. You see the scene, hear the words, feel the same stab repeatedly. Like a worm, the breach threatens to burrow deeper and deeper within us. The initial shock becomes a growing How could they? And the closer the relationship, the greater the chance of infection, as David knew well:

It is not an enemy who taunts me —     then I could bear it;it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me —     then I could hide from him.But it is you, a man, my equal,     my companion, my familiar friend.
(Psalm 55:12–13)

Perhaps you have been well taught on what to do with your sins against God, but is your heart also well instructed in what to do — and not to do — when others, especially fellow Christians, sin against you?

Ancient Help for Lingering Hurt

Love was expected from the start. From the beginning of Israel’s history under the Mosaic covenant, it was enshrined in law, passed down to subsequent generations:

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17–18)

I find this text supremely helpful in bearing the affliction of others’ sins against me.

First, it tells me that I shall not hate my brother in my heart. I can think that if I don’t lash out in the moment, if I don’t react unkindly or coldly, that this is the same as doing so in my heart. Self-control is not the same as love. You can practice self-control and harbor a cool contempt. This command forbids me from taking their sins as a squirrel does an acorn, storing them up in my heart and mind.

Second, it tells me I can sin against others in how I respond to their sin. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart . . . lest you incur sin because of him.” God is more concerned here with addressing my present or future sin than the past sin of the person who wronged me. This is challenging. I can be — and many times have been — simultaneously a victim and a culprit in the same situation because of how I responded.

And when I ruminate on sins, inwardly score-keep and note-take their crimes, this practice leads to the two other diseased fruits of hatred described: vengeance and grudges. I feel the need to either settle scores (vengeance) or refuse to move on (hold a grudge). And notice, in passing, the people against whom you and I are tempted to bear a grudge or seek vengeance: the people of your God. His children. His saints. Your own family.

How to Let It Go

What strikes me most in this text, however, are not the sinful ways I can respond to others’ sins — caressing the offense in my heart, holding a grudge, seeking to pay them back. Sadly, I know each too well. What strikes me most are God’s alternatives.

1. Do not hate him — go to him.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but. Here lies the narrow path: you shall speak with the person who sinned against you. (I’m assuming here normal circumstances in which there is no reasonable threat of physical harm that might preclude going alone).

Go to him — not away from him, treasuring his sins in your heart. Go to him, not away from him, to publish it on Twitter or to gossip it to others. Go to him. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Do not go to him to injure him, to take vengeance upon him, to accumulate more strength for your grudge. And while it may not be wise to speak with him that same day, do the heart-work necessary on that received sin before the sun falls: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26–27).

“If you want to let the devil into your life, procrastinate and neglect to resolve your anger toward others.”

If you want to let the devil into your life, procrastinate and neglect to resolve your anger toward others. Don’t ever talk with them. Let the sun sleep before you have quieted and calmed your heart in prayer and confession before Christ.

2. Do not hate him — reason plainly with him.

“You shall reason frankly with your neighbor.” Isn’t it amazing that the alternative to hating your bother in your heart is talking to him? I am not to keep the offense in my mouth and savor it as candy; rather, I am to let it out through speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

I have made the mistake of understanding “reason frankly” as “assume you’ve interpreted things rightly and tell that person.” I’ve learned to say instead, “I perceive you have done this,” or, “I believe you to have sinned against me and against God.” These have proved more fruitful beginnings. But be honest, for all of that. Don’t downplay their sin, but speak plainly in love for them.

To some, this will be very difficult. You despise conflict. You despise people disliking you. You would rather your brother or sister remain in patterns of sin against God, you would rather harbor the seeds of resentment inside, you would rather cover their sins in unrighteousness, than have an uncomfortable conversation. Your self-protection, in the end, is hate to your brother.

Half the time, while you might expectantly wait for an apology, your brother has no idea he sinned against you. Your noiseless bitterness robs him of repentance, and robs you of the opportunity to grow in courage, in obedience, in death to self, in self-awareness and repentance if you are wrong. I wager that silent resentment has done even more harm among us than contention following plain speech.

3. Do not hate him — love him as yourself.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, . . . but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Is all of this not how we typically deal with ourselves?

No one has done more ill to you than you. No one has given more offense, no one has caused more problems, no one has made your life harder for yourself than yourself. Our sin — not others’ sins against us — is always our biggest problem. Not “him over here” or “that person there,” but me. Others’ sins can’t damn me. Others’ sins can’t ruin my soul (without my permission).

“Our sin — not others’ sins against us — is always our biggest problem.”

But though our biggest problem is us, we still love ourselves, don’t we? Few go around begrudging themselves, plotting vengeance against themselves, refusing to lend compassion to their own sins against others. Millions have passed without replay.

So how do you love your Christian neighbor? Like that. As Matthew Henry comments, “We often wrong ourselves, but we soon forgive ourselves those wrongs, and they do not at all lessen our love to ourselves; and in like manner we should love our neighbor.”

Don’t Hide Their Sins in Your Heart

Dealing plainly, honestly, speedily with our brothers and sisters in Christ loves them as we love ourselves, and as we have been loved ourselves. And are not even Christian communities that willingly bring faults to one another in love altogether rare? Is it not rather terrible and uncommon to be taken aside by a believer and told of your perceived wrongdoings? And here is the question: Should it be?

This is not a word to embolden faultfinders to voice all sins they see — unleashing Egypt’s plagues of flies, gnats, and frogs upon small groups everywhere. Nor does it remove the very real and beautiful call to silently cover others’ sins in love (Proverbs 10:12; 1 Peter 4:8). It is, rather, a word to encourage speech where there has been bitter silence, courage where there has been cowardice, and love where there has been hate.

It was a rousing mid-sermon rebuke — the kind to make you sit up in your pew.

“Jesus, being made perfect,” the preacher continued, “became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. And this Jesus, was, of course, designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. . . .”

The congregation doesn’t hide puzzled expressions. He pauses.

Melchize-who? Their sleepy faces wondered.

“Order of Melchizedek. . . .

. . . The King of Salem . . . “King of Righteousness”?

. . . Priest of the Most High who blesses Abram?

. . . In whose line the Messiah will serve as priest forever?

Maybe if he said, “Order of the Phoenix,” some might have recollected better, but “Melkitsadek” garnered little familiarity.

At this, he departs from his manuscript, walks around his pulpit, and looks them in the eye:

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. (Hebrews 5:11–14)

These grown men and women, Christians for some time now, started off well (Hebrews 10:32–34), yet still needed doctrinal milk, and not solid food. Although by now they should have been sharp on how the Christian should read the Old Testament, their dull ears (literally “sluggish”) made them perpetual students taking the same courses over and over. The author of Hebrews expected them to uncover Messianic treasures, pointing irreversibly to Jesus, in the deeps of God’s word; instead, they were still treading water on the surface.

Believers on the Bottle

Do texts like Hebrews 5:11–14 not vindicate for all time the careful study of God’s word, a hearty adherence to the whole counsel of God, a glad obedience to the fullness of its teaching? If the specifics of an enigmatic figure in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 — one who many today might be tempted to deem obscure or irrelevant — has its proper place in the Christian mind, how much more the more conspicuous points?

Yet how many small groups or Sunday schools or Bible studies around the Western world today know much (if anything) about Psalm 110:4 and the priestly order of Melchizedek? Of its significance compared to the Aaronic order? The question grows sharpest, however, when we ask, How many want to know? How many of us, through disobedience and stagnancy, become “dull of hearing”?

Some modern minds seem to enshrine ignorance of finer points of Christian thought and doctrine as a Christian virtue. Particulars of Christian dogma they see as only useful to fracture, puff up, or make one useless in this world. Seminaries, in their view, are better called “cemeteries,” for higher education is where passion and love go to die.

God’s truth — that stubborn and imperishable reality that shall outlive the stars — has fallen on hard times with them. They do not wish to draw unwelcome lines, and what’s more, they believe this to be a very charitable and beautiful thing in the world. They seem altogether proud of their non-denominational, non-doctrinal, non-distinctive, and non-divisive faith. This, they say, is Christianity at its finest. Death, they cry, to circling round and round in endless debate over texts and theological jargon. Back to what Jesus gave us: a religion of love.

So much fighting exists already; they preach unity. Everywhere they see bitterness and rage; why should they argue? The most expedient thing to do, in a world of conflicting opinions — especially about religion — is to cast particularities of Christian interpretation, and in some cases, religion itself, overboard.

Lovers of First Grade

“Carried away by a fancied liberality and charity,” J.C. Ryle wrote in 1877, “they seem to think everybody is right and nobody is wrong, every clergyman is sound and none are unsound, everybody is going to be saved and nobody going to be lost. Their religion is made up of negatives; and the only positive thing about them is that they dislike distinctness and think all extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty and very wrong!” (Holiness, 278).

What it means that God predestines unto salvation, that Christ is the only way, that you must be born again, that by works of the law none will be justified, that God’s design entails differences between men and women — seem so small from their lofty perch. Faintly they hear the combatant chirping over particular views, but what is that to them? Catholic, Protestant, “spiritual, but not religious” — they see nothing really all that different in the end. Different shades of gray, they might call it.

They love doctrinal milk, love the first grade. Their vague creed of love sends them away from controversy, away from laborious study, away from loving God with “all their mind,” away from such “trivialities” as the order of Melchizedek, indeed, away from the Bible itself, beyond a favorite verse or two. And some take this to be more Christlike because it fosters unity better, or it is thought, than a religion filled with doctrinal detail.

Good Vibes Christianity

Christian teaching does divide. It separates “self-made religion” from heavenly, all other gospels from the true one, the proud from the humble, the false from the true, the goats from the sheep, the unsound from the sound, the passing away from the eternal, the teachings of demons and the teachings of Christ.

“Christian teaching separates the goats from the sheep, the unsound from the sound, the passing away from the eternal.”

Christians ought to be Berean, lovers of God’s word, lovers of steak. What is true of the nobler Jew has been true of the noble Christian throughout history: “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

But what of our unity? It is precious, “good and pleasant” (Psalm 133:1), a gift from above not based on vague spiritualism or good vibes; real unity does not seek to discover how little can be believed. No, we embrace and teach and love the whole counsel of God. Love for others is nourished by doctrinal meat; by Scripture, all of Scripture — without abridgment or apology. As we confess in the Desiring God Affirmation of Faith, “Our aim is to encourage a hearty adherence to the Bible, the fullness of its truth, and the glory of its Author” (15.2). This alone “stabilizes saints in the winds of confusion and strengthens the church in her mission to meet the great systems of false religion and secularism.”

We will not agree to a man on every point; some distinctions will separate some of us from the particulars of weekly fellowship. But even then, as the Church, our superseding oneness in Christ makes our unity stronger than it ever could have been in untruth, error, and apathy, in clawing for the least common denominator, rather than turning our souls to God’s word as supreme, and then finding who are our fellows.

Need of the Hour

Our souls need more than little-truth, little-light, little-belief. Our souls need a feast of pure meat and holy potatoes to gird us up for life’s hardships. Milk-and-water theological minimalism may sustain infants, but not for long.

“Our souls need more than little-truth, little-light, little-belief.”

“We must charge home into the consciences of these men of broad views,” as Ryle put it, “and demand a plain answer to some plain questions. We must ask them to lay their hands on their hearts, and tell us whether their favorite opinions comfort them in the day of sickness, in the hour of death, by the bedside of dying parents, by the grave of beloved wife or child. We must ask them whether a vague earnestness, without definite doctrine, gives them peace at seasons like these” (31).

And our neighbors, coworkers, and family members need to be met with weighty-truths, broad-shouldered beliefs, and a living faith in the living Savior. All of which give us reason to smile, not frown.

What Ryle calls that spiritual “colorblindness” that “fancied liberality,” that “boneless, nerveless, jellyfish condition of soul,” that “pestilence which walks in darkness . . . a destruction that kills at noonday” (328) — cannot be the religion that turned the world upside down.

Mark what I say. If you want to do good in these times, you must throw aside indecision, and take up a distinct, sharply-cut, doctrinal religion. . . . The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology; by telling men roundly of Christ’s vicarious death and sacrifice; by showing them Christ’s substitution on the cross, and his precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Savior; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen serpent; by telling men to look and live — to believe, repent, and be converted. (328)

Dare then, Christian, to have decided beliefs in this world. Satan and his demons are decided. The world is concrete in its creed. False teachers are bold in their belief. Those attempting to uncreate God’s reality are firmly concluded. Will we not be?

And in such courage, we will not find ourselves alone but flanked — by real fellows, with whom we will then taste true unity.

The day began bright with hope and promise. This day was the nearest to Eden man had been since the fall: the dwelling place of God was again with man.

The tabernacle stood within Israel’s camp, and now Yahweh was set to appoint his priests. Israel gathered in breathless expectation as Moses publicly ordained Aaron and his four sons — Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar —to serve as priests of the Most High God.

In that first appointment to holy service, blood was spilled, animals fell slain, anointing oil was poured, special garments were bestowed, a covenantal meal was consumed. The proceedings kept in careful step with the drumbeat “as the Lord commanded” (Leviticus 8:4, 9, 13, 17, 21, 29, 36). So far, so good.

The first worship service in the tabernacle then commenced immediately after the ordination. Turning to the people, Aaron and his four sons offered sacrifices for themselves and for the people, and he blessed them. The Lord added his “so far, so good” by providing the grand finale:

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 pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. (Leviticus 9:23–24)

The Lord approved the ordination and showed his pleasure at their worship.

But the weather soon changed.

Wailing in the Camp

Imagine the scenario. As you sit by your tent with your family later that day, you begin to hear what sounds like loud cries heading your way. You hear shrieks and screams. As the crowd comes closer, you wonder: What could possibly bring such sorrow on a day like this?

Sobs swell in your ears as the entourage draws near.

Is that Mishael and Elzaphan from Aaron’s family? Why is their walk belabored? What is that they’re carrying between them? The smell of burnt flesh begins to fill the air — a bull?

Then you see it, the motionless heap they carry slowly through the camp and out to where the scraps of sacrifices go: the garb that so recently dazzled in the sunlight — the coverings, the sashes, the hats of a priest. It cannot be! Nadab? And Abihu too?

These — no, not these.

These just celebrated this morning — ordained of God; these, the eldest sons of Aaron, next in line to lead us; these, who went up by name to sit with the elders and see the very face of God upon the mountain (Exodus 24:1)? It could not be these who had just assisted Aaron as the glory of the Lord fell and we all collapsed in worship.

No, not these, who were just washed clean with water, clothed with coats, tied with sashes, bound with caps; not these, who so recently laid their hands upon the offerings; no, not these, who were just touched with the blood of the sacrifice upon their ear, thumb, and big toe, consecrated unto Yahweh. Not these.

Were they ambushed? Had someone defiled the tent with murder? Or has the Lord himself, so recently setting them apart, now dismissed them with fire?

Sins of Nadab and Abihu

Many wonder what exactly Nadab and Abihu’s sin entailed. Some think, with the immediate reference prohibiting drunkenness (Leviticus 10:8–11), that they offered incense while intoxicated. Others wonder (perhaps in addition to this) whether they attempted to go into the Holy of Holies (Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?, 147).

Whatever the list of crimes, we know that Nadab and Abihu offered “unauthorized fire before Yahweh, which he had not commanded them” (Leviticus 10:1). Which the Lord had not commanded them. The sevenfold refrain of “as the Lord commanded” came to a fatal halt. They went forth of their own initiative to draw near to God as they saw fit.

And the retribution was swift, and nothing less than just. They took liberties as they gripped their censers of incense, “and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Leviticus 10:2).

Worship Is Not Safe

With many today, it appears, worship of the Almighty is slight and carefree. Some women give more thought to their makeup, and men to the game after service, than that we have gathered to meet with God.

The assumption seems to be that the Deity is content — thankful even — that we have set aside our precious time on our Sunday to give him some of our attention. He is ever-smiling, even when some barely bother to rise from their beds, happy to “worship” virtually week in and week out with their “online churches.” They wouldn’t engage with the mailman with so slouched and slovenly a disposition, but here they are worshiping before God. Many approach the burning bush every Sunday with their sandals (or bedroom slippers) still upon their feet, spiritually and otherwise.

“With many today, worship of the Almighty has become slight and carefree.”

What happened to reverence? When did it become an endangered species? Has God not the right to ask many professing Christians today, as he did the negligent priests of Israel, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear?” (Malachi 1:6).

And I ask this not to the bizarre outliers given to almost unbelievable forms of irreverence, like spraying the congregation with water guns, drive-thru “means of grace,” and dance contests in the worship service. I ask this to the normal, seemingly respectable church-attender, flippantly going through the motions: Do you approach the Lord with fear and trembling? And I ask this of myself, Do I consciously worship every Sunday before the Holy God, the untamable Lion of Judah?

In light of Nabad and Abihu, it stands to reason that, for thousands who gather every Sunday, the safest place for them to be would be absent.

Reverance Lost

The lightning strikes of judgment — in the old covenant with Nadab and Abihu, and in the new with the likes of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11) — ought to cause the same response it did for the early church: “And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things” (Acts 5:11).

I sigh that I don’t often have this fear or due reverence in the worship of God. In his presence, Isaiah cried, “Woe is me! For I am lost” (Isaiah 6:5). Job cried, “Now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6). Peter cried, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). The beloved disciple writes, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

Granted, these are not to be the only or primary experiences of God day-to-day — but do we ever respond this way?

Sermon of the Dead

How would our worship services change if the Nadabs and Abihus of our day were struck dead and carried out through the aisles of our churches?

If wails of horror resounded and scorched sermons read,

Here, O Christian churches, are two corpses of those who trifled with the Consuming Fire of heaven and earth. Two men of high rank, two men of great promise, two sons of Aaron himself, consumed in judgment. Behold them. Wail for them. Learn from them.

Read the sermon text written upon their lifeless frames:

“Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:3).

Ministers, you who draw near to God in service today, behold them drunk upon my wrath. Will you dare toy with the shepherd’s crook? Will you wander before me with the strange fire of false teaching? Have you not been warned of stricter judgment? Have you not been commanded to watch over yourself and your doctrine and my sheep carefully? Have you not been charged — in my presence — to preach my word, not your own? The pulpit is a false hope for protection.

Or to those strolling into worship every Sunday with an irreverence, a negligence, a fatal familiarity that I did not command: Behold the bodies of my chosen servants. If I treat these with righteous impartiality, shall you escape?

With Fear and Trembling

The towering love of God, the warm compassion of Christ, the blessed name “Immanuel” (God with us), does not permit creatures to approach him with irreverence. Boldly we can approach the throne of grace through our better High Priest, Jesus — but never apart from him and never in ways disobedient to his command.

“Do we worship a Holy God, the God of Nadab and Abihu?”

Worship today is to be no less weighty than in Israel, because the God we worship has not lessened in holiness. Joyful, triumphant, consoling — but never flippant. He will be glorified. As Matthew Henry soberly comments on this text, “If God be not sanctified and glorified by us, he will be sanctified and glorified upon us. He will take vengeance on those that profane his sacred name by trifling with him.”

So, as the bodies pass us by in Leviticus 10, making their way out of the camp, they press on us a question to consider today: Do we worship the Holy God of Nadab and Abihu?

Perhaps you will feel the same discomfort I felt overhearing saints of old speak of death.

“He who does not prepare for death is more than an ordinary fool. He is a madman,” began Charles Spurgeon.

“Agreed,” said the good Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Men seem to ignore the plain fact that “the moment you come into this world you are beginning to go out of it.”

But this fact need not spell doom and gloom for the Christian, Spurgeon responded. “The best moment of a Christian’s life is his last one, because it is the one that is nearest heaven.”

“I concur fully,” Richard Sibbes chimed in. “Death is not now the death of me, but death will be the death of my misery, the death of my sins; it will be the death of my corruptions. But death will be my birthday in regard of happiness.”

“When Christ calls me home,” Adoniram Judson added, “I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school.”

“May I also interject?” asked Calvin. “We may positively state that nobody has made any progress in the school of Christ, unless he cheerfully looks forward towards the day of his death, and towards the day of the final resurrection.”

“This strikes me as true,” said Thomas Brooks. “It is no credit to your heavenly Father for you to be loath to go home.”

“And why should we hesitate?” Samuel Bolton questioned. It is the “privilege of saints, that they shall not die until the best time, not until when, if they were but rightly informed, they would desire to die.”

“Exactly.” For the child of God, “death is the funeral of all our sorrows,” reasoned Thomas Watson. “Death will set a true saint out of the gunshot and free him from sin and trouble.”

“Indeed,” John Bunyan added, “death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace.”

As I listened, I overheard the most disquieting questions. “Has this world been so kind to you that you would leave it with regret?” C.S. Lewis posed. “If we really believe that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home,’ why should we not look forward to the arrival?”

“Hear! Hear!” exclaimed William Gurnall. “Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. Why shouldest thou be afraid to die, who hopest to live by dying?”

“I am packed, sealed, and waiting for the post,” cried John Newton. “Who would live always in such a world as this?”

Even snippets of their prayers issued a subtle rebuke. I could not help but hear one George Whitefield plead, “Lord, keep me from a sinful and too eager desire after death. I desire not to be impatient. I wish quietly to wait till my blessed change comes.”

This proved the final blow. These men anticipated death, viewed an early departure as a “promotion.” I lowered my gaze. I rarely think this way, rarely feel this way. Do I really believe in heaven? Do I really love my Lord?

Snuggled in This Life

My squeamishness, flipping through an anthology of Christian quotes, helped me realize that my discipleship has slanted too American, too shortsighted, too this-worldly.

“Are you packed and ready to go?” Well, I was hoping to set sail several decades from now, so —

“Has this world been so kind to you that you would leave it with regret?” Well, I wouldn’t give it a ten-star rating, but it certainly hasn’t been half that bad (yet). So yeah, maybe —

“Nobody has made any progress in the school of Christ, unless he cheerfully looks forward towards the day of his death, and towards the day of the final resurrection.” Well, that’s intense.

“It is no credit to your heavenly Father for you to be loath to go home.” I see — worthy point. No credit to Jesus either, I imagine.

“These men daily lived awake to the truths I daily profess to believe.”

These men daily lived awake to the truths I daily profess to believe; they inhabited them, longing to fly away and be with Christ. Although they loved families, enjoyed things of earth, and did good in this world, they nevertheless were unafraid to dive headfirst into those cold waters of death at the first moment their Master allowed. They believed, with Paul, that “to depart and be with Christ . . . is far better” (Philippians 1:23).

I discovered then just how snuggled by the fireside I had become in this world. A place I too readily felt to be home.

Epitaphs of Exiles

My heart can live too much here, too little there. “My life is hidden with Christ,” I must remind myself (Colossians 3:3). As this world seeks to entice my affections to linger in its marketplace, I desire to be more of a heavenly disciple. And if you love Jesus but think too little of the life to come, I know you will agree. Oh, that this might be a true inscription over our graves, and all the more since we live after the coming of Christ, and the down payment of the Spirit:

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13–16)

Abraham, by faith, left his home in Mesopotamia, not even knowing where God was leading him (Hebrews 11:8). He lived in the promised land before he could call it home, dwelling there as a foreigner. Isaac and Jacob, heirs with Abraham of God’s promise, lived in tents of temporality; their home was not yet (Hebrews 11:9).

“Once God saved them, they refused to unpack their hopes again in this world.”

Abraham’s eyes were elsewhere. “He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). And he and his sons bore the heavenly insignia in their speech: they acknowledged, to anyone who cared to know, that they would live and die on this earth as exiles and sojourners (Genesis 23:4; 47:9). Once God saved them, they refused to unpack their hopes again in this world. The land far-off — big as God’s promise, sure as God’s word — held their allegiance. They made it clear that they sought a homeland not built by human hands.

As the world tried to tempt them back, the bait remained on the hook. Better to live in a tent in this world with a heavenly city before them than to dwell in the tottering kingdoms of men. They desired a better country, a heavenly one. And God is not ashamed to be called “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). He is not ashamed in the least to be the one they so hoped in, for he has prepared for them a city.

Still at Sea

So, is your mind mainly set on this world or the next?

This world is not our home, precious saint. We are not yet in our element. We fling open the window and send our dove about this earth, finding that it returns to us having found no homeland within this watery grave. But this world will be drained soon enough. The swells of judgment shall intensify and then subside. The new heavens and new earth shall arrive, and our Mighty Dove shall descend with a sword in his mouth for his enemies and an olive branch for us.

Until then, keep waiting, keep hoping, keep acknowledging, keep living in tents, longing for that moment when we can bound away from this world as the Father calls us home.