February 16, 2007

STRANGE FIRE

Leviticus 10

In this series of messages, I preached 15 sermons on the book of Exodus. I am going to preach a grand total of one message from the book of Leviticus. The reason for that is not because Leviticus is not an important book of the Bible. Rather it is because of the nature of this series of messages. My goal is to preach through the narrative sections of the Pentateuch; to follow the story line of the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land. And the book of Leviticus contains only one section of narrative. That is the story we read in our Scripture reading this morning from Leviticus 10.

Let me ask you a question. Does that story bother you? Do you find it disturbing? Does it make you squirm? Of all the stories that could have been included in the book of Leviticus, why this one? How do we make sense of it?

Let’s start by placing the story in its context in the book of which it is a key part. It is the book of Leviticus, the third book in our Bibles and the third of the five books of Moses. The name by which we know it, “Leviticus” comes from Latin and is derived from the word Levite, because much of the book is given over to instructions for the priests and their role in the worship of God.

If we were to compare and contrast the themes of the book of Exodus and the book of Leviticus, I would say that the emphasis of the book of Exodus is on the glory of God, while the focus of the book of Leviticus is on the holiness of God. In Exodus, God declares his purpose in Exodus 14:4: I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh. So, the plagues of Egypt were for the glory of God, to declare his identity on the world stage. Then at Mt. Sinai we saw the glory of God descend upon the mountain in the view of the Israelites. We heard Moses pray, “Yahweh, show me your glory!” Finally, the book of Exodus closes with the account of Yahweh descending in a cloud upon the tabernacle and his glory filling the tabernacle.

The book of Leviticus only refers three times to the glory of Yahweh, but it is full of references to his holiness. I mentioned in an earlier message that the word holiness does not occur in the book of Genesis. The first use of the word is in Exodus 3 when God tells Moses to take off his sandals because he is standing on holy ground. Then there is very little further reference to God’s holiness in the rest of the first half of Exodus. But once the Israelites get to Mt. Sinai, all that changes. The references to God’s holiness become frequent in the descriptions of God’s moral and ceremonial law. And if you think they are frequent in the last chapters of Exodus, they are everywhere in the book of Leviticus.

One statement stands out as central to the book of Leviticus. It is actually repeated three times in the text. The first is in Leviticus 11:44: I am Yahweh your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. This is repeated in 11:45: I am Yahweh who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. Then it is stated yet again in Leviticus 19:1-2: Yahweh said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.”

This theme predominates throughout both of the two broad sections of the book. The first major section of the book, Leviticus 1-16 contains instructions on how the people were to approach this holy God by carefully fulfilling his Laws of Sacrifice. Leviticus 17- 27 continues by describing how the people were to walk in fellowship with this holy God by fulfilling his Laws of Separation from all that is sinful and all that contaminates.

In all this description of the holiness of God and demands for the people to respond in holy living, a key role is entrusted to Aaron and his sons. They are God’s priests. Great detail is given in the text to their being chosen by God. Their garments are described in minute detail. They are anointed and set apart for this special service. Theirs is a two way role. They are to represent the people before God by offering the sacrifices on behalf of the people. And they are to represent God before the people by declaring his laws and holy standards to them.

All of this begins to give us a sense of why the events recorded in Leviticus 10 are so jarring. It is as though we are listening to a long, soothing, melodious piece of music, when suddenly the pianist brings his hands down on the keyboard in a tremendous, loud, horrible discord. We are shaken from our seats and sit up to see what has happened.

The controversy is caused by Aaron’s two elder sons. I struggle a bit in pronouncing their names. I grew up hearing them pronounced Nadab (Nay’dab) and Abihu (A by’hew). But in looking more closely at the Hebrew, the Hebrew pronunciation would be more like (Naw dawb’) and (A bee hoo’) After going back and forth in my mind all week long I have managed to totally confuse myself, so forgive me if I am not consistent in my pronunciation.

What was their sin? The text says that they “offered unauthorized fire before Yahweh.” The King James Version translates it “strange fire.” Bible students debate about exactly what this means. Some feel it is reference to the fact that the fire on the altar was never to be allowed to go out before Yahweh, and that all the other sacrifices were to be lit from the coals of this altar. The strange fire then meant that they brought coals from some other source to light their censers. Others suggest that they departed from God’s instructions as to the ingredients that were to make up the incense that was to be offered before the Lord. Still others believe that they offered the sacrifice at some unauthorized time, outside of God’s clear time table for worship. Another, even more sinister suggestion is that they were actually introducing some form of idolatrous or heathen worship practice to the tabernacle.

One other speculation about the nature of their sin is that they were drunk as they participated in their official functions. This comes from the fact that in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy in Leviticus 10:8-9 God gives these specific instructions to Aaron: Thne Yahweh said to Aaron, “You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.

Any of these interpretations are possible. The bottom line is found in the phrase in verse 2: “contrary to his command.” Actually it is not quite that strong. It doesn’t say it was something that God had commanded them not to do. It simply says that it was not something he had commanded them to do. Whatever they did, they were outside the boundaries of God’s clear instructions for their role. It was not something he had told them to do.

The consequences of their actions were severe, drastic and immediate. So fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and consumed them and they died before Yahweh. (v. 2)  One minute they were alive, clothed in all their priestly finery, carrying the official symbols of their role. The next minute they lay dead, their lifeless bodies still smoldering.

What lesson or truth should we take away from this shocking and tragic incident? I have been thinking about that all week. Here is my conclusion. It is simple and rather obvious, but I think it is the heart of the issue. In that one flare of deadly fire from God’s presence a very important reality was seared into the minds and consciences of God’s people. God is serious about holiness. Holiness matters to God. Be holy because I am holy is not an option or an afterthought in God’s unfolding plan. God is utterly and totally holy and without sin. “He is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” And in his holiness he will not tolerate sin or anything unholy in his presence.

In a way, that truth might be lost or muted in all the minutiae of legal and ritual detail in the book of Leviticus. But this incident grabs our attention in a way that the rest of the book might not. God is serious about holiness. That is the first lesson to be drawn from this tragic incident. Look at Moses’ words in verse 3: Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what Yahweh spoke of when he said: ‘Among those who approach me I will show myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’”

God is serious about holiness. In fact, he is so serious about it that in his hierarchy of values, his holiness matters more than human life. Let me say that again. In God’s hierarchy of values, his holiness matters more than human life.

I believe this is where our sense of horror and conflict comes from when we read this story. In today’s world, we are almost blindly and totally man centered in our world view. Everything begins and ends with man. Therefore the loss of a human life is the ultimate tragedy – especially over something as trivial as “holiness”, the breaching of a seemingly trivial technicality of worship. From that starting point, that human life and the preservation of human life is the ultimate value, then this is a horrible story. Two men in the prime of life, men who probably had wives and children, were struck down. Why? Because they violated the holiness of God. Do you have a problem with that? We will if our world view is humanistic and man centered. But the Bible is clearly and unapologetically God – centered. The universe revolves around God, not around man. Man is placed on earth to serve God, not the other way around. And in this God centered universe, God’s holiness, God’s glory, God’s righteousness all take precedence over the value of human life.

Now don’t get me wrong. Human life is valuable. It is incredibly valuable in God’s sight. That is clear from the Scripture. Human life is valuable because we are made in God’s image. Human life is to be valued and protected. Human life matters to God. But there are some things that matter more. God’s holiness is one of them. God’s glory is another. There are numerous passages of Scripture that will continue to shock and horrify us until we come to grips with this Biblical reality.

God is serious about holiness. This is the message of the entire book of Leviticus. This tragic incident of the death of Aaron’s two sons grabs us by the throat and makes sure we don’t miss this truth. What we have in this chapter is an object lesson, clear and unfiltered, of how God’s holiness responds to sin. It gives perspective and visual impact to such Biblical texts as:

The soul who sins is the one who will die. (Ezekiel 18:4)

Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment. (Hebrews 9:27)

It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:31)

Without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

Our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:29)

This is our dilemma. God is serious about holiness. Every one of us must face up to that reality of the universe in which we live. It’s God’s universe. He created it. He makes the rules. And holiness matters to him. Whether we experience it in a flash of deadly fire from before his presence like Nadab and Abihu, or we face it when the standards of his holiness are applied to our lives at the Final Judgment, be aware. God is serious about holiness. And we are not holy!

This brings us face to face with a paradox. Last week in my message, I used the illustration of God as a great mountain peak. Great mountain peaks have different faces. Some of the faces are more approachable, more climbable than other faces. In Exodus 34, I stated that God presented his approachable face with the list of attributes he revealed to Moses: Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love. Now, in the book of Leviticus, especially in these tragic events of Leviticus 10, we find ourselves staring up at a face of the mountain that seems unclimbable. This God is frightening, not approachable.

How do we reconcile these two faces of God? It is here that the broad sweep of the Book of Leviticus comes to our rescue. The theme of the book is the holiness of God and the demand that those who approach him must also be holy. But the book opens by presenting the Israelites with a very detailed set of blood sacrifices, by which they could atone for their sin and approach God. The holiness of God was protected and emphasized, while at the same time there was a way for sinful human beings to approach God through blood sacrifices. The writer of Hebrews says it this way in summarizing the book of Leviticus: In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22)

The truth of the book of Leviticus is that there is a way to God through sacrifice. Yes, God is holy. Yes God is serious about holiness. And truly we are not holy. But if we approach him in the prescribed manner, by the blood sacrifices he has commanded, sins can be forgiven. The blood sacrifices of animals commanded in the Book of Leviticus have now been fulfilled and superceded by another sacrifice. It is the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God. Do you remember how John the Baptist introduced him on the banks of the Jordan River? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)

This is what the writer of Hebrews is referring to in Hebrews 10:10: …we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

This brings us to a final lesson from the tragic deaths of Nadab and Abihu. We must approach God on his terms, not ours. I believe that this was at the heart of the sin of Nadab and Abihu. They thought they could approach God in any way or at any time of their choosing. We live in a world that embraces the principle that “anything goes.” We somehow have the idea that God ought to be so impressed by our “spirituality” in thinking about him at all that he ought to embrace us no matter how we approach him. The idea that there is “right way” to approach God and a “wrong way” to approach him is alien to many in our world. When we add to that the fact that choosing the “wrong way” could result in death, or worse yet, eternal separation from God, then people are ready to brand us as intolerant religious bigots. But the reality is that Nadab and Abihu approached God the wrong way and they died!

We must approach God on his terms, not ours. And what are his terms? Because God is holy and he is serious about holiness, and because we are not holy, then we must approach him by the way of sacrifice. That prescribed sacrifice is the death of Christ. His sacrifice, his death on the cross, makes us holy when we receive it by faith. Those are God’s terms. There is no other way. That is why the apostle Peter spelled it out so clearly in Acts 4:12: Picking up from verse 10: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth…Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Have you put your faith in that name?

Suggested prayer of Response:

God in heaven, I acknowledge that you are a holy and righteous God. I understand that you are serious about holiness. I also confess that I am not holy. I am a sinner. I have broken your commands and failed to live up to your standards. I believe that you have provided a sacrifice for my sins through the death of Jesus. Please accept this sacrifice on my behalf. Apply his blood to my sins. Make me holy in your sight so I can enter your presence. Amen