Phinehas – Zealous for God
Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. (25.6)
Sexual immorality is going on in the background, and through it the people have yoked themselves to a dangerous spiritual power. But now there’s a change; it’s no longer confined to the background; the people’s immoral behavior is brought near to the Shekinah – the holy presence of YHWH. Zimri, a leading man of Israel, brings a Midianite princess named Kozbi, into the camp for sex – an absolutely brazen act done right in front of the presence of God.
Have you noticed that sin no longer carries shame? In fact, nobody even uses the word “sin”. Not even Christians. It isn’t preached about and it isn’t talked about. The word is avoided; the deed is not. Like the world, the Church has become increasingly brazen in its sinfulness. And, like the world, it has done so largely by redefining what sin is and is not. Sadly, while Christians lift their hands in worship and sing their songs of surrender, they remain completely oblivious to the fact that they have, by their immoral practices, yoked themselves to spiritual powers that are deceiving them. And a growing number see no problem in bringing that spiritual power, and their own uncleanness, into the presence of God.
When Phinehas the grandson of Aaron, the high priest, saw this
he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
10 The Lord said to Moses, 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites…. because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
Gruesome, disturbing, and seemingly extreme. But what we aren’t told at this point is that Phinehas is the head of the Levitical temple guards (1Chron.9:17-20). It was the job of Levites in general “to make atonement for [Israel] so that no plague will strike the Israelites when they go near the sanctuary”, and the job of the temple guards specifically to protect the sanctity of the temple precincts; they bore the responsibility for any offenses committed against the tabernacle. That means that if they failed to deal with a violation of God’s holiness, the Levites, collectively, bore God’s wrath (see Num 8:19; 18:22-23; 1Chron.9:17-20, 23). I wonder whether our leaders are in a similar position today.
The Baal Peor incident shows us both a violation of the temple sanctity and a plague that strikes because of it. To speak plainly, this particular sin the people committed led to God’s judgement upon them. But out of all the temple guards it is Phinehas who acts to protect the presence of God. And out of all the Levites it is Phinehas who makes atonement for the people. He alone stands as both watchman and intercessor. And he does so not by prayer but by action.
Remember when I said at the beginning that sexual sins are different from other sins because sexual sins violate the sanctity of God’s temple? Well, Phinehas acts as a protector of that sanctity. And it’s not only the sanctity of his own body that he is protecting, it’s the sanctity of the corporate body – the people of God.
Failure of Leadership
But now we come to one of the passage’s surprises: Although the plague is judgement on the people, it is the leaders that God is angry with. I’m going to say that again so you get it:
GOD IS ANGRY WITH THE LEADERS!
4 The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”
Whoa! That just seems totally out of proportion. Why kill the leaders? What did they do wrong?!
I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a bit extreme. Obviously, Moses did too because he changes God’s instruction! You heard that right. Moses doesn’t do what God tells him to do. He decides that only those who have actually committed the sin should be put to death.
Here’s where I want to tell you what God showed me about the leaders of his Church. While all of this sexual immorality has been going on in God’s Church – for decades – the leaders, for one reason or another, have failed to deal with it.
Perhaps they’ve been worried about the church’s reputation – or their own. But, then, why weren’t they concerned for God’s reputation?
Maybe they felt it wasn’t their place to judge. Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 about not judging are frequently trucked out in situations like these. But people conveniently fail to read vv.16-20 and the other NT passages about judging when they’re shouting Matthew 7 through a megaphone (see e.g. Jn.7:24; 1Cor.5:3).
Perhaps they just haven’t known what to do? But it’s all there in scripture, all Paul’s advice to Timothy and his churches on how to deal with those who persist in sin. Why didn’t they do what scripture says?
Perhaps they just weren’t the confrontational type. Then, what are they doing leading people?
Or maybe they felt that if we just accepted Christians the way they were, they’d eventually come round to the right behavior (because, as you know, affirming people in their sin always causes them to see how wrong it is).
Whatever the reason, those tasked with discipling God’s holy people have failed. They have failed to confront sin, failed to deal with immorality, failed to expose the deception that allows it, failed to bring the word of the Lord, or to turn people from wrong habits. They have not distinguished between the holy and the profane. They teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean (Ezk.22:26).
They treat my people’s wounds, says God, as though they were not serious.
“Everything is alright! Everything is alright!” they say.
But it’s not alright.
(Jer.8:11, GW)
As extramarital affairs, sexual assault, pedophilia, and gay relationships take place under their noses, pastors and leaders in churches around the world have told themselves that the spiritual state of believers in their care is not as perilous as it actually has been, and then they’ve quietly swept it all under the rug. Or they’ve made a token attempt to address it in order to alleviate their conscience. “We are wise because we have the word of the Lord”, they argue. But God responds, “How can you say that when you handle it falsely”, When you’re teaching false doctrine or avoiding certain doctrines you don’t like, when you preach only grace but never holiness, when you’re too focused on building your name or your ministry, or your church brand (Jer.8:8-10).
In his farewell, Paul tells the Ephesians that he didn’t shrink from declaring to them, “the whole counsel of God” (Acts.20:27). Something is wrong with our preaching if we are afraid to proclaim the entirety of the gospel. Read the context of Luke 3:18 and you’ll see that what Luke understands “the gospel” to be might be significantly more than what most modern preachers do.
Yet even the gospel cannot be counted as the whole counsel of God. The whole counsel is the entirety of his word to us. In his letter to Timothy Paul cautions him to “rightly handle” this word of truth (2Tim.2:15). The word for “rightly handle” means to ‘cut a road across country (that is difficult to pass through) in a straight direction’, so that the traveler may go directly to his destination.[9]
How have our teachers handled the Word on issues that are difficult to traverse? Have they provided clear biblical instruction? Do Christians now know what the Bible teaches about those who are struggling with sin, and about those who have capitulated to it, who willfully persist in it, who ignore their conscience and the censure of others, who no longer believe it is sin?
What clear voice have churches sounded on matters of homosexual relationships, gender manipulation, polyamory, and pedophilia? These things have been going on in their congregations, bringing what is detestable right into the heart of the community, and opening the door to spiritual bondage. How many leaders have responded with the zeal of Phinehas?
The prophet Jeremiah was confronted by the same failure of leadership. Again, it wasn’t that the people were turning away from God but that they believed the lie that they could worship God and engage in immorality. And because the leaders turned a blind eye to it, the nation as a whole became guilty of spiritual adultery while engaging in it physically.
They commit adultery and live a lie.
They strengthen the hands of evildoers,
so that not one of them turns from their wickedness.
They are all like Sodom to me;
the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”
Jer.23:14
The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not simply homosexuality, but the social endorsement, and affirmation of it. It was that no one condemned it.
The sin of the Church today is not simply that members are engaged in homosexual and other immoral relationships but that, by failing to address it biblically, we are strengthening the hands of those who practice such things so that no one turns away from it. The Church has become so welcoming that we no longer expect people to change.
But wherever Jesus went people were confronted with their need to change: Zacchaeus, the woman caught in adultery, the Samaritan woman at the well, Mary Magdalene, the rich young ruler, the Scribes, Simon the Pharisee, Nicodemus, Saul….
The prophets, priests, and pastors – the Church leaders of today – have, by and large, failed to address the immorality and spiritual bondage that is now pervasive in their midst. Moses also failed to do it, despite God’s clear command. But Phinehas “was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
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