NADAB and Abihu, sons of Aaron, had turned their backs on the burnt offering and offered “strange fire,” for which trespass they died before the Lord. God said, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me, and before all the people, I will be glorified.” This is very solemn and searching for us all. God never did intend that grace should be at the expense of holiness, but rather grace should produce and encourage holiness in His own.
Israel were an earthly people under God’s government, and He would impress both the priests and the people with a sense of Him with whom they had to do. He would not in any case consent to that which was to His dishonor.
We can see from our chapter that when God first institutes something, He shows His mind at the first and judges the first outbreak of sin. It was so in the beginning of the church’s history, when Ananias and Sapphira were smitten dead because they lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5). God may not deal in open judgment now, but let us not suppose that because He may not do so, His thoughts about sin have changed. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand going before to judgment; and some they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.” 1 Tim. 5:24,2524Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after. 25Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. (1 Timothy 5:24‑25).
At the judgment seat of Christ for believers, and at the great white throne for the lost, God will manifest His thoughts as to everything done in our lives. For His own there will be a reward for everything done for Christ, everything else will be burned up. But for the unsaved, those whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life, it will be to hear those awful words, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Matt. 25:4141Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25:41).
“And Aaron held his peace.” He would not, he must not, question the righteousness of God in dealing with his sons as He did. Aaron is a type of Christ, our great High Priest and Advocate with the Father. How He must have felt when Ananias and Sapphira fell under the sentence of death in Acts 5. There is a sin unto death, so Scripture tells us, and so we too in this case are not to pray for life to be prolonged; but we need spiritual judgment in such a case.
Aaron was in the place of nearness to the Lord as a priest, and though deep must have been the sorrow in his heart on this occasion, nevertheless the “honey” of nature had no place there. He must continue in his faithful service to the Lord in spite of his grief.
Of course we need hardly remark that natural affections are of God and are quite right and proper in their place, but the claims of God are above nature. Faithfulness to God must come first, even in our dealings with those near and dear to us.
ML-11/28/1971