22. “The Foundation of God” (Num. 16; Psa. 11; 2 Tim. 2)
The names of Korah the Levite and Dathan and Abiram of Reuben
stand high on any list of the troublers of Israel. Much can be learned, however,
of a negative nature from these men, for their sins were such as (in lesser
degrees, one would hope) are common to most of us. Indeed, it might even be said
that their sins — rebellion, pride, and jealousy, leading to a divisive,
condemning spirit within God’s people — are among the most prevalent
in the latter-day development of the brotherhood.
The jealous feeling entertained by Aaron and Miriam against
Moses (Numbers 12) culminated in the punishment of leprosy upon the prophetess.
Even this striking lesson does not seem to have quelled the rebellious spirit
among several prominent men in the congregation of the Lord. Korah, a leading
Levite, and two princes of the tribe of Jacob’s firstborn son, leading a
formidable delegation, strode boldly before Moses and his brother.
“Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the
Lord?” (Num. 16:3). The challenge was the offspring of ambition; these
were men who aspired to leadership but did not possess the required qualities.
The Truth has suffered much from such as these: men who to gratify their own
whims of self-importance rend apart united bodies, blind leaders of blind
followers who can in one day destroy the work of years of patient
building.
“And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face”
(v. 4). He must have realized, this man of God, what havoc their presumption
would work among an impressionable nation. He naturally feared that the
catastrophe he had personally averted on the summit of Sinai, when Israel had
rebelled against God’s authority, would now break forth afresh and bring
to ruin God’s work in the wilderness.
“Tomorrow the Lord will show who are his” (v. 5).
There is no suggestion that the man of God knew what would transpire on the
following day. But he must have been confident that in some way God’s will
would be made known. The test proposed by Moses was an arraying of the rival
leaders with their censers on one side, and the meek Moses and his family on the
other. It seems that Korah was eager and confident, feeling that in such a show
of numbers, headed by his dignified and impressive self, the easily swayed
congregation could not help but choose him and his allies as their new
rulers.
“It would seem that this apostasy of Korah had already brought into
existence a rival system of worship to that centred in the Tabernacle.
Two hints in the narrative point to such a conclusion. The leaders of
Korah’s company — two hundred and fifty of them — were already
each equipped with a censer for the burning of incense, which was the morning
and evening duty of the priest only and never of the Levite or the layman. So
the organization of another system of worship must already have proceeded to a
dangerous extent. There is also repeated reference to ‘the tabernacle of
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.’ This is the technical word
‘mishkan’, used of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and
quite distinct from the ordinary word for an ordinary tent (Num. 16:27)”
(H. Whittaker, “The Rebellion of Korah”, The Testimony, Vol.
32, No. 381 — Sept. 1962 — p.
306).
After Moses had issued his great challenge, the ground heaved
beneath their feet. A great chasm like the mouth of Leviathan opened suddenly
and engulfed the partisans of apostasy among the nation as they stood arrogantly
at the doors of their tents. Simultaneously God’s wrath burned like fire
and consumed Korah and his self-appointed priests. One moment they stood there,
an impressive assembly of human pride; the next moment they were but charred and
unrecognizable corpses. A stunned silence enveloped the camp as the survivors
struggled to grasp the implications of these marvelous Divine
judgments.
Even now judgment was not at an end. The children of Israel
now turned upon Moses and Aaron as though they personally were to blame.
“YE have killed the people of the Lord” (v. 41). So again the glory
of the Lord appeared, this time threatening the destruction of all the
congregation. Only prompt action by Aaron at Moses’ direction stayed the
plague of God before it could finish its gruesome work. Nevertheless, 14,700
died in the plague (v. 16:49). It was a sad day for Israel.
Brother Islip Collyer has written an excellent article,
keynoted by the question, “What are your aims, agitator?” Therein he
has this rather pointed comment:
“If we were to make a parable out of the rebellion of these ancient
Levites — if we were to write of brethren M. and A. as the most prominent
members of a little community, and brethren K., D., and A. as disaffected
members of the same ecclesia — if we were to put the words of rebellion
into modern style, it is to be feared that the circumstances might be recognized
in several centres as a sarcastic account of their own local trouble. The
parable might even be extended for the benefit of the country as a whole. The
man who agitates for the sake of agitation, and changes the nature of his
complaints as soon as any attempt is made to pacify him would be recognized by
many observers” (“Wayside Letters”, The Christadelphian,
Vol. 52, No. 613 — July 1915 — p.
308).
Brother Collyer in this article leaves any conscientious
reader with this unsettling thought: Many of those things for or against which
he has agitated were, after all, not nearly so important as they first seemed,
and the total effect of the turmoil was more bad than good. Many agitators in
fact have had as their predominant aim, though perhaps only subconsciously, the
satisfaction of self. A gardener finds that he must once in a while turn over
the soil and remove the weeds from his little plot. But if he is always
“stirring”, the plants will not grow at all. If we find such a
gardener in exasperation one day pulling up plants right and left because they
are disappointing to him, we might well ask, “What is your aim in so
doing?” And he would, no doubt, reply, “To make this the best garden
in the community.” “But how does this particular destructive work
accomplish that worthy goal?” And if the gardener is true to himself he
will have to admit that his fit of temper has accomplished no good, but only
left a mess to clean up. Let us weigh our motives carefully before we agitate
the vineyard of the Lord, as did Korah and his followers.
* * * * *
“One of the most serious threats to the unity of the nation... was the
affair of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. It arose directly because a purely fleshly
reasoning caused the men concerned to press their personal importance to the
detriment of the good of the nation as a whole. They fell into the error of
‘not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and
knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of
God’ (Col. 2:19). Their action was based upon premises that seemed sound
enough: ‘All the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is
among them’ (Num. 16:3). These were the words on the lips of the
‘250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of
renown’, men who according to the record, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
‘took’. Much lies concealed behind those words! One can imagine the
secret meetings, the passing on of information from mouth to mouth, the
fomenting of trouble, the sowing of discord, and all because Korah, being a son
of Levi, desired to play the part assigned to others of his tribe, and Dathan
and Abiram thought their tribe, the tribe of Reuben, deserving of greater
pre-eminence than that to which God had called them!
“What is the relation of all this to ourselves as a community?... Our
heritage is no less [than that of Israel], for the same God is working towards
unity in Christ in the Ecclesia, which is both a body and a commonwealth....The
people of Israel had a history of fragmentation and division which began in the
wilderness and for which there are two principal reasons: Firstly, they had no
sense of devotion to the Lord, whose Name was revealed in His mighty acts of
power and compassion on their behalf....Their loss of the vision of the Divine
glory caused them to yearn for Egypt, and ultimately to refuse to believe that
they were the people whom God would bring into the land of His promise. They
fragmented because they had no faith in the purpose of their calling.
“The other reason for their disunity was their failure to keep in mind,
much less to comprehend the concept of the unity of their people, or to realize
that the purpose of God was not with individuals or with tribes as such, but
with ‘all Israel’, to whose wellbeing individuals and tribes
contributed by playing each their several and necessary parts. Any fellowship
other than that which acknowledges that one is our Head and all we are brethren
is still, as it has always proved to be, a fellowship of opposition which leads
to further fragmentation within the dissident group itself. As far as we can
tell from a survey of our own history and that of Israel, there is no exception
to this principle” (A. Nicholls, “The Whole Family Which I Brought
Up From the Land of Egypt”, The Christadelphian, Vol. 115, No. 1364
— Feb. 1978 — pp. 42,43).
* * * * *
The fugitive David was beset both by persecutions from without
and trials from within. The less-than-spiritual advice that he must often have
received from such as Joab is the subject of Psalm 11. This psalm opens with a
profound “statement of faith”, as it were: “In the Lord put I
my trust.” For David there was no other repository of trust; king and
council had turned against him who was the anointed of the Lord. Those whom he
sought for succor were caught within the spell of destruction. Eighty-five of
the Lord’s holy priests, with their wives and children, lay dead at the
hand of a blasphemous Edomite because he, David, had asked for bread. From
pillar to post he fled, scarcely able to find a place to lay his head, as the
cruel and vengeful Saul breathed down his neck.
But now, worst of all, his friends were working against him
— advocating a plan of action that would cause him to abdicate his trust
in God. “How say ye this to my soul?” he asks — and then
follow the words of David’s counselors, which he quotes back to
them:
‘Flee as a bird, David; go to the mountains. Leave
this ‘land of promise’ behind you. All it promises you is a
criminal’s death. The wicked — like Saul and Doeg — have their
bows and arrows primed for action. They’ll kill you and us and say they
are doing God service. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the
righteous do?’
Such words have always been the sound of retreat for those
among God’s people who found the going rougher than they expected. We have
all heard such cries of despair in the brotherhood. ‘The foundations of
the Truth have been undermined. Let us flee to the “mountains”. Only
there can we be safe. There is nothing left in which we can trust.’ It is
to David’s everlasting credit that he holds such cowardly advice up to the
contempt that it deserves. His courageous words give life and meaning to the
statement which opened the psalm: The Lord was indeed his only trust, so much so
that external situations could not undermine that faith.
And as for the “foundations” being destroyed, no,
never! Perhaps if men trusted in human institutions to perpetuate righteousness,
to glorify God’s Name, perhaps then it might be said that in Saul’s
Israel the foundations were no more. But, no, neither the judges nor the laws
nor even the Tabernacle itself was the “foundation” of Israel. God
is the foundation of the upright; He cannot be destroyed — even if all
those in authority lose sight of Him and His demands. The tangible
manifestations of God’s rule may crumble and fall, or be pulled down by
evil men, for they are temporal; but that which is not seen is eternal. The Lord
is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold and
try the children of men (Psa. 11:4). Nothing escapes His notice. At the proper
time, in God’s own way, He will deal with any threatening situation. In
this simple promise men must put their trust, waiting upon the Lord.
* * * * *
Many centuries have elapsed since the rebellion of Korah and
the tyranny of Saul, and we find the imprisoned Paul concerned for Timothy his
beloved son in the faith. How should he discharge his responsible duties in the
household? Already men like Hymeneus and Philetus were undermining the doctrine
of the resurrection and destroying the faith of some (2 Tim. 2:17,18). It seemed
as though the foundations of the truth were crumbling all around. Was it time to
give up hope, to flee like a hireling from the wolves of rebellion and pride and
error? No, the answer of the old apostle was clear:
“Nevertheless [i.e. despite all the
difficulties and problems you see on every side]... nevertheless the
foundation of God stands sure” (v. 19).
How do we know this, Paul?
‘You have this seal — this guarantee: Men may
attempt to subvert, to destroy, and to corrupt God’s Truth, but they
cannot succeed. The Lord knoweth them that are His! In the proper time
the others will be dispensed with.’
Paul’s words echoed those of Moses — “In the
morning the Lord will show who are his, and who is holy” (Num. 16:3)
— and David — “His countenance doth behold the upright”
(Psa. 11:7).
“If we can bring ourselves to realize that all is at all times in the
unerring and almighty hand of God, and that we are but a small cog in a vast
machine, we shall not be trapped into that self-important anxiety that leads to
hastiness and harshness.
“When we see worldliness gaining ground in an ecclesia; when we see modern
customs making a mockery of Scriptural ordinances...when we see attendance
gradually diminishing and worldly things interfering even on Sunday morning;
when we see... that shallow and self-important little minds introduce new
crotchets and speculations — we are apt to become despondent and
panicky.
“But why should we? Did Paul? No! He
says:
‘The foundation of God standeth sure, having this
seal: The Lord knoweth them that are his.’
“And the apostle, far from despondency, sounded out from his prison-cell
inspiring words of courage, and patience, and glorious hope. Without bitterness,
but with terrible significance, he points out (2:20) that in a great house there
are not only vessels of honor, but also vessels of dishonor. If a man will
purify himself, he shall be among the vessels of honor.
“This may seem a strange way to give encouragement, but it would help
Timothy to realize that ecclesial disappointments and difficulties do not
necessarily mean an abandonment by God, but are rather a part of the divine
wisdom of trial and probation” (G.V. Growcott, “No Man Stood With
Me”, The Berean Christadelphian, Vol. 57, No. 4 — April 1969
— p. 114).
The apostle continues his exhortation to Timothy:
“Flee also youthful lusts” (v. 22) — but do not flee
the ecclesia! “Avoid foolish and unlearned questions” (v. 23)
— but do not avoid the foolish and unlearned brethren who need your
counsel now more than ever. Be patient and meek; do not despair. It may be that
by your longsuffering instruction some will be brought to repentance who would
otherwise have perished in a general apostasy.
In Christadelphian circles, there will probably always be some
who agitate for division and subdivision by an appeal for precise
interpretations upon “words” and “phrases” that are far
beyond the grasp of the average brother or sister. In their hands the gospel is
in danger of becoming the province of “experts”, while the ordinary
believer must in his confusion choose which of the “expert”
disputants to follow. (In that case, however, how can such disputes — even
if it be presumed one side is right and the other wrong — be matters of
foundation truth, relevant to fellowship, when the ordinary majority can hardly
make heads or tails of the arguments?) Such men as these will accuse others of
slackness and toleration when they decline to go to the same lengths in
denouncing and excommunicating “error”. Paul says, in effect:
‘Never mind such criticism. God knows the feelings that motivate your
actions. God knows who are truly His, and He will reveal them in due
time.’