NADAB AND ABIHU CUT OFF
Lev. 10:1-11 .
-AUGUST 10.
Text: “Let us watch and be sober.”-l Thess. 5:6.
Although not directly
so stated, there is sufficient ground for the inference that the sin for which
Nadab and Abihu were smitten by the Lord, was committed while they were under
the influence of intoxicating liquor. The basis for this inference is that
immediately following the description of their wrong do-ing and its punishment
comes the Lord’s injunction,-“Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy
sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye
die; . . . .that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and be-tween
unclean and clean.” Vs. 9, 10.
The two young men smitten in the prime of life, were Aaron’s oldest sons;
there were two younger brothers. All had just been consecrated to the
priesthood, under their father Aaron as the chief priest, by the direction of
their uncle Moses, carrying out the divine arrangement. With many advantages
every way, they had corresponding responsibilities as well as grand prospects
for the future, all of which were destroyed be-cause of their lack of reverence
for the Lord-their carelessness respecting his regulations, and the vows which
they had just taken upon themselves as his special servants. Their experience
furnishes an excellent temperance lesson. How many others in highly favored
situations in life have come to disrespect the Al-mighty’s arrangements through
the use of intoxicating liquors!-how many have similarly blighted their
prospects in life, hastened their death, and brought sorrow upon their kindred!
The Chicago Tribune has collected statistics respecting the murders in
the United States, between the years 1891 and 1901, and declares that 53,000 of
these murders resulted more or less directly from the use of intoxicating
liquors. The statistics of the State of Massachusetts for the year 1895 show
that over ninety-six per cent of those convicted for crime in that State, were
users of strong drink. In 1899 the New Voice obtained the testimony of
one thousand jailers (whose terms of office would aggregate more than six
thousand years of experience), and their returns showed that seventy-two per
cent of the criminals then in jails under their charge, were brought there by
drink. The American Grocer using government statistics (April 1901)
figures the total bill of this country for liquid re-freshments during the year
at $1,228,674,925. And of this amount it figures that alcoholic liquors cost
$1,059,563,787, the remainder representing the sum spent for tea, cocoa,
coffee, soda water and the like. Some one has calculated that the money spent
for alcoholic liquor would equal a pile of silver dollars 1754 miles high; and the
Christian Observor remarks, “It would take ten men with scoop shovels to
throw away money as fast as we are wasting it for grog.”
In the presence of such a stupendous evil; blighting earthly prospects for so
many, depriving so many of the reasonable com-forts and necessities of life,
disqualifying so many for thoughts and deeds of purity and goodness, and
accomplishing instead so much misery and sorrow, what Christian could feel
interested in the traffic? What Christian would not be willing to forego per-sonal
rights and liberties in connection with this terrible adver-sary of the race
and rejoice in any self-denials it might cause him, even though he might feel
himself stronger than the major-ity of men, and thoroughly capable of
withstanding its insidious attacks and undermining tendencies as respects
character, etc? It is not for us at the present time to make “sumptuary laws”
for the world, nor in any manner to attempt to rule the world; but as surely as
we believe that when the Lord’s kingdom shall have fully come it will
thoroughly chain up this monster evil, as one of the most powerful of Satan’s
agencies, just so surely should all who so believe show to others by precept
and example their opposition to this curse.
There is, however, a deeper lesson for us in the experiences of the two
priests under consideration. As they were members of the tribe of Levi, so
those whom they typified would be members of the “household of faith.” As they
went further than this and consecrated to the priesthood and were truly and
properly accepted of the Lord as priests, their anti-types must be persons,
classes, who have come under the terms of the “royal priesthood” in the full,
proper sense of the word. They do not represent merely nominal
Christians-merely such as imagine themselves consecrated to the Lord through a
misunderstanding, as is the case with many in the nominal church of today:
they represent persons, classes, in the true, consecrated church of the Lord.
The Scriptural account does not specify respecting the wrong doing of Nadab
and Abihu. The expression “strange fire” does not clearly indicate to us
whether their wrong doing consisted in using an incense other than the kind
that the Lord had pre-scribed, or whether they used it at the wrong time, or in
a wrong place, or whether the fire which enkindled the incense was taken from
some other place than the altar, as the Lord has pre-scribed, or whether their
incense was repulsive to the Lord be-cause the offerers were in a state of
intoxication-possessed of a wrong spirit. The latter, as we have suggested,
seems to be implied in the declaration of the 10th verse respecting holy and
unholy, clean and unclean conditions of approaching the Lord.
The great lesson here for the royal priesthood is not so much in respect to
intoxicating liquors, as in respect to a wrong spirit and unclean condition of
mind and heart in approaching the Lord. We are bound to suppose that those who
have made a consecration to the Lord and are seeking to “cleanse them-selves
from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holi-ness in the fear
of God” (2 Cor. 7:1), will not be guilty of literal intoxication. Those who
have received to any degree the spirit of the truth and have come to appreciate
in any measure the spirit of a sound mind, surely realize that in our soberest
and most favorable condition, our minds are none too sound; -they realize that
continually the Lord’s people have need of his assisting grace supporting their
imperfect judgments, and they could not ask for such grace to help were they
not also using their best endeavors to preserve and exercise what sense they
have naturally.
The lesson for the consecrated, therefore, is in accord with what the Apostle
has written; “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering
into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” (Heb. 4:1) Our
consecration through faith in the Lord has brought us under the anointing of
the holy spirit, has permitted us to enter into the holy and to enjoy the privileges
and favors of those “deep things of God” which none can see or appreciate
without the anointing of the spirit. Outsiders-not of the consecrated and
accepted class, not of the royal priesthood, the peculiar people, and who
there-fore have no privilege in the way of offering incense to the Lord, have
no such opportunities as we of offending the Lord by offering him unacceptable
sacrifices,-unacceptable prayers, unacceptable services. As we do not know in
which way these two sons of Aaron offended against the divine arrangement or
whether they both offended alike, we may lay to ourselves, as the antitypical
priesthood, lessons all along the line.
(1) When we approach the Lord we are not to come to him under the influence of
an evil spirit, intoxicated with the spirit of the world or of Babylon, by
whose wine it is declared all the nations have been made drunken.-Rev. 14:8;
18:3.
(2) When we would approach the Lord even in a right spirit, we must make sure
that we have the proper incense which he has stipulated will be acceptable to
him, whose ingredients represent the perfections of our Lord Jesus reckonedly
ap-propriated to us.
(3) Additionally we must be sure that we do not get fire for our incense from
any other quarter than from the altar-conse-crated fire or zeal, sanctified by
the merit of our Lord’s sacrifice.
In “Tabernacle Shadows of the Better Sacrifices” we have offered the
suggestion that these two priests possibly represent two different classes in
the church-two classes amongst those who have made consecration to the royal
priesthood and have been accepted, both of which classes will fall from the
priest-hood. We have suggested that one may represent the class who will die
in the second death (Heb. 6:4-6; 10:26, 27) and that the other may represent
the class who lose their membership in the royal priesthood because of an
insufficiency of zeal to make their calling and election sure; but who,
nevertheless, are at heart loyal to God and will be “saved so as by fire,”
through great tribulation. (Rev. 7:14) True there is nothing in the type to
indicate any difference between these two, nothing to indicate any hope in the
future for either of them. We think it not unreasonable, however, to surmise
that the type merely shows that both men lost their standing in the priestly
company by reason of failure to rightly appreciate their privileges. We are
assured that all these matters are typical, yet we find it difficult to suppose
this type to mean that one-half of all who consecrate to the Lord as members of
the royal priesthood, will suffer the second death. Yet this would seem to be
the only alternative interpretation, if we reject the thought that the two men
merely represented the two classes who lose the priesthood without indicating
their proportion as respects the whole. The two should have a meaning; either
as one half of the whole or as two classes. We accept the latter view; because
the Scrip-tures clearly show two classes who will lose the royal priesthood,
and because the other proposition, that they represented one--half of the
consecrated lost in second death, seems to us wholly untenable.
In any event the lesson to those who desire to be faithful to their privileges,
is a strong one; having made our consecration to the Lord, having received of
his anointing, let us seek care-fully to “make our calling and our election
sure” to the bless-ings and privileges of the future-as the dispensers of
divine bounties to mankind in general, in the Millennial kingdom, that we can,
as respects due reverence to him with whom we have to do, and due appreciation
of the proper spirit, the proper incense and the proper zeal to be used in
coming before the Lord, that we may abide in his love and favor.
MISCONCEPTIONS CAUSE
DIFFICULTIES TO MANY
Those who do not see
with us the great divine plan of the ages, with its wonderful opportunities of
the future for the blessing of all the families of the earth;-who do not see
with us that the present age is merely for the selection of the royal
priesthood for the future work of glory and blessing of man-kind;-who do not
see with us that the Jewish system with its priesthood, sacrifices, incense,
etc., etc., were merely types or shadows of the higher things in God’s plan now
being developed;-such are apt to look at the statements of this lesson with
astonishment; and are apt to feel that God acted in a very arbitrary manner
toward these two priests in striking them down in death, because of some
failure to approach him in the prescribed manner. They fail to see that the
Lord was insti-tuting types which must be carried out to the very letter, and
which must illustrate the exactness of his dealings with the “royal
priesthood.”
Looking at the matter in a wrong light, they not only see the two men suddenly
deprived of life, but they reason that if God’s anger thus destroyed them-then,
the very next moment, according to their theory, they would appear at God’s bar
for their eternal sentence; and since they could not believe that the two men
who were unfit to live amongst men were any more fit to live in heaven, they
feel obliged to conclude, according to their theory, that the Lord not only
suddenly smote them down as respects their earthly life, but additionally
turned them over for an eternity of torture at the hands of devils. Those who
really believe this misrepresentation of the divine plan must necessarily be
unfavorably influenced by it in their own dealings with their children, their
neighbors, etc.,-their ideas of justice and of love, etc., must necessarily be blunted
by such misconceptions of the divine character and procedure.
To our understanding of the teachings of the Lord’s Word, on the contrary,
there would be no such difficulty as this. Nadab and Abihu were men, members
of the fallen race, all whom are under sentence of death. They had been merely
reckonedly, not actually justified, because “the blood of bulls and goats could
never take away sin.” They were, therefore, although typically occupying the
place of priests, not really different from the re-mainder of the world-for
they had received no release from the Adamic condemnation. Hence, since their
position and all were typical, so also their death under the circumstances
could mean no greater loss to them than death under other circum-stances would
mean to their fellows-they merely went into the tomb a little sooner than they
otherwise would have done. But long centuries after their death and the death
of their fellows,-better and worse,-in God’s appointed time, the great
anti-typical sin-offering appeared;-and the great antitypical Priest, offered
the great sacrifice for sins accomplished at Calvary, and the whole world was
brought back from the sentence of sin and death-including Nadab and Abihu,
Aaron and Moses, and all the remainder of our race,-including also us who were
not yet born.
The Atonement day sacrifices begun by our Lord and Re-deemer, continue; and
we, his called ones of this Gospel age, are privileged to participate in the
sacrificing work with our great High Priest, as the sons of Aaron participated
with their father. Soon the entire work of sacrificing will be at an end; soon
the great High Priest will finish the work of making an atonement, and will
then, as did the priest in the type, come out to the altar and lift up his hands
and bless all the people-the dead and dying world. The day of blessing will be
a long one, be-cause “a day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” It will be
quite sufficient to accomplish the purposes intended, of lifting up, helping,
strengthening, blessing, bringing to full restitution, all who will come into
harmony with the Father. In that day Nadab and Abihu with others of mankind,
who have done better and who have done worse, will be on trial before the
judgment seat of Christ,-the church, the royal priesthood, being as-sociated
with Him in the judgment. (I Cor. 6:2) In propor-tion as any have had favorable
opportunities and used them un-favorably, in similar proportion have they
degraded themselves so that they will proportionately experience stripes and
diffi-culties in getting started upon the great “highway of holiness,” which
will then be opened up for the whole world of mankind,-that they may return
thereon to the Lord and to eternal life; and only those who fail to come back
under such gracious op-portunities, into full harmony with the gracious divine
plan, will be destroyed irrevocably in the second death.
“LET US WATCH AND BE SOBER”
The Apostle’s exhortation in our Golden Text is well worthy of being
continually borne in mind by all who would make their calling and election sure
to a place in the glorious priesthood of the future-“Let us watch and be
sober.” Let us watch in the sense of taking careful
notice of all the directions which the Lord our God has given us, respecting
what would not be ac-ceptable service to him. Let us watch ourselves, striving
to walk as nearly as possible in the foot steps of
the great High Priest, who was, we are sure, right and acceptable to the Father
in every particular. Let us be sober-not only not literally
in-toxicated with ardent spirits, but let us not be intoxicated with “the
spirit of the world,” or the spirit of Babylon, churchianity. Let us have the
spirit of Christ, the spirit of a sound mind, the spirit of meekness, the
spirit of gentleness, the spirit of love for God, for our fellows, and for all
men, seeking as we have op-portunity, to do them good. Let us be sober in the sense that we will not be frivolous; that while
happy, joyous in the Lord, free from the anxious cares that are upon many
others through misapprehension of our Father’s character and plan, we may,
nevertheless, be sober in the sense of earnest, appreciative of present
opportunities and privileges in connection with the Lord’s service;-not
thoughtlessly negligent, letting oppor-tunities and privileges slip through our
hands to be afterwards regretted.