The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 56

first of Nadab and Abihu, and afterwards of Korah and his company, showed thnt these threats were spoken in earnest. \\' e cannot marvel that, after hearing and seeing all this, the people were smitten with terror, and cried out to Moses, "We perish, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh anything near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die. Shall we be consumed with dying?" (Numb. xvii. 13). I. THIS FEATUBB OF THE LAW WILL HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND THE DEPRECIAT0ilY 1'ERMS IN WHICH IT IS so OFTEN MENTIONED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, especially by the Apostle Paul. The law was "the ministration of death and of condemnation" (2 C,or. iii. 7, 9) ; it "worketh wrath" (Rom. iv. 15); it breathed a "spirit of bondage'' and fear (Rom. viii. 15); it "gendered to bondage" (Gal iv. 24) • it was "an intolerable yoke" (Acts xv. 10). Not that the whole contents of the Pentateuch fell under this description. Much of promise was spoken in presence of the mountain of the Jaw. But let the law be taken by itself, and let the gospel verities foreshadowed by its ritual be shut out from view, and does it not answer to the disparaging <iescriptions? It was full of wrath, condemnation, fear. No doubt there was an element of grace even in the covenant of Sinai. It was a benefit done to Israel when the Lord delivered to them the commandments, pitched his tabernacle among them, and suffered them to draw near under the conditions of the ritual. Nevertheless, the conditions were hard and terrible; we may well thank God for abolishing them. They are utterly abolished. The veil is rent from top to bottom ; the yoke is broken; we have received the spirit of adoption, not the spirit of bond- age again to fear; we have boldness to enter into the holiest. II. NOTHING THAT HAS BEEN SAID IMPLIES THAT THE LEVITICAL LAW WAS REALLY UNWORTHY OF THE WISDOM OB THE GRACE OF Goo. For the time then present it was the best thing that could be. Certain truths of primary importance men were everywhere forgetting : among others, the holy majesty of God ; that communion with God is to the soul of man the very breath of life ; that man is a sinner for whom there is no remission, no access, without atonement. These lessons the law was meant and fitted to teach. These lessons it did teach, burning them into the conscience of the nation. The law was not the gospel, but it Jed forward to the .gospel. A service beyond all price. Ill NOB HAS THE BENEFICENT OFFICE OF THE LAW CEASED WITH THE ADVENT OF 'J'HK BETl'EB TIME. Men are ready to abuse the grace of God, to give harbour to licentious- ness on pretext of Christian liberty. If you doubt it, search well your own heart. What is the remedy ? It is found sometimes in the rod of God's afflicting J?rovidence, sometimes in the searching discipline of the Jaw. For the law, although m its letter abrogated, abides for ever in its substance. We are not bound-we are not at liberty -to slay sin offerings or bum incense. But we are bound to rumina.te on the law of sacrifice and intercession. The Levitical ritual belongs in this sense to us as much -,11.s it ever belonged to the Jews. It a.dmonishes us of the reverence due to God. A -certain filial boldness he will welcome, but presumptuous trifling with his majesty and holiness he will not suffer. If we would be accepted, we must worship God witil reverence and godly fear, for our God is still a conswning fire (Heh. xii. 29).-B. Vere. 15-20.-The perils of dutinguuked service. The sons of Kohath had tha most honourable of the duties assigned to the Levites, in being permitted to carry the sacred ·vessels of the tabernacle. But they were thus exposed to temptations and perils from which their less f~v~ured bretbr_en were exe~pt. To tou?h o~ eyen f:o see the holy things was death. S1m1lar temptations, to those mtrusted with d1Stingwahed eervice in God's Church, may arise from- I. CURIOSITY. Illustrate from the sin of the men of Bethshemesh (1 Sam. vi.). Men brought by their duties into close contact with Divine mysteries mar yiel~ to the curiosity of unauthorised specula.tions to which ignora.nt and grovellmg mm~s are not exposed (cf. Col. ii. 18). Illustrate from speculations on the Trinity, the mc_ar- nation, or the profitless inquirie1 of some of the 1choolmen as to angels, &c. Caut10n applicable to theological speculations of to-day (Deut. u:ix, 29). II. 'l'HOUGBTLESSNESB. A thoughtless disre~a.rd of God's strict injunctions, by either a priest (vers. 18, 19) or a. Kohathite, might have been fatal. So now those .CU. IV. 1-49.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 31