{"id":1508,"date":"2020-09-22T13:48:43","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T18:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?p=1508"},"modified":"2020-09-22T13:48:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T18:48:43","slug":"death-by-holiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Death by Holiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"At several points in the Scriptures, human persons come in contact with the sacred in ways that result in extremely negative consequences.\u00a0 Chiefly, this takes the form of death.\u00a0 By entering sacred space or coming into contact with holy things incorrectly, these persons are immediately struck dead.\u00a0 This result, being instant, leaves no room for repentance or correction.\u00a0 The nature of these deaths and warnings issued regarding them, both before and after, has created a certain false sense of fear among many Christians.\u00a0 The seeming injustice of the death penalty for what seems to be minor transgression has likewise become a source of mockery for critics of the Scriptures and of Christianity.<\/p>\n

Before looking at several individual instances of this type from the Scriptures, there is an important overarching distinction to be made.\u00a0 Despite a common interpretive intuition, none of these episodes represent a judgment upon the quality of a particular person.\u00a0 They are not brought about because a person is unworthy, or a sinner, or part of some other category of \u2018wicked humans\u2019 and despite this has approached God or come into contact with that which is holy.\u00a0 There are far more examples in the Scriptures of sinful and unworthy individuals coming into direct contact with God and being brought to repentance and otherwise purified.\u00a0 In fact, this latter description applies to every other contact with God in the Scriptures beyond those represented by the handful about to be discussed.<\/p>\n

Rather than the persons involved in these episodes being particularly unworthy or sinful, resulting in their fates, it is that they come into contact with the sacred or come into the presence of God unworthily.\u00a0 It is a question of an adverb rather than an adjective.\u00a0 It is the way in which these persons do what they do that brings upon them the consequences that they receive.\u00a0 The core purpose of religious practice, from the Torah to contemporary Orthodox Christianity, is to describe the means through which, in prayer and repentance, human persons can approach the Holy God and come into contact with the sacred in a way which is purifying and salvific rather than dangerous and therefore fearsome.<\/p>\n

Possibly the first notable instance of someone struck dead by the presence of God comes in Leviticus 10.\u00a0 In the preceding chapters, Aaron and his sons had been ordained as priests to serve in that capacity for the nascent nation of Israel.\u00a0 Following their ordination, Aaron had offered sacrifices according to the instructions given him from Yahweh through Moses and those offerings had been accepted.\u00a0 In the tenth chapter of Leviticus, however, something different occurs in the case of the first offerings, of incense, made by Aaron\u2019s sons Nadab and Abihu.<\/p>\n

Nadab and Abihu came to the tabernacle and offered unauthorized incense before Yahweh that He had not commanded (v. 1).\u00a0 Fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and consumed them, killing them (v. 2).\u00a0 Based only on these first two verses, it is not entirely unclear as to what their specific sin was.\u00a0 There are two obvious possibilities.\u00a0 First, that they were offering the wrong kind of incense, in relation to the specific instructions of Exodus 30.\u00a0 Alternatively, they may have offered this incense at an incorrect time, based on the same instructions.\u00a0 It is also, of course, possible that they did both.<\/p>\n

Further information, however, is given immediately after the deaths by Moses speaking for Yahweh to Aaron and his surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar.\u00a0 This information includes a series of specific instructions with warnings that departing from these instructions will result in their deaths.\u00a0 The three specific instructions given to those serving as priests was that they could not have unkempt hair or clothing, they could not come and go from the tabernacle as they wished during their service, and they could not, when coming into the tabernacle, be drunk on wine or strong drink.\u00a0 Finally, they are instructed generally to distinguish between what is sacred and what is profane, what is clean and what is unclean, and know all of the commandments of Yahweh so that they could teach them to Israel (v. 6-11).<\/p>\n

From all of these descriptions and instructions, the sin of Nadab and Abihu becomes clear.\u00a0 They failed to distinguish between the place into which they were entering, the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel, from any other tent in the camp.\u00a0 Because they did so, they entered in a casual and impious way.\u00a0 Based on the hints here, they may have been disheveled, drunk, and otherwise careless.\u00a0 This may have extended to the kind of incense offered and what it was offered.\u00a0 Further, their deaths are described by Yahweh through Moses in passive terms.\u00a0 Fire comes out and consumes them.\u00a0 The warning is not that God will kill them, but that they will die.\u00a0 The holiness of God is itself dangerous and, therefore, must be approached with care and concern, in the fear of God with faith and love.<\/p>\n

Another Old Testament episode brought up in this context is that of Uzzah (2 Sam 6:5-11).\u00a0 At the time when David, the prophet and king, brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem in preparation for the building of the temple, Uzzah was one of the drivers of the cart which carried it.\u00a0 Famously, as the cart rolled toward Jerusalem, one of the oxen stumbled, jarring the cart.\u00a0 Uzzah reached out and steadied the ark on the cart and was instantly struck dead for his sin.\u00a0 David took this as a sign of Yahweh\u2019s disfavor at his actions and ordered the cart to stop and for the ark to remain where it was, on the lands of one Obed-edom the Gittite. As part of Christian theology\u2019s identification of the Theotokos as a new ark of the covenant, David\u2019s expression of dismay here, \u201cWho am I that the ark of my Lord should come to me?\u201d is echoed in St. Luke\u2019s Gospel by St. Elizabeth\u2019s exclamation (Lk 1:43).\u00a0 The story regarding the priest Jephonias at the dormition of the Theotokos can therefore be seen to be parallel to that of Uzzah.\u00a0 God proceeded to bless Obed-edom due to the ark\u2019s presence, leading David to finally bring it to Jerusalem, reassured that it was not the moving of the ark that had led to Uzzah\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

The text, therefore, clarifies that the sin was not the transference of the ark, but rather Uzzah\u2019s touching it in order to steady it.\u00a0 As already seen in the case of Nadab and Abihu, the issue here is Uzzah treating the ark as any other object which he might haul in his cart.\u00a0 The ark is not just another box or a valuable golden piece of art.\u00a0 The ark is the central location of Yahweh\u2019s presence among the people of Israel. At a previous point in the ark\u2019s history, the ark had been returned by the Philistines to the Israelites on an unmanned cart (1 Sam 6:7-12).\u00a0 When these two episodes are compared, the pointed contrast is obvious.\u00a0 The pagan Philistines had a greater degree of belief and trust in Yahweh than Uzzah.\u00a0 It was not, therefore, some unworthiness or sinfulness of Uzzah in particular, which brought about his demise.\u00a0 Rather, it was his casual treatment of the ark of God\u2019s holiness and the manner with which he interacted with it.<\/p>\n

In the New Testament, an episode in the Acts of the Apostles closely parallels that of Nadab and Abihu, and deliberately so.\u00a0 Ananias and Sapphira, two members of the church at Jerusalem at its earliest phase, sold a tract of land.\u00a0 They brought a portion of the proceeds to the apostles and gave it to the Christian community.\u00a0 When asked by St. Peter if the donation represented the entire sum of the sale, both Ananias and his wife separately lied and were each struck dead.\u00a0 In both cases, St. Peter states before their demise that they have lied to God, the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11).\u00a0 The text is clear that it was the falsehood which was the sin, not the percentage of the money which they chose to donate.<\/p>\n

In the same way, in which the story of Nadab and Abihu follows the consecration of the tabernacle, in which it was filled by the Presence of Yahweh, the story of Ananias and Sapphira follows the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost upon the members of the community in Jerusalem.\u00a0 Nadab and Abihu\u2019s deaths served as a warning to the community as a whole and the priests in particular that they must carefully discern the way in which they approached the presence of God.\u00a0 In the same way, the death of Ananias and Sapphira give warning to the entire Christian community that the presence of the Spirit in the Church requires the same level of devotion and care required of the priests of the old covenant when an approach is made to the God of Israel.<\/p>\n

St. Paul applies this theology in his instructions regarding the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:27-32).\u00a0 He speaks of the manner in which one approaches the Eucharist.\u00a0 To receive unworthily, in an unworthy manner, is to eat and drink judgment.\u00a0 This is, as before, not a prohibition of certain people whom St. Paul deems \u2018unworthy\u2019 from the Eucharist.\u00a0 Rather, it is a reminder of the dangerous nature of drawing close to God.\u00a0 It is a reaffirmation by St. Paul that to eat and drink of the Eucharist is to receive the body and blood of Christ, of God Himself, within one\u2019s own body.\u00a0 There is no more intimate contact with God.\u00a0 Doing this in a casual or otherwise unworthy way, without repentance, had led to some in the community at Corinth becoming ill, and even to the death of some.<\/p>\n

Our God is a fire, consuming unworthiness (Heb 12:28-29; cf. Ex 24:17; Deut 4:24; 9:3; Is 33:14).\u00a0 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31).\u00a0 God is holy, and the holy God dwelling in the midst of his people presents a potential danger.\u00a0 When a sacred object is treated as a common thing, that sacred thing is profaned.\u00a0 It becomes no longer sacred and holy but a thing of common use.\u00a0 Because God is his holiness, he cannot be profaned.\u00a0 Christ cannot be made common.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit can not become a spirit of some other kind.\u00a0 The profanation of God, then, does no injury to God but results in the destruction of the human person.\u00a0 Approaching our Lord Jesus Christ with repentance, reverence, and awe results in the burning away of all that is sinful and impure within us.\u00a0 Approaching him in any other manner will eventually lead to our destruction along with our sins (John 8:21-24).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At several points in the Scriptures, human persons come in contact with the sacred in ways that result in extremely negative consequences.\u00a0 Chiefly, this takes the form of death.\u00a0 By entering sacred space or coming into contact with holy things incorrectly, these persons are immediately struck dead.\u00a0 This result, being instant, leaves no room for repentance or correction.\u00a0 The nature of these deaths and warnings issued regarding them, both before and after, has created a certain false sense of fear among many Christians.\u00a0 The seeming injustice of the death penalty for what seems to be minor transgression has likewise become a source of mockery for critics of the Scriptures and of Christianity. Before looking at several individual instances of this\u2026 <\/i> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"Death by Holiness - The Whole Counsel Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Death by Holiness - The Whole Counsel Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At several points in the Scriptures, human persons come in contact with the sacred in ways that result in extremely negative consequences.\u00a0 Chiefly, this takes the form of death.\u00a0 By entering sacred space or coming into contact with holy things incorrectly, these persons are immediately struck dead.\u00a0 This result, being instant, leaves no room for repentance or correction.\u00a0 The nature of these deaths and warnings issued regarding them, both before and after, has created a certain false sense of fear among many Christians.\u00a0 The seeming injustice of the death penalty for what seems to be minor transgression has likewise become a source of mockery for critics of the Scriptures and of Christianity. 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Stephen De Young\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/\",\"name\":\"Death by Holiness - The Whole Counsel Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2020\/09\/d080e4df81c20996485eeba3fba9c199.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-22T18:48:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-09-22T18:48:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2020\/09\/d080e4df81c20996485eeba3fba9c199.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2020\/09\/d080e4df81c20996485eeba3fba9c199.jpg\",\"width\":343,\"height\":472},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/09\/22\/death-by-holiness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Death by Holiness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/\",\"name\":\"The Whole Counsel Blog\",\"description\":\"The Scriptures in the Orthodox Church\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90\",\"name\":\"Fr. 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