6. Their example Paul here, with great earnestness, holds up to the
world as a warning against carnally and confidently presuming upon
the grace and goodness of God because we have already received of
them. In unmistakable colors the apostle portrays the teaching of
this striking and important, this weighty and specific, example.
Rightly viewed, there certainly is no greater, more wonderful, story
from the creation of the world down to the present time, nothing more
marvelous to be found in any book--except that supremely wonderful
work, the death and resurrection of the Son of God--than this history
of a people led by God's power out of Egypt, through the wilderness
and into the promised land. It is filled with the remarkably
wonderful works of God, with striking examples of his anger and of
his great kindness.
7. Referring to these examples, Paul goes on to imply: "As Christians
and baptized, you should be familiar with them. If you are not, I
would not fail to bring them before you for reflection on what befell
other people of God, according to the Scripture record. They were our
fathers, a noble, intelligent and great company and congregation of
men, numbering over six hundred thousands, not counting wives and
children."
They, Paul tells us, were termed, and rightly, the holy people of
God. God designed their welfare; and through Moses, their bishop and
pope, they had the Word of God, the promise and the Sacrament. Under
Moses they were all baptized, when he led them through the sea, and
by the cloud, under the shadow of which, sheltered from the heat,
they daily pursued their journey. At night a beautiful pillar of
fire, an intense lightning-like brilliance, protected them. In
addition, their bread came daily from heaven and they drank water
from the rock. These providences were their Sacrament, and their sign
that God was with them to protect. They believed on the promised
Christ, the Son of God, their guide in the wilderness. Thus they were
a noble, highly-favored and holy people.
8. But with the great mass of the people, how long did faith last? No
longer than until they came into the wilderness. There they began to
despise God's Word, to murmur against Moses and against God and to
fall into idolatry. Whereupon God vindicated himself among them; of
all that great nation which came out from Egypt, of all the
illustrious ones who assisted Moses in leading and governing, only
two individuals passed from the wilderness into Canaan. Plainly,
then, God had no pleasure in the great mass of that host. It did not
avail them to be called the people of God, a holy people, a company
to whom God had shown marvelous kindness and great wonders; because
they refused to believe and obey the Word of God.
The prospect was good when they were so wonderfully and gloriously
delivered from their enemies, and had at Mount Sinai received from
God the Law and a noble order of worship--their prospect was good for
them to enter into the land; they were already at the gate. But even
in that auspicious moment they provoked God until he turned them back
to wander forty years in the wilderness, where they perished.
9. Their punishment was wholly the result of their odious arrogance
in boasting in the face of God's Word, of their privileges as the
people of God, upon whom he daily bestowed great kindness. "Do you
not recognize," they bragged, "the holiness of this entire
congregation, among whom God dwells, daily performing his marvelous
wonders?" In their pride and defiance they became stiff-necked and
obstinate enough to continually complain against Moses and to oppose
him whatever course he took with them. Thus they day by day awakened
God's wrath against themselves, forcing him to visit them with many
terrible plagues. These failing to humble, he was compelled to remove
the entire nation. Many times God would have destroyed them all at
once had not Moses prostrated himself before him in their behalf and
with earnest entreaty and strong supplication turned aside his wrath.
Because of their perversity, Moses was a most wretched and harassed
man. "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon
the face of the earth." Num 12, 3. For he was daily vexed with the
defiance, disobedience and opposition of this great company of
people; and further, he had to witness and endure for the entire
forty years the numerous and awful plagues sent upon his people, his
heart being filled with anguish for them. Then, too, it was his
continually to withstand God's wrath.
10. Terrible indeed is the thing we learn of this famously great
people--God's own nation, unto whom he reveals himself, to whom God
and Christ himself are revealed; a nation God governs and leads by
his angels; a people he honors by wonders marvelous beyond anything
ever heard on earth of any nation. As Moses says in Deuteronomy 4, 7:
"What great nation is there, that hath a god so nigh unto them, as
Jehovah our God is whensoever we call upon him?" Yet all who came out
of Egypt and had witnessed the mighty wonders God wrought among
themselves and among their enemies, fell and glaringly sinned; not
according to the measure of the mere weakness and imperfection of
human nature, but they sinned disobediently and in willful contempt
of God. Hardened in unbelief unto insensibility, they brought upon
themselves overwhelming punishment.
11. Paul mentions several instances of the sin whereby they merited
the wrath of God, to illustrate how they fell from faith and
disregarded God's Word. First, he makes the general assertion that
with many of them God was not well pleased. He means to include the
great mass of the people; particularly the officials and leaders, the
eminent of their number, individuals looked up to as the worthiest
and holiest of the congregation, and who actually had wrought great
things. Many of these fell into hypocrisy through boasting of the
divine name, the divine office and spirit; Korah, for instance, with
his faction, including two hundred and fifty princes of the
congregation. Num 16, 1-2. He and his leaders claimed right to the
priesthood and government equal with Moses and Aaron, and so
ostentatiously and boastfully that only God could say whether they
were right. Necessarily God had to make it manifest that he had no
pleasure in them; for they boasted until the earth swallowed them up
alive, and many who adhered to and upheld them were consumed by fire.