Hebrews Lesson 94
NKJ Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Open your Bibles to Romans 5
– Romans 5. Just by way of a little
review, what we are trying to answer is a fairly tough question because in answering
the question you have to do some theology.
It’s not something that is just a matter of exegesis. In fact I was
rather pleased as I was looking at one commentary today that the author of the
commentary made the point that even though answering some of these questions gets
off into the area of theology beyond exegesis.
You don’t understand this but that is a problem that you have. Seminaries get all wrapped around the axel
and they try to draw this technical distinction between – so they make this
distinction between exegesis and theology.
Just about the time you want an
answer to a question they say, “No, this is not a theology. This is an exegetical commentary. We won’t go
there.”
“Wait a minute. I want my questions answered. Can’t you put
two and two together for me?”
So I was pleased to read at least
one commentary where the author was trying to think through some of these
issues because the decision is how do you – how does sin get transmitted, how
does the sin nature get transmitted from one generation to the next?
The problem that you get is
that these are theological deductions like the angelic conflict. You look at certain passages and you go to
passage A and you exegete it and you come to certain conclusions. You go to passage B and you exegete that and
you come to certain conclusions. You do
that about 10 or 12 times and then you start putting those conclusions together. That is where you do the real work of
theology. What gets complicated today is…should
I just close in prayer? Technology is
giving me a headache already and we haven’t even gotten started. Must be something good tonight!
It’s fun to think through
these issues. I was on the phone
yesterday with a young pastor who just got out of seminary. He was telling me that – we were talking
about this very issue. We’ve had two or
three conversations the last year about this particular subject. He was telling me that at Dallas Seminary
today (and I am not saying this to dump on
People wake up and go, “What
happened?”
Well, it is this gradualism that
takes place. So whenever we teach a certain
number of things – when I teach a certain number of things that are a little
more detailed, a little more complex such as the angelic conflict or the
transmission of the sin nature or the origin of human life, you have to realize
that many of these things are built on a foundation of the exegesis of dozens
and dozens of passages and in today’s world that has seen just an unbelievable
multiplication of theological positions in the last 30 years. Let’s say - this is off the top of my head sort
of extrapolation of the way things have been – let’s say evangelicalism was
comprised of maybe, let’s say 20 theological positions in 1970. Today it would be close to 500. Every time you turn around somebody is coming
up with some new view of something. In 1960 there were very, very few if any evangelicals
who questioned whether or not Isaiah 14 or Ezekiel 28 referred to the fall of
Satan. Today if you go to a theology or
a commentary that has been written since 1980, I would say you have 9 chances
out of 10 that they would say that neither of those passages refers to the fall
of Satan. That’s how things have
changed.
If you take (and I am just
using that as an example because we are going through that on Sunday morning)
Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 out and they don’t tell you about the fall of Satan, nothing
tells you about the fall of Satan. So if
you start maneuvering like this, it really does domino into many, many areas of
theology. This is one of them.
As I was talking with this
particular individual who comes out of the same background that most of us come
out of, he said that when he was in seminary they didn’t even want to discuss most
of the things related to this because they have already made so many different exegetical
decisions that you can’t even have a conversation about these things with
them. So that gives you an idea of how
these things have changed over the years. Part of the reality is that we need
to take a little more time studying these things trying to help you understand
the foundations of some of these views.
They are not just something somebody came up with. They have a foundation both historically in
church history and they make sense contextually. So that is one reason I am trying to think
through some of these things and maybe articulate the same position in a little
different way so that it makes some sense to people.
Romans 5:12f is a passage
that is frequently cited as a passage that supports the federal view of the
transmission of the sin nature – that Adam was a representative. But it’s not
real clear. It is a deduction from the
passage. It is not something that is specifically
or overtly stated in the passage. But
then on the other hand as I have seen a number of commentators and theologians make
points about the seminal position. They
just sort of throw out Hebrews 7:9-10 as finalizing that without ever getting
into some of the details of exegesis there.
So there are theological assumptions.
What happens I think in each generation is that there are certain ideas
that become trendy. Everybody sort of
gets on the trendy bandwagon.
“Oh, the new doctrine is that
everybody sort of figured out that Isaiah 14 doesn’t refer to the fall of
Satan. So, let’s all go with that. Hebrews 7:9-10 argues for seminalism and
that’s valid so we will just accept that and go right on.”
I was talking to this one
fellow seminary graduate. We were
talking about the origin of human life and the creationist position versus the
traducian position. I remember having lively discussions about that in theology
classes back in the 70’s at Dallas Seminary.
He said, “It’s not even a
discussion point anymore.”
They just throw out the
traducian position (This is it.) and the creationist position is dismissed
without even giving it value as a legitimate position anymore. It is sort of dismissed out of hand and
nobody even wants to discuss it - the same thing with the federal versus the seminal
position. I have discovered recently
that the federal position is almost dismissed out of hand. In fact somebody else
who is a member of the congregation was off at a theologically oriented training
session not too long ago and somebody made a comment about the transmission of Adam's
original sin and they brought up the concept of both federalism and seminalism.
The pastor who was teaching
told them, “No one believes in federal representation anymore. That’s ridiculous.”
He dismissed it right out of hand
without any discussion. That is not true
academically. In fact I read a couple of
commentaries on Romans that are very extensive and very detailed and I don’t
agree with some of the things that are said in some of them because they come
from a very strong Calvinist position, but both of them supported very well the
federal view of Romans 5 that Adam is viewed in these passages as a
representative of the human race.
So we live in a very strange
time as far as I am concerned. We have
had all of these people that were trained differently and now they seem to want
to generate and come up with all these new ideas. People become enamored with something new and
think that because it is new it must be better than what I heard for the
previous 30 or 40 years of my Christian life.
So let’s get back into Romans
5 now that I have editorialized for the last 15 minutes. . As
we look at this passage it is important to understand the basic structure. As I pointed out the last couple of times verse
12 begins with a comparison and contrast between Adam’s sin and Christ’s work
on the cross. I think this is absolutely
foundational to understanding what is going on and why both aspects - there is
a seminal aspect - that is a physical connection aspect and there is a federal
or a representative aspect. The physical
aspect as I pointed out in the past relates to the fact that the entire human
race is viewed as a physical entity so that Christ in His humanity is genetically
related to every other human being. So
physically he is able to – God has designed this fabulous plan where physically
Jesus Christ can die as a substitute for everybody else because we are viewed
as this organism as it were. Then He
also dies as a substitute. That’s the
representative idea. So both elements are true. This comes out of this comparison and
contrast between Adam’s sin and its affect on the whole human race and Christ’s
work and its affect on the whole human race.
So verse 12 begins with the
comparison and contrast. Verses 13-14
give a definition of sin and death as an aside.
It’s very important because in verses 13 and 14 we answer the question
and the question is answered whether or not this sin for which we are condemned
is our own personal sin or the sin of Adam. That is crucial!
That little decision right
there is one that is so determinative in how you view and interpret so many
other things in the Bible and how you understand the Christian life today. If you don’t make the right decision there,
it’s like coming to a Y in the road or a fork in the road and you are coming
out of
A lot of people will just
think, “Well, I am just going to focus on this passage and right here it seems
to me that the sin here has to do with personal sins.”
Well, where that takes you inevitably
when it comes to understanding the gospel, understanding how sin was taken care
of - this is one of the big problems that so many Christians have today. They are so caught up with trying to deal
with their own personal sin because they think that is what they are condemned for
– their own personal sins. They know they
are saved, but they are not real sure of their salvation. You have questions of assurance of salvation,
but then when they are trying to live their Christian life they get so wrapped
around the axel about their own personal sin.
They get caught up with guilt and the whole focal point of their
Christian life is – not sin, not sin, not sin.
You don’t understand I John 1:9 correctly and all these other things come
into play. The result is that you have Christians
who can’t live the Christian life. They don’t understand the tremendous freedom
that we have in Christ and they can’t relax in grace and the completed work of
Christ on the cross. So verses 13 and 14
are very important.
Then verses 15 through 17
come back to a contrast of Christ and Adam so we understand what he is not
talking about. The free gift isn’t like the
offense in verse 15. The gift is not
like that which came through the one who sinned in verse 16. It emphasizes a difference. Then in verse 18 he comes back to the main
analogy. So 18 through 21 are very
important for understanding what goes on in 12 through 14. Unfortunately most people try to interpret 18
through 21 (most of the commentators I looked at, many theologians) in light of
verse 12 to 14 instead of 12 to 14 in light of the qualifications and make it a
priority out of 18-21.
So having said that:
NKJ Romans
The parallel that Paul is
focusing in this analogy, the contrast that he goes to between Christ and Adam
is Christ is solely responsible for our salvation. Adam is solely responsible
for sin and the spiritual death and the spread of spiritual death to all men.
Now the question at hand is how
did death spread to all men and how did sin spread to all men.
I think it is important to
understand this one term that is used in Romans
NKJ John
We have the word “so”. What does that mean? A lot of people think it means “for God loved
the world so much”. It doesn’t mean
that. It means God love the world in
this way. In what way?
that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life.
In other words, what follows
this use of houtos is the example. So what Paul is saying is “in this manner.” In what manner? In the manner of one man. This is the manner in which death spread to
all men because all sinned. If you
noticed here I have in brackets (in Adam positionally). Paul goes through this passage very quickly.
You get a sense of his excitement. He
drops out words. He breaks in the middle of a paragraph. He uses various constructions that indicate
that he is – there is ellipsis here where he drops our words. That shows his excitement. But you are reading this you should
understand and supply these other words and they’re present from context, but we
have to kind of think them through a little bit.
As you look at verse 12 it
says:
NKJ Romans
There is a second mention of
death.
and thus
death spread to all men, because all sinned --
So the focal point of the
passage is talking about death. It is
talking about the spread of death. Now death
is the penalty for sin. So it is the
result. So if death spreads to all men, then
the cause of that death also spreads to all men. By focusing on the consequence, the penalty
of sin being for everyone the sin nature, the corruption itself, should be
spread also to all men. So that is the
focal point of this chiasm.
Sin
Death
Death
Sin
Another thing that we should note
here is that in the phrase “thus death spread to all men”. We have four questions that we have to
address. I have addressed all of them
already.
- What is sin?
- What is the penalty for sin?
- What is the sin nature’s relationship to the
corporeal human body? We will get
into that some tonight and more next time.
- And how is this passed on?
Those two are what we are trying
to answer right now.
What is sin? When we looked at all the different Hebrew
and Greek words for sin – sin is the violation of God’s character, God’s
standard. Different words are used to
indicate different dimensions of that - missing the mark, the concept of
trespass or transgress or violating the law, a known revelation. You also have words indicating the twisting
of the standard. But it is the
violation of that absolute standard in God’s character. It is God’s character that is the benchmark
against which everything is measured.
The penalty for sin as I pointed out last time is spiritual death. I am going to go through that a little bit
more tonight. You have to make this
distinction between physical death and spiritual death and that spiritual death
is the penalty for sin.
Then tonight and next week, I
am looking at this issue of the sin nature’s relationship to the corporeal
human body and how this is passed on to the human race. Another thing we need to note here that is
very important in terms of the grammar of the passage is that both the word for
sin and the word for death always have the definite article in this
passage. What that indicates is that
Paul is focusing on a particular sin and a particular kind of death. He is singling that out as distinct from all other
sin and all other death. So it is through one man that the sin entered the
world. Theologians refer to this as original
sin or Adam’s original sin. So it is:
through one man the sin entered the world and the
death.
Every time the word thanatos is used for death in these verses, it is
always used with the article - singling it out.
That is a very important understanding in terms of the nature of the
article. So we have a technical use of
the article in the Greek which frequently highlights the noun as something that
is in a class by itself.
In English you have a
definite article because we have an indefinite article. “A” (or “an”) is an indefinite article. But in Greek you technically don’t refer to
it as a definite article because there is no indefinite article. So it is just the article. There are about 9 or 10 different ways in
which the article is used in Greek and it is not used to make the noun definite
or not. Now that is really strange to
those of us who are native English speakers because that is the primary and almost
exclusive use of the article in English.
It makes something definite as opposed to indefinite. I went to the doctor as opposed to any
doctor. Or, I ate the sandwich as opposed
to any sandwich. It particularizes some
individual thing as opposed to just anything.
But we also have remnants of
this absence of an article where the noun is still definite, especially in British
English where they will talk about instead of going to the hospital they say, “We
went to hospital.”
Well, hospital is assumed to
be inherently definite. It is not just
any hospital. They went to the hospital,
but they drop out that article. They
went to university. In American idiom we
would always put an article in front of either one of those particular
nouns. That is a remnant of this
particular idea that I am talking about in Greek. Russian is really strange when you have to
translate definite concepts over to Russian because there is no article in
Russian. That is why if you hear a
Russian speaker start speaking English, they have a difficult time with
articles. It is because there is no article
in Russian. So it is very difficult to
translate some things in the Scripture over into Russian because there is no
article whatsoever. But sometimes in
Greek the absence of an article - the noun is still definite even though the
article is missing. Other times even though the article is present it is not
particularizing the noun. It is using it
to indicate a maybe previous mention of the noun or any number of other things. So you have to analyze context a whole lot in
order to do that.
The article here is what is
classified as the article par excellence.
I will give you the definition of that.
It is when the article is used to point out a noun that is in a sense in
a class by itself. It is unique. It is a one-of-a-kind type of category. It is the only one deserving of the name.
For example if (I am reading
this out of Dan Wallace’s grammar) in late January someone were to say to you,
“Did you see the game?” then you might
reply, “Which game?”
They might then reply, “The game,
the only game worth watching, the big game.
You know the Super Bowl.”
This is the article used in a
par excellence way. It is distinguishing
that game from any other game. It is
making it one-of-a-kind, separating it out into its own class. It’s not necessarily used (as Wallace points
out) for the best of the class; it could be used for the worst of the
class. It is simply pointing out the
extreme or unique use of that particular noun.
That is what we have here. This
distinguishes this particular sin and this particular death from all other sins
and all other deaths.
Now if you don’t take time to
track down and identify the use of the article there, then you can get into some
exegetical problems and come to some wrong conclusions.
Well there is another problem
that comes up in here. It is identifying
the kind of death that is here. I pointed this out last time that a lot of
people aren’t comfortable with distinguishing spiritual death from physical
death except you have passages like Ephesians 2:1 which makes it very clear that
there is this distinction. Paul
addresses the Ephesians and says,
NKJ Ephesians 2:1 And you He made alive, who
were dead in trespasses and sins,
They were obviously
physically alive, but they were spiritually dead. Then you have to define exactly what that
means. What is the nature of
regeneration? What happens in regeneration? I can’t remember if I told you this last time
or not, but this concept of spiritual death is the loss of the human spirit is
another thing that many, many contemporary theologians and commentators don’t
accept anymore - is this trichotomous view of man as body, soul and
spirit. The spirit is lost at spiritual
death and regained at regeneration. So,
regeneration is no longer understood by them as gaining something at that point
of salvation that had been lost by Adam – that something is quantitatively
gained. For them it is just a metaphor
of a qualitative change that takes place.
Notice I shifted from qualitative to quantitative. It’s a quality change that takes place in the
believer.
I read an article a number of
years ago in a theological journal by a classmate of mine at Dallas Seminary
who was writing an article critiquing this interchange that took place back in 1918
between Louise Sperry Chafer and Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. Warfield was considered the foremost
conservative theologian of his day. He taught
at
So we have to look at the
kind of death that it is and I pointed that out last time that you have
different kinds of death that are mentioned in the Scripture.
- You have physical death which is
separation of the soul from the body.
- You have spiritual death which is what
happens with Adam at the moment that he sinned.
- We have the second death mentioned in
Hebrews
- We have operational death, James 2:26. Faith
without works (that is application) is dead. It is non-productive or operational
death.
- Then you have positional death which is
our identification with Christ on the cross. Romans 6:2-3,
- Then we have temporal death which is
living in extended carnality.
- Then the seventh was related to Abraham and sexual
death, beyond the ability to procreate.
So those are the 7 different kinds
of death. So every time you see death in
the Scripture you have to decide what kind of death it is.
You also have another
decision to make when you talk about sin.
Death is mentioned here so you have to define which kind of death you
are talking about. Then you have to talk
about sin. Which of the three different
uses of sin is this talking about? Is
this talking about Adam’s original sin?
Is this talking about personal sin?
Or, is this talking about the sin nature? Most people when they read passages like
this, they immediately want to read into the passage personal sin. So you can once again get into some problems
if you go into this as personal sin.
So we will look at the
weaknesses of that first of all by calling it option #1. This is a view that many people have taken
historically. There are a couple of
variations on it. The first variation
which we referred to the last couple of weeks is to take the phrase “because
all sinned”. You can sin as personal
sins or Adam's original sin. If you take
the first option as personal sins the verse would read:
Just
as through one man’s sin
Sometimes you have people
take that as sin nature; otherwise it is the fact of sin (the historical event
of a sin) enters the world. They would take that as (the Pelagian view) historical.
And death through sin
That would be applied only to
Adam.
And thus death spread to all men because all sinned
All committed personal sins.
The Pelagian view was that people
commit their first personal sin – that’s when they come under the penalty of
spiritual death. Now very few people
take that view today. That is not a
problem that any of you have, but that’s the old Pelagian extreme view that
Adam’s sin affected only Adam.
But another sort of twist on
that view is the view that the sin here refers to the sin nature.
Just
as through one man the sin nature entered into the world and death through sin
That is through the sin
nature
And
thus death spread to all men because all have a sin nature.
So the problem with this is
that it doesn’t fit the context. It is
trying to add an intermediate step into the process which is the sin nature
that death comes to (Let’s personalize this) you as an individual because you
were born with a sin nature. See the sin
nature in this view isn’t loaded with guilt.
It is just a sin nature, but it is very important to note that the
passage doesn’t allow for some sort of intermediate thing between Adam’s sin
and our condemnation.
In verse 15 we read:
For if by
the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the
grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.
.
See it wasn’t by the one
man’s offense many people got a sin nature and many died. It is his sin directly not indirectly through
a sin nature but directly leads to the spiritual death of the many.
Verse 16 says:
For the judgment which came from
one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from
many offenses resulted in justification.
It is that one offence
immediately results in condemnation not the fact that you gain a sin nature. This view is only one step removed from the
Pelagian view. You get into verse 17:
NKJ Romans 5:17 For if by the one man's offense
death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus
Christ.)
Adam’s sin is pictured in all
these verses as immediately causing the fall and condemnation and the guilt of
the entire human race. It’s not waiting
upon its actualization by people who are born who either sin and then get a sin
nature or are born with a sin nature and then sin. In both of these views, it is viewed as personal
sin. If this is personal sin then Adam’s
sin really doesn’t affect the entire human race and what you are condemned for
is your personal sin.
Now the better solution to
the problem is that the sin that we are condemned for is Adam's sin so that
when you read in verse 12 “thus death spread to all men because all sinned”, what
is missing there - as Paul is developing that – what he leaves out in ellipsis
is what I pointed out earlier because all sinned positionally in Adam. When he sinned, we sinned.
Now that may seem like an
unusual position because we think in our world that “I am accountable for my
decision. How can God condemn me for a
decision that I didn’t make. Maybe I
would have made a different decision.”
As I pointed out in the past,
“No, I wouldn’t.”
God in His omniscience knows
that. There is something more fundamental
to this. That goes a little bit against
the grain of how most modern men think.
That is this whole concept of corporate unity. I alluded to that earlier in terms of why
Christ can die for the whole human race because the whole human race is viewed
as a corporate unity in contrast to the angels.
I pointed that out the last few weeks on Sunday in our study of
angelology. The angels were created
individually.
Let me take the rest of class
to go back and show an Old Testament illustration of this corporate unity - how
the whole becomes guilty of a decision made by one person. That seems to run so counter to a lot of things
we understand, but this is fundamental to much of the Old Testament.
I could go (just for prep
school teachers who want to have another illustration) to the episode at the
end of II Samuel when David takes the census.
It is David’s sin. He takes a
census of the people in violation of God’s law.
What happens? God is going to
judge the nation and he is given three options as to how God is going to judge
them. He picks the option of a
plague. So the angel of death comes and
there is this plague that goes through the nation for about three days and thousands
are killed because of David’s sin. It is
viewed as a corporate entity where David is viewed as the representative of the
people. So this idea of one person
representing the whole flows through all the Old Testament.
But, I think a good example
is in Joshua 7. So turn back with me to
the book of Joshua.
Now let me set this up
because you can’t understand chapter 7 without understanding chapter 6. Chapter 6 is the Battle of Jericho. We all
know Joshua fi’t the
NKJ Joshua
Notice even in that you have
a representative volitional decision.
Rehab made the decision to hide the two spies, not her family. But her family gets blessed by association
because of this concept of corporate unity and one person making a decision as
a representative for a group. So Rahab’s
decision means that the family is going to live.
Then in verse 18 the
instructions go on to say:
NKJ Joshua
The accursed things that are referred
to are the things that were under the ban that they were not supposed to
take. They were supposed to destroy
everything.
lest you
become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of
That word for accursed things
doesn’t mean things are cursed and some kind of black magic concept. But they are banned. They are not to be taken by the people. They were supposed to be destroyed. All of the riches, the gold and silver, were
to be taken to the temple and everything else was supposed to be killed. The people were not to profit from the
destruction of
So we read in verse 19.
NKJ Joshua
That word consecrated is the
Hebrew word qodesh meaning set apart to the Lord.
to the
LORD; they shall come into the treasury of the LORD."
So the mandate was to destroy
everything in the city.
NKJ Joshua
Everything living was
supposed to be killed. That was the
mandate. But not everybody followed the
law.
Look at chapter 7.
NKJ Joshua 7:1 But the children of
Notice the children of
for Achan
the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of
I often wondered why it gives
us all of that genealogical data. The
reason it does is because it locates him as being genetically related to the
whole of the tribe of
He saw some of the gold and
silver and decided, “While no one is watching I am going to stash this inside
my rucksack and take it back to my tent and I will have a little extra wealth.”
But God saw his sins.
so the
anger of the LORD burned against the children of
That phrase does not mean
that God - because God knew in eternity past that this would take place, but it
is an idiom indicating the harshness and the severity of God’s judgment on
So Achan sins, but the whole
nation is going to be judged as a result of this. That sin of Achan is imputed to the rest of
the nation. He is that federal
representative.
So the next event is they
have to go up the road a little further northwest to the next city which is Ai. They are going to conquer it. But, there is a different strategy from
God.
NKJ Joshua 7:2 Now Joshua sent men from
He sent out his reconnaissance team and they spied out
Ai.
NKJ Joshua 7:3 And they returned to Joshua and
said to him, "Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three
thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the
people of Ai are few."
“It is a smaller, less well-defended
city. We can do this with two or three
thousand people.”
We haven’t noticed a
reference to God or direction from God at this point. The pre-incarnate Christ is the general. He
is the head of the army of
NKJ Joshua 7:5 And the men of Ai struck down about
thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore
the hearts of the people melted and became like water.
Now let’s stop a minute and
talk about this. Thirty six people got
killed, lost their lives because of Achan’s sin. Does that fit your preconceived notion of
justice? Probably not. So we need to change
our understanding of God or change our understanding of justice? We need to change our understanding of
justice because there is this corporate thing.
Because of one sin that was a secret sin and nobody else in
NKJ Joshua 7:6 Then Joshua tore his clothes, and
fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the LORD until evening, he and
the elders of
He blames God. Look at verse 7.
NKJ Joshua 7:7 And Joshua said, "Alas, Lord
GOD, why have You brought this people over the
“Why did this happen? It is all your fault God. If you hadn’t brought us in here this wouldn’t
have happened. We shouldn’t have
suffered this defeat.”
See even Joshua has to have
his concept of divine justice adjusted by revelation. So God comes to him in verse 10.
NKJ Joshua
NKJ Joshua
Notice the corporate unity sinned.
Joshua doesn’t even know about Achan’s sin.
Nobody does. It was a sin that
was in secret. But it is a sin that was
imputed to the whole. It is one person’s
sin. He stands as a representative for
the whole and his sin becomes the sin of the whole nation and the whole nation
suffers the consequences for his sin. As
a result of that the children of
What is the solution? The solution is that this is a great Old
Testament story to emphasize the whole doctrine of confession and forgiveness. They have to be sanctified. God gives them the instructions.
NKJ Joshua
That is what confession
is. Confession is practical, experiential
sanctification. You have become
unsanctified experientially when you sinned because you are in carnality. At confession when we are cleansed from all
unrighteousness we become sanctified experientially. We are back in fellowship. That is what has to happen corporately.
and say,
'Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the LORD God of
So the whole point is that
until they deal with the sin in their midst, they will never experience victory
in the plan of God. That is the same
thing that is true for believers. Unless
you deal with the sin that is in your life through the application of the Word,
not because you are going around self-absorbed, contemplating your navel trying
to figure out every little sin that is going on in your life which is how most Baptists
would preach this. The issue is unless you understand God’s principle for
sanctification which is confession of sin so that you are back in fellowship, you
can’t go forward. So they have to go through
the process. For them the details are a
little bit different. So there is going
to be a penalty. They are going to go
through this process to identify the tribe, then the clan, then the family and
finally the individual who committed this offense. Then there is a penalty.
NKJ Joshua
Why is he burned with fire
and not stoned? That is the general
penalty that you have in the Mosaic Law.
What is burning with fire there? Purification
- purification of sin. That is the
problem - sin is in the camp and there needs to be purification.
he and all
that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because
he has done a disgraceful thing in
So the next morning they get
up and in verses 16f describe the whole process where they identify the tribe
of
NKJ Joshua 7:19 Now Joshua said to Achan, "My
son, I beg you, give glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession to
Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me."
NKJ Joshua
This is a great example of
confession prayer.
“I have sinned against the
Lord. This is what I did. I took this in violation of the commandment.”
I am sure he felt very badly about this
because he knew he was about to die.
But, that wasn’t the point of his confession. That was how he felt. He admits that he took the beautiful
Babylonian garment.
NKJ Joshua 7:21 "When I saw among the spoils a
beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of
gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them
Mental attitude sin
and took them.
Overt sin.
And there they are, hidden in the
earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it."
NKJ Joshua
NKJ Joshua 7:24 Then Joshua, and all Israel with
him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the
garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters,
Do you think this is fair to
his sons and daughters? I hope this
challenges your American concept – western European concept of justice. We have this thing of corporate unity here.
his oxen,
his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them to
the
NKJ Joshua
That is the purification
after they had stoned him with stones.
NKJ Joshua
Not to this day (today) but to
the day the writer wrote Joshua. It was
still there. In other words this is an
object lesson.
How many times in the Old
Testament did they set up these stone cairn monuments so that later on 150 –
200 years later you would go by and your little boy would say, “Well, Daddy,
what is that pile of rocks over there?”
Then there would be an object
lesson to teach doctrine. That is what that was all about. The point I am making here is that in the Old
Testament here, you have it with David’s sin at the end of II Samuel; you have
it in other passages in the Old Testament.
There is this corporate unity. So
this demonstrates not only is there physical unity because he is Jewish that is
the point of the genealogy. It takes him
back and shows him that there is also a physical unity with
The next time we will come
back and get into the issue that comes up in verses 13 and 14 that shows the importance
of understanding this as Adam’s sin and that people don’t have their own
personal sins imputed to them. That is
not the cause of our condemnation. It is
Adam’s original which we are guilty of both seminally and federally.
We will come back to that
next time.