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The plague has begun


What is the most dangerous place that you can imagine being?

I have been looking at a passage recently in Num 16:41-48, which takes place directly after the rebellion of Korah. The Israelites were grumbling against Most and Aaron, claiming that they had been responsible for killing the families of Korah, Dathan and Abiram – who the Israelites described as “the people of the Lord” (Num 16:41). In response to these baseless accusations, the glory of the Lord appeared over the tent of meeting and God told Moses, “Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” (Num 16:45).

God had promised judgement on the people, and this came almost instantaneously in the form of a plague. It’s not quite clear what this plague was exactly or what it looked like, but it seems that it started in one area and was spreading rapidly and visibly. And in the midst of it, one person was running – but he was running the wrong way. Aaron took a censer with fire from the altar and ran into the midst of danger. He stood between the living and the dead. Envision that – thousands of corpses strewn in front of you; a million people behind you staring down their inevitable death. This is the most dangerous place to be – at the coalface of God’s wrath and judgement.

All this because of their rebellion. And what about our sin? Sin is saying “I know better than God” – it is rebellion; treason at the cosmological level. “Yes God, I know You’ve told me how to live, but I think I know a better way to live.”  We are under the plague of death – it might be coming slowly, but we can all see it coming. However, there is no Aaron to step up and intercede for us.

It says in Isaiah 59:16 that God “saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede.” Because of this, Christ came forward to stand in the gap. “His own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.” (Isa 59:16b). Not only that, but He became our shield – taking the brunt of God’s just plague that was coming for us. Christ has become the dividing line between death and life, between the dead and the eternally living. As it says in Hosea, He has ransomed us from the power of Sheol and from death. So now we can sing with the prophet, “O Death, where are your plagues?”


Illustration taken from a medieval manuscript: gr.746. 

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