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.