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 manoeuvring 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 New York and you are trying to go to Texas. At the
initial split you may only be a few degrees off but you are going to end up in
Chicago rather than in Houston as you go down the road. That is what
happens theologically.
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 9:27 and
Revelation 20:12-15 which is the ongoing penalty on the unbeliever for his
rejection of Christ, for his lack of faith.
- 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, Col 2:12, 20, 3:3. We at the
instant of our faith in Christ are identified with Christ’s death, burial,
and resurrection. So His death becomes our death positionally.
- 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 offence 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 offence 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 offence 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 offence 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 Battle at Jericho but
that is not exactly the point that I want to focus on here. It is the
mandate that he was given. God gave a specific mandate as to how Joshua
was going to defeat and conquer the city of Jericho and just exactly what the
people were to do and what they were not to do. So look at verse
17.
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 Judah. It goes back to
Judah. He is in the tribe of Judah and Judah is part of the 12 tribes of
Israel. So he is making the point that he is an Israelite and he can
represent the whole nation.
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 Israel as depicted back in chapter 5, verses
12-15. But, they are not going to the Commander-in-Chief for directions
here for their strategy. So they decided that they can do it with 2000 –
3000 men and they go out. So they send 3,000 men and they get
routed. They attack Ai and Ai soundly and roundly defeats them.
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 Israel knew what Aiken did, but because he is part of that corporate
unity the nation has lost their spiritual power. They are out of
fellowship. The whole nation is in carnality and they are under divine
discipline and they are not going to succeed at anything until they take care
of the sin that is part of the corporate whole. So there are these 36 men
and it probably didn’t appear too just to them that they lost their
lives. But, this is how divine justice works. Then Joshua didn’t
appear to be too just to him. He has his own little pity party.
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 offence. 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 7:25 And Joshua said, "Why have you
troubled us? The LORD will trouble you this day." So all
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 Israel, but there
is also this representative aspect as well. He is a representative of the
nation because he sinned - all sinned. So you have the same principle
there that you have in Romans 5 that when Adam sinned; all sinned immediately,
directly. Everyone is immediately guilty of Adam’s sin the instant he
sinned just as everyone in the nation Israel was immediately guilty of Achan’s
sin when he did it even though they didn’t know anything about it. So
this is a solid biblical principle that extends throughout Scripture.
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.