Post by Lee on Sept 30, 2014 23:41:04 GMT
Uzza, who was accompanying it, reached out his hand to steady it, and “God smote him there for his error, and he died by the hand of God.”
“How dreadful!” say some, “how severe!” and so it appears if the other considerations which must enter into the case are not allowed for. Try and imagine the picture, a rejoicing people, providing the best they could for the conveyance of the Ark, Uzza acting to steady it when it seemed in danger of falling—and then, death and dismay. Why was it? Because of God’s immutability. He had decreed that only certain persons were to convey the Ark, and that they were only to carry it in a certain way. These were facts which David afterwards recognised, but in this instance each of them were ignored. Bearing in mind what the Ark was, and the sanctity attaching to it, can we wonder at the result? What a lesson it brings to us. Implicit obedience is what He, “with Whom there is no variableness,” requires from His children. It is not a question of expediency, or of providing that which frail man may think fitting in connection with the things of God; it is purely a question of what God has said, for that is the sole criterion of right and wrong. Such teaching is very unpopular to-day. The world prefers the principle that the end justifies the means. If that were so, then this incident would never have happened. The end sought was a good one; the means adopted, such as would commend themselves to human thoughts, which would see in the externals of the case that which was very fitting. But the whole matter is a direct condemnation of such teaching. The doctrine of the end justifying the means, has always found its exponents. They existed in Paul’s days; some even affirmed that he taught it, but his emphatic repudiation of it is but a repetition of the lesson so vividly impressed upon us in the death of Uzza. Let us see that we profit by it.
1900 Christadelphian, 37(electronic ed.), 453–454.
“How dreadful!” say some, “how severe!” and so it appears if the other considerations which must enter into the case are not allowed for. Try and imagine the picture, a rejoicing people, providing the best they could for the conveyance of the Ark, Uzza acting to steady it when it seemed in danger of falling—and then, death and dismay. Why was it? Because of God’s immutability. He had decreed that only certain persons were to convey the Ark, and that they were only to carry it in a certain way. These were facts which David afterwards recognised, but in this instance each of them were ignored. Bearing in mind what the Ark was, and the sanctity attaching to it, can we wonder at the result? What a lesson it brings to us. Implicit obedience is what He, “with Whom there is no variableness,” requires from His children. It is not a question of expediency, or of providing that which frail man may think fitting in connection with the things of God; it is purely a question of what God has said, for that is the sole criterion of right and wrong. Such teaching is very unpopular to-day. The world prefers the principle that the end justifies the means. If that were so, then this incident would never have happened. The end sought was a good one; the means adopted, such as would commend themselves to human thoughts, which would see in the externals of the case that which was very fitting. But the whole matter is a direct condemnation of such teaching. The doctrine of the end justifying the means, has always found its exponents. They existed in Paul’s days; some even affirmed that he taught it, but his emphatic repudiation of it is but a repetition of the lesson so vividly impressed upon us in the death of Uzza. Let us see that we profit by it.
1900 Christadelphian, 37(electronic ed.), 453–454.