From his book The Holiness of God, in the chapter dealing with God’s justice, RC Sproul discusses Uzzah’s sin of touching the Arc of the Covenant. You can read the whole story of Uzzah in 1 Chronicles 13. Uzzah was the priest who, while transporting the Arc, touched it when it appeared to become unstable and threatened to fall to the ground. Immediately when Uzzah touched the Arc, God struck him dead. To many, this appears to be a twisted sense of justice. Sproul has this to say:

“[Uzzah’s act]…an act of holy heroism? No! It was an act of arrogance, a sin of presumption. Uzzah assumed that his hand was less polluted than the earth. But it wasn’t the ground or the mud that would desecrate the ark: it was the touch of man. The earth is an obedient creature. It does what God tells it to do. It brings forth its yield in its season. It obeys the laws of nature that God has established.”

Sproul doesn’t stop there in his explanation, but for my attention now, this is the section that caught me. I have always had trouble reading these passages about Uzzah. I can’t help be see a fatal accident and an overreacting God. But as Sproul points out, it was not simply a momentary sin that resulted in Uzzah’s death, it was a heart condition of arrogance that contented itself that way well before the physical offense.

Uzzah had to assume, deeply, that his hands were "less polluted" than the ground. All of God’s many, many explicit commands would fall by the wayside in Uzzah’s mind, because Uzzah arrogantly presumed his worthiness.

Now, for me, I see a couple of things that stand out.

1. Reading into God’s word with "eisegetical" eyes is a dangerous practice. Uzzah reinterpreted all of God’s commands not to touch the Arc, based on one single presumption that his hands were not as filthy as the ground. He was wrong and paid dearly for it. So similar is the person who turns a deaf ear to the Gospel because he knows he’s a good person and he knows God doesn’t send "good" people to hell. God’s word must speak for itself; we cannot tell it what to say.

2. The death of Jesus is magnified even more in Uzzah’s death. God instantly poured his wrath out on Uzzah and his blasphemous gesture. In a split second, we get to see God’s holiness and his terrifying commitment to uphold that holiness. Uzzah’s death reminds us that we’ve all arrogantly reached out and blasphemed God, yet Jesus has taken upon himself all of that wrath which was due to our sacrileges and bore them on the cross. So, even today, while we continue to reach out and touch the proverbial Arc, Jesus continues to plead our case on the grounds of his spilled blood.

I was reading on the Desiring God blog about the differences between Dispensational, Covenant and New Covenant Theology. It’s a conversation I’m familiar with, but not well read on and totally undecided on my own stance. I thought it might be helpful to know the viewpoint of some of the people I respect.

As I was reading, something occurred to me. People seem to see strong theological convictions as creating strong divisions in the body of Christ. I think that I disagree.

Strong theological convictions do not create strong divisions, it simply shows you all the opportunities you have to be divided. For example, when I sit in a church on a Sunday morning, having a theological belief on a given topic will cause me to know when I disagree with the person speaking. However, what I do with that disagreement is still on the table.

So perhaps the question is not so much about unity, as it is about humility. Can we humbly disagree with one another? Humbly disagree without subverting our theological beliefs?

I think so. But I’m finding that to be a major challenge as I study and learn. A good challenge, I think a challenge that is absolutely crucial for all of us, as we begin to move into decidedly more theological times in the church.

I think we’ll need to be intentional about this one.

So it goes something like this;

Way back when, God made a deal with Adam and Eve. It was a covenant—a covenant of “works”. A covenant of works is an agreement between two people, it’s basically means “do such and such and you’ll receive such and such”. We make covenants like that all the time; with cell phone companies, restaurants, hair stylists. We’re actually very familiar with them, we just might not recognize it. Well, in Adam and Eve’s case the covenant of works sounded something like, “I’ve given you everything, now simply do not eat from this tree, and you’ll live”. The agreement that was made between God and Adam and Eve was that if they did not eat from the tree, they would live in the garden in perfect closeness with God forever. If they did eat from the tree forbidden by God, they would have to die. Each party had a responsibility, so to speak. If they did not eat, God had the obligation to allow them to the live with him forever and they had the obligation to enjoy it. If the agreement was broken, God had the obligation to cast them out and cut them off from himself and they had the obligation to die.

Well we know what happened. They broke the agreement and so God cast them out and cut them off from himself and of course as we can now see, they had the obligation to die and they did; immediately, in a spiritual sense. While already spiritually dead, humankind remained under that obligation, every man to die, both physically and finally. You see, God could not act in grace, lest he would not be holding up his end of the original agreement based on works, which would show God to be unjust. So, God remained under his own obligation to the original covenant that was broken, that every man should die in a physical and final sense—while spiritually already dead. But God, in all of his awesome mercy, made a new covenant with Abraham. He said that through Abraham God would bless all the people of the earth. This time, it was a covenant of grace. The only one with an obligation in this new covenant was God; his obligation was to pour out his grace through Abraham. While we cannot trust man, we can trust God

The promise that was made to Abraham was of Jesus who would eventually come through the Jewish people, Abraham’s descendants. When Jesus finally came on the scene, he lived blameless and perfect. He was, in a sense, Adam except without sinning. When he was crucified, all of the sin from mankind that we had accumulated and would ever be accumulated was placed on Jesus on the cross, and in doing that Jesus fulfilled our end of that original bargain that was made with God in the beginning. The covenant of works made with Adam and Eve was satisfied with Jesus’ death on the cross; the death we deserved to die, he died for us clearing us of our debt to fulfill our end of the agreement.

Three days following Jesus’ death, he came back to life. The grave could not hold him, the Son of God. Jesus had not only paid the debt we owed, but he defeated, he overcame death and so that spiritually, we could actually live in him. We can be new creations, living new lives, no longer in an agreement with God that required that we would die, but now much more beautifully in a covenant of grace. So, while we will eventually die physically, we life spiritually now and will never die finally.

The most amazing part of this story is when we pull back to understand that God made the agreement with Adam and Eve; they failed. Then God came and made satisfaction for the offending party of his own agreement. It’s unbelievably amazing how thorough and gracious and good our God is, how awesome is our king Jesus.

Jesus, thank you for your great mercy and incredible grace! Thank you for being stronger than sin, more powerful than death and for rescuing us from our own debt. Be glorified today, Jesus!