Only the Pure Shall Enter

You are going to be disturbed by the contents of Numbers 31 if you don't understand ancient cultures and how to read the Bible. In this chapter, Moses is commanded by God to take vengeance on the Midianites for how they turned Israel from the Lord at Peor in Numbers 25. We remember that episode ended with Phinehas' zeal taking out the rebellious man and his Midianite concubine in one stab of spear.

During the conquest upon the Midianites God instructs Israel to carry out their first "holy war" as defined by theologians. This kind of war involved total elimination of a culture. Men, women, everyone and everything... except for one group of people. The people carry out only a portion of those commands and they let the women live. Moses' response? Read for yourself:

Numbers 31:15–20 (ESV) Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? 16 Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves. 19 Encamp outside the camp seven days. Whoever of you has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day. 20 You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”

Now if you are a modern person this kind of passage really troubles you. How could a loving God have Moses instruct the people not only to kill the men but the little boys and all the women SAVE ONLY the unwed virgins? Is God sadistic? Will you now turn from the faith having found that elusive loophole by which you can deny the entirety of God's commands in exchange for a palpable moral code of your own choosing? Perhaps instead of tossing out the proverbial "baby with the bathwater" we should let this questionable text draw us in to examine God's ways.

First, it is clear the people of Israel are God's hand of vengeance upon utterly corrupt people groups in the Ancient world. God said to Abraham concerning the timeline of his descendent's entrance to the land in Genesis 15:16 "they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” These cultures, such as Midian, were not innocent people void of treacherous acts. They were a wicked and depraved culture that offered child sacrifice, temple prostitution and unthinkably more atrocities. 

It is clear that culture becomes so toxic it becomes irredeemable. Consider the 20th century. While the West was jettisoning "outdated" scriptural records of human evil the world experienced the blood baths of several genocidal maniacs who murdered mass millions of people. The Nazi system was NOT redeemable. Neither was the Khmer Rouge. Today we have ISIS with images, videos and stories of systemic indoctrination of murderous intent that knows no limits. Even if they survive war and external annihilation their conduct will eventually cause them to rot into extinction from within. 

Beyond our perception of Midian's evil, we must be careful never to wait until we feel that such people are worthy of judgment. God is absolutely holy. He could and ONCE did wipe out the whole of mankind with perfect justification. When we are troubled by God's judgment, the issue is NEVER God's rightness, if you will, but our wrongness. Who are we, mere mankind, to question the righteous judgment of the Holy God of the Universe? I fear our disturbance by these moments says more about our radical pride than anything else.

Finally, this passage calls us to a fuller perception of what God is doing in the world. He is giving the wicked time to repent. When the time is up there will be a great sweeping judgment by the armies of the Lord coming from heaven (see Revelation 19:11ff). A final judgment will take place. And yet, who will be spared? NOTE the words of Moses above...

"But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves"

The pure young women who have not attached themselves physically or spiritually to the evil of their society will be brought in to the land of promise. This is a clear image of God's redemptive working. He is presently preserving for Himself a people who will not join themselves to the wickedness of society. He is preparing His bride to enjoy the blessings of God forever with Him. 

Now of course, none of us are clean. We are NO spiritual virgins at all. But this is the beauty of the Gospel. In the Gospel, instead of putting to death those who had fornicated, Christ bears their penalty on the cross and makes the impure pure! This is why Jesus could touch the impure woman with the issue of blood and CHANGE her status. This is why Jesus could touch the leper and CHANGE his status. In Christ we have a change of status before God and by His blood we can freely enter in. He became a curse so that we could become the righteousness of God in HIM! 

Only the pure can enter. 

You aren't pure in yourself. You can be MADE pure in HIM.

Now that you have heard this, will you receive it?

Ask the Lord to cleanse you and bring you in by His grace. Amen.