Word of Salvation – Vol.07 No.30 – July 1961

 

Human Responsibility And Divine Election

 

Sermon by Rev. K. Kramer on Numbers 16:5

Scripture Reading: Numbers 16:1-14

Hymns: 123:1,2,3; 49:3; 383; 379; 390:2

 

Preparation for Holy Communion

 

Translated by John Westendorp.

Translator’s note: early editions of ‘Word of Salvation’ still had some sermons in Dutch for the migrant communities that then made up the Reformed Churches of Australia.

 

Beloved congregation,

It may not be without significance that the Church repeatedly speaks of HOLY Baptism and of the HOLY Supper.

The holiness of the sacraments is continually emphasized in our confessional writings.  Of course, this does not mean that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are holy in themselves, but that they both relate to a matter over which God alone decides.

The Lord’s Supper can be seen as the gate through which we may enter into God’s fellowship, or, to put it differently, it is the way by which God Himself comes to us with the seal of His promise, that, because of the one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross, He gives us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace alone.

Because the Lord’s Supper is about meeting a holy God, and the Lord’s Supper brings us into contact with something holy, that is why we usually speak of the Lord’s holy Supper.

That this view of the Lord’s Supper has consequences for everyone who takes part in its celebration is clear.  When the Lord’s Supper is about meeting God, Who is holy, and the matter at issue in the Lord’s Supper is a holy matter, the question immediately arises as to who is and who is not entitled to take part in its celebration.

Thus, today, in preparation for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, I bring you God’s Word about MOSES, WHO, DURING THE REBELLION OF KORAH, DATHAN AND ABIRAM, LET GOD HIMSELF DECIDE AS TO WHO MAY APPROACH HIM.

We would like to consider that the APPROACH TO GOD IS A MATTER OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY AND OF DIVINE ELECTION.

The passage of Scripture, brothers and sisters, from which our text is taken, is not exactly one of the most pleasant.  It recalls an episode in the history of the people of Israel during their journey through the desert, from which it is clear that the Old Testament Covenant people cared little for what God wanted them to do.  Instead of submitting to the leadership of Moses for God’s sake, they repeatedly rebelled against him.

Moses was not a leader, they said.  He had only fooled them.  They had been promised a land flowing with milk and honey , but the reality was that they had come from one sandy desert to another.

Until Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had had enough and they and their followers, for they had taken care of that, openly rebelled against Moses.

With a pious excuse they tried to get their way.  It had always been the case that the tribe of Levi was designated to fulfil all kinds of service work in and around the tent of meeting, while only the lineage of Aaron was eligible for the priesthood.  That was how God wanted it and that was how it had always been.

But that had to stop now.  Moses had gone about it all wrong.  Was the tribe of Levi better than the other tribes?  Why favour that tribe over the others?  Were the Levites holier than the rest?  No way!  When it came down to it, they could easily stand up to a comparison with them.  And hadn’t God Himself said that all the people were holy and that He wanted to live in the midst of all the tribes?  It was crazy to think that God only wanted to be served by the tribe of Levi and that only someone from the lineage of Aaron could be a priest!

Korah, who was especially concerned with putting an end to the priesthood as it had always been connected to the house of Aaron, therefore gathered his men together and with a roar of hurrahs he marched with his followers to the tent of meeting, where Moses and Aaron were standing.  Let it suffice you, they shouted, that is to say: now it is enough, all the people are holy and God dwells among all the tribes.  This favouritism of Levi must come to an end.  From now on everyone is eligible for the priesthood.  We want everyone in turn to be a priest!

Well, Moses and Aaron could stick that in their pockets as far as they were concerned..!

And do you know, congregation, what Moses then did?  “And he fell upon his face, and prayed: and he spoke with God, and said, Tomorrow the LORD will show who is his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto him: whomsoever he shall choose, him will he cause to come near unto him.”

Now it is remarkable, congregation, that Moses postpones the decision for a day.  Of course it would have been possible that God would have reiterated at once how He wanted the service in the sanctuary to be regulated, and besides that it is always better to intervene at once in an attempted rebellion than to let the matter take its course.

Moses’ delay in making the decision for another day was therefore not without purpose, especially since he came to that decision after he had prayed to God.  Apparently God himself did not want the question of who would be allowed to approach Him in the sanctuary to be answered until the next day.

Although it is not stated clearly, it is entirely reasonable to assume that Moses wanted to give Korah and his men the opportunity to think about the matter again.  After all, the issue here was not who would fill the priesthood, Aaron or someone else , but whether the house of Aaron was rightly designated for it.  Korah and his men presented it as if the question was still who was allowed to approach God when in reality that question had long been resolved.  God had clearly said that He had chosen the tribe of Levi from among the other tribes for the service in the tent of meeting and that only the lineage of Aaron was eligible for the priesthood.  Moses therefore called on them to think again carefully about what God had clearly said about filling the office of priest.  So they were given one more day to seriously consider what God had determined about the person who might approach Him, so that it would immediately become clear to them that Aaron was not called to the priesthood because he was holier than others, but that he was holy because he had been chosen by God to the office of priest.

So they had to seriously consider again how God Himself had determined that only the tribe of Levi would take care of the service work in the tent of meeting, not because this tribe was better or holier than the rest, but because God Himself had so decided in His sovereignty and that only for that reason this tribe was different from the other tribes.

Before God would make it clear that they could not with impunity evade the regulations which He Himself had made concerning the priesthood, they should carefully consider what God had decreed concerning it.

It is clear from this, congregation, that the question of who may approach God is not a matter that we have to decide for ourselves, but that we are dependent on what God has revealed about it.  In order to find out who may enter the sanctuary of fellowship with God, we must not let ourselves be guided by what we OURSELVES think about it, but for that we must consult the revealed will of God.

In order to know who may and may not partake of the Lord’s Supper, we have only one thing to do, namely to seriously ask ourselves what the Scriptures tell us about the encounter between a sinful man and a holy God.  Whoever wants to celebrate the Lord’s Supper to strengthen his faith without fear in his heart of being consumed by the holiness of God, must carefully examine the Scriptures to see what God himself has revealed about participating in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

You cannot say: they are all going and therefore I will go too, or: I have once confessed my faith and therefore the door is open to me.  In this week of preparation the SCRIPTURE must be on the table and we will have to ask ourselves thoroughly what the scripture says about entering into God’s fellowship.  You will derive your boldness to take the holy bread in your hand and to partake of the holy drink from the scripture alone and from nothing else.  Woe to you if you go to the Lord’s Supper without knowing that the scripture gives you boldness to do so!  Or will you risk it?

Now, that’s what Korah and his men did.  They left it up to God.  They wanted to see what God would do.  God would have to decide for himself whether they would not all come near to Him and enter into His fellowship.

Then take firepans, Moses said, and come back tomorrow, and you will see whom God has chosen to approach him.

Hitherto this had been the responsible privilege of the tribe of Levi, and of Aaron in particular.  THEY alone were qualified to come before God with the incense and to approach Him, not because they were better than the rest, but simply and solely because they were chosen by God to do so.

That they were able to enter the sanctuary with impunity was not due to themselves, as if they had a right to it, but solely and exclusively due to the fact that God would allow himself to be pleased that they came to him.  That they were not consumed by the fire of God’s sanctuary when they approached a holy God, was not the result of their personal qualities, but solely and exclusively of God’s electing grace.  Not because they belonged to the tribe of Levi or because they were of the lineage of Aaron, were they allowed to approach God without being affected by His holiness, but solely and exclusively because God himself had appointed them to do so.

So take fire pans, said Moses, and go into the sanctuary.  Then you will experience that God will determine who may and may not approach Him.  Only those He has chosen to do so are welcome.

You know, congregation, how it went with Korah and his men.  Instead of returning to what God had said about approaching Him, they took a chance.  They did come back the next day, with fire pans in their hands, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

But they came to know!  In an instant they were all consumed by the fire of God’s holiness!  Not one of them was spared, and when a short time later more agreed with their view, more than fourteen thousand died in one day!

That, congregation, is the fate of everyone who thinks that he may simply approach a holy God.  The responsibility of everyone who wants to enter God’s community is unimaginably great .  He must know very well what he is doing.  It is and remains a life-threatening undertaking.  This privilege is reserved for the elect only; for those who know themselves to be called by God:

I can imagine that this does not make it any easier for you to participate in the Lord’s Supper and that your first reaction is: I’ll just stay away!  If it is so that fellowship with God is only for the elect and that everyone else is punished by God, it is better that I do not participate in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper this time.

But let this be laid upon your heart: You MUST celebrate the Lord’s Supper!  There is a COMMAND in Scripture to remember the Lord’s death, a command from which you can no more escape than the demand to regard approach to God as a matter of divine election.

Clearly, congregation, Moses makes it clear that only the holy one may approach God.  Tomorrow, then, the Lord will make known who is His and who is the holy one, that He will let him approach Him!

And immediately he adds: Whom he shall choose, him will he bring near unto him.  From this it is evident that for Moses there was no distinction between the holiness of the person who was allowed to approach AND his election, the two went hand in hand.

And as has already been said: the Levites were not holy because they belonged to the tribe of Levi, but because they had been chosen by God for a special office.  And Aaron was not holy because he lived so well, but because he had been appointed by God as a priest.

In other words, the holiness of these people was not due to themselves, but to their election by God.  Why were they allowed to approach God and not the others?  Not because they were different from the rest, not because they were better than the others, but simply and solely because they were chosen to enter the sanctuary and therefore holy!

You must not seek the ground for your election and for your participation in the Lord’s Supper in yourself or in your life.  You must not say: I must be an elect, because I faithfully go to the Reformed Church and I read the Bible and I pray three or four times a day.  The ground for your election and therefore for your holiness lies not in yourself, but in the sovereignty of God’s grace, in God’s free will decision.

The reason why God has chosen you does not lie in the way you spend your days, for better or worse, but in God’s sovereign will.  God could just as well have chosen another tribe than the tribe of Levi for the work in the tent of meeting, and God was not at all obliged to entrust the priesthood to the lineage of Aaron; He could have predestined the lineage of the Reubenites for it, or appointed Korah for the priesthood.  In His election God was completely free.

Many conclude from this that a person must therefore wait and see whether he is chosen by God, yes or no – with which they make election a matter of arbitrariness, as if God were making a random choice.  You, congregation, cannot dishonour God more than by thinking about election in this way.  This is what Scripture says, that God has chosen us in the Lord Jesus, which means that there is no distinction between election and our faith in the Lord Jesus.  Faith is the fruit of our election, and our election is realized in the way of our surrender to the Lord Jesus.

Therefore I do not ask whether you know that you are chosen by God, but whether you have found the Lord Jesus as your only and complete Saviour.  So I am not saying that you should try to find out this week whether you are a chosen one, but that you should seriously ask yourself how it is with your faith in the Lord Jesus.  Access to the Lord’s Supper does not stand or fall with your election, but with your faith!

How will you partake of the sacrament but by looking to the Man of Sorrows who took all your sins upon Himself, and whose blood has sanctified you?  How will you obey the divine command to proclaim the death of the Lord, unless you yield yourselves to your Saviour, who died for your sins, and who rose again from the grave for your justification?

How will you meet the demand for holiness for approaching God at the table of His fellowship, except through faith in the Lord Jesus, who has been given to you by God for wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and for a complete redemption?  If only he who is holy and chosen may approach God, if the Lord’s Supper is only for holy people and for the people of election then I see only one way out, namely by looking only to the cross of Golgotha and to the open grave in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, for THERE it happened. Truly, there are sinners with whom God cannot and will not have fellowship, adopt as children and raise to the nobility of a holy and chosen people.

Who may celebrate the Lord’s Supper?

They who approach God in the name of the Lord Jesus, with a prayer for forgiveness and with a song of thanksgiving for his salvation!

Blessed is he whom you have chosen,
whom you cause to come near – out of all the tumult of the earth,
and to hear the voice of your salvation,
and to dwell in your house!

Amen.