Numbers 15 - The Great Sin

"The soul that committeth any thing through pride, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, (because he hath been rebellious against the Lord) shall be cut off from among his people." (Numbers 15:30)

In Numbers 15 we see the sin of Pride being highlighted. This sin, which has been called the Great Sin, is often the gateway to other, lesser sins. As C.S. Lewis puts it, "it was through Pride that the devil became the devil." Lewis also says that Pride "is the complete anti-God state of mind." It is through Pride that men reject God, that they convince themselves that they don't need God, that God doesn't exist because their superior intellect tells them so. In Numbers 15 we see an illustration of a man giving in to his Pride: the children of Israel see "a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day" (Numbers 15:32). This verse comes right after Moses has laid down the laws for dealing with sins of ignorance. Moses next gives an example of a willful sin -- a sin of pride. It is implied that this man willfully broke the sabbath laws by doing servile work. As usual, the Word is terse here, but we can assume that this man knew the sabbath laws but broke them because he thought them either too severe or quite foolish. In his mind there was nothing wrong with gathering sticks on the sabbath. He elevated his mind above God's. Humility, the opposite of Pride, would have told him to submit to the law even if he saw no point in it. But this man was not humble. His Pride was his downfall, and his punishment was severe. He was stoned to death. My commentary notes that God seems to always punish most severely when an example needs to be set, such as with Adam and Eve, Cain, and the Sodomites. Numbers 15 clearly demonstrates the grave danger of the sin of Pride. Even in the New Testament, it is written that "that servant who knew the will of his lord, and hath not prepared, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes" (Luke 12:47). The key phrase here is "knew the will of his lord." Breaking laws out of ignorance is to be forgiven, but to willfully break a law is to risk severe punishment.

C.S. Lewis writes so brilliantly on the sin of Pride, that I must include some of his thoughts here:

"There is one vice [Pride] of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves."

"According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride."

"A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you."

"Pride always means enmity -- it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God."

Numbers 13-14: The Insolence Of Man

"As I live, saith the Lord: According as you have spoken in my hearing, so will I do to you.
In the wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against me,
Shall not enter into the land, over which I lifted up my hand to make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun." (Numbers 14:28-30)

Thus was the fate of those men and women who distrusted God, turned their backs on Him, and relied more on their own "prowess" to sustain themselves. In Numbers 13 and 14 the Israelites are brought to nearly the gate of Canaan, to what would be their Promised Land. Scouts are sent out to survey the land and bring back information, but the news of the people dwelling there is too much to bear for most of the Israelites. It seems to claim the land promised them by God, they will have to fight and defeat giants and men of superior arms. In an act of cowardice, the men openly proclaim that it would be better to return to Egypt! (Though, seeing as they only survived their journey through the desert because God fed them with manna, one wonders how they thought they'd survive a return journey to Egypt!).

This really was a sad couple of chapters. It was sad in a literal sense because it's hard to see such lack of faith, and yet understandable because they were simply weak humans like all of us. And it was sad in a symbolic sense because this still goes on today, and it's not easy to think about the number of people who may be denying themselves the opportunity to live in eternal bliss with God simply because of a refusal or lack of faith. They'd rather trust in themselves than God. The Israelites didn't like the plan God had laid out for them; they thought it foolish, dangerous, unenjoyable. It's easy to think the same things today. God's plan is usually not the easiest plan, or the most pleasurable plan; but it's the plan that leads to life everlasting. Would that more would trust in it.