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We have seen that God acts on a principle of restitution and restoration. Where men rob God of His firstfruits, God robs them of their firstfruits and more as His requirement of restitution. Moreover, He continues to bring judgment until restoration is effected. To rob God is thus to invoke God’s curse, and to obey God and to work for the restoration of God’s order is to invoke His blessing.

Let us now examine sacrilege within the church itself. A dramatic instance of it is reported in 1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-36; 3:1-21, and 4:22. The sacrilege was that of Eli’s two sons, the priests Hophni and Phinehas, and of Eli himself, the high priest. Eli’s sin was that, though a believer, he honored his sons more than God, according to God’s charge (1 Sam. 2:29), by failing to oust his sons from the priesthood. Eli contented himself with rebukes (1 Sam. 2:22-25), as though rebukes were a sufficient discharge of his duty. His sons were radically ungodly and unbelieving. They used their position as priests to practice extortion with worshippers, demanding more than their due share of the sacrifices as a means of gaining wealth by commanding a large supply of meat. Moreover, they placed themselves before God, requiring that they be paid off before God could receive His due sacrifices. They were robbing God, and they were also showing their contempt for God and for the symbolisms of the sacrificial system.

One of the consequences of their unbelief, besides sacrilegious theft, was sexual immorality: “they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation” (1 Sam. 2:22). These women are described in the same words in Exodus 38:8 and were women engaged in the temple or tabernacle service, apparently as a choir. Psalm 68:11 reads, “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.” According to the Reverend Archdeacon Aglen, this verse is,

Literally, The Lord gives a word. Of the women who bring the news, the host is great. The Hebrew for a word is poetical, and used especially of a Divine utterance (Pss. xix. 4, Ixxvii. 8; Hab. iii. 9). Here it might mean either the signal for the conflict, or the announcement of victory. But of celebrating a triumph (Ex. xv. 20, 21; Judges v., xi. 34; 1 Sam. xviii. 6; 2 Sam. i. 20), here evidently alluded to, makes in favour of the latter.60

Moffatt renders this verse, “When the Lord sent news of victory, the women who told it were a mighty host.” Moffatt, however, translates the pertinent words in 1 Samuel 2:22 as “the women caretakers.” In any case, these women had an official function in connection with the sanctuary. Thus, this sin of the two priests had a double evil: it was not only adultery but also sacrilege, in that it robbed God of the holiness which belonged to His sanctuary and to those connected with it. Moreover, as Eli recognized, in his rebuke to his sons, “…ye make the LORD’S people to transgress” (1 Sam. 2:24). They were corrupting the people by their obvious unbelief and their contemptuous sexuality. The people, seeing no immediate judgment on Hophni and Phinehas,

were ready to conclude that there is no God of judgment, and to abandon the law of God for their own sinful advantage. Eli even recognized that his sons’ flagrant contempt for God involved a sin beyond forgiveness: “If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him?” (1 Sam. 2:25). In spite of this awareness on Eli’s part, he did nothing to remove his sons.

This era is plainly described in Psalm 78:56-64, and the judgment on the sons of Eli, and their death, as well as the capture of the ark of God, clearly set forth:

Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; And delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand. He gave his people over also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance. The fire consumed their young men; and their maidens were not given to marriage. Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows made no lamentation.

Unbelief had been accompanied by idolatry or will-worship, man’s way being enthroned above God’s law. This offense against God led Him to deliver them into the hands of the Philistines. God plainly set forth the principle of His judgment by the mouth of an anonymous prophet, through whom He declared to Eli, “them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Sam. 2:30). Since God is the ultimate sovereign and the ultimate source of all law in the universe, the judgment of all things is in terms of Him. The priests, the sons of Eli, had made themselves the ultimate norm and law. The office of priest was merely something to be used, an asset, towards their own advantage and gain. They had, to all practical intent, substituted their sovereignty and ultimacy for God’s. Eli had done the same. God had given him high office in Israel’s civil and religious history, and he had subordinated these responsibilities to family loyalty. Even after God’s rebuke through Samuel and the unnamed prophet, he made no move towards a tardy housecleaning and reformation.

To identify ultimacy with one’s own interests is not limited to Eli and his sons. The church has been guilty repeatedly of this sacrilege. Rome has identified the Church of Christ virtually with itself, and the Kingdom of God with the church. Protestants have tended to a like error. Indeed, their charges against Rome are today true of them. Whereas Scripture, in speaking of the church means more than the visible church, modern usage tends to stress the visible church almost exclusively, and to identify the church with a local body or a denomination. Scripture speaks of the local church as “the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2), and like usage, specifying the church in question as a local instance of the church rather than the church itself. This is an important distinction, in that it is dangerous for a local or a visible body to see itself as the church as such rather than a local arm thereof. The followers of Dr. K. Schilder in the Netherlands refuse to speak of their denomination as a church but rather as churches. In American usage, this would mean speaking, not of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church or the Reformed Presbyterian Church, but rather of the Orthodox Presbyterian Churches, and the

Reformed Presbyterian Churches. The reality of both the visible churches and the transcendental nature of the church itself is thereby upheld.

Some of the terms applied to the church have also been too closely identified with the local (or denominational) body. The church is called the body of Christ, both the church universal (Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:18), and also the local congregation (1 Cor. 12:27). The body of Christ, however, is clearly more than the local instance of a church and cannot be limited to it. The church again is called the temple of the Holy Spirit or of God (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21-22), but the usage in Ephesians makes clear also that “the name is applied to the ideal Church of the future, which is the church universal.”61

Moreover, the church is called the Jerusalem that is above, or the new Jerusalem, or the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22; Rev. 21:2, 9-10). The transcendental reference here is very strong. The church is also described as the pillar and the ground of truth in 1 Timothy 3:15. Berkhof declared,

It clearly refers to the Church in general, and therefore also applied to every part of it. The figure is expressive of the fact that the Church is the guardian of the truth, the citidel of the truth, and the defender of the truth over against all the enemies of the Kingdom of God.62

Calvin, in commenting on 1 Timothy 3:15, ridiculed the Roman Catholic idea that “all their absurdities ought to be held as oracles of God, because they are ‘the pillar of truth,’ and therefore cannot err.” Calvin went on to declare,

Hence we may easily conclude in what sense Paul uses these words. The reason why the Church is called the “pillar of truth” is, that she defends and spreads it by her agency.... Does she not regenerate them (believers) by the word of God, educate and nourish them through their whole life, strengthen, and bring them at length to absolute perfection? For the same reason, also she is called “the pillar of truth”; because the office of administrating doctrine, which God hath placed in her hands, is the only instrument of preserving the truth, that it may not perish from the remembrance of men.

Consequently this commendation related to the ministry of the word; for if that be removed, the truth of God will fall to the ground.63

The visible churches cannot be identified as the pillar and ground of truth, nor can they be separated from that designation: the term “pillar and ground of truth” is both immanent and transcendental in its reference and cannot be limited to either.

61

L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1946), 557. 62 _{Ibid., 558.}

63 _{John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: William B.} Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), 90.

Turning again to 1 Samuel 2:30, God declares that they “that honour Me I will honour.” Our relationship to all else is conditional upon our relationship to Him who is the author of all things. God is honored by faith and obedience, not by empty words. The churches which refuse to believe God’s word or to obey it cannot receive honor from Him. They may flourish for a time, as the unbelieving in heart gather round to rest in contentment at open sacrilege. But God will honor only those who honor Him, and, in His own time, He will manifest his judgment. Those who despise Him He shall lightly esteem. “As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image” (Ps. 73:20).

The administration of Eli and his sons had led to the official robbery of men. The very source of moral and religious authority, leadership, and teaching had become the corrupter of these things. This was a most flagrant kind of sacrilege. Both God and man were robbed, and that which should have provided the principle of godly order set the pace of pagan corruption.

For the church to be derelict in its duties is thus sacrilege. This need not be obvious theft and adultery as in the case of these two priests. God is robbed and sacrilege is committed where antinomianism is taught and tithing denied, where modernism prevails and a so-called new theology and new morality are preached, where to any degree the churches arrogate to themselves the authority due unto God alone, and wherever authority is used for anything other than lawful, godly ends.

The curse of Eli was that the power of his family would be destroyed, and “there shall not be an old man in thine house” (1 Sam. 2:31, 33), i.e., all its men would die young. The Babylonian Talmud has a striking sidelight on this curse:

But can the final sentence on a community be rescinded? Have we not one text which says, Wash thy heart from wickedness, and another which says, For though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me (Jer. 4:14, 2:22), and does not the one text apply before the final sentence is pronounced, yet there is no contradiction; in the one case the final sentence has been accompanied by an oath, in the other it has not been accompanied by an oath. This accords with the dictum of R. Samuel b. Ammi. For R. Samuel b. Ammi (or, as some say R. Samuel b. Nahmani) said in the name of R. Jonathan: How do we know that a final sentence accompanied by an oath is never rescinded? Because it says, Therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated with sacrifice nor offering (1 Sam. 3:14). Raba said: With sacrifice and offering it cannot be expiated, but it can be expiated with Torah. Abaye said: With sacrifice and offering it cannot be expiated, but it can be expiated with Torah and charitable deeds. Rabbah and Abaye were of the house of Eli. Rabbah who devoted himself to the Torah lived forty years, Abaye who devoted himself both to the Torah and to charitable deeds lived sixty years.

The Rabbis taught: There was a family in Jerusalem the members of which used to die at the age of eighteen. They came and told Rabban Johanan b. Zaccai. He said to them, Perhaps you are of the family of Eli, to whom it was said, and all the

increase of thy house shall die young men (1 Sam. 2:33). Go and study the Torah and you may live. They went and studied the Torah and lived, and they used to call that family the family of Rabban Johanan after his name.64

Here again we have a very literal fulfilment of a curse manifesting itself centuries later.

64 _{Rosh Hashanah, 18a; in The Babylonian Talmud: Seder Mo’ed, vol. 4 (London, England: Soncino Press, 1938),} 71-72.

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