Septuagesima – 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Please listen with me to a reading from the tenth chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, a portion of which we have already heard as our second lesson. We begin at the first verse:
“Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
So far our text.
“Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.”
“Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
Church members are often accused by the non-religious of being judgmental, and of thinking that they are better than other people. Some church members are probably guilty of religious pride, or of looking down on others.
But St. Paul does not give any encouragement to those who may have this kind of smug or superior attitude, by virtue of their membership in a Christian congregation. He gives a severe warning to them – and to all of us who are likewise outwardly associated with the Christian church.
In many places the Bible does speak a message of condemnation and judgment against the flagrant unbelievers of the world, who do not follow God’s ways, and who also do not make any pretense of following God’s ways. But in today’s text, Paul conveys a divine message of judgment against many who are at least externally associated with God and with God’s people.
By means of his recounting of certain aspects of Old Testament history, Paul gives a serious warning to many who have been baptized, and who have partaken of the Lord’s Supper. With the use of imagery that immediately calls to mind these sacraments of the New Testament era, Paul describes the experiences of the children of Israel in this way:
“Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”
All of the people of Israel who participated in the Exodus were beneficiaries of God’s special deliverance. They were all, as it were, baptized. And all of them ate and drank of the miraculous nourishment that God provided.
Paul adds, by the way, that it was actually Christ – the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in his pre-incarnate state – who was the divine companion of Israel during its 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. So, there is much similarity between these ancient Hebrews, and those who are sacramentally associated with Christ and his church today.
Now, even though all of the people back then were delivered by God from Egyptian slavery, and even though all of them were brought together to be their own nation, Paul tells us: “But with most of them God was not well pleased.”
Most of them did not remain true to the identify that God had given them in their national baptism, as they passed through the Red Sea. Most of them did not continue as grateful and faithful followers of the God who had faithfully made provision for them – in the manna that fell from the sky and in the water that flowed from the rock.
Instead, they rebelled against God: in their hearts and in their outward actions. They turned away from him. And so he turned away from them, and judged them.
They were judged and punished as unbelievers and as haters of God, because in their hearts that’s what they had become – even though they were still outwardly associated with the community of God’s people; and even though they had previously been recipients of God’s favor and blessing. When they became unbelievers, on the inside, that past reality didn’t matter any more.
Paul gives a few examples of what it is that they did to bring God’s wrath down upon themselves. But what Paul says does not pertain only to these people, and it does not merely satisfy a historical curiosity we may have about what happened back then. What he writes, he writes for us, as a warning to us:
“Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.”
“Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
What kind of faith-destroying sins did the Israelites fall into – even though they were, in effect, baptized and confirmed members of the church? Paul tells us:
“Do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”
The idolatry example is a reference to the incident with the Golden Calf. But we need to take note of the fact that the people sincerely thought that the Golden Calf represented the Lord Jehovah, who had brought them up out of Egypt.
Or at least this is what was suggested to the people by Aaron, the misguided brother of Moses. In the Book of Exodus, we read:
“Aaron…built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.’ And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
For their supposed worship of the Lord on this occasion, the Israelites borrowed some of the cultic practices with which they had been familiar in Egypt. Employing these familiar and “culturally-relevant” religious usages would allow them to feel comfortable in their worship. Or at least that’s what they presumed to think.
They also thought that their worship on this occasion should be fun and entertaining, not sober and serious. They “rose up to play,” as the text tells us.
What we have here is an early example of an extreme form of “contemporary” worship, which was based on what the people were familiar with, and on what they already liked to do in their life in this world. But God didn’t like it at all. He called it idolatry.
Faithful worship is not just a matter of saying that we are worshiping God, regardless of what we are actually doing. Faithful worship is a matter of listening to what God wants to say to us, in his message of law and gospel, as that message comes to us in sermon and song, in readings and rituals.
And faithful worship is then a matter of responding to him in prayers of petition, praise, and thanksgiving that his Word has shaped in us, and taught to us.
Faithful worship does not involve “rising up to play,” in fulfillment of a misplaced craving for fun and entertainment in church. Faithful worship does not involve telling God what we think in our arrogance, or what we want in our selfishness, without first listening to him.
St. Paul exhorts us in his Epistle to the Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
God will punish idolatrous worship that does not focus on the Word of Christ, flow from the Word of Christ, or exhibit a proper reverence for the Word of Christ.
But the list of offenses committed in the wilderness does not end with Paul’s condemnation of the idolatry of the Israelites. Paul also mentions the sexual immorality in which many of the Israelite men on one occasion indulged, with the women of Moab.
These men knew better. They had their own wives at home, whom God had given to them as their legitimate companions. And if they were still single, God would have given them godly wives from among their own people, with whom they could have been honorably married.
We shouldn’t think that it is only our generation that has been supposedly “liberated” from “sexual repression.” There have been plenty of epochs in human history, when people did as they pleased: without moral restraint and without personal discipline; without respect for those who are lustfully used and exploited, and without self-respect.
There have been plenty of epochs in human history, when people thereby called down upon themselves the judgment of a God who forbids adultery and everything associated with adultery.
And notice what else is on the list. Some of the Israelites were grumblers – chronic complainers about Moses and his leadership.
That doesn’t seem so bad – at least not when compared to idolatry and sexual immorality. But Paul thought so. And so did God. He punished it with death.
To grumble against God’s called servants, as they faithfully teach and apply God’s Word, is to grumble against God himself. To grumble against the church, and against the people in the church who are doing the best they can to serve the Lord – even with their human weaknesses – is to insult the Savior who loves the church as his beloved bride.
All of these things – the false worship, the adultery, the grumbling – are evidence of spiritual hardness and hypocrisy. All of these things are evidence of a heart that is turning away from the Lord, if it has not already turned away completely.
And this is still the case, even when the body is still in church, going through the motions of church. All of these things invite God’s judgment.
You cannot take refuge from this divine judgment in the false security of your outward church membership. You cannot deflect away from yourself the condemnation of God’s law through the recollection of your baptism and confirmation as external events of the past, if your baptism and confirmation are no longer a living reality in your life.
The Israelites who were on the receiving end of God’s punishment were all a part of God’s people, externally. They had been delivered from slavery with the rest, and were being led through the wilderness like the rest.
But in their hearts they had come to desire that which was evil, and not that which was good and pure. And so they were cut off.
You, too, will be cut off, if you also desire evil, and if you set your heart on that which is ungodly and wrong, and not on that which God’s Word gives and teaches.
You will cease to be a part of his church in the true, inner sense – even if you keep up your outward membership. You will cease to be under God’s protection and guidance.
You will be placed instead under his wrath, together with everyone else who is without God: in the company of honest atheists, who have no pretenses about God and faith; and in the company of dishonest religious people, who do have such pretenses.
Is there hope for us, in the midst of these temptations, and in the midst of these struggles? Is there hope for us, if we have sinned against the Lord, by a false faith; if we have sinned against the spouse whom the Lord has given us, and against our own body; if we have sinned against the Lord’s ministers, and the Lord’s people?
Yes, there is hope! There is a way to be renewed in our baptism, and to be reconfirmed in our confirmation. There is a way to remain as a part of God’s true church – inside and out.
St. Paul says in today’s text: “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Jesus is your way of escape. Jesus is your hope. He is able to lead you through the temptations that surround you, and to guard your soul from those temptations, as he instructs your conscience and bolsters your faith.
If you have succumbed to the temptations, and fallen into sin, he is able to lift you out, cleanse you, and restore you by his forgiveness. And if your heart has been hardened, and stained with sin, he is able to create in you a clean heart, and to renew a right spirit within you.
God was indeed displeased with most of the Israelites during the Exodus. But he was not displeased with all of them. Those who remained with him – not only physically, but also in their hearts and minds – remained under his grace, and were pleasing to him.
These were the ones who honestly repented of their sins when the law was preached to them. These were the ones who believed the Lord’s word of forgiveness and pardon – pictured for them especially in the tabernacle sacrifices that were carried out on their behalf, according to the Lord’s institution.
These were the ones who then sought, with God’s help, to walk in his ways, as the fruit of their faith.
In the institutional church of today, there are also many with whom the Lord is still pleased – in whom he delights utterly. He is not pleased with them in this way because they have no sin. All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.
No. God is pleased with the people with whom he is pleased, because when they do sin, they call out to him in repentance, acknowledging their sin. In humility they turn away from sin. They don’t turn away from God.
And God forgives them, and pardons them, because the blood of Christ, shed for them in the supreme sacrifice of Calvary, has covered over their sins. The righteousness of Christ is credited to them by faith, so that they stand before God pure and innocent, even as Christ their Savior is pure and innocent.
This is our hope, when we become aware of our hypocrisies and inconsistencies – and when we are brought to conviction regarding our flagrant offenses, too – and are troubled in our conscience by these failures. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and who therefore also takes away our sin.
When you in faith receive the forgiveness that he brings, the fear of God’s judgment – which you otherwise have earned – is taken from you. And the peace of Christ – a peace that the world cannot give, but that God’s Son does freely and fully give – is bestowed on you in its place.
You can know that you, personally, are among those who are pleasing to God, for Christ’s sake, and not displeasing to him. You can know this, because in St. John’s Gospel, Jesus makes these promises to you:
“This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
In our congregation, the Lord’s Supper is available on every Lord’s Day, in one form or another. In that sacrament, God nurtures you with the more deeply satisfying “spiritual food” of his Son’s true body, and with the more wonderful “spiritual drink” of his Son’s true blood.
The physical act of receiving Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament, in and of itself, is not a guarantee that you, in your heart, are really a part of God’s true church. That’s why Scripture gives us warnings about communing in an unworthy manner, and the judgment that comes with that.
But when you receive this sacrament with a humble and penitent heart that trusts in the Lamb of God, who has taken away your sin, you will receive the sacrament in peace – as Jesus grants you his peace. And you will live, and someday die, in that peace, and not under God’s judgment.
“Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.”
“Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” Amen.