Leviticus 10:1-2 - Homiletics

The sinfulness of man mars the full effect of the good purposes of God

on the very day of the consecration of the priests.

I. THE SIN OF NADAB AND ABIHU . Presumption. They chose their own method of returning thanks and giving praise to God, a method unsanctioned by God's command, unauthorized by their official superiors.

II. THEIR PUNISHMENT . Death. We might have thought that a lesser penalty would have sufficed for such a sin, if we had not had their example before us.

III. ITS LESSONS .

1 . The necessity of obedience to positive precepts as well as moral commands. Moral commands, which rest for their basis on some reason which we can apprehend, being in their nature of far greater importance than positive precepts, which are binding simply because they have been ordered, we are tempted to undervalue the latter. We say, "I know God's purpose, and will carry it out; it is slavish to be bound by the letter. He will prefer the course which has now become the best to that which he commanded under perhaps altered circumstances." This arises from pride. We make ourselves judges of God's purposes, in respect to which we are in truth ignorant or can at best guess blindly. There may be a thousand other objects of the Divine counsels beside that which we think that we see, which we regard as the only one. The questions which alone we must ask are, "Does this injunction come from God? and does it affect me?" If so, we must obey it without respect to consequences, and we may not substitute for it a course of action which appears to ourselves better adapted to effect the end which we suppose to be in view.

2 . The special necessity of this obedience in Divine warship. God knows how he wills to be worshipped, and why he should be so worshipped. Man does not. Under the old dispensation, the forms of worship appointed by him were typical. What they were typical of' he knew, but man did not; therefore man could not judge of their propriety. Under the new dispensation, he has by positive injunction appointed two rites—the sacrament of Baptism and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. To dispense with either of them would be an act of the highest presumption. He appointed certain forms by which they were to be administered. Human authority may not in baptism change water for any other element, or substitute other words than those appointed, nor may it alter the form of the consecration in the administration of the Holy Communion; nor when Christ has said, "Drink ye all of this," may it, without sin, enjoin, "Ye shall not all drink of it."

3 . Human authority to be obeyed where God has not spoken. There must be regulations of some kind for Divine worship, and these it is the office of the Church to supply, ordaining, abolishing, and changing, as it seems good from time to time. "Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain … ceremonies or rites of the Church;" and also "to change and abolish" them when "ordained by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying" (Art. 34). When once ordained, they have a binding force over the conscience until abolished by the same authority. "Whosoever through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the tradition and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, as he that offendeth against the common order of the Chinch, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren" (Ibid.). Although the intention be good, though the purpose be to improve the worship of God, and, as in the case of Nadab and Abihu, to light up in the sanctuary the golden altar of incense and prayer, yet, if a man act without the authority of his Church, he is guilty of presumption, and will have to bear his iniquity,