On a recent Sunday morning, Bethany Church heard a passage preached that was - to be candid - shocking. In Joshua 7, we read about the sin of Achan. The background is that the nation of Israel was freed from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. After their miraculous delivery, disobedience leads them to wander for a generation (~40 years) in the wilderness. Finally, they are ready to enter The Promised Land and after crossing the Jordan River, they conquer Jericho in a very strange way (see Joshua 6). After this victory over the most fortified city they have ever seen, they are told to do 1 of 2 things with the spoils: they are either to destroy them or they are to take certain items (as directed by God) and to save them for Him. These saved spoils would fund the future construction of the Temple, built under the reign of King Solomon, the son of King David).
In this process, a man named Achan - an Israelite and a member of the tribe of Judah - decided to take a robe, some gold, and some silver - and to hide it under his tent. The result: God was angered and the nation of Israel was routed at the battle of Ai. After being directed from God as to the cause of their loss, Achan was discovered, and he and his family were brought to the Valley of Achor. Achan, the robe, the silver, the gold, his sons, his daughters, his cattle, his sheep were then stoned and burned.
I suppose it might be the response of some to say, "Well, God is holy, and He demands holiness", and this is very true. But my sense is that if we leave it here, we also leave many people with many questions. Here are some additional thoughts as to the 'why would God..." of this situation.
1. How do you feel about any divine judgment? I ask this question as a starting ground for us. It is challenging to think about Achan and all his family and animals being killed, but let's step back and ask ourselves "What if just Achan was killed?" How does that strike you? I read one writer who immediately jumped to the notion that Achan was not a literal person, but that this passage was all symbolic. This is serious mishandling of the text and the genre of the book. This modern-day writer was clearly uncomfortable with any image of God as one who would demand punishment. So how about you and how about me? Is our issue with the stoning of the family, or with any punishment of sin and disobedience at all? If we are not comfortable with sin being treated seriously and punishment for sin, we will have a hard time reconciling our thinking with the core of the Christian faith - that Christ was crucified as an atonement for sin.
2. Sin is never individualized. When preaching from this passage, Pastor Bruce Boria mentioned that in our western, individualized society people tend to think they as individual persons get the blessings and the punishment they deserve in life. He then noted how untrue this is. The sins of one person impact the people around them - just ask any family of an addict and they will confirm this reality.
I will take this even further by saying that there is no such thing as a victimless crime or the sin of the individual. The reknowned sociologist Emile Durkeim's book Suicide addressed this powerfully from a sociological perspective. When studying suicide - an action considered to be supremely individualistic - he found that there were a myraid of social dynamics that lead to and influenced a person's decision to take his or her life. Along those lines, let's consider a man, alone in his house, with his wife and children asleep, looking at pornography. Is this just 'his sin'? Of course not. He is impacting his view of sex which will impact his physical, emotional, and spiritual relationship with his wife. This shaping of his mind and heart by pornography will also impact how he acts toward his son and daughter, and even how he acts toward people in public as he is being influenced to see women as a commodity and not as a person made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Additionally, he is harming the men and women of the pornography industry as it feels on the most base instincts of humanity. There truly no sin that is committed on a proverbial island.
3. What we don't know from the passage. There are a few things we don't know from the passage. These would be considered Arguments from Silence which - logically speaking - is a weak form of argumentation. None the less, we should note what we don't know and we should be careful and thoughtful when we make any assumptions about what isn't said.
- We don't know the age of the children. They may have been old enough to actively support and/or be involved in the sin of Achan
- We don't know about his wife. In the list of people put to death, his wife is left out. I think it is likely to assume she was also executed with the others (the passage says "all he (Achan) had" was brought to Achor. While his wife was not a possession, that phrase likely means all that was connected to his household and thus his wife would be there as well.
- We also don't know what happened between when Joshua told the people about being consecrated and the following morning when Achan admitted to the sin. The passage shows that the people were told (v. 14) that in the morning they would present themselves. We don't know what Achan said to his wife or family between when the community was told about presenting themselves (the next day) and when it actually occurred. Did his wife conspire with him? Again, we don't know.
- Lastly, we don't know how God would have responded if Achan came and admitted to his sin before the next morning. Could he have been forgiven? It's unclear, but with the story of Ahab's repentance (1 Kings 21), we see that sometimes a slight move toward God might be met with mercy.
But what do we know - about the passage, about people, and about God?
1. We know that God is just. Many well-respected theologians believe that children who die before they reach the age where they can understand sin and God - these children are received into Heaven. This is often concluded from some teachings on sin and responsibility from Romans 1, but for the sake of argument, let's say this idea is correct. If it is, Achan's young children were - that day - received in to Heaven and into the presence of God. Yes, the death was terrible, but the eternal life so quickly overshadowed the death that it was certainly seen as light and momentary (as Paul say sin 2 Corinthians 4:17). We also know because of God's justice that He will never, ever eternally punish an innocent person, be it a wife, a child, or anyone.
2. We know that God was very serious about the sin of Achan, and that the people had fair warning because they had seen Jericho. The people were warned about the devoted things and how they were to handle them. They had seen the total devastation of Jericho, and so one has to wonder - did they think He was serious about Jericho but not serious about the fate of those who would reject His commands about the devoted things?
3. We know that we are Achan. Can any of us - after an honest assessment - really ever say that we have always known the right thing to do...and then we always did it? Of course not. We have all actively rejected righteousness at some point and gone our own way. As I thought of Achan and the sin he committed, and then the impact it had on his family and community, I was taken aback to think about how my sin can do the same thing. Perhaps not to the same degree, but I know that my sin has impacted others that I love. That is the nature of sin.
We are free to wrestle with God about the 'how could You' questions that this passage brings up.
But let's not miss the 'how could I' reality as well.
We are Achan.
We have rejected God's direction, truth, and love over and over and yet in His sovereign grace and patience, He has not destroyed us.
In fact, He has done the opposite in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
God, help us to praise You for our surpassing justice, and help us to rejoice that in Christ, there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1).
- tC
