Before the Cross

Phinehas took a javelin in his hand and went after the man into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. What? That stopped the plague? This sounds like something out of Hollywood, not the Bible. Hold up. Let me digress. I was just studying in the book of Numbers, which at first glance can seem like a book of numbers and rules and laws. Yet I have been caught up in the struggle captured in the pages of this book. God is "numbering" His people. He is saying, "I am numbering you, identifying you, as My people." He gives them the law which clearly marks out, "go there", "don't go there"... "Do this", "don't do this". "For now, this is what identifies you as My people." The problem is, sin has affected the earth. Everyone is motivated and affected by it. Now and then there is a slight repreave, but overall the earth is infected with a drug called sin that changes the way everyone thinks, behaves, reacts, and is moved. It would seem that is why the Old Testament is filled with bloody kind of stories like the one mentioned a moment ago. Until Jesus blood was spilled, the earth was not right. His blood is the antedote. It is the reverser of the curse. It changes everything, how we think, behave, react, even how we are motivated. It reveals who we really are. We move from kill or be killed to life abundant, everlasting life. We go from "me, myself and I" to "how can I love you and serve you better?" The blood of Jesus is the remedy. It was the price that had to be paid to free me from the blind sickness of darkness into the open arms of the love of God. That is the root problem, the love of God. Or should I say, the absence of the love of God is the root problem. Without it we can't love right. There is zeal. But zeal is an incomplete derivative of love(agape), a poor substitute. Was Phinehas wrong for killing that man and woman. No! It stopped the plague. It was all they had. It was not until Jesus came that we would have access to love... then everything changes.