Do or Die

NUMBERS 3

Most jobs are not exactly life or death. For most of us, a simple error in the way we carry out our tasks will not kill anyone. This is true not simply for relatively unskilled occupations like hamburger flipping and garbage collecting but even for more highly skilled professions like lawyers and teachers. The cashier who rings up your purchase wrongly may cost you or the company some money, but nobody dies. The teacher who gets mixed up on the names of the different kinds of cloud formations or who misrepresents the true causes and effects of the Russian revolution may contribute to the ignorance of the next generation, but nobody will have to be buried as an immediate result of the error. There are some jobs, however, where each day people take their own lives and the lives of others into their hands. Airline pilots and air traffic controllers, anesthetists and surgeons, parachute packers and bomb disposal experts—these people have a job that must be done right or someone may die.


DO OR DIE MINISTRY

Into which of these categories do religious professionals fit? Surprisingly enough, the focus of Numbers 3 is that in the economy of God the ministry of the priests and Levites is literally “do or die,” a life or death service on behalf of the community. If they do not carry out their job correctly, it will lead straight to the morgue. Moreover, this message is not just ancient history. God has not changed in the time between then and now, and so we still need someone to perform that “do or die” ministry on our behalf. As the chapter unfolds, we will see exactly what this ministry of the priests and Levites is, who it is that undertakes this role for us, and the lessons that communicates to us in our situation.

The theme of a ministry that leads to life or death is introduced right at the outset of the chapter. It begins with the words, “These are the generations of Aaron and Moses” (v. 1). This is actually a standard formula in the book of Genesis that marks the transition into a new section of the book, with a focus on a new group of people. Invariably, the center of attention in the new section is on the offspring of the people named in the opening formula. So the words “Now these are the generations of Terah” in Genesis 11:27 introduces the story of Terah’s son, Abram, while “These are the generations of Isaac” in Genesis 25:19 launches the story of Jacob and Esau. So too here in the book of Numbers the account draws our attention immediately to the next generation, the four sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar (3:2).

What we learn about these young men, in very brief terms, is that in carrying out their “do or die” ministry, two of them “did,” and two of them “died.” Nadab and Abihu, the older pair, offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, a story that is recorded in more detail in Leviticus 10. Instead of using “kosher” coals from the altar to burn their incense (see Leviticus 16:12), they used coals from another source. These coals had not been authorized by God for such use. As a result, fire came out from the presence of the Lord and burned them up (Leviticus 10:2). The message to be gleaned from their fate is not hard to discern: carelessness in serving a holy God can be fatal. Not only were they themselves killed—their lines in the family tree came to an abrupt halt, for they had no children (Numbers 3:4). Just as in parachute packing and brain surgery, in ministering before the Lord there is no room for error.

Their brothers Eleazar and Ithamar learned that lesson. As a result, they served the Lord safely as priests alongside their father Aaron (v. 4). Those who were careless died, but those who honored and respected the Lord’s holiness served him faithfully throughout their lives. Air Force pilots have a saying: “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” In that profession, if you cut corners and take risks, your chances of living to retirement age are slim. It was the same way with serving the Lord: it had to be done right, in accordance with his commands, or the priests might well die. There were no old, bold priests in the service of the Lord.


THE LEVITES

The family of Aaron could not carry out that life or death ministry of caring for the tabernacle alone, however, and so God assigned the tribe of Levi to help them in their work (v. 5). This one tribe out of Israel was to be completely devoted to looking after the tabernacle, working on behalf of Aaron and on behalf of the whole community (v. 9). Other tribes could pursue their own interests and desires, but the Levites were to be entirely dedicated to the Lord from birth. As a result, it was not simply the Levites who were old enough to fight, those twenty years and older who were to be counted, as was the case for the other tribes. Rather, all of the Levites one month old and older were to be counted. From their earliest days, they belonged completely to the Lord.

The job assigned to the Levites by God had two main parts.1 The first task of the Levites was that of guard duty around the tabernacle whenever the people were settled in their camp. The Hebrew phrase that is translated “perform duties” in Numbers 3:7 (NIV) always has the sense of guard duty in the Old Testament, and this passage is no exception.2 The second task of the Levites was doing the miscellaneous work of the tabernacle, especially that of carrying and caring for the tabernacle and all of its furnishings while the people were on the march (v. 8). The carrying function of the Levites will be the particular focus of Numbers 4, while their guarding function is more prominent here in chapter 3. It was the Levites’ job to put to death anyone other than Aaron and his sons who sought to encroach on the holy ground of the tabernacle (v. 10). Only those whom God had chosen and appointed could serve as priests: anyone else who tried to approach God was subject to the death penalty. If unauthorized people approached the Lord, the Levites were to execute them, just as divine fire had consumed Nadab and Abihu when they tried to offer unauthorized fire.


THE CALL TO MINISTRY

It is worth noting at this point two basic principles of ministry that may be seen in this assignment. First, those who are leaders in ministry do not appoint themselves to those positions; they are called by God to serve him and his people. Prophets were called individually by God to serve him, while the priests and Levites were set apart by God as a tribe. In both cases, though, God was the one who called them. It is the same way in the church. Those who are ministers, elders, and deacons in the church do not appoint themselves to their task, nor is it merely a matter of a democratic vote of the members of the church. God is the one who calls people to those offices.

Since God is the one who calls people to these offices, he is the one who determines which classes of people are eligible for those offices. In God’s Old Testament people, if you were not a male Levite from the family of Aaron, between thirty and fifty years old, you could not serve as a priest. It didn’t matter what gifts you had or what the culture around you might think of such apparently outdated and repressive restrictions, God’s Word had to be followed. God is the King, the one before whom the priests and Levites would serve, and it is therefore his prerogative to make the rules.

If you know anything about the history of Israel, you won’t be surprised to hear that these rules, as others, weren’t always kept. When the kingdom of Israel was divided into north and south, the northern kingdom set up its own temples at Dan and Bethel to keep people from going down to Jerusalem. These northern temples had a much more flexible and less restrictive view of worship than the temple in Jerusalem. They each had golden calves, idols, to represent the Lord to people who found the worship at the Jerusalem temple too austere (1 Kings 12:28). These temples offered a more popular way of worshiping Israel’s God, more in keeping with the sensibilities of the religious seekers around them. Moreover, King Jeroboam appointed priests to these temples “from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites” (1 Kings 12:31, NIV). It was thus all around a kinder, gentler, more inclusive version of the Lord’s worship. Yet the prophets that the Lord sent repeatedly denounced these temples as idolatrous abominations (e.g., 1 Kings 13). Every subsequent king of the northern kingdom was evaluated on the basis of his attitude to Jeroboam’s golden calf idols. God makes the rules about how he is to be worshiped, and he expects those rules to be followed scrupulously.

In the same way God has ordained certain qualifications for ministers, elders, and deacons in his church in the New Testament. Paul instructs the church as to what those qualifications are in his letters to Timothy and Titus: ministers, elders, and deacons must be men who fit the description of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. To many people in our society that standard seems hopelessly restrictive and old-fashioned. They want the church to “move with the times” and open up these offices to women as well as to men, and they cannot understand why evangelical churches are not willing to do so. The answer is simple. We want to follow God’s ways, not the ways of the age in which we live. We serve a God who is very precise about those who are to serve him.

Now to be sure, that does not mean that women in the church should lack opportunity for ministry. Women have gifts of spiritual leadership that should certainly be exercised among us, just as Titus 2:3–5 anticipates. There is no Biblical warrant for patting intelligent women on the head and consigning them to the kitchen to make tea. Rather, as Paul told Titus, the older women have a calling to train the younger women in godliness and love for Christ, a calling that must be pursued diligently. This is a profound and vital ministry of training and discipleship that requires all of the gifts of mature, godly women in our churches.3 However, we cannot and must not ordain women to the Biblical offices of elder or deacon, whatever the cultural pressures, because it is God who chooses those who serve him, not our culture.


VARIETIES OF MINISTRIES

The second basic principle of ministry here is that different people are called to different ministries within the people of God. The priests served before the Lord in their particular calling and ministry, while the Levites had a different calling, one that involved serving the priests and the people. In the eyes of the world, that was perhaps not the most glorious and exciting ministry. Standing guard outside the tabernacle or carrying its heavy furniture through the wilderness for days on end was not the most thrilling assignment. Nevertheless, that was the ministry that they had been called to do by God, and that calling gave their service a glory all of its own. Any service offered to the King, however humble, has its own glory and requires our total commitment. Whether it is setting out the Bibles for church or washing up after a potluck lunch, serving in the nursery or teaching Sunday school, if it is labor done for the King, it is glorious. It is not only so-called spiritual work that is glorious. One of the rediscoveries of the Reformation was that every person has been called by God to his or her particular position in life. That means that all of life has a sacredness, a glory of its own because it is service to the King.

In the New Testament church there is a similar division of labor. At first in the early church the apostles did everything. However, already by Acts 6, they were finding the workload overwhelming. There was a daily program of food distribution to widows that was becoming far too much for them to do. So the apostles told the congregation to choose men filled with the Holy Spirit and turned over the responsibility for the food distribution to them, so the apostles could devote themselves to the ministry of the Word of God and to prayer (Acts 6:4). The apostles had their task in the kingdom of God, and rather than be distracted from it, they appointed “super-deacons” to assist them by undertaking the care for the poor.

The reason for this division of labor is twofold. On the one hand, everyone has some spiritual gifts, and on the other hand, no one has all of the spiritual gifts. If a few people try to do all of the work of ministry, they will burn themselves out and also deprive others of the opportunity to minister. It is not the job of the minister and the elders to do all of the ministry of the church. We have a particular task assigned to us: we are to be committed to the ministry of the Word and prayer, along with watching over the spiritual needs of the flock. We dare not become too busy with other things to the point where those obligations get squeezed out. That’s where the ministry of the whole body of Christ comes in though. Every single Christian should be involved in helping the ministry of the church in some way or another, large or small, according to his or her gifts. It may be helping to set up or take down; it could be helping in the nursery or with the music ministry. It may be cleaning up the kitchen after a church dinner or getting out the church calendar. It may be following up new visitors and welcoming strangers. If all members of the body use their own gifts and do their part, then no part of the body gets overloaded with an excessive burden and burned out.


THE LEVITES AND THE FIRSTBORN

What gives God the right to assign the Levites to these menial jobs around the tabernacle? The answer is that the Levites belonged to God in a unique way. They belonged to God as the substitutes for the firstborn sons of Israel (v. 12). All Israel belongs to God, of course, but the firstborn sons of that first generation belonged to God in a special way. Why? Because when God sent the destroying angel to go through Egypt and kill all of the firstborn sons in the land, he passed over the firstborn sons of Israel. The firstborn of Egypt were struck down, while God spared the firstborn of Israel from death. As a result, the firstborn in Israel belonged to God. And God chose the Levites to take the place of the firstborn sons of Israel and be especially dedicated to his service.

Having chosen the Levites, they too needed to be numbered and arranged, just like all the rest of the tribes. They weren’t counted along with the rest of the Israelites as a preparation for war, but they still needed to be counted. They totaled 22,000 men and boys, nearly the same number as the total number of the firstborn of Israel, which was 22,273. Close is not enough in God’s service, however. Every single one of those firstborn sons who had been spared had to be personally and particularly redeemed. The Levites did not just generally substitute for all of the firstborn as a crowd. They particularly substituted for them one by one. Each firstborn who was to be redeemed needed to have a corresponding Levite to take his place. Those firstborn who were left over at the end needed to have their redemption paid for one by one at the rate of five shekels per head.


THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE LEVITES

Once they were counted, the Levites too were arranged in a square around the tabernacle, inside the square formed by the other tribes. In the prime place to the east of the tabernacle, Moses camped along with Aaron and his family, the priests. To the south, in the second most important place, was the clan of Kohath. Their importance is seen not only in where they camped but in what they were to carry: they were assigned the ark and table on which the bread was placed before the Lord, along with the rest of the furniture from the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies (v. 31). The clan of Gershon, which is named first in the list because Gershon was older than Kohath, received the next spot in importance, camping to the west of the tabernacle and carrying the tabernacle itself along with the curtains and so on (vv. 25, 26). The third and youngest clan, the Merarites, were assigned the least important north side to camp on and were given the frames, crossbars, and posts of the tabernacle to carry—all of the less important equipment (vv. 36, 37).

What is striking about this arrangement is that once again natural precedence is not decisive for position in God’s kingdom. Just as in the arrangement of the tribes in the outer square, so too with the Levites; the clan descended from the firstborn son did not merit the most important place. Rather, the clan of the second son, Kohath, was given that lead role. In this case, though, no reason is given for the switch in order. It is not because of any particular sin on the part of Gershon or his clan, nor because of any special righteousness on the part of Kohath and his clan. It is God’s prerogative to choose the younger ahead of the older, as he does so often in Scripture, to demonstrate that standing in his kingdom is a matter of grace and not of works. The sovereign King can choose not simply which of the tribes of Israel is to serve as his bodyguards but even which clans of that tribe are to be assigned to which tasks. They belong to God, and they are therefore his to command as he pleases.

It is the same way in our service of God. God assigns us our place in his kingdom and gives us the gifts he sees fit. To some he gives large gifts and responsible places of service, ministering to thousands. To others, he gives smaller gifts and smaller places of service. Much frustration in ministry flows out of the desire for a larger place than God has assigned us. The world around us rates our ministries on the basis of the number of people who attend our churches and the magnificence of our buildings and programs. As Jesus’ Parable of the Talents reminds us, however, God rates us on the basis of faithfulness to him and diligent use of the gifts he has given us in the context in which he has placed us (Matthew 25:14–30). The man who used his two talents faithfully received exactly the same commendation from the Lord as the man who was faithful with five. God doesn’t evaluate ministry in the same way that the world does.
Throughout this chapter we read that Moses did exactly “as the LORD commanded him” (vv. 16, 39, 42, 51). He counted all of the Levites one month old and upward and arranged them in the order God had laid down. He counted all of the firstborn male Israelites and made sure that the redemption money for the extra 273 firstborn males was duly paid. The Levites were installed as the substitutes for the firstborn Israelites in God’s service, taking on themselves the risks of standing guard over the tabernacle, so that the whole community might be kept safe from any outbreak of wrath from God if an unfit person encroached on his holy presence.


LEARNING FROM THE LEVITES

However, all of that is old history. To be sure, we have derived some general principles from this account, but what specifically may we learn from the role of the Levites? We don’t have a tabernacle in our situation, nor do we have to assign elders or deacons to guard duty, for fear that someone might accidentally get too close to God. What does this aspect of the camp of Israel have to say to us as New Testament believers?

First, it is important to see how seriously God takes his worship. Coming into God’s presence is a “do or die” matter, then and now. It is not something to be taken lightly, as if it were a day trip to the beach. When we come to worship, we stand in the presence of the King of kings, the Lord of the universe. God calls us to worship him at the outset of the worship service, and we in response ask him to be present in our opening prayer of invocation. Jesus promised that wherever two or three of his people are gathered together, there he will be in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), just as he was in the midst of the camp of Israel. This promise certainly includes our worship services. God is in our midst by his Spirit. We stand on holy ground whenever we assemble as God’s people. That should inspire awe and reverence in our worship, not flippancy and a casual attitude.

Do we take worship that seriously? If so, then we will arrive in plenty of time for the service rather than straggling in whenever we get there. Yes, there are times when life conspires to make it hard to get to church on time, but we should be as careful about being at church on time as we are at work. Taking worship seriously also means coming with hearts prepared to meet with God, eagerly longing to hear his Word. That’s not a natural state for our hearts to be in. If you are like me, you will need to prepare your heart to approach God. Listening to Christian music while you are getting ready may help. It may mean getting up a few minutes earlier so that the whole morning is not quite so rushed. Isn’t God worth that effort? One of the things I have noticed, of myself as well as others, is that we tend to put a great deal more effort into preparing to meet our spouse before we marry them than we do after we are married. Isn’t it the same way in our relationship with God? The pagans who are lost and confused about the truth of God are often more diligent in their efforts to meet God than we who have already been found by him. How shameful it is that we whose redemption was so costly should take the celebrating of it so lightly.

Nor has God left it up to us to decide how we should worship. In his Word he has commanded us what things we are to do in the worship of him: prayer; the reading and preaching of his Word; the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, testifying to his goodness and grace; administering the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper; receiving his blessing in the benediction. We are not free to add our own innovations to the commands of Scripture or to incorporate all manner of additional elements into our worship services. Anything not commanded by God for use in his worship is not permitted. Ministers and elders who oversee the worship of God are to guard it as carefully as the Levites guarded the tabernacle. We are responsible before him to see that in worship everything is done in accordance with his Word.


THE GRACE OF REDEMPTION

Yet in the midst of the seriousness and reverence of our worship there also has to be a note of joy. Serious worship that lacks joy is as much of an abomination as joyful worship that lacks any reverence. The Levites were not simply a symbol of the solemnity of God’s Law but also a constant reminder of the grace Israel received in redemption. By their very existence they were a perpetual pointer to the fact that God rescued his people out of Egypt and that they did not experience there the judgment plagues that descended on the Egyptians. They are a reminder that when God rescued his people, he did so with a price. Someone had to substitute for the Israelite firstborn if they were not to die. In fact, in the plan of God there were two aspects to this redemption. In the first place, someone had to pay the price of the death that Israel deserved in their place, which was the role of the Passover lamb. Second, though, someone also had to pay the price of the life of obedience that Israel owed, by being completely given over to God in their place. That was the part that the Levites had to play in all of this. In the redemption of the firstborn, it was not so much a matter of “do or die” but “do and die.” The job of the Passover lamb was to die; the job of the Levites was to live, completely devoted to God.

Do you see how all of this provided a picture of the gospel ahead of time? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to execute a similar “do and die” ministry on behalf of Israel, God’s firstborn. Jesus had to live a perfect life, wholly devoted to God, just like the one the Levites were called to live. Then, as our Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), he had to lay down that perfect life and die the death that we deserved. His ministry of redemption, however, was not so much about keeping unqualified people out of God’s presence as it was about providing the holiness necessary to bring sinners in. Jesus came to turn unqualified, unholy people into those who were now qualified to stand in the presence of a holy God because they came clothed in his righteousness. To be sure, the unqualified are still shut out from God’s presence. God’s holiness cannot and will not be compromised: nothing and no one impure can ever enter into the new Jerusalem, our heavenly home (Revelation 21:27). Without perfect righteousness, no one can see God. The heavenly equivalent of the Levites still stand on guard to bar the door to anyone who comes in their own goodness, no matter how stellar their performance by human standards. Yet they stand aside whenever we approach God in the name of Jesus and bid us welcome to come. Christ has substituted for us.

Nor has Christ simply substituted for humanity as a mass, making it possible for some undefined number of human beings potentially to be saved. Like the Levites, who substituted for the firstborn of Israel on a one for one basis, redeeming each particularly, so that those who remained over had to be purchased one by one, so also Christ’s perfect life and death atoned particularly for all of his elect. He did not simply write a blank check that was sufficient for humanity. On the cross he wrote a check that specifically provided the payment for each and every one of his elect people, not just making their salvation potentially possible but actually purchasing them. He therefore now owns each one of us, just as God purchased the Levites, obliging us to live lives that are wholly devoted to him. We have been bought with a price, which in our case was not five shekels of silver or even ten talents of gold, but the precious blood of Christ, our spotless Passover lamb (1 Peter 1:18, 19). We are therefore no longer our own but are called to live now in his service. We are called to defend his honor and reputation, to guard his holiness and the holiness of his people, to serve his people with all of the gifts he has given us.

Like the Levites, then, you and I are engaged to be servants of the Great King throughout our lives. We have a task to do, a mission to be undertaken. We are to glorify and enjoy the holy and majestic God who has redeemed us and to bring the news of his glory to those who have not yet heard. Because Christ has come, our job is not to tell the unholy and unqualified, “Keep out, lest you die.” It is to tell them come to Christ, for he has died. He has died and has risen again and now stands as the open doorway into God’s presence. There is no other safe way into the presence of God. All other roads to God lead to a fiery death. Yet if you are one of his people, one of those for whom he paid the price on the cross, you will most certainly come. His sheep hear his voice and come running. Come to God through Christ today, whether you are coming for the first time or you have been coming to the Father through Christ for seventy or eighty years now. Come into God’s presence afresh today. Revel in his holiness, his glory, and his grace. Lift up your hearts to him in worship, and hear him direct you outward again to serve his people and to glorify his name.

Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 47–56). Crossway Books.
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