Ananias and Sapphira ( Acts 5:1-11 )

Faith & Science Conversation
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With the caveat that both spiritual AND physical death are a consequence of disobedience/sin. Never forget that…what happened to Adam and Eve was absolutely also physical…just not complete instantaneous death on the physical part for obvious reasons. If they were instantly physically kaput, humanity is wiped out…Satan wins.

Also, jesus death on cross wasnt just spiritual… he suffered a very physical torture and death. He physically lay in the grave for 3 (parts of) days. If the punishment for Adam and Eve was merely spiritual, Christ didnt need to physically incarnate, live, die, and be ressurected. It could have been a symbolic spiritual death but it wasnt.

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What is disobedience? Sin? Satan? Punishment? The need for Christ to die? What would a symbolic spiritual death look like?

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Why, in an age of grace, should a couple die with no chance of repentance offered? How would a congregation of believers celebrating resurrection think of this death? A swarm of questions would have haunted the people’s minds in the community. This situation has a few analogous incidents found in the OT. The death of this couple evokes the holiness of the unapproachable Mount Zion (Exod 19:10–25), where the people of Israel had to sanctify themselves before they could meet God. On this occasion, Moses had instructed people not to touch the mountain and thus set the limits for those who ought to leave a distance between themselves and their Holy God.

What is interesting is Luke’s usage of this story. Luke refers to Simon Magus, the arch-heretic (Acts 8:9, 10), as many other deceivers are recorded in the NT (Rom 16:18; 2 Cor 11:13; Eph 4:14; 2 Tim 3:13; Titus 1:10). Using this contrast, Luke creates a vivid picture describing a community in which the Spirit profoundly controls the atmosphere.

While Barnabas’s example serves to highlight the unity of the Spirit in the church, the story of Ananias and Sapphira serves, ironically in an equally positive sense, to show how the holiness of God amid His people cannot be infringed. Barnabas exemplifies encouragement or consolation; this is in sharp contrast to what Ananias and Sapphira evoke regarding their sudden deaths resulting from sin.

Both of them knew what it was to be filled with the Spirit. They listened to the apostles’ teaching, saw the miracles, and shared the fellowship. But their actions were guided by selfish motives, not by the Holy Spirit, as Barnabas’s actions had been.

Peter asked Ananias how it was that (or, “why,” KJV, NASB) Satan (“the Adversary”) had filled his heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for himself part of the price of the land. The question “Why?” draws attention to the fact that their action was voluntary; there was no excuse for what they did.

Before they sold it, it remained theirs, and they were under no compulsion to sell it. After they sold it, it was still “at their disposal.’ Nothing was compelling them to give it all.

Satan was behind the hypocrisy and lie of Ananias and Sapphira. It seems that because of their jealousy, unbelief, and love of money, the Spirit of the Lord was grieved, and they lost out with God (. Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13; 1 Tim. 6:10).

These things did not happen overnight.

But by the time they conspired together, Satan had filled their hearts, and there was no room for the Holy Spirit to remain there. Thus they became willing agents of Satan—who is a thief determined to “ ‘steal and kill and destroy ” John 10:10.

This swift judgement is seen in Joshua 7:1 with Achan, then Uzzah. In the story of Uzzah and the Ark (2 Samuel 6:1-7), we have the ark transported, the oxen pulling the cart stumbled, and Uzzah took hold of the ark. God’s anger burned against Uzzah, and He struck him down, and he died. Why? The Sons of Korah were prohibited from touching the ark Num 4:15.

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Num 4:15 And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary when the camp is set to go, then the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them; but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die

Moreover, the Scripture tells the sad endings of two priests, Nadab and Abihu, the two sons of Aaron who led worship in the sanctuary with a statute and were struck dead right in the holy place (Lev 10:1–3; Exod 28:1; 29:9).

A heavenly fire had once come down, bursting from God’s presence into the tabernacle to burn the sacrifice they had dedicated to the Lord; the same fire now fell to strike them down.

They had made themselves culpable by profanely and presumptuously dishonouring God. Nadab and Abihu’s act of worship was not made holy according to God’s prescribed procedures and were thus unconsecrated.

It is also clear that in lying to the Holy Spirit who guided the Church, the believers, and the apostles, they were lying to God, for sin is always against God.

While Ananias was still listening to Peter, “having fallen down, he expired. This was indeed severe punishment. But God brought this judgment near the beginning of the Church’s history to let the Church know what He thinks of unbelief, greed, and self-seeking hypocrisy that lies to God.

Blockquote

1 Pet. 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

I wonder if God is often more severe in times of beginning. As mentioned above, when the sons of Aaron offered “unauthorized pagan fire” before the Lord, fire came out from the manifest presence of the Lord in the Holy of Holies and struck them down (Lev. 10:1–2).

After that, the people were more careful to seek God for His way of doing things.

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Per Peter, The sin was lying to God.
What strikes me is how do you lie to God? If you believe in God you realize he knows all.
At that time, the power of the Holy Spirit was given to Peter and the apostles at the Pentecost.
And indeed since Peter and the Apostles had this power, they knew they were playing with fire as they say. Rather than trusting in God, they were trying to manipulate God. This then became a Satanic act. Not a good idea!
In our times, if we lie about our charity to church leaders (who are not given this power) to gain favor with men, that’s a sin but it is pardonable. Of course God gives us no reward for this as Jesus said, but at least we can seek forgiveness for it. Bur if we don’t, perhaps the judgement for this hypocrisy will jeopardize our salvation on judgement day since such behavior could mean we are not true believers? Then in the end the etrrnal punishment is the same.

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So God is small minded, incompetent.

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Thank you all for discussion, for sure some understanding will come from it.

So… this is interesting, this story is just one of many where God has killed people as an example, mainly to teach his people what they should do. The question is, could he do it in a better way? Every time he killed for example, couldn’t he just inspire Peter or some other important person to tell a parable of exactly such action happening and their punishment for it?
For example what would change for us if it was made obvious that this is just a story, like in a Job’s case, we still would get understanding of consequences without anybody having to die, wouldn’t we?

Maybe because it was unforgivable, he had to do it, he couldn’t let mortal sin go without punishment, but once again, I doubt there really exists “unforgivable sin”. What makes it unforgivable is that one doing it won’t accept forgiveness, but he can still change his mind later, after all humans are not some eternal creatures that once they make their mind, won’t ever change their opinion again but are prone being emotional among other things that cloud their judgement.
And it doesn’t seem so that God just can’t live without punishing people for their sins. Even the “unforgivable” ones. People are doing unimaginable horrors probably this second, every day, worse than what they were killed for in Israel’s days, and they live just fine, teachers of law themselves, in Jesus’s face have said that he is possesed, the passage when topic of unforgivable sin has started, yet they weren’t killed, they weren’t punished, it seems God can take people’s sins just fine, just like he did for millennia.

One could also think that it was special case because Christianity was growing and God was very strict so they fulfill their mission, but once again, it’s not a necessity. God could’ve ordered to excommunicate them, to make them never speak a word again, even teleport them to some different country where they would a lot of time to think. Just as it was said, God is competent, if he wanted, he could resolve the situation in thousands of ways, many of which would not result in death.

It is certain that it was not necessary for God to kill them, and from this there can be two conclusions.

  1. God really cares about human lives and the stories of him killing people because of punishment are fake
  2. God doesn’t care that much about human lives and has no problem killing humans if that would make a good lesson to others.

And it seems to me, controversially, that the first option is the wrong one.
Now now, hear me out and look at the world around us, pain and suffering everywhere, children dying of d, people being eaten by animals, innocent being persecuted and destroyed when the strong ones take their lives and break their dignity while being surrounded by gold and pleasure and etc.

“Yes, yes, world is bad I know that, it would’ve been good if not sin though” one could said after reading this rant, but let’s look at history, when the world became like that?
The answer is: It was like this from the very beginning, even before humanity has existed, animals have died, suffered, fought and devoured each other, without microbes neither animals, neither plants can exist, and yet thanks to them we have disease that ravages us every day.

This is how this world works, and it wasn’t caused by sin, but was designed by God, and he surely finds it good for the purpose it has to fulfill. He even has no problem to partake in it, for exaple when his people gave him sacrifices, he has not punished or condemned them for it. He was indifferent at most.

So, God just doesn’t care about us, is this it? Nope, but it’s understandable that one would come to such conclusion.
God in the end, is above material world, and what he cares about is relationship with us. But material world doesn’t really matter that much to him, suffering is but a bunch of chemicals in human brain, death is but a complex structure ( to us at least ) breaking apart, nothing God couldn’t reconstruct with ease.
And so, God is not troubled by humans sinning, by us dying, by us suffering, in the end, this is all quite superficial and even though death seems final for us and that killing seems like too cruel of a punishment, for God it’s nothing special.
So if it’s sensible to use human life as a lesson to others, he will use it, why not? If someone didn’t get enough experience to make a good decision, God can always give one another chance, reincarnate them or something.

But I would really doubt that there is something like truly “unforgivable sin”, God can go so far to create a relationship with even the smallest of us, I can’t believe that few blasphemous words would make him lose interest just like that.

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Love doesn’t kill for BS reasons. Not in human affairs. And not at all in divine. It’s taken hundreds of thousands of years to realise that at all. In other words it’s taken love hundreds of thousands of years to evolve. Orders of magnitude are cool for dealing with that. How much has love changed over 1, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 a million years? What was it doing then? The same goes for language, thinking, technology, art, literature, poetry.

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physical death has always existed and was not introduced by God as an act of revenge following sin. Life is the ability to move matter and energy at will. Information is capable of manipulating matter. That does not make information a physical entity, as quantum computing has shown that information can be removed without loss of energy, but confirms what some ancient goat herders already implied, that the information predated the universe.
Thus if you identify yourself via God you are part of eternal existence and therefore not dead by the end of your physical existence. In God you live eternally - or as I put it poetically:
To live forever
is the art
to learn to live
in Jesus heart

Jesus death on the Cross was physical, to me his resurrection was metaphysical. He is alive in me - and I in him. The temptation of the devil is to make us hope to be an eternal self instead like Jesus die for the sake of others, Eating from the tree of life - e.g. the cross - gives you eternal life. It just isn’t the eternal physical self you are made to wish for. Just tell me if existing in eternity, what would it be that you would want to preserve that is distinguishable from Jesus. If you would not want to be like him, what is so worthy of your self identity that trumps him?

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Another one that believes in a killer. Peace be upon you - you clearly need it. Do not project from yourself onto God.

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Have you biblical references for this because im not seeing any in your post?

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We know of God nature and rules and punishments, because the bible tells us of him.

Your claims above are contrary to what the bible, which tells us about God, actually says.

If i designed something then wrote an instruction book describing my philosophy behind its use…ie how to use it correctly, wouldnt you agree that i as the designer know my product? How then can you ignore my statements and make up ones of your own…you did not design the product!

That is exactly what you are doing here and its deeply flawed and quite plainly wrong. The bible explains very clearly sin and death. Whether or not you are willing to accept it, the “wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23. Ananias and Saphira were struck down dead for lying to the Holy Spirit as a warning that spiritual disobedience results in a very literal and very physical death.

That is exactly what will happen to all those who are alive but are not saved at the second coming. Those who are dead in the grave at the second coming will not see this event, they have already died the first death…they will recieve their final punishment (second death) when satan and all his angels are destroyed (along with those who were alive and killed by the brightness of the second coming). Everyone who is not saved suffers death twice. Those who are saved suffer physical death only once at most…some not at all (those who have already been translated such as Enoch and Elijah and, those who are alive at the second coming)

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Ethically acceptable or optimal decisions are context dependent. We aim (or should aim) to decisions that produce the least harm or suffering, or have some other positive consequence. If we have very little information, we may think in a simplistic way and prefer one simplified alternative. If we get more information about the consequences of different decisions, we may note that our simple alternative would produce more suffering than some other decision. This other decision would then be ethically better than our original simplified assumption.

As humans, we have very limited information. What we consider the perfect or optimal decision (what God should do to be good) is often not founded on sufficient knowledge. God has much better knowledge about the consequences of different actions. When He selects the best possible action in the context, we may think it was a wrong decision simply because we do not fully understand the consequences.

I would not want that someone stabs my child with a knife. That would seem to be ethically wrong. Yet, I am very thankful for the surgeons that cut my child to save his life. My son would have died without the operation where surgeons were cutting him with their equipments. In that context, what intuitively seemed to be wrong proved to be good.

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How does God knowing anything entitle Him to murder anyone?

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Is death of a person the worst thing you can imagine?

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I’ve seen ghastliness like you wouldn’t believe. Been party to unspeakable horror. I don’t need to imagine. Just this evening a guy asked to use our toilet as I was leaving the building. I’d greeted him stopped on the street with bags of his belongings earlier. I said of course and stood watch outside, indicating to three women in the building that they shouldn’t go near. After ten minutes of toilet sounds and phone conversation I asked if he was OK. He was affable, apologetic, opened up. Dropped his trousers to show me why he was limping. His black lower left leg (as opposed to his white right) looked like it had at least two bullet exit wounds. This is England. So they weren’t. He supposed it was gangrene. Necrosis for sure, gas gangrene next, sepsis, necrotizing fasciitis, multiple organ failure, death within hours. I told him to get to the hospital half a mile away. I doubt he would. There was no point calling an ambulance. They don’t come now. For hours or days. Because the Tories have been in power for thirteen years. And no there was no point my calling him a taxi and sitting with him in A&E for eight hours to stop him leaving.

Death at the hands of an arbitrary psycho God is the worst thing I can imagine. Luckily I don’t believe in such deranged garbage and make up a God more in keeping with Rogerian therapy and better, one who takes responsibility and fixes everyone He abandoned. Including the guy who’ll be dead by Sunday.

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next time you have such encounter call either the samaritans or crisis UK or 999 to ask for help and advice how to handle such a situation as it tends to be overwhelming to most of us. They are a Gods end to help you to be helpful in such a situation. It is in dying that we don’t have to make up a God but come face to face with him. And you may be surprised how helpful the simple act of holding a hand can be.
God will fix those who want to be with him, but those who accuse him of abandoning him wont get to him because they only love who they find to be worthy of their love.

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Considering that the bible says that on the day you will eat from that tree you will die tells you that it cant be the physical death as they lived on to have children.

Do you want to imply that the Lord only mage predators after the fall or that they lived on squash and cucumbers before the fall? Imagine a tyrannosaurus ripping through tons of tomatoes - just for the red colour effect :slight_smile:

Before the fall physical death is just to become one with God again. After the fall the self gets in the way of that.

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I get the impression that you want to define what God should and should not do. God is acceptable if He acts as you hope, otherwise He is an arbitrary psycho God. This may sound as an exaggerated conclusion but what you write is de facto that.

This leads to an interesting general question: do we accept God as He is or do we demand that God should fulfill certain criteria before we can accept Him as our God?

I am reading a basic philosophy text about the attributes of god/God. It describes the attempts to define a perfect being (god/God) in the western tradition of Christianity. In many parts, the starting point seems to be that god/God should be perfectly good in order to deserve our worship. One problem with this starting point is that we should define what is good. If our perception of good is different than what the perfect being considers good, should we claim that the perfect being is not good and not worth our worship?

Edit:
One related problem with a perfectly good being acting in a less than perfect world is to separate the context-dependent actions from the ideal ones. Context-dependent actions may not seem to be ideal because ideal ones may be impossible in the less than perfect world. In practice, the actions of a perfect being are the best possible in that context, which is different than ideal because ideal is not possible in the context.
Why the world seems to be far from perfect is another question.

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None of those organizations could, would have done a thing. Especially 999. No ambulance would have come, why would the police? He wasn’t suicidal or self harming or violent except by helpless neglect. They couldn’t section him for that. They wouldn’t take him to A&E and sit with him for 8 hours. The crisis teams are fantastic, but again, he wasn’t having a crisis that they could have dealt with. Samaritans? Again what for? They couldn’t amputate his leg. I wasn’t going within two metres of him after seeing it. I patted him on the shoulder nonetheless. And what makes you think I’d be surprised? I’m the longest serving volunteer at church. And I’m human.

I’m closer to death than most, my wife closer, God doesn’t want to face either of us. I’m intentional with Him as I drift off. I used to walk with Him. Now it’s too much of a strain. To act out an honest conversation with myself. I officiated at a funeral on Monday, sang the hymns, fading on the words I can’t assent to, bowed my head, said the Lord’s Prayer; all beautiful. He was present for the while. And faded out. If I awake after dying I still have nothing to face. Absolutely nothing. Along with everyone else. Including Ananias and Sapphira, whom He won’t have to somehow justify executing.

Who’d want to be with a God who can’t fix them? All are worthy of, fully entitled to, His inexorable healing touch.

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I’m more than happy to accept God as He is, but if He is the ground of being and partakes of being by incarnation, nothing we make up about Him, beyond open minded deduction, is Him as He is. Certainly nothing nasty and inadequate made up in the Bible about Him. Assuming God, i.e. the loving ground of infinite and eternal, natural and transcendent being, then it’s obvious He doesn’t murder people for implying that they are more generous than they are. Only a weak, feeble, ignorant, projection of our extremely primitive ‘idealized’ selves would do that. Now I’m as weak, feeble, ignorant and primitive as the next man, but my projected idealized self is enlightened, cool, Rogerian, loving and inexorably competent. Peter’s wasn’t. Knor is yours.