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Numbers 16:28-30  Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea:  If these men die a natural death and suffer the fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me.  But if the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the realm of the dead, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt.

And  that’s exactly what happened!  Bible-believing Christians whose minds have been transformed by the love, compassion, grace and mercy of the God of the Bible – the One who “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) – can find it difficult to come to grips with this same God’s harsh Judgement on Korah and his family, friends and followers (including many young chidren!), as recorded in Numbers 16.

Korah’s wicked, and very inluential, rebellion against God’s authority, vested in his chosen servants, Moses and Aaron, was so significant that the Epistle of Jude uses it as the example of how God will treat anyone who rebels against his rightful authority in any age.  “Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct – as irrational animals do – will destroy them.  Woe to them!  They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion” (Jude 1:10-11).

However, when we step back and seek to understand God’s ‘big picture’ of Redemption we see clear instances of God’s love, compassion, grace and mercy in the Old Testament as much as in the New Testament.  Moses will report in Numbers 26:11 that somehow, by the miracle of God’s grace perhaps working in their hearts to take a stand and separate themselves from the body of the rebellious mob, “the line of Korah, however, did not die out.”!  When we study carefully, in the light of this, the Psalms attributed to the ‘Sons of Korah’ (Psalms 42/3-49 and 84-88) we can appreciate the depth of feeling towards God that comes from experiencing God’s grace that can rescue  us from the consequences of our rebellious sinful nature.

Rather than being offended by the ‘cruelty’ of God’s judgement in the OT, let us heed the merciful warmings of Paul ( 1 Corinthians 10:6-12) and Jude (1:10) and, in the words of John the Bapist, let us ‘flee from the wrath to come’ (Luke 3:7). by taking refuge in Jesus, the wonderful Saviour!

“Beneath the cross of Jesus I gladly take my stand, the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land; a home within a wilderness, a rest upon the way from the burning of the noonday heat, and the burden of the day.  O safe and happy shelter!  O refuge, tried and sweet!  O sacred place where heaven’s love and heaven’s justice meet; as to the exiled patriarch the wondrous dream was given, so seems my Saviour’s cross to me a ladder up to heaven.  There lies beneath its shadow, but on the farther side, the darkness of an awful grave that gapes both deep and wide; and there between us stands the cross, two arms, outstretched to save, like a watchman set to guard the way from that eternal grave.  Upon that cross of Jesus my eyes at times can see the very dying form of One who suffered there for me; and from my stricken heart, with tears, two wonders I confess: the wonder of redeeming love, and my own worthlessness.  I take, O cross, your shadow for my abiding place!  I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of your face; content to let the world go by, to know no gain or loss, my sinful self my only shame, my glory all – the Cross!” (Elizabeth Clephane)

– Bruce Christian