Justification

Numbers 25:13
13 “He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites."

Here’s a surprise, Israel had once again turned its back on God. You would think that a nation who had witnessed, time and time again, the miracles of God would continue to follow Him. Oh, but they were a foolish, self-serving bunch. They were flighty and whiny. They were caught up in the wants and desires of their flesh and really weren’t concerned with the Law. So, God sent a plague on the people. The Bible doesn’t specify what kind of plague, but it does tell us that 24,000 people died!

Enter Phinehas, a priest, the son of Eleazar who was the son of Aaron. While the people of Israel were standing around the outside of the Lord’s Tent of Meeting, weeping, he stood up. He’d had enough, he’d seen enough. His anger burned for the Lord. He wasn’t going to put up with this behavior anymore, so he acted. Phinehas took a spear and and executed an Israelite man and the woman with whom he had sinned. This was an act of worship towards his God. He wasn’t going to stand by and have God mocked by man anymore. Phinehas loved the Lord and desired to please Him, so he acted on behalf of God for the sake of man.

This act was pleasing to the Lord. He honored Phinehas for what he had done. He made a covenant of peace with him and declared that all of his descendants would be priests. Not only did He honor Phinehas, but He removed His wrath from the rest of Israel. Although some had already died in the plague, God stopped the plague because of the actions of Phinehas. The nation was made righteous because of the actions of one man.

Jesus Christ, our High Priest and representative to the Lord, did the same for us. He saw the wrath of God and felt the burning fire of God’s anger while He hung on the cross. He stood up, when everyone else was following their lustful desires; for God for the sake of man. When Jesus took the cross, He wasn’t only acting on behalf of God, He was acting because He was God. He did what no other man was capable of doing for the sake of all other men. Because of the righteousness of Christ and His eternal sacrifice, we are all made righteous in the eyes of God. God’s everlasting covenant of peace is upon us and we are all made to be priests as His descendants! (1 Peter 2:9)