As a general rule, when you find people trying to bind consciences where God has not bound them, you’ll find those same people trying to obtain a glory God has not given them. Aaron and Miriam condemn Moses for marrying a Cushite woman. They speak against interracial or inter-tribal marriage, something God has not forbidden. They curse their brother for the supposed sin of joining himself to a woman who doesn’t share Abraham as her ancestor but has come to share their God. God doesn’t condemn Moses for this. So why do Miriam and Aaron?
Well, the answer is found in the non sequitur conclusion they draw from all of this. “Moses has married a foreign woman. Therefore God can also speak through us. Moses isn’t really as holy as he says, therefore we have the right to be glorious prophets of God as well.” It’s all very transparent.
Drunkenness is sin. Alcohol is not. So those who tell you that Christians can’t ever consume a drop under any circumstances, why do they say this when God doesn’t say it? Hatred is a sin, statistics aren’t. So those who tell you a congregation must be racially diverse in order to be truly committed to God, why do they say this when God doesn’t say it? Why are men constantly acting like Aaron and Miriam and the Pharisees, inventing commandments God has not uttered to condemn their guiltless brothers? Because they want to prop themselves up on top of the shattered reputations of their brothers and become prophets who finally get the measure of glory they imagine they deserve.
May God guard our hearts against such pride and deceit. May God make us feel the leprous scales on our hearts whenever we blaspheme His name by forbidding what He hasn’t to gain a glory He’s denied us. And may He restore us. As we look to the cross of Jesus Christ, may we see in His blood-soaked face that there is no greater glory than what we already possess, the full righteousness of Christ, the full favor of God, the right to be called sons of God forever.
Don’t invent commandments God hasn’t given. Keep the ones He has. And when you stumble and fall, look to the cross where you will find the infinite mercy Jesus Christ has poured out upon a once foreign and faithless woman. Look to the cross and you’ll find the love, the kingdom, the power, and the glory that Jesus Christ has poured out upon His church.
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