Acts: Opposition to the Gospel: Balaam's Error, Part 4

I am sorry. Four posts to get to the point. So after much ado, let’s come right to the point.

We saw this with the way of Cain, and it’s no less true with Balaam’s error. But the fundamental crisis in each episode is the question of power: who has it, who gets to use it, who stands over another, who has the final say, the final word.

Cain marked himself as a law unto himself; but he had no power over God, only his unsuspecting brother. God had the power, something He wanted to delegate to Cain (“But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."). But Cain could not exercise the authority God gave him anymore than his father, Adam, could. His inability at real authority led to murder and further dissipation of the image of God in man in a counterfeit exercise of power over another.

As the the earth brings forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. So too sin. Note Balaam is much further along in the development of sin than Cain. Cain killed one man. Balaam seeks to undo a people of about 2,000,000 for money and reputation. While there is a disparity in the object of their sin, 1 vs. 2,000,000, the understanding of, and grasping for, power is very different. Cain’s designs are rudimentary by comparison.

Where Cain approached God with some semblance of reverence, Balaam makes no such pretension. He has a foot in both worlds, God’s and his, or so he thinks. It is his presumption that kills him. He mistook God’s longsuffering (from ass to Angel of the Lord to blessing Israel over and over again) for affirmation perhaps.

It wouldn’t have mattered I am afraid. He was not looking for God’s affirmation in any event. Wielders of power are like that; deceived into thinking that the wielding and holding of power are the same thing. They are not.

Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that lesson the hard way. He too mistook God’s visions as signs of God’s acceptance. Emboldened by the metaphor of the head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar equated his preeminence in the earth as proximity if not equality with God. That presumption rendered him into a beast:

At the end of twelve months [Nebuchadnezzar] was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws. See Daniel 4.

We are all beasts who step beyond the sovereignty of God. So it is no surprise then that the real ass was not the one Balaam was riding, but was Balaam himself. That he rejected the battle-ready Angel of the Lord, and showed Balak how to bring judgment on Israel is an astounding testament to where he saw himself in relation to God.

Balaam is close to the heart of Cain, but many steps further unto perdition, and quite close to Judas Iscariot’s heart. Judas had weighed Christ in the balance and found him wanting. Similarly. Balaam had taken the measure of God; he would not prove to be the lesser man so-to-speak. What a catastrophic blunder.

Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it? As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up, or a club brandish the one who is not wood! See Isaiah 10:15.

We don’t have to commit Balaam’s error; but we will each bump up against God’s sovereignty a time or two in our lives. How we see ourselves in relation to Him will dictate our course when so confronted.

I think C.S. Lewis captured this sovereignty of God best in the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe:

“Aslan is a lion — the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh,” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion” . . . “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver . . . “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Balaam trifled with the Sovereign God, and lost (he was put to the sword). That’s not the real tragedy though, just the outworking of it. His tragedy was born out his self-belief that he could trifle with God for Balaam would only trifle with God if he saw God as lower than him or subject to him. One trifles with an inferior not a superior (for that would be too dangerous). Wedded to this material life, Balaam was therefore blinded to God as God despite God revealing Himself to Balaam and blinded to the ignorance of his own true nature. Balaam was entirely self-possessed.

Balaam’s is a fatal error, and one we can repeat apparently. See Jude 1:11 and 2 Peter 2:15. And that all comes down to how we answer certain existential questions: who has the power or authority and who has the final word in this life generally and in our lives specifically. After the resurrection, Christ has claimed he does. See Matthew 28:18 (“Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Now go therefore . . .”)

The church is built and grows on that authority—or it doesn’t. What say you about your own life?