9 But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. – Acts 5:9-10
The sins of the believer are severe, only that we fail to recognise it.
The Church was up to this point on a spiritual high. They were devoted to God’s word, to fellowship with one another, to breaking bread together, to prayer. Their care for and sharing with one another was to the point that there was no needy person among them. They accomplished by grace and Spirit what Israel failed to do.
This backdrop sets the stage for this story, presenting us with two sets of people with two different destinies.
Barnabas, known as the Son of Encouragement, was particularly highlighted as the exemplar of Christian charity. He has a gentle and merciful spirit, from the other stories in the Scriptures. He sold a field and gave all the proceeds to the apostles. The apostles would then administer the money to provide for the needy among the community. Barnabas would later join Paul in apostolic missions. In the first place, it would be Barnabas who helped establish Paul among the apostles at Jerusalem, since Paul was up to that time a persecutor of Christians.
Then we are shown Ananias and Sapphira, whose names apparently mean “God has been gracious” and “beautiful” respectively. They conspired to sell their property and give some of the proceeds to the apostles, but pretended as though they had given the entire sum of proceeds. Peter made it clear that the property and the proceeds were entirely theirs; they were not obliged to give a single cent. Given that the story is told to us after Luke describes Barnabas’ similar act, it’s suggested that Ananias and Sapphira lied to the apostles and to the church in order to appear as generous as Barnabas.
Their great sin was hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is deceit. Hypocrisy is to seek after people’s favour rather than God’s. Hypocrisy is legalism, opposed to God’s grace.
Their being struck dead may trouble us. Why would people who appear to be believers of Jesus, standing on the grace of God, be judged in this manner? In the first place, knowing His grace means knowing we need not pretend to be more than what we are, but letting God help us become more than what we are. Hypocrisy is a rejection of that. Hypocrisy is rejecting the truth that “God is gracious” in Jesus.
Still, we are reminded that the penalty of sin is death. By right, death is the fitting consequence of our every sin. It is itself God’s mercy that we are not dropping dead when we sin, especially knowingly, against God. Pardon is supposed to be the anomaly. But God’s mercy is bountiful.
We do not know what the eternal destiny of Ananias and Sapphira is. Will they be found just before Jesus on Judgment Day? We do not know. We often assume the first death is the final judgment. It is not. Almost everyone dies the first death. That tells us nothing of the final death. Sometimes, the first death may even be mercy. What we do know is that between Barnabas on one hand and Ananias and Sapphira on the other hand, Barnabas would go on to do a great many things for the Kingdom of God, but Ananias and Sapphira would not. In seeking to please God over himself, Barnabas received the favour of people. In seeking to please people and themselves over God, Ananias and Sapphira received the wrath of God.
Have we wittingly or unwittingly committed hypocrisy? Have we sought to please ourselves and other people over God? If so, we must return to ask God to help us truly know that He is gracious, and that in His downside up Kingdom, the last shall be first, and the one who gives receives.