The Time Ananias and Sapphira Died (Acts 5:1-16)

Intro

I was not always a pastor, believe it or not. For four summers during and after college, I worked in construction. This was not something I was good at. I was tolerated because I generally worked hard and had a good attitude, but not one single person ever said to me, hey you should consider making this your career. You’re really gifted! Not a one. A few years after that, when I was a youth pastor, we took some teens down to Mexico to build a home for a family. I think I hammered one nail- actually, I think it took me three or four nails to get the effect that the one nail was supposed to have. Instead, I played soccer with the kids of the village for the rest of the week. But all of these experiences did help me develop a respect and appreciation for those who are gifted with construction.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but one of the most important things about construction is the foundation. You can build very impressive structures, but without a solid foundation, they don’t do much good. The Transcona Grain Elevator was built near Winnipeg, my homeland, in 1913. They lacked the kind of geotech surveying capabilities we have today, and the limited tests they had indicated things would be ok. So they built this huge structure, and once completed, began filling it with grain. Within an hour, they noticed that the building was shifting. 24 hours later, and this is what it looked like. Which means that my homeland shows up on every list of famous construction fails. I would know, because that’s what I googled to find a story for this intro. It turns out that a soft layer of clay existed under the surface, causing the one side to sink considerably. Later, another company was paid a boatload of money to shore up the foundations and build supporting structures. 

Contrast that with our building at The Bridge. Construction began almost 3 years ago now, and the first year was a little boring, at least for me. It was all foundation work. We had to carve out the space for this building from the existing slope and place huge retainer blocks to hold back the earth. The most painstaking and loudest part of the process (just ask our neighbours for a firsthand testimony) was drilling holes into the side of the bank as anchors for the building itself. For that first year, you couldn’t see much of anything happening. To the naked, street-level eye, the site was dormant. But stuff was happening below street-level. Crucial foundation work. Once that was completed, the rest of the building came together fairly quickly.

In the fall here at The Bridge, we made it through the first four chapters of Acts, talking about the origin of this movement called the church. At this stage, everything has been happening in Jerusalem among a comparatively small group of Jewish believers. The Gospel had barely made a mark in the Roman empire, and not at all outside of it. To the naked, street-level eye, not much was happening. And yet, 2000 years later, you’d have to admit that regardless of your religious background, the Christian movement is likely the most consequential and impactful movement in the history of humanity. Billions of adherents, all across the globe, among peoples and cultures about as far removed from 1st century Judaism as you could imagine. How did that happen? It all started with the foundation. God was doing things in those first years in the early church, hidden from the sight of the rich and powerful, that would be the basis for a global impact. That’s what you need to understand about the story we’re going to look at today. It’s a story that has bewildered some people, a story that some people don’t think fits with the emphasis of grace and mercy, especially in the New Testament. But what you need to understand is that God is a builder, and He ensured that the foundations of this building, His church, were solid right from the start. Especially considering how much weight those foundations were going to bear across the span of history. 

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. ² With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. ³ Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? ⁴ Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” ⁵ When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.⁶ Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. ⁷ About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. ⁸ Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” ⁹ Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” ¹⁰ At that moment she fell down at his feet and died.Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.¹¹ Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

Acts 5:1-11

What was the sin?

We’re going to ask three big questions about this story. Here’s the first: what was the nature of Ananias and Sapphira’s sin? What did they do wrong?

Let’s get one idea out of the way. They did not sin by not giving all the proceeds of the sale. The last section of Acts 4 tells us that people in the church were not only sharing their possessions and opening up their homes to others, but some were even selling their homes and giving the money from those sales to the apostles to be distributed to the poor. Barnabas, a leader in the early church, is given as an example of someone who did that. As a result, Acts 4 says that there were no needy persons in the church at Jerusalem (4:34). Incredible stuff. But what I said in November was that no one form of generosity– for example, selling a home and giving the whole proceeds away- was meant to be uniform or imposed on everyone. These weren’t rules. They were actions born from freedom, a freedom that was the result of God’s grace. Because God has given so generously and abundantly to us, we are inspired to give. But there’s no expectation of an amount here.

Now let’s come back to Ananias and Sapphira. They have property of some kind. They decide to sell it. They don’t give the whole proceeds away. And that, by itself, is ok. That’s why Peter says to Ananias, “didn’t it (the property) belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?” (5:4) Again, the sin is not in the amount that is given.

The sin was in the lie. Interestingly, Peter’s interaction with Ananias skips any claim on Ananias’ part that he was giving the whole deal. As Luke records it at least, Peter just jumps right to the rebuke. Ananias doesn’t actually get any words in at all. If you’re ever in a situation where this story is being dramatized, which obviously happens all the time, and you don’t like memorizing lines, take the part of Ananias. But the lie becomes clear when Peter asks his wife Sapphira later on. He asks if this is the full amount, and she says, yep, sure is. But it’s not. According to verse 2, it was only part. Ananias and Sapphira were attempting to deceive the early church.

Except that according to Acts, the primary party offended here is not the disciples. It’s not the church. It’s God. The version I read inserts the word “just” as in “you haven’t lied just to human beings but to God” to make sure we know that they also lied to human beings. But the Greek doesn’t have the word “just” there. It’s more blunt. “You haven’t lied to human beings, you’ve lied to God.” 

There’s a similar phrase in Psalm 51. King David of Israel, the great king, a man after God’s own heart, had committed a little oopsie. Naw, it was a big oopsie. He lusted after a woman named Bathsheba (the lesson of the story here, don’t bathe on rooftops and don’t watch people bathing on rooftops). He slept with her, she conceived a child, David tried to convince Bathsheba’s husband Uriah to sleep with her so he’d believe the child was his, and when that didn’t work, David had Uriah killed in battle, and then he married Bathsheba himself. Just a horrid, depraved series of actions. All of us, even those who are most conscientious and upright, are capable of evil given the right (wrong) circumstances and are desperately dependent on the grace of God. In any case, a prophet named Nathan confronts David, David is deeply convicted, stricken with grief, and mourns for his sin. We read his lament in Psalm 51:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin…”

Psalm 51:1-2

By the way, I just want to pause here for a second and address something that inevitably comes up. There is a huge difference between somebody who is hard-hearted and set on doing what is wrong and who could care less about what God thinks. That seems to be the case with Ananias and Sapphira. There’s a huge difference between that and somebody who is soft-hearted, who messes up but genuinely wants to repent and be restored. That’s King David. In response, God does forgive, does cleanse, does wash away iniquity. He does the same with us through the cross of Jesus. That’s the gift that comes through faith. Going back to the Psalm, David writes:

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”

Psalm 51:4

I don’t know about you, but my first reaction when I read that is to say, David, I think there are a few other people you’ve sinned against. I’m fairly certain Uriah factors in here somewhere, you know? You had him killed and you took his wife!

I don’t think David would deny that he had wronged Uriah, or even Bathsheba. But David recognized something that many people today don’t. A lot of people today think that sin is just actions or words that harm other people. That’s what determines right and wrong. But David knew that in the end, we are accountable to God. He is the one who determines what is right and wrong, who has created the world with a “moral fabric”. Psalm 51 goes on to say that God is right in His verdict and justified when He judges. God is also the one who has created us. Every breath we breathe is a gift from Him, as the biblical prophet Isaiah says: He gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on the earth. (42:5) We’re His creation, we’re accountable to Him. And He loves us. He has created us for a purpose, as Paul says in Ephesians: “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) God has created us, according to Genesis, in His image, so that we will look like Him and represent Him to the world (Genesis 1:27).

Because of all of this, because He is creator and judge and lover, sin is not just what you do that hurts someone else. It is a rejection of the purpose and love of our God who has made us to reflect His character. Which means that thoughts, secret words, and other things that maybe don’t directly affect someone else can still be sinful. As Hebrews 4:13 says,

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” 

That gets at the heart of this matter: the motives of Ananias and Sapphira’s heart, because God sees that. What do they hope to accomplish through this lie? They want to appear more generous than they really are. They are more concerned about their reputation and renown than building up God’s church. The esteem of others is priority number one, God’s holiness is completely disregarded. Their hearts are extremely, extremely far from God, far from honoring him.

Before we move on, can we all admit that we are capable of the same? It is so easy to live and speak in a way that gains the applause of others, regardless of the state of our hearts. One word for this in our modern world is virtue signalling. It’s posting stuff on social media, it’s saying the right words- usually in conformity with the patterns of the world- while living a life totally inconsistent with that. Preachers can be guilty of this too, I know that full well. We can make a show of our theological knowledge and boast in worldly metrics even while our interior lives are falling apart. We can relate to Ananias and Sapphira.

Why does God judge it so severely?

But that raises a terrifying question. If we can all relate to Ananias and Sapphira, why is their action judged so severely? In case you missed it, both receive a divine death sentence on the spot. Ananias drops dead when his deception is brought to light, and later on Sapphira does the same. The clear implication is that this is the doing of God.

First, we seem to see a hardness of heart here that is uninterested in doing what’s right. As we said before, that’s always going to be an issue.

The second thing we could say is that the church is really, really important to God, and keeping His church holy is a major priority. Here’s what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” 

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Let’s be clear what Paul is talking about here. He’s not talking about a church building. My kids, along with a few others, taped a bunch of toy food to a wall upstairs. Some of the paint got peeled. I might have rebuked them, but I sure hope this verse doesn’t mean God is going to destroy them! He’s talking about a group of people who are God’s temple. But even here there’s a clarification. Theologians make a distinction between the visible church and the true, or hidden, church. The visible church is the gathering of people in corporate worship. And there’s always a mix. You’ll have people who are not Christians but are checking it out, they’re curious. There are people whose hearts aren’t in it. They maybe call themselves Christians, but they’re here because it’s just what they do. You have committed disciples of Jesus. And you’ve got everything in between. But what Paul is talking about is the true church, the family of brothers and sisters who have put their faith in Jesus. This is the temple of God, filled with His Spirit. It is the unity of believers who have surrendered their lives to Jesus is His body on earth, making Him known. This is at the centre of God’s plan for making Christ’s salvation known to the earth. He does it through the church as it witnesses to the world about Jesus. So if that gets undermined, if that gets corrupted, that’s a really big deal to God, because He loves the world!

Here’s another analogy that maybe helps. The Bible talks about the church as the bride of Christ. If someone tries to hurt my wife or destroy her, I’m going to have something to say about that. All 120 pounds of me! (Ok, maybe a bit more than that.) I’m going to stand up for her. So it isn’t just because the church is central to God’s mission to the world, it’s not just a utilitarian kind of thing. It’s also because God loves the church so much that He strives to protect it from moral corruption. He wants it to live in the goodness and freedom of His will. He takes attempts to deprive it of that seriously.

However, there are lots of examples of the witness of the church being compromised without God’s instantaneous death sentence. God didn’t strike megachurch preacher Kenneth Copeland dead when he boldly blew Covid away in April of 2020 and proclaimed that it would never return again. Just a little false prophecy, and in the most creepy and showy way possible. He’s still alive and kicking. He didn’t take televangelist Jimmy Swaggart out after being caught numerous times with prostitutes in the ‘80s and ‘90s. He’s still around. And obviously, he hasn’t taken me or you out after any of the ways we have lived or spoken in ways that detracted from the church’s holiness. Why? What was different about Ananias and Sapphira that God took such drastic steps?

Obviously, if the text doesn’t say it directly, then we can’t know for sure what God’s motives are. But I have a thought that I believe is consistent with the evidence we see in Scripture. And I think it has to do with what we talked about in the beginning: the importance of a solid foundation laid with integrity.

The Bible is filled with examples of God’s patience and longsuffering mercy towards sinners. Only occasionally do we get a story like this one where there is immediate death, death being the ultimate consequence of sin (Romans 6:23). A lot of those parallels can be found in Israel’s time in the wilderness and entrance into the promised land. Here’s one example: in the book of Joshua, after a long time in the wilderness, the Israelites cross the Jordan River and miraculously defeat the fortress of Jericho. They had been instructed to not take any plunder or loot from the city, but to devote everything and everyone to the Lord in destruction. I preached on that story in the summer, it’s on YouTube, and explored some of the difficulties most people have with it. The next fortress the Israelites attacked was called Ai, but this time they were badly routed. Joshua realized that someone in the Israelite camp had disobeyed God’s commands. It turned out that a man named Achan had kept some plunder from Jericho and hid it in his tent. He deceptively kept back material things (you see the connection with Acts 5?). He and his family were stoned to death, and the Israelites proceeded to take Ai.

Again, I know there are a lot of things with those stories that trouble us, and those are issues that have been addressed by various scholars. But here’s the point I’m wanting to focus on today: Israel was called and saved by God to be a blessing to the world (Genesis 12:1-3). They were to do that by living a holy life, a life set apart, a life that would reflect the character and will of God. Israel was to be His representative in the world. And so it was so crucially important that as they entered the promised land, where He was settling them, that they truly were holy and set apart. A foundation was being built, and Achan’s sin was like mixing your concrete foundation with ocean sand. I called a construction guy in our church to see what you could put in your concrete mix to make it unstable, that’s what he suggested. It’s just going to result in brittleness down the road. Not only that, Achan’s death was a reminder to all the people that their calling was not a wishy washy thing. The event, as tragic as it was, helped set the tone of total devotion for Israel as it began this new life in the promised land. It was setting a foundation.

Let’s talk a bit more about the importance of foundations from a biblical perspective. Remember that Proverb about how generally speaking, if you set your children on the right track, they won’t depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). Correcting course becomes more and more difficult the longer it’s delayed. So build a solid foundation. And what is that foundation? In the Bible, God is often referred to as a rock, and so are His ways. You might remember the little parable Jesus tells about those who listen to his words and put them into practice being like those who build their house on the rock. On the other hand, those who don’t put Jesus’ words into practice build their lives on the sand, easily washed away (Matthew 7:24-27). Your life has to be built on him as the foundation. Same thing with the church. Numerous times, Jesus is called the cornerstone. That was the initial foundation stone of a building, and all the other foundation stones needed to be set in right relation to the cornerstone. That’s how you make sure the whole building is properly aligned. Paul says in Ephesians 2:21 that Christ is the cornerstone and “in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord”.

Some people build their lives on faulty foundations, by following the patterns of the world, by building on vague notions of happiness, by building on financial security or popularity, or whatever else. Some churches build their existence on faulty foundations. They make their foundation social justice or politics or community service. Some of those are good, but they make for poor foundations. The proper foundation for our lives individually and for the church is Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, the rock of ages. 

That, I believe, is why God judges Ananias and Sapphira in this way at this moment in time. It’s not as if nobody since has ever done anything as bad. It’s not as if many haven’t done things that were even more detrimental to the testimony of the church, and that were equally deserving of immediate judgment. God, in His great mercy, displays incredible patience towards us, despite His desire for the church to be holy and set apart. But once in a while, maybe especially to ensure that the foundations are solid and the right tone is set, an act that would start His redemptive mission on the wrong foot is immediately wiped out. I think that’s what happens here in the early church.

What impact does it make?

Here’s one more question we might ask: what impact does an event like this have on the church? I mean, if news spread that people were dropping down dead because of a misdeed, wouldn’t that scare everyone away? This is how we often think about discipline of any kind. We’re afraid that it will alienate people, drive them away, break relationship. Look at what Luke says happened as a result of this, in verses 12-16.

¹² The apostles performed many signs and wondersamong the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. ¹³ No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. ¹⁵ As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. ¹⁶ Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

Acts 5:12-16

There are two verses in the middle of that which seem contradictory at first. Verse 13 says nobody dared to join them and verse 14 says that more and more believed and were added to their number. There are a number of possible ways to understand how those go together, but here’s one. 

In every movement, especially at the beginning, there are inevitably people who are attracted and join on the fringes. They want to be part of something exciting, something new. But their commitment is surface level. It happened to Jesus too. Everywhere he went, crowds of people gathered to hear him. In John 2, we read that many people believed because of the signs they were seeing Jesus perform, “but Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.” (2:24) He could see right through it. And the moment that it usually falls apart for these hangers-on is when the cost becomes clear. When Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, hordes of people are celebrating, praising him, laying coats down in front of him. One week later, when he is arrested, where do they go? Where are they? Maybe they hide away, or maybe they’re even the same people who now chant for his crucifixion. They’ve jumped to where the momentum is now. They’re like casual sports fans who walk into a room where a game is on and decide to cheer for whatever team is winning.

The incident with Ananias and Sapphira is the wake-up call to any superficial hangers-on that this is not some fleeting movement. This is the real deal. This is serious business. You can’t be lukewarm or half-hearted, because look what happened to Ananias and Saphhira. I think that’s Acts 5:13.

I think this is an important lesson for the church in the global west, which has increasingly been built on shaky foundations. If you know about church trends in the last couple of generations, you’ll know about what is called the “seeker sensitive” church movement. I would say that what this amounted to was building impressive looking churches, full of flash and glamour. The goal was to provide a nice, safe, comfortable place filled with nice, safe, comfortable people, where we don’t offend anyone or talk about judgment or holiness or any of those unpleasant things we find in the Bible. The result is a lot of churches filled with fans who are drawn to wherever has the coolest music or preaching. It’s weak, watered down churches. Emphatically, that was not the case with the early church. That cannot be our foundation.

On the other hand, in Acts 5:14, I think we’re reading about those who are authentically becoming disciples of Jesus. And it’s not only events like the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira, it’s the rest of the stuff mentioned in this passage. These various signs give evidence to the reality and truth of the Gospel. And so these people in verse 14 recognize that there is a cost to following Jesus, which is dying to a life lived for your own glory. A cost that, as we will see in the next passage, involves persecution. But they are all in.

Events like Ananias and Sapphira, as well as the stories of persecution to come afterwards, become a crisis point: are you all in, or are you just hanging around as long as things are fun and exciting? Far from destroying the church or scaring everyone away, Acts 5 is one more way in which God strengthens the church, and draws in those who are willing to lay themselves down for the good news of Jesus.

Conclusion

That’s where I want to conclude. Jesus says in Revelation to a certain church that they are neither hot nor cold, they are lukewarm, and he is going to spit them out of his mouth. He says in the Gospels that anyone who wants to be his disciple has to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. This doesn’t mean that you’re perfect. It doesn’t mean you never mess up, and that you never need forgiveness. It doesn’t mean there aren’t still things you struggle with. But it means that the orientation of your life and the desire of your heart is to live for Jesus. To make him the foundation of your life. It means that you’re not trying to build your life on a bunch of different foundations, with Jesus just one element in the mix. Instead, you’re all in on him, because he went all in on you- he gave his life for you! As we see from Acts 5, that’s the foundation that God uses to build His church.