In the book of Acts, they dropped dead. Why? To understand what happened, it is important to keep the Old Sinai Covenant and the New Covenant separate.
It is popular in old, fiery churches to proclaim that the couple were part of the New Covenant, so the preachers can then threaten God’s people with the couple’s story. But do the threats conform to New Testament theology?
Let’s look at the issue, point by point, numbered for clarity.
1.. Translation and brief introductory comments
The translation of Acts 5:1-11 is mine. If you would like to see the verses in many translations, please go to biblegateway.com.
1 But a certain man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold property, 2 and he misappropriated some of the proceeds and, with his wife being aware, brought some of the proceeds and placed it at the feet of the apostles. 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why did Satan fill your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, in order to misappropriate the proceeds of the land? 4 Is it not the case that what remained belonged to you, and once you sold it, the money was authoritatively at your disposal? Why did you put this matter in your heart? You lied not to man, but to God!” 5 When he heard these words, Ananias fell and breathed out his life. And great awe spread around all the people who heard. 6 Some young men got up and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.
7 Now, there was an interval of about three hours. And his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in. 8 Peter responded to her: “Tell me: did you sell the land for this amount?” And she said, “Yes, that’s the amount.” 9 And Peter said to her, “Why did you agree together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who just buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out!” 10 And instantly she fell at his feet and breathed out her life. When they entered, the young men found her dead and carried her out and buried her next to her husband. 11 And great awe spread around the entire church and upon everyone who heard it. (Acts 5:1-11)
How do we interpret this startling episode? The best ways is in its historical, cultural and theological context.
The main point will be that it is imperative to distinguish between the Old and New Covenants.
Thousands of souls were added to the church, and more were coming in (Acts 2:41, 47 and 4:4). At least a few of them, human nature being what it is, must have nibbled around the edges, between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Ananias and Sapphira were some of the nibblers who never left the Old, while others were participants in the New, for example, those filled with the Spirit in Acts 4:31.
Let’s examine the evidence, step by step, looking at this equation:
Satanic Plot of Lying + God’s Holy Presence + Old Sinai Covenant = Disaster
2.. Let’s begin with the satanic inspiration.
“Why did Satan fill your heart…?” (v. 3). Satan can tempt and harass and attack Spirit-filled believers, and he can even plant thoughts in their minds, but he cannot fill their hearts. Their hearts are occupied by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). It seems that Ananias and Sapphira were not in the room that God shook and where the believers were once again filled with the Spirit (Acts 4:31).
3.. What was God’s Holy Presence like?
The atmosphere was electric with the convicting and awesome power of God. This verse shows it:
And while they were praying, the place in which they were gathered was shaken, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the story of God with confidence. (Acts 4:31, my translation)
The people in Acts 4:31 were filled with the Spirit, while in the very next chapter Ananias and Sapphia will be filled with Satan. Clearly the couple were not there when the Spirit fell and filled. They represent the anti-types of the Spirit-filed believers. It’s an odd thing. They still stood in the Old Covenant and nibbled on the edges of the New, but then added the factor of a lying in God’s holy presence. Satan saw them as easy targets, for reasons we don’t know, nor can we ever know.
4.. Now let’s look at the Old Sinai Covenant background. This is the key point, so it is the longest.
Two of the closest parallels within the old Sinai Covenant to the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira concern Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, and Uzzah (Achan misappropriated some items, but he was stoned to death, not struck down, in Joshua 7:25, so he is not covered here).
Scripture about Aaron’s two sons:
Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took the censures, put fire in them, and added incense; and they offered the unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to the command. So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke of when he said, ‘Among those who approach me I will be proved holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’” (Lev. 10:1-3, NIV)
Death of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 from a NT Perspective
The case of Uzzah, when David was transporting the ark of the covenant back into his custody, is as follows:
When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Sam. 6:6-7, NIV)
The big difference between the three cases—Ananias’s and Sapphira’s case on the one hand and the cases of Aaron’s sons and Uzzah on the other—is that God is never said to have struck down Ananias and Sapphira. Rather, as the great conservative scholar F. F. Bruce suggests, the husband and wife died from the shock of his being discovered and her hearing about her husband’s death (The Acts of the Apostles, the Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary, 3rd ed. Eerdman’s 1990, p. 164).
More Sinai Covenant background: Gehazi was Elisha’s servant, and the servant acted dishonestly for money. He was judged instantly with leprosy but not put to death (2 Kings 5:26-27).
At this point we could stop the discussion with the observation that the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira were on them, not God. However, Peter was somehow involved. And since many interpreters believe that God struck them down, let’s assume it too.
So why did Ananias and Sapphira die in the era of the New Covenant, after Jesus came? It takes a while for the gospel to spread around—and even for the gospel preachers today to learn what it means!
Picture two overlapping circles. Label one “Judaism and the Sinai Covenant” and the other “the Way” or “the Earliest Jesus Movement.” How much overlap is there? Complete, so the two circles become one? No, that’s too far. Three-fourths overlap? Wherever you draw the overlapping circles, the earliest Jesus Movement was firmly connected to Judaism, at this stage.
Proof? Consider:
First, these Messianic Jews still met in the temple precincts or in Solomon’s Porch (or Portico or Colonnade) on the east side of the temple in Jerusalem, the capital of Judaism. This was bound to keep Judaism on everyone’s mind.
Second, animal sacrifices were still going on. This too kept the Sinai Covenant and Judaism alive, right before their eyes. Later, Paul and the author of Hebrews were inspired to develop a theology of Jesus’s atoning sacrifice, which replaced animal sacrifices. But those ideas lay in the future, too late for Ananias and Sapphira.
Third, in Acts 2-5, Peter and the others stayed close to the temple and unconverted devout Jews because the Messianic convert really believed they could forever transform Judaism, probably keeping much of the law. In Peter’s three sermons (Acts 2:14-36; 3:12-26; 4:8-12), he did not tell his fellow Jews to get past the Old Sinai Covenant, its law, and the temple, while much later Paul was accused of doing this (Acts 21:27-28), and Paul’s epistles everywhere bear this out. Peter needed to develop the gospel beyond the limited borders of Judaism, which begins in Acts 10.
To wrap up the point, Peter was learning and growing. In Acts 10 he learns God receives Gentile, too. His two epistles are far more developed than his earliest preaching. When Ananias and Sapphira showed up in the Messianic community, the two circles of Judaism and the Sinai Covenant and the Way overlapped a lot. The break had not happened completely, but things were transitioning in the earliest Jesus Movement.
The main point is that Satan-filled Ananias and Sapphira did not make the transition and were not safely hidden in the New Covenant.
5. The Parable of the Sower (Soils)
Let’s quote it first:
11 “This is the meaning of the parable:
The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path: they heard it; then the devil comes and takes the word from their hearts, so that they might not believe and be saved. 13 The ones on the rocky ground: they receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root; they believe for a time, but in the time of testing, they fall away. 14 The ones falling among the thorn bushes: they have heard, but as they go, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they do not produce mature fruit. 15 The ones in the good soil: after hearing the word with a truly good heart, they hold on to it and produce fruit by endurance.” (Luke 8:11-15, emphasis added)
In those above verses, Jesus had already told the parable; now he is explaining its meaning. It is clear that Ananias and Sapphira fit in the first class of seeds and soil. They received the word and it entered their hearts but Satan stole it from their hearts. My interpretation: they were no longer part of the New Covenant. They were self-deceived because Satan stole the word from their hearts and then filled their hearts.
Parable of the Sower: Eternal Security or Possible Apostasy?
6.. My interpretation of the passage about Ananias and Sapphira receives further confirmation from the case of Herod Agrippa I. In a speech, he did not give glory to God when people exclaimed he was a god. An angel of the Lord struck him down (Acts 12:20-23). He was punished by Old Sinai Covenant standards because he was steeped in it. F. F. Bruce writes of him:
In Palestine he sedulously cultivated the goodwill of his Jewish subjects, observing their customs and showing preference for their company, so that even the Pharisees thought well of him. On one occasions, when he publicly read Dt. 17:14-20 (the “law of kingship”) at the Feast of Tabernacles in 41, he is said to have wept at the words of v. 15 (“you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother”), for he remembered his Edomite ancestry; but the people called out repeatedly, ‘Be not dismayed; you are indeed our brother!’ (mSota 7.8) (p. 280).
If Agrippa I lived by the Old Sinai Covenant standards in perfect concord even with the Pharisees, then he died by those standards far outside the New Covenant.
More proof: in 5:12b-13, people nibbled around the edges of the Christian community, but they did not dare to join them: “And all of them were together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one of the rest of the people dared joined them, but the people held them in great esteem.”
The Greek verb for “join” is kollaō (pronounced kohl-lah-oh). It is not the standard Greek verb for “convert” or “saved.” Some people admired the Christian community on the edge and maybe were close to it, but they did not go all in. This is surely what Ananias and Sapphira did. Ananias and Sapphira got caught up in a powerful movement, but they also did not go “all in.” If so, they did not enjoy the protection of the New Covenant. They were not fully fledged members of the New Covenant.
7.. So how does God express his wrath in the New Covenant?
In contrast to the Old Sinai Covenant cases of Ananias and Sapphira, Nadab and Abihu, and Uzzah, and Herod, Paul was inspired to write that God showed his wrath in the era of the New Covenant in this way:
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoers. (Rom. 13:4, NIV, emphasis added)
As the kingdom of God worked its way to the larger Greek and Roman world, God did not strike people dead for stealing or misappropriating funds. Instead, he used (and still uses) the authorities to be agents of his wrath—that is, his judgment. Call it judicial wrath. He uses law enforcement.
Within the church the apostles could turn a man over to Satan in something like shunning, where Satan could have his way with the him (1 Cor. 5:1-5), so he could repent and rejoin the community (2 Cor. 2:5-11), but this is not the same as God striking him dead.
8.. Quick replies to objections
If Ananias and Sapphira were not regenerated by the Spirit and not true members of the growing New Covenant people, then why did the church become fearful at the Satan-filled couple’s death? Doesn’t their reaction prove the couple were members of the community.
The answer is simple. Their deaths happened in their midst, seeing them with their own eyes. But the people’s witnessing the deaths does not prove that the Satan-filled couple were members of the Jesus Movement. It simply proves that the Jesus people witnessed the couple’s deaths and feared the Lord. Their lesson: Don’t let Satan fill your heart! Don’t lie to the Spirit! Don’t nibble around the edges of the New Covenant which offers protection from being instantly struck down!
Some could object that the old Sinai Covenant was finished when Christ ushered in the New. However, in reply, many people still insisted on living within the old. That’s one of the major themes of Paul’s writings. He even wished a curse on Judaizers who still brought forward too much of the ceremonial law into the New (Gal. 1:8-9). Paul was invoking the curses that are baked into the old (Deut. 28).
9.. Now let’s summarize.
From the four passages about (1) Aaron’s sons (Lev. 10:1-3), (2) Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:6-7), (3) Ananias and Sapphira, and (4) Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:20-23), it is clear that Ananias and Sapphira still lived within the Old Sinai Covenant with its curses baked in (Deut. 28). The couple had received the word, but Satan stole it from their hearts, so they were no longer part of the New Covenant. Yes, Peter stood squarely within the New Covenant, but Ananias and Sapphira were judged by the standards of the obsolete Old (Heb. 8-10 teaches that it is obsolete). The parallels between the four cases are too obvious to miss.
10.. However ….
However, if you believe that the couple were genuinely born again and Spirit filled (and then somehow got Satan filled) and were also true members of the Messianic Community and God struck them down out of instant judgment, then you may certainly believe this. Many Bible teachers do too. These two differing interpretations are definitely a non-essential issue in Scripture.
How does this post help me to know God better?
Recall that Rom. 13:4 says God expresses his wrath through law enforcement. But how does he correct his kingdom children inside the kingdom, besides civil law? Here is a clear teaching to answer that question. His New Covenant way is fatherly, loving discipline:
5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12:5-11, NIV)
During the New Covenant, which is different from the old Sinai covenant, God is willing to show mercy on top of mercy for people who make mistakes.
Yes, God is just and he does get angry at sin, but he does not (yet) express his judgment and wrath by striking people down who live within the New Covenant. It is imperative that we interpret this whole episode in light of the differences between the New and Old Covenants. Ananias and Sapphira still lived in the Old. Thankfully we live in the New, and all of humanity benefits from this covenant, as well, whether it realizes this or not. But make no mistake. Judgment is coming, and he will punish all who walk unrighteously throughout their lives and refuse to repent.
RELATED
Parable of the Sower: Eternal Security or Possible Apostasy?
Bible Basics about Satan and Demons and Victory Over Them
Bible Basics about Deliverance
Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Fortunetelling
What Does the New Covenant Retain from the Old?
Bible Basics about the Final Judgment
What Happens at Judgment to People Who Never Heard Gospel?
Does God Cause Natural Disasters to Punish People Today?
The Wrath of God in the New Testament
Do I Really Know God? He Shows Wrath
The Wrath of God in the Old Testament
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 