Joshua 7:25

What compulsion commands him [Paul] to do what he dislikes? And why must he not do what he wishes but what he dislikes and does not wish? He will answer you thus: "No, but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, 'Why have you made me this way?' Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor?" Bring a yet graver charge against God and ask him why, when Esau and Jacob were still in the womb, he said, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." Accuse him of injustice because, when Achan the son of Carmi stole part of the spoil of Jericho, he butchered so many thousands for the fault of one.

Achan sinned, and the entire nation transgressed. And the Lord said to Joshua, "The children of Israel will not be able to stand before their enemies but shall flee from their adversaries, because there is a curse in their midst. And I shall no more be with you, unless the anathema is destroyed out of you." And when they made search for the guilty person and the lot discovered him hiding, Achan, and his sons and daughters, and his asses and sheep are killed; his tent and all his possessions are destroyed by fire. Granted, that he himself committed a sin. What sin did his children commit, his oxen, his asses, his sheep? Reprehend God, why one man committed a sin and a number of people were put to death; why even he is stoned to death and all his possessions are destroyed by the avenging flame? Let us also quote the other testimony: "There was not a city," he says, "that the Lord did not deliver to the children of Israel, except the Hivites who dwell in Gibeon; they took all by fight, because it was the sentence of the Lord that their hearts should be hardened and they should fight against Israel and be killed, and that they should not deserve any clemency and should be destroyed, as the Lord commanded Moses." If it was done by the will of God that they should neither make peace with Israel nor obtain peace from Israel, let us say with the apostle: "Why then does he find fault? For who can resist his will?"

Accordingly, I find, in taking up the Holy Scripture, that in the Old and New Testament contumacy toward God is clearly condemned, not in consideration of the number or heinousness of transgressions but in terms of a single violation of any precept whatsoever, and, further, that the judgment of God covers all forms of disobedience. In the Old Testament, I read of the frightful end of Achan and the account of the man who gathered wood on the sabbath day. Neither of these men was guilty of any other offense against God, nor had they wronged a man in any way, small or great; but the one, merely for his first gathering of wood, paid the inescapable penalty and did not have an opportunity to make amends, for, by the command of God, he was forthwith stoned by all his people. The other, only because he had pilfered some part of the sacrificial offerings, even though these had not yet been brought into the synagogue nor had been received by those who perform this function, was the cause not only of his own destruction but of that also of his wife and children and of his house and personal possessions besides. Moreover, the evil consequences of his sin would presently have spread like fire over his nation—and this, too, although the people did not know what had occurred and had not excused the sinner—unless his people, sensing the anger of God from the destruction of the men who were slain, had promptly been struck with fear, and unless Joshua, son of Nun, sprinkling himself with dust, had prostrated himself together with the ancients, and unless the culprit, discovered thus by lot, had paid the penalty mentioned above.Perhaps someone will raise the objection that these men might plausibly be suspected of other sins for which they were overtaken by these punishments, yet the Holy Scripture made mention of these sins alone as very serious and worthy of death.