“The Sin of Hypocrisy
Acts 5:1-16
“But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” [Acts 5:3-4]
Ananias “fell down and breathed his last…so great fear came upon all those who heard these things.” [v.5] The same happened to Sapphira, his wife.
All was going well in the early church until Acts 5. Then the sin of hypocrisy peered its ugly head. After the Spirit came upon the Twelve, the church grew to “about five thousand” [v.4:4]. “Great grace was upon them all” [4:33]. “Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold.” [4:34]
It was in this context that the sin of hypocrisy appeared. Ananias and Saphira pretended to be givers, and their judgment was fierce. Can you imagine such judgment today? And “great fear came upon all those who heard these things.”
I suppose if that happened today, there would be far less hypocrisy in the church.
But why was the judgment so severe? What about grace and mercy, principles of God’s character that we see throughout the Bible. And what about the sin of hypocrisy itself, what exactly is it, and why is it so destructive?
Hypocrisy is the act of being two-faced. The word is hypokritēs in Greek, it describes an actor, one who puts on a mask in the theater. Ananias and Sapphira appeared as something they were not. They wanted to look like givers but were not, it was a façade.
Why the serious judgment? Morgan commented, “It was a critical juncture for the early church, and such impurity, sin, scandal and satanic infiltration could have corrupted the entire church at its root.”
Guzik surmised that “One reason we do not see the same remarkable judgment of God in this way today is because God’s church has so many branches. Even if the entire body of Christ in the United States were to become corrupt through scandal or sin, there is plenty of strength in other parts of the tree.”
The sum comment is that due to the church’s infancy, this sin of hypocrisy would have been especially devastating and perhaps even brought it down.
It underscores the destructiveness of religious hypocrisy, and nothing has changed in that regard. The sin of hypocrisy is a serious sin from within.
