Were Ananias and Sapphira saved?

There are a number of opposing views about the event that happened in Acts chapter 5 regarding Ananias and Sapphira’s death. Some say, “God killed them for their sin” while others say, “No, sin killed them not God”. Some are adamant they were believers while others insist they were not. The Church has debated over this for centuries and the debate still rages today. So why is this event so important to the Church in the New Covenant?

This question is important because it impacts our understanding of the New Covenant. If Ananias and Sapphira were born again believers and God judged them for their sin, it means that even though Jesus was judged for sin, God still judged them for their sin. This would mean that the Gospel isn’t as good as we thought it was and that God violates the law of double jeopardy where He punishes the same sin twice. Once in Christ, then again in us.

A lot of the Church today uses the story of Ananias and Sapphira as a precedent to threaten and warn other believers not to sin for fear of similar consequences. Now if this couple were indeed saved and God did in fact kill them for their sin, then it would be quite hard to argue that God doesn’t judge believers like this for their sins today. I guess you could say then that people would be well within their rights to use this story to threaten believers now.

However if Ananias and Sapphira were not born again, then the whole scenario changes. It means that God did not judge believers for their sin. Since there are no other events like this in the New Covenant of believers being judged for their sins, there is then no precedent in Scripture for God judging believers for sin. Discipline yes, but not judgment like this. This was not discipline, this was judgement and death for sin. I’ve never disciplined any of my kids by killing them! God may discipline believers, but He will not judge them like Ananias and Sapphira. And this is more inline with the New Covenant because God has already punished Jesus for all of our sins in Christ, and is no longer counting them against us. (2 Corinthians 5:19).

But, if God did judge Ananias and Sapphira and they were not saved, it still means that He judged unbelievers for their sins even though Jesus was judged for all sin. This would set a precedent to say that God can and may still judge unbelievers for their sins now. Well the reality is that, while Christ paid the price for everyone’s sins, it’s only those who are in Christ that receive the benefit of that and are therefore safe from God’s judgment. Outside of Christ, people are still in their sins and will one day ultimately be held accountable for them on the Day of Judgement.
(Here’s an article I did that gives biblical evidence for this.)

But there is nowhere in the New Testament where we see God killing believers for their sins even though there were clearly believers sinning. Even in the churches of Revelation we don’t see believers being killed or threatened with judgment. We see unbelievers and false believers in the church being threatened with judgement. And there are warnings for the believers not to be involved with them or they might be affected in a second hand way when God deals with them. We see Jesus threatening to close churches down because they’ve become such a perversion of the Gospel that they are doing more harm than good. But we don’t see individual believers being threatened with judgment. Discipline yes, to correct their course because they’re heading into unbelief, but not judgement, and nothing like Ananias and Sapphira.

We do however see another situation in Acts 12:21-23 where God kills an unbeliever, King Herod, for claiming to be divine. God clearly judges him. We also see in the book of Revelation, before Christ’s return and before the dead are judged, God pouring out judgement upon unbelievers (not believers) with the trumpet and bowl judgments. But this is only at the very end of the age. Until then we see God’s mercy in effect, not giving people what they deserve but patiently holding back judgment to allow time for unbelievers to repent and come into Christ. (2 Peter 3:9).

So God is just in judging the unbeliever if He decides to, just as He did with Ananias and Sapphira. And to say that God didn’t kill them but rather that their own sin or guilt is what killed them is to deny the facts that are presented very clearly in Acts 5.

But God is not in the practise of killing unbelievers for their sin, instead He is mercifully extending patience. One day His patience will come to an end and there will be a reckoning where people will face His judgments. But right now there is mercy in hope that people will turn to Christ. That’s why God doesn’t just wipe out the whole planet even though there is so much sin and evil. That’s why it’s not God sending the Tsunami’s and storms and earthquakes.

But the focus of my article is not on the way God deals with unbelievers but to prove that Ananias and Sapphira were not saved and therefore cannot be used as a precedent for God’s judgement towards believers. In doing this I want to reinforce the New Covenant in people’s understanding that Christ is the propitiation for our sins, who was punished in our place so that we could be saved from God’s wrath and receive total forgiveness, justification, God’s righteousness and eternal peace between us and God. (Romans 3 and 5).

So this is why I believe Ananias and Sapphira were not saved.

I believe they were clearly unsaved Pharisees, and this is why.

The Book of Acts records Pharisees trying to infiltrate the church. In Acts 15 we see that they were eventually successful in this.

Acts 15:1-5 “And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders; and they reported all things that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”

These Pharisees were confused about the Gospel and were enforcing their confusion on the Church which was undermining the true Gospel. Even though the Bible says they “believed” it is clear that they did not understand “justification by faith” and therefore could not have been saved.

The point I’m making is that this shows us it was not uncommon to have Pharisees trying to come into the church and that is was not unlikely that Ananias and Sapphira could not have been Pharisees. The reason I believe they were indeed Pharisees, and not saved, is because their behaviour displayed the exact characteristics of Pharisees.

Pharisees loved money and they loved people’s praises. (Matthew 6:1-18, Luke 16:13-15).

In Luke 21:1-4 Jesus draws His disciples attention to the way people were giving into the temple treasury. This was all in a public place, just like it was in Acts 5. Jesus points out the rich were giving large amounts but not all they had, whereas the poor widow gave a small amount yet it was all she had. She gave everything. Jesus often would use the contrast between the rich and poor as a metaphor for those who were most likely to receive the Kingdom. The rich He associated with pride and reliance on self righteous works thereby unable to receive the Kingdom by faith. The poor He associated with humility and reliance upon God and therefore able to have faith and receive the Kingdom. (Luke 16:19-31, Luke 18:18-30).

Ananias and Sapphira’s behaviour exposed their true heart and agenda. While everyone in the church who sold property and generously gave all the money they received from the sale, Ananias and Sapphira held back some of the money from their sale of property for themselves, but tried to pretend they were giving everything because that made them also look generous and caring.

They, like the rich and like the Pharisees, made a show of how much they were giving but under the surface what was really going on was that they loved money and loved people’s praises. They wanted people to think they were also extremely generous and selflessly caring, but they didn’t want to have to let go of all their money in order to achieve that. By pretending to give the whole amount they could appear generous without having to actually give it all away. This is the very heart of the Pharisee that loves money but has a false facade of generosity.

Their sin wasn’t that they didn’t give everything. They didn’t have to give the whole amount. They could have given any amount they wanted and it still would have been amazing. Their sin was trying to deceive people and God to believing they were giving more than what they were really giving.

Why they were killed for that only God knows. Many people do a lot worse and God doesn’t kill them. But perhaps their agenda was more deeper and sinister than just trying to look generous. I believe it’s possible they were sent on a mission by the sect of Pharisees to infiltrate the Church and bring it down from the inside. This isn’t far fetched as the Pharisees hated the Church, persecuted it and were desperately trying to destroy it. Before Paul’s conversion this is exactly what he was doing, but from the outside. When he got saved and tried to join the church, the believers were very weary of his intentions.

Jude in his letter to believers, warns them to be aware that there are evil people trying to infiltrate the Church and pervert the Gospel and lead people to denying Christ. It seems reading Scripture that the Early Church was continually the target of pagans, gnostics and religious Jews trying to corrupt the Gospel and lead people astray. Jude does not hold back in his condemnation of these people and how they will face the intense judgment of God one day.

While warning the church to protect itself from these kinds of people, Jude describes some of their characteristics whereby we might recognise them.

Jude vs 12-13 “These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

Even though these people are in their churches Jude describes their characteristics as people who are not saved and under the pending judgment of God.

But I want to draw your attention to the particular description that is marked in bold:

Jude calls these sinister people who are infiltrating the church “waterless clouds, swept along by winds”.

Now look at what Proverbs 25:14 says:

“Like clouds and wind without rain

   is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.”

Ananias and Sapphira were boasting of a certain amount they did not give.
Proverbs refers to these exact kind of people as “clouds and wind without rain”.
Jude also calls these kinds of people “waterless clouds, swept along by the winds”.
And he tells believers to watch out for these kinds of people. They are evil and have a sinister agenda.

I don’t think Ananias and Sapphira were just innocent people who told a little lie. I think they were much more sinister than that. I think they had an agenda to infiltrate the church and bring harm to the believers. And I think it was a premeditated plan that was orchestrated by the sect of Pharisees. But they got caught out.

Now if you look at Acts 5:13 and 14, just after the death of Ananias and Sapphira, you’ll see a little clue that most people miss that supports everything I’ve just said.

“None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,”

Who were the “rest” that didn’t dare join the Church? The rest of who? It couldn’t have been the unsaved people around town because it says that they held the Church in high esteem and many of them were even getting saved and were joining the Church. They did dare join the Church. So who then could this group of the ‘rest’ be that didn’t dare join? Personally I think it’s quite obviously referring to the party of the Pharisees. They sent Ananias and Sapphira to infiltrate the Church but when they saw what happened to them, none of the rest of them dared join the Church for fear of the same fate.

I think God recognised their strategy and brought it to an abrupt end. I think Peter was not naive and knew what was going on. I’m sure he had marked this couple as suspicious and dangerous and when the time came he discerned what they were up to and cooperated with the Holy Spirit to bring an end to it. Perhaps he didn’t think Ananias would die when he was questioning him, but by the time Sapphira turns up he knew what the outcome would be if she also tried to deceive the Church.

Acts 5:7-10 “Now after an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me whether you sold your land for so much?” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” Then Peter said to her, “How could you two have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look! The feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” And at once she fell down at his feet and died…”

By Ryan Rufus.

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Other articles you might like:

Is all mankind free from their sins or only those in Christ?

Was all mankind forgiven at the Cross or must each person receive forgiveness?

Scriptures about God’s ultimate judgment towards unbelievers.