Lying to God
Physically speaking, God did worse to Adam and Eve than he did Ananias and Saphira. Through Adam both he and all his children were cursed so that: “in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Adam brought death to the world, and sweat and pain and old age and disease. God was merciful to Ananias and Saphira because he took them out immediately, without further suffering.
I don’t believe the question is about the punishment their bodies received. I believe it was about the punishment that their souls receive. Our true nature is in our spirit, not our body. This body is just another animal, fit for the system in which it operates. What makes us different is that our spirits are made in the likeness of the Father. Death is merely the beginning.
But, as believers we’re not concerned so much with the physical, as we are the spirit. It is the measure of judgement against our eternal beings that is at issue. God gave Ananias and Sephira many, many opportunities to recognize who they needed to obey, and why they needed to obey Him. They obviously knew the traditions and teachings of the church, because they were following the lead of Joseph Barnabas. They probably knew everyone in the community of believers very well. This means that they had been listening to the apostles for some time. They were also Jews, which means that they had every opportunity to learn about Moses, Noah, and Adam. They certainly knew about the Christ.
Adam and Eve did not have the opportunity of learning from these other examples, they were the other example. While I believe they learned from God what they needed to know about worship there is a key distinction; eternal destiny. Adam and Eve had not yet been taught the method of propitiation for sins. God provided sacrifice after the Garden of Eden. God could not strike them dead immediately and be a God of love.
God had made the choice to create, and part of that choice was the knowledge of that choice’s probable consequences. God never wanted the first humans to choose against His will, but they did. God had already given His decree, he had to punish their disobedience to His word. Their story is an example for later generations. This is not to say that God used Adam and Eve simply for the sake of an example, but the example is a secondary benefit. Thus we find that even through sin there is grace and forgiveness sufficient to work all things for the glory of God.
Ananias and Saphira, on the other hand, had everything they needed. They even had the easiest method of reconciliation known; the death of Christ. As well, they were both given the opportunity to come clean. They were both asked “Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much. And she said, Yea, for so much.” Though the scriptures don’t specifically state that Ananias was asked this exact question, you can be sure he was given the opportunity to state where the money he was giving came from. The question wasn’t whether or not he was giving money, but that he claimed he was giving a certain dollar amount (the whole amount of the sale) and what he was actually giving was not that amount.
So here you have it. Ananias and Saphira’s sin was that they did not give back everything to God as they had promised. This is not too much different than Moses on the way back to Egypt. Jehovah came seeking to kill him in the inn if he did not circumcise his eldest son. Zapporah circumcised the son to keep the promise of Abraham before Jehovah. Their sin was that they willfully held back something that they had promised to God. If they had “circumcised” the money (sin) and thrown it at God’s feet then they would have lived.
Adam and Eve did not actually lie to God, nor did they hold back anything that was promised to God. They hid from him, they didn’t tell the “whole” truth, but Adam did say that his wife tempted him. Eve did say that the serpent tempted her. They did try to make some excuse and some attempt to grovel before God.
The punishment of both of these pairs aptly fit the crimes they committed once you look at it closely. Ananias and Saphira held back what was promised to God. Adam and Eve took away from what God promised. There is always forgiveness when we know we are sinful and seek forgiveness. There is no forgiveness when we willfully seek to sin. That is why God decrees that the unbeliever will go to Hell. It’s not like they don’t have everything they need to make the right choice; they just choose otherwise.
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