Tensions between the Old Testament and Jesus

[RICHinCHRIST]

Hi,

I have a quick question which I hope will spark a good discussion. I don't understand how Jesus, in Luke 9, could rebuke James and John for wanting to send fire down from heaven. That is, I don't understand it in light of the fact that Elijah specifically said that him bringing down the fire was proof he was a man of God. How did God, at one point, be willing to torch his enemies, but then at a later point choose to love and save them? I find all of these kinds of inconsistencies in the life of Jesus. If one did what Jesus did on the Sabbath during the book of Numbers, they would have been stoned (even for picking up some sticks! let alone healing or gathering grain). I feel as though to say God merely "changed his mind" is a very poor answer. Jesus is the fullest expression of God that we know (Heb. 1:3). Why is He so apparently different than the God of the Old Testament? The pastor of the small church I go to is going through Joshua and the story of Achan just seemed so contrary to Jesus. The man stole some petty pagan articles and his whole family was stoned. Jesus didn't take up a stone against a woman who committed adultery, a much greater sin than theft. If Jesus was in Israel during the days of Joshua, I felt like he would have rebuked them. Was God just being patient with Israel's obstinance of His true intentions? Were they mishearing God? Jesus rebuked James and John for something that an Old Testament saint was praised for doing. Jesus expected them to realize that they shouldn't have wanted to be like Elijah. It seems as though Jesus promoted being against what the Old Testament advocated. If that's the case, how can we say much of the Old Testament is portraying God "correctly"?

[dizerner]

How did God, at one point, be willing to torch his enemies, but then at a later point choose to love and save them?

Let's study our NT very closely. Jesus was not just a peace-loving hippy that cuddles and hugs us all and ties daisy chains. He will also one day torch his enemies.

...the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power

...and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

"But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence."

Jesus describes a place with weeping and gnashing of teeth where the fire is never quenched the worm never dies, several times, also in many places described as perishing, or not seeing life, being thrown away/locked out from his presence, denied by him and everlasting punishment. He describes a wrath of God that is to be feared above any earthly torture and which made him, in all his divinity, ask the Father for another way. He said judgment would be worse for some NT people than even some well known OT sinners.

Now that we've established Jesus is not always meek and mild guy that never preached judgment, why didn't Jesus bring a judgment in the here and now during his lifetime. Scriptural data would indicate God tries to postpone judgment as much as possible to allow for repentance, so we would have to assume that reason.

If one did what Jesus did on the Sabbath during the book of Numbers, they would have been stoned (even for picking up some sticks! let alone healing or gathering grain).

Please note Jesus never once time nullified the Law of Moses or the OT in any way, but perfectly upheld it. The reason he could "break its rules" was because he was the living Torah who would fulfill the Torah for all who accept him, and the Torah is something that every single person has broken. The Torah was never to be salvific or bring life, but to expose and increase sin, teaching the need for a Messiah.

I feel as though to say God merely "changed his mind" is a very poor answer.

God didn't change his mind. He said the soul that sinned must die, and everyone has broken the Torah. The Torah was not meant to be a way of life, but a preparation for the Messiah, whom all who trust in, will be their personal Torah-fulfiller, but taking the full punishment of "the soul that sins must die." Death is our only way out of God's holy Law, which is why anyone in Christ is a new creation.

Jesus didn't take up a stone against a woman who committed adultery, a much greater sin than theft.

This is true, but Jesus warned of a far, far greater punishment than physical death could ever be. And he declared to all men that trust in his Work on the Cross and subsequent resurrection was the only way out of the wrath of God against all sin.

If Jesus was in Israel during the days of Joshua, I felt like he would have rebuked them.

Absolutely not. Jesus was with Joshua, as Paul tells us, that the Rock that followed the Israelites was Christ.

Jesus rebuked James and John for something that an Old Testament saint was praised for doing.

Elijah did not bring down fire from heaven anytime he pleased at his own command. It was a direct command from God, and indeed Elijah ended up running away in fear. James and John wanted to enact punishment in this life, for reasons that were not holy. Their own idea, and wrong motivations, and wrong timing. But that doesn't invalidate the principle of judgment.

Jesus expected them to realize that they shouldn't have wanted to be like Elijah.

That's not at all what Jesus was saying. Elijah had enough fear of God in his life that he would not move without the Spirit of God telling him to do so. And that's the mistake James and John made, not knowing the Spirit they were of. Just like the disciples desires to make Jesus King, or to bring in a kingdom. Jesus is and will be King, and he does have a kingdom. But not in the manner, time and way that the lower sinful nature of his disciples desired.

It seems as though Jesus promoted being against what the Old Testament advocated.

Jesus did bring further revelation, but he never invalidated the revelation in the OT. He fulfilled the Law that not one man ever could. Man was not expected to fulfill the Law, but to express a trusting reliant faith in God for a future provision of grace.

If that's the case, how can we say much of the Old Testament is portraying God "correctly"?

Because the Holy Spirit witnesses to the text, and no NT saint ever said the OT was not inspired. You can argue for a lack of quotation of violent passages, but an argument from silence is not a strong argument because both the Law and the OT were fully affirmed by all NT saints as inspired and from God.

So the question remains, how can we harmonize them. I believe all the violent commands from God were one of two groups. Either in the Law of Moses against certain crimes, or for the nation of Israel in a time of war. Otherwise we have some deaths from judgment by the prophets. I believe God was just as gracious and loving in the OT as the NT and also just as holy and fearful in his judgments in the NT. God not immediately throwing all of humanity in hell is being infinitely merciful, because all humanity fully deserves it. However harsh the OT commands were, they could be a way of salvation for anyone who respected and attempted to obey them until the further revelation of Christ as the fulfillment of our needed atonement and propitiation for sins. This is what I see the Bible clearly teaching, and the Spirit affirming its inspiration. Whatever sense of morality this truth offends in my innate sense of justice in my fallen nature, I humbly, reverentially and fearfully submit to God's ways, Word, and Spirit, regardless of my own unhappy feelings about it, and thank and praise him for his promises of grace and mercy to me personally.

We have been discussing this topic a lot lately, you might want to have a look around for more thoughts on it. Especially about the inspiration of Moses.

Laws of the Israelites: http://theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=4105
Atonement: Was it "necessary" for God to die? http://theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5108

[jeremiah]

...Let's study our NT very closely. Jesus was not just a peace-loving hippy that cuddles and hugs us all and ties daisy chains. He will also one day torch his enemies...

I thank God that neither of these two are the products of studying our NT very closely.

Though I do believe our mockery of the whole hippy dippy guy thing quickly becomes imbalanced with just another more culturally acceptable caricature. Jesus was gentle, he was meek, and his compassion for people was certainly not overshadowed by his severity.

[mattrose]

I don't think God 'changed his mind' on these issues, but I do think his approach to parenting his children adjusted over the years (we, as human parents, do the same thing). We progressively reveal truths to our children as they are ready for them. We teach them to count and say the alphabet before we teach them to do math and read. To protect them, we offer discipline (sometimes it even takes physical forms... like grabbing a child who is running toward the road). As they grow older, they have (hopefully) less need for those kinds of discipline (I don't imagine my daughter, now 3, will continue to move toward traffic as she gets older).

I, as a parent, try to accommodate the immaturity of my young daughters. I work with them where they're at. My 4 year old is VERY precise in her vision for how she wants to do something (she comes by this honestly on both sides). I simultaneously try to teach her to be more flexible while also giving her space to be who she is. It's a hard thing. And I bet it sometimes looks inconsistent. Indeed, as a fallen human parent, I'm sure it sometimes is inconsistent. But at least I can imagine God doing it in a consistent, progressive way.

There are elements of a temper tantrum that are good. If the temper tantrum is the result of some sort of actual injustice, for instance. There is sometimes a fine line between an immature temper tantrum and a prophetic act. Perhaps a perfect parent (like God) is willing to accommodate some level of temper tantrums because he sees the seed of a prophetic voice? The perfect parent, and imperfect ones, give some laws to children that they rescind as their children grow older and more mature. Some of this is common sense and some of it is pretty complicated.

[Paidion]

Your observance of the contrast is accurate, Rich. Jesus depicted the Father quite differently from the way some of the Old Testament writers depicted Yahweh. Jesus asked His listeners to love their enemies and do good to them, and THEN they would demonstrate that they were children of the Most High God.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. (Luke 6:35)

Nowhere did Jesus ever say that the Father killed people, brought fire upon people, got revenge on people, etc. Jesus Himself was Another exactly like the Father, the very stamp of the Father's essence (Heb 1:3), and Jesus at no time killed people or instructed His disciples to kill people. Rather He instructed one of them to put away his sword, and instructed all of them not get revenge on their enemies.

Yes, you are right, Rich, in observing that Jesus rebuked the disciples for even considering calling down fire from heaven to consume those who rejected Jesus. As you said, "Jesus is the fullest expression of God that we know." Yes, one of the main reason Jesus was born was in order to reveal the Father as He truly is, rather than as the Jews of the day thought Him to be. Their thoughts were, of course, based on their scriptures.

My own position, as I have so often expressed in this forum, is that Moses and some of the other prophets interpreted their own thoughts and tough solutions to the problems of the Hebrews, they mistakenly presumed to have originate with Yahweh. My position is totally unacceptable to all of those whose position is that there are no errors in the OT, especially in the sentences which affirm what Yahweh said and did. Since Jesus didn't depict His Father that way, then the Father cannot have been the vengeful, punishing Deity that the OT prophets portrayed. You cannot have it both ways. So here are some attempts at solutions:

1. In reality, Jesus is just as punishing and vengeful as the Father, but it just doesn't show in His life and teachings.
2. The Father changed His ways when Jesus came along, because there was a new order. So HE became kind to evil people as Jesus depicted Him.
3. Jesus was kind while on earth because of His patience, but He will get His enemies in the end—as is depicted in Revelation.
4. The Father was always kind as Jesus depicted, but Moses and the other prophets sometimes misunderstood His revelation.

I am not suggesting that the above four are collectively exhaustive. I am in a hurry to leave for town right now, and no more come immediately to mind.

[Homer]

Hmm - So Jesus and the Apostles were wrong in affirming and holding the OT scriptures as "the very words of God", as Paul said. And what was with those Bereans, testing Paul's teaching with the OT?

In some quarters the #1 principle of interpretation of scriptures is sentimentalism.

[Singalphile]

Per Ecc 3, there's a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, etc.

Jesus came with a mission from God. He also made it clear that there would be a time for judgment and punishment from God. It just, apparently, wasn't the time.

[steve]

Paidion wrote:

Jesus depicted the Father quite differently from the way some of the Old Testament writers depicted Yahweh.

It seems most disingenuous for Paidion to continue making this false statement, when it has been pointed out to him numerous times that the judgment element found in the Old Testament is found equally in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament writers. The desperation found in his answers to these challenges (or, in most instances, in ignoring the challenges altogether) is hard to interpret as anything other than unwillingness to allow Jesus to speak differently from the way that Paidion wants Him to speak. It is hard to view this approach to the records as anything less than creating one's own Jesus according to one's own temperament. Jesus never seemed willing to accommodate those who wished to reinvent Him.

I will address Paidion's position again presently. However, this is Rich's thread, so I will first speak to the points he raised.

1. The case of the soldiers who came to arrest Elijah is not a situation parallel to the Samaritans who simply slighted and showed no hospitality to Jesus and the apostles. It would certainly seem unlike Christ's Spirit to call fire upon those who were simply rude to Him, just as God, at all times, including those of the Old Testament, has endured irreverence and blasphemy against Himself by the bulk of humanity, without sending instant destruction upon them.

The fact that immediate judgment against an evil deed is the rare exception, rather than the rule, is observed and declared in the Old Testament itself (Eccl.8:11-13). In most cases, the "sentence against an evil work" is delayed, in order to give the offender opportunity to repent (see Revelation 2:21; 2 Peter 3:9).

Those who sought to arrest Elijah were intending to deliver him to Ahab and Jezebel, who intended to kill him. Yet, they addressed him as "Man of God." That is, they acknowledged that he was God's man, but sought to take him to his death. Elijah thought this significant. His reply was essentially saying, "If I am indeed a man of God (as you yourselves acknowledge) then how is your attempt to arrest me not a direct attack on God Himself? And how might He better avenge His own honor than by protecting and vindicating His servant in your destruction?" It is true that God does not always respond as immediately to vindicate his persecuted servants, but his saving Elijah from death, in a context where the claims of Baal were pitted against those of Yahweh (similar to that scenario in 1 Kings 18:21-40), apparently provided a different moral justification, in God's eyes, than did the mere inhospitality of the Samaritans.

For God to kill those involved in the attempted murder of His servants (as when He killed the Egyptians in the Red Sea) is on a very different level from that of killing those who merely insult Him, as James and John, in their carnally taking offense, were recommending.


2. There are rare instances of immediate judgment upon offenders, both in the Old Testament and in the New. There is no observable difference between the two testaments in this respect, because both testaments reveal the same God (John 8:54). Both testaments reveal that years and centuries go by in which sinners live and die natural deaths, without any special judgment activity from God, as in:

a) the 120 year delay (we might actually calculate as 969 years from the birth of Methuselah) between God's warnings concerning the flood and its occurrence (Gen.6:3);

b) the 400 years delay in the judgment upon Canaanites (Gen.15:13-16);

c) the 1400 years of Israel's killing the messengers God sent to her prior to the ultimate retribution upon Jerusalem (Matt.21:33-43).

The lengths of the delay may vary, but the judgment is generally not immediate. All of these examples (and many more) demonstrate that God, in the Old Testament, is not depicted as having a short fuse.


3. The rare instances of special and immediate punishments upon those who sinned—by opposing Moses ((num.12:5-10); by offering strange fire (Lev.10:1-2), by violating the Sabbath (Num.15:32-36), by profaning that which is under the ban (Josh.7:20-25), by inappropriately touching the ark (2 Samuel 6:6-7), by attempting to arrest the prophet of God (2 Kings 1:9-12; cf., 1 Kings 13:4; 2 Kings 6:6:18), by lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:4-5) and by killing James, arresting Peter and seeking to assume the glory belonging only to God (Acts 12)—are presented, in both testaments, as exceptional cases. The suggestion that the prophetically-inspired writers mistakenly thought these instances revealed a peevish and angry God is absurd, in view of the fact that these same writers observed an even greater number of heinous sins for which no immediate judgment was reported or hinted at.


4. Exceptions are, by definition, exceptional. They do not reflect the normal course of events. All people make exceptions to their general conduct, and usually (in their own minds, at least) for good reason. David executed the men who took credit for the killing of Saul and Ishbosheth, but did not immediately execute Joab, who killed Absalom. All of the killings to which David objected were politically advantageous to David, but he believed them to have been capital offenses, and ordered the executions of the offenders. Yet, he made an exception to his general rule in the case of Joab, in letting him live longer and die later. We may speculate about David's reasons for making this exception, but we can hardly doubt that he had his reasons, and that they seemed to him sufficient to justify his actions. God also makes exceptions. Killing sinners immediately and publicly is an exceptional case with God, but we would be unwise to assume that He had no reasons which justified His actions.


5. Most of the above exceptional cases occurred at the beginning of some new and sacred institution—e.g., the birth of the Israelite nation, the institution of the tabernacle, the adoption of Jerusalem as the holy city, and the establishment of the infant church. It is not difficult to imagine that God, wishing to get these new orders off to a proper start, would dramatically demonstrate His anger toward certain sacrileges against them. God's disfavor toward such violations would continue through the duration of the institutions, though judgment upon future cases would be forestalled.

The death of Nadab and Abihu should have warned all future priests not to profane the tabernacle ritual. However, the sons of Eli and the sons of Samuel, nonetheless, profaned it worse than did Nadab and Abihu. Why didn't God immediately destroy these later offenders? Because it is not God's general policy to do such things. He allows sins to accumulate—like a cup gradually being filled, which, when full is finally poured out in judgment (Psalm 75:8; Isa.51:17-21; Jer.25:15ff; John 18:11; Rev.14:10; 16:19). Why did He make the exceptions in the cases wherein He struck the offenders? Apparently, to set an instructive precedent for future generations, so that they might know His hot displeasure against such behaviors without His having to repeat the judgment action in every future instance of violation.

[steve7150]

Nowhere did Jesus ever say that the Father killed people, brought fire upon people, got revenge on people,











Sorry to repeat myself several times but Jesus referenced the flood and the destruction it caused and the destruction of Sodom & Gemorrah. True he didn't say God caused it but the OT writers did and Jesus by not changing the account is endorsing the entire circumstances of both and who caused it.That really is plainly self evident.

[steve]

I was writing this post when steve7150 posted the previous comments. There is some overlap between his comments and mine.


Hi Paidion,

I wish the points that I have to make were not valid, and that I could honestly take your position—for two reasons. First, because the suffering of individuals from God's punitive judgments often goes against my human sentiments, and, second, because I do not like being in the position to refute so genial a brother as yourself. However, when it comes to these matters, your position seems not only wrong, but also less than completely honest. I do not enjoy making such a judgment, but you have given us quite a history of dialogue, and much data, from which to form our opinions.

In every discussion of the Old Testament (especially the Mosaic laws), you say that you must reject the validity of many of the laws and much of the biblical record (viz., anything in the Old Testament that speaks of God’s killing, or ordering the killing, of anyone). Your claimed reason for this is that these passages are allegedly not consistent with the picture of God as reveal by Jesus.

To be more honest, you should say “the picture of God as I interpret Jesus to have revealed it,” since men who actually lived with Jesus, who were personally trained by Jesus, and who were commissioned by Jesus to carry His message to the world, did not share your interpretation of Christ’s teaching and character—an indisputable fact that has been pointed out to you numerous times in this forum. You are not being loyal to the New Testament faith, but to your own fabricated (one-dimensional) view of Jesus, for which you must stand in opposition to the apostles’ own view of Jesus. For some reason, you do not, apparently, see this as your arrogating your own opinion about Jesus over the opinions of those who knew Jesus better than any of us do. It seems to be a serious blind spot in your otherwise logical mind.

In the past, I have given you lists of biblical cases that challenge your viewpoint—citing the words of Jesus and New Testament writers to show that they did not believe as you do about the character of God, or the reliability of Moses and the prophets in their properly revealing Him. To most of the points in my lists, you generally give no answer. Instead, you say you have already answered them (when you have not) or you claim that you thought they were rhetorical questions requiring no answers (even though I tell you I am not asking rhetorically). This tendency to dodge unanswerable evidence against your position seems totally out of character for an honest man who truly wants to know the real Jesus accurately.

In a few cases, you have proffered very strange and unlikely answers to a few of the passages that I have presented contradicting your view, but you never address the majority of them. I have been forced to conclude that this is because you can see them to be irrefutable, and that you would have to admit your fault in this matter, if you were to honestly consider them. When I bring them up again, at a later date, you invariably say, “I don’t wish to repeat myself. I have answered these before”—though you seem unable to point out the place where you have done so.

Let’s take one more pass at some of these. Bear with me if you think you have answered them adequately. Just know that I have not found you to have done so, though I have read (and responded to) each of your posted responses to my challenges. I will limit the number of challenges in this post, in order to maximize the likelihood that you will find the time to address them. Please give reasonable and honest answers to the following points (Please, do not tell me you have already done so, unless you can find the places where you did so and point them out to us):


1. Jesus said that David wrote Psalm 110 “by the Holy Spirit” (Mark 12:36). Since you do not believe the whole Old Testament to have been inspired, let’s just take this Psalm, which Jesus specifically certified as being inspired by Holy Spirit. You may think that Jesus (along with all the other witnesses in scripture) made mistakes about such matters, but it cannot be denied that He saw no contradiction between Psalm 110 and what He regarded as consistent with His Father’s character. The Psalm says of God: “He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries” (v.6). Please explain how Jesus could affirm that the Holy Spirit inspired words about God slaying many heads of state, and, yet, how it is that you affirm that such a view of God is contrary to Christ’s teaching.


2. Jesus believed in both the flood and in the fiery destruction “from heaven” of Sodom and Gomorrah (Luke 17:26-30). The only source of information available to Jesus or His listeners about these two events (i.e., Genesis) clearly describes them both as acts of God’s judgment. You say they were acts of nature. Jesus did not treat them as such. He paralleled them with the judgment of the world at His second coming (no natural phenomenon). He even said that, if Sodom had seen Christ’s miracles, they would have been persuaded to repent, and the city would have remained to this day (Matt.11:23). That is, the fire that destroyed Sodom was not viewed as an inevitable natural occurrence, but, like any judgment from God, could have been averted by repentance.

Can you please answer the following questions that would make your position intelligible to me:

a) Is there any known natural phenomenon that could account for the whole world being flooded with water, or for five cities being reduced to ashes by fire and brimstone from heaven? The Bible never suggests that such natural phenomena are possible—nor does science, to my knowledge. As far as I know, in making such a claim, you must stand against both the Bible and science. If you had Jesus backing you up on this, His testimony would of course be adequate, but you do not have such. Instead, Jesus treated these events as being every bit as much judgments upon sinful people as will be His second coming (so did Peter—2 Peter 3:4-7, the canonicity of which, as I recall, you reject). Jesus knew that no one listening to His references to Noah's flood, or to Sodom, would imagine (as you do) that He rejected the biblical record about them. At what point did He tip His hand and reveal His secret rejection of the official accounts?

b) Since Noah knew to build an ark, and Lot knew to flee from Sodom, it would appear that these men were forewarned of these calamities (in Noah's case, over a century in advance). The only available records of these warnings record God’s saying that He Himself was bringing these disasters upon the sinners who were to be judged by them. You seem to deny that God really said these words. Do you reject the record of all of God’s communication to Noah and Lot, or only the statements with which you prefer to disagree? Would you deny that Noah and Lot received divine forewarning, or is it your opinion that they were warned in words different from those recorded? How do you know? If the record is so thoroughly unreliable, what basis have we (or had Jesus) for believing these events really occurred? From your previous statements, I would expect you to say that the events surely occurred, since Jesus confirmed them, but that the records reflect human opinions concerning God's involvement, which must not be believed because a God who would do these things is incompatible with Jesus' teachings. Yet, Jesus found such judgments from God to be compatible with God’s character, since Jesus said that similar judgments will occur at His coming.

c) Peter (who just may have known what Jesus taught even better than you and I do!) said that the time prior to the flood was a time of God’s “patience” while the ark was being prepared (1 Peter 3:20). Peter's knowledge of the details (e.g., the preparation of the ark and the saving of eight occupants) was entirely dependent upon the record in Genesis, which means that Peter apparently saw no contradiction between Jesus and the Genesis account (which emphatically portrays the flood as a direct, preannounced judgment from God, which God afterward swore He would never repeat). Beyond this, Peter speaks of the time before the flood as a time of God being “patient.” Patient for what? Does it not suggest (as Peter certainly believed) that God was patiently postponing His eventual act of judgment? Can any sense be made of Peter's treatment of the flood without affirming his acceptance of the Genesis account as reliable? Yet you do not accept it. What do you know about these matters that Peter did not?


3. I have pointed out that Jesus quoted the command, “He who curses father or mother, let him die the death, and specifically prefaced it with the words, “God commanded” (Matt.15:4). When I first mentioned this, I believe your initial response was that the command, “Honor your father and your mother” was from God, but that the command to execute rebellious sons was from Moses’ own imagination. When I pointed out that the grammar of the sentence (you are an expert on Greek grammar) does not allow for this disjunction, and that Jesus attributed both laws to God’s decree, you realized I was right and you invented another—even less-rational answer:

Asking an immense amount of gullibility of us, you said that the statement, “let him die the death,” just speaks of allowing that person to die naturally! But why should any law be given commanding that a person be allowed to die a natural death? The same command, that Jesus attributes to God, is found in Leviticus 20:9, where the penalty for cursing father or mother is the same as the penalty for murder (cf., Leviticus 24:17, which uses the identical terminology). Is any student of the Bible so ignorant as to believe that, in the law of Moses, a murderer was simply to be allowed to die a natural death? The execution of murders was clearly commanded (Ex.21:12; Lev.24:17; Num.35:30; Deut.19:11-13; cf.,Gen.9:5-6; Matt.26:52).

Thus Jesus affirmed that it was God who commanded the death penalty for rebellious sons—the very thing that you deny. You can claim, if you wish, that Jesus was mistaken about such things, but you cannot honestly claim that your convictions about such things derive from His words. You have chosen to disagree with every biblical writer—resting instead (you say) upon the authority of Christ’s superior teachings. Yet, now you must acknowledge that Christ’s teaching on these subjects also must be denied—or else your position is in error. Your view is contrary to that of every witness recorded in scripture, including Christ.


4. You say that Jesus taught a view of God that is inconsistent with God’s judging sinners temporally. Yet, Jesus taught that the vineyard’s owner (who unambiguously represents God) would “destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others” (Luke 20:16). He said that the King (who represents God) became angry at those who spurned His invitation to His Son’s wedding, and sent out His armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city” (Matt.22:7). You said that these passages speak of eschatological things, but they clearly do not, since, in the first case, the destruction of the evil men is followed by the kingdom being given to others (the Church), and, in the second, the destruction of the murderers is followed by the evangelization of the Gentiles (again, the Church). These judgment acts clearly refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, in AD70, and the subsequent Gentile mission.

However, even if we could be convinced that these were references to judgment actions at the end of the age—as I think to be the case in another passage, where Jesus said He would come and “cut in two” His backslidden servants (Matt.24:51)—how does this help your position? In either case, destruction and violent judgment are mentioned by Jesus as being consistent with the character of God and of Christ. Postponing all judgments to the end of the world does not change anything relevant to your position about the character of God. God’s character will be no different at the end of the world than it is now and has always been. How do you maintain your position in light of these totally contrary teachings of Jesus?


5. The only thing you can bring up to suggest that Jesus taught a view of God that is inconsistent with His judgment acts in the Old (and New) Testament, is that Jesus taught that God “is kind to the unthankful and evil” (Luke 6:35). However, this “kindness” is defined for us, in the parallel account in Matthew 5:45, as God’s sending His sunlight and rain indiscriminately upon good and bad people alike. Certainly, this presents no advance over, nor alteration of, the Old Testament’s consistent picture of God! The mercy and patience of God toward sinful man is one of the leading motifs of the Old Testament (e.g., Ex.34:6-7; Psalm 103:2-3, 8-14; Jonah 4:2, 10-11), and provides, no doubt, one rationale there, as in the New Testament, for exhortations to be good to one’s own enemies (Ex.23:4-5/ 2 Kings 6:21-22/ Prov.25:21).

The same Moses and prophets who spoke like Jesus in telling Israelites to show kindness to their enemies, also spoke like Jesus in describing God’s judgment acts upon sinners. Neither Moses, the prophets, nor Jesus could see any contradiction between these facts. How is it that you can legitimately see contradictions where Jesus and others could not? It would seem more likely that you possess a narrow-minded prejudice that they did not possess, which allowed them to see a consistency that you are missing?

In any case, I would not wish to be found teaching against the authenticity of the teachings of Moses, Jesus and the apostles, as you have been doing in the many threads where these matters keep coming up. Instead of trying to come up with ingenious ways to turn these scriptures on their heads, as your previous responses have seemed to do, why not step back and ask yourself why it is that you judge your own instincts to be more trustworthy than those of the inspired prophets, of Jesus, and of those apostles who lived with and knew Jesus better than you do?

Your honesty cannot help but be judged by the frankness of your responses to such challenges as these. If your view is true, then there should be excellent answers to these challenges. If there are only feeble and vacuous responses available, it is a strong indicator that the truth is not in your corner in these matters.

If I do not sound tolerant of your view, realize that it is nothing personal. If your view is wrong, then you are teaching a serious error. The undermining of Moses brought leprosy and strong rebuke from God upon his siblings (Numbers 12:1ff). You are truly suggesting that Moses and all the prophets (all of whom claimed to be speaking the word of Yahweh, and all of them disagreeing with your position) were, to a man, false prophets, who took the name of Yahweh in vain (a sin for which they were never charged by Jesus or any other biblical witness). You are clearly saying that Peter and Paul were both wrong in declaring the Old Testament scriptures to be given by the inspiration of the Hoy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Tim.3:16-17). Jesus said that every jot and tittle of the Old Testament was valid, requiring fulfillment, and that the violation of even the least of Moses’ commandments renders a man least in Christ’s kingdom (Matt.5:18-19).

You say that believing Jesus precludes one's ability fully to believe Moses. By contrast, Jesus said that those who did not believe Moses could not believe Him either (John 5:46-47).