Paidion wrote:John6809 wrote:When reading the OT, I have had difficulties reconciling the way God works (at times) with the side of God that Jesus reveals. I have often cringed when reading of God's commandments in the OT where He requires that the armies of Israel kill every man, woman, and child when they conquer a pagan nation.
Jesus is the one who revealed his Father to man as He really is, is He not? Or do you actually believe Jesus revealed only the good "side of God"? — whereas the side which Jesus did not reveal is His vicious, penalizing, murderous side? If God had a side like that, surely Jesus wouldn't have kept it hidden? That would be at worst — deceptive, and at best — only an incomplete revelation of God, would it not?
Wouldn't it be simpler to believe that prior to Jesus' times, God's revelation to man was incomplete? That man sometimes even mistook the revelation of God because of his own hateful, revengeful tendencies — projecting his own ugliness upon God?
Jesus was the exact imprint of the Father's essence (Hebrews 1:3) and he taught his disciples to love their enemies, not take revenge upon them. So if the Father had "another side", then so did Jesus. But you never see any bad side to Jesus. He never took vengeance on anyone. He didn't say that the woman taken in adultery should be stoned as in the Mosaic law, but told the scribes and Pharisees that whoever was without sin could cast the first stone at her, knowing that they were all sinners. Then when they all departed in shame, He forgave the woman and told her to go on her way and sin no more.
Here is how Jesus instructed his disciples to behave toward those who hated them:
Now I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44,45)
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 selfish.(Luke 6:35)
We show ourselves to be "sons of the Most High" by behaving like the Most High, loving sinners, and doing good toward them — never seeking vengeance or rendering penalizing punishment on them.
As John the apostle wrote: "God is LOVE". He didn't write "God is half LOVE and half HATE."
First off, please note that ‘have had’ from my words that you quoted, speaks to a former disposition, not necessarily one that I am currently having difficulties with.
Secondly, if my memory serves me well, and my understanding was correct, you don’t seem to have a very high regard for the Old Testament. When you read of the stories of judgement claiming that God had a hand in them, or even gave ascent to them, you simply seem to discount those passages and believe that the people claiming to have heard from God were at best mistaken and at worst, attributed their own evil intentions to God.
Consider the passage from Deuteronomy 20:16 – 18.
16 "But of the cities of these peoples which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive,
17 but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you,
18 lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the LORD your God.
Yes, I understand that the reason for the utter destruction of these pagan nations was to ensure that Israel would not fall into the trap of worshipping the Gods of those whom they spared. That is not the point of concern that I am addressing.
Moses claims that God ordered the death of every living thing in these cities. Are you suggesting that Moses didn’t really hear these words from the Lord? That he just pulled them from his imagination, because of his own hateful, revengeful tendencies? Few, if any, men in the Old Testament had such an intimate relationship with God as Moses did. In addition, he was a prophet and would have been subjected to the same testing of his prophecies as any others claiming to be prophets. Obviously, as far as his prophecies were concerned, he spoke the words of God or he would not have been called a prophet.
Even Peter claims that Moses’ statements were true when he (Moses) claimed that Jesus would be a Prophet like himself (Moses). Acts 3:22 states:
22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.
If Moses had been mistaken about the words that God spoke to him, I am certain that Peter would not have given credence to the words of Moses where he claimed that Christ would be like himself. That would have been a very presumptuous thing to say. I think it is safe to say that Moses heard God, and that God commanded Israel to utterly destroy everything that breathed. The question is, ‘How was God’s involvement in the deaths of all those people consistent with His revealed nature of love?’
The answer to this question is obviously not as clear to me as it seems to be to you. What seems clear is that if the traditional view is correct, and physical death is a line in the sand beyond which there is no hope for salvation, then the seemingly temporal judgements of nations and individuals must also be a punitive judgement rather than a corrective judgement, since no one can repent after death.
However, if death is not that point-of-no-return that traditionalists believe it is, then the opportunity to repent may still exist after death. Thus, God can still be seen as being just and loving, even if He did cause/allow the seemingly premature death of thousands that He claims He wants to save. Their shortened opportunity to repent in this lifetime would not preclude their ability to do so in the next. At the very least, if annihilation is in view, God’s judgements still would not mean that physical death here on earth necessarily leads to eternal torment after death (which, to me, is not consistent with His revelation of Himself as being love).
Every person’s personality has ‘sides’. To my way of thinking, this would include God. I have no problem with saying that God would reveal a different side of himself when He is angry with an unrepentant sinner or sinful nation than the side He reveals to the poor and the meek. This does not mean that when He is expressing His anger, that He can’t be simultaneously expressing His love. It would seem that His anger has a purpose that goes beyond ‘making them pay’. We call it tough love. It is intended to bring correction, and therefore, restoration.
The greater concern is this: if His judgement causes some unrepentant people to cross a so-called line in the sand from life to death (physically), and further opportunity for repentance is not possible, and annihilation is not possible, is this tough love or eternal punishment?
In addition, comparing Jesus’ revelations of His Father, to a 4000 year history of God dealing with people and nations, seems a bit odd. Jesus’ ministry lasted only about 3 years. The message He was delivering was that He had arrived. His kingdom was no longer a distant thing, but was at hand. He preached that He was the fulfilment of the law and that, what the law could not accomplish, He could. That message was good news to the people. It would stand to reason that He would preach the gospel to them for at least a short a period of time before He would pronounce judgement for their unbelief.
Interestingly enough, Jesus did announce judgement to come. He said that all the blood shed from righteous Abel to Zechariah would come upon that generation. He told those who wept for Him at the cross to weep for themselves as they were soon to see His judgement executed on their nation. He warned them that He was ‘coming’ to execute judgement such as had never been seen on earth before. Josephus writes that Titus, in charge of the conquering Romans in 70 AD, understood that God Himself was demonstrating His anger towards the Jews by assisting the Roman armies.
The point I was making in my earlier post was not that I view God as a vengeful, murderous God. Rather, with the traditional understanding of personal eschatology, God did seem harsh to me. That would have been His prerogative, but I never thought it was consistent with what Jesus ascribed to His Father. My point was that if eternal torment is the correct view, He surely does not pass the kind of judgements we see in the OT as corrective chastisement but rather, as vengeful punishment. What else could it be?
But, if post-mortem repentance is possible, then His decision to allow/cause the deaths of all those people does not necessarily result in their permanent separation from Him, and His judgements can then be seen as corrective. If eternal torment were the correct view, then God is saying that He desires all men to be saved, and yet He cuts off them off.
Obviously, I am a long ways away from deciding where I stand on the issue of personal eschatology. Maybe I will never be able to declare definitively where I stand. I’m ok with that.
"My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior." - John Newton
