Category: Faith

Putting the Anger of God in Perspective: Part 1

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The anger of God in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, is inescapable. In fact, God’s anger and wrath is mentioned more times in the Bible than His love and mercy. We can not side step it.

I find myself, as I read through the Old Testament, tempted to want to explain God’s anger and wrath away. The accounts of God’s anger make me uncomfortable and long to get back to the New Testament.

Even in the New Testament, however, we find passages like this:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3:36

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'” Romans 12:17-19

I have spoken with people who do not believe in God or who do not accept the Bible as true because of the statements and stories about God’s anger and jealousy. They say they can’t believe in a God like that.

It strikes me that God, the Creator of the Universe, is no less God if we do not believe in Him or do not acknowledge Him as He is. It also seems the height of folly to submit God to our judgment, which is essentially what people do who reject Him for being or appearing to be angry or jealous.

At the same time, I have long played with the thought, which I acknowledge is just my thinking and may be way off, that what we see as anger is really something very different. We experience it or receive it as anger in a moral and emotional sense, but it may not be what it appears to be.

God is God and cannot be anything other than who He is. We are the ones out of sync. When we are out of sync, we are like the opposite pole of a magnet facing God. We sense that tension. We feel it like the opposing force of north poles facing each other.

If we are to approach God in that state (opposed to Him), we would likely perceive the tension as anger from Him – a sense of repulsion (and being repelled). We can not stand in His presence when we are opposed to Him.

We can hardly stand in His presence when we are in right relation to Him! Moses had to hide His face. Isaiah cried out that was” undone” and “ruined” in God’s presence.

What we perceive as God’s judgment, a moral stance, is really just God’s character. He is who He is. God is the standard by which everything is measured. We can no more divine God to be something other than who He is than turn off gravity (or magnetism), and our judgment of Him is like the ant claiming the ground underneath the elephant’s foot.

The Bible reveals that God wants no one to perish. (2 Peter 3:9) At the same time, He cannot be other than Himself.

“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways….” Ezekiel 33:11

Evil is whatever is opposed to God.

It is we who need to change and come into alignment with Him. He provided the way in Jesus and his atoning death on the cross. Through Jesus we are aligned with God and can stand before Him and experience His love. When we confess our sins, die to ourselves, accept the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, receive Him and, thereby, submit to God, we are turned around and aligned with Him.

I dare say that we should not gloss over the anger and wrath of God. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom….” Proverbs 9:10 If we let the knowledge that God is an angry, jealous God creep into our consciousness, we have motivation to want to make things right with Him.

We can not change Him. “He is not a tame Lion,” as C.S. Lewis says. He can not be other than who He is. We must approach God on His terms. What we find, when we do, however, is that God is Love.

I continue with some additional thoughts on the subject in Putting the Anger of God in Perspective: Part II in the next blog post.

God Simply Is

We are here today and gone tomorrow. God simply is. God always is. God defines the rules.

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“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Exodus 33:19)

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Did you ever stop and think, “If God is God, He can whatever He wants”? Somehow it seems politically incorrect to think like that. Should we not love all people? Should we not wish everyone well? Should we not be judgmental? Should not God be like that?

If you think about it without preconceived notions and with a little rational thought, is not God the one who decides those things? I can see why people would want to believe there is no God. “He is not a tame lion” as my favorite author has said. If God is God, we do not control Him. We have no say in the order of the universe or the laws that He put in place. There is no question of right or wrong when it comes to God; God simply IS!

As God instructed Moses when he sent Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, tell them, “”I am who I  am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ”I am has sent me to you.”” (Exodus 3:14) God simply is.

We did not make God. He made us. We did not create the rules for the operation of the universe. God made those rules. We do not define how God must relate to us. God defines how we relate to Him.

God made us like Him. “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) I suppose there should be no wonder that we would be like Him in wanting to control the universe and define it. The thing is, though, it is not our province to establish the rules or define how they work. We may want to control things, but we do not control them.

We are here today and gone tomorrow. God simply is. God always is. God defines the rules. God has mercy and compassion on whom He will.

I consider from time to time the possibility that things might be different. God might be a tyrant. God might be cruel and unmerciful. Some even think He is that way. If it were true, God would not be wrong. God is.

I am thankful God is not that way. God assures us that we will find Him if we seek Him with all of our hearts and souls. (Deuteronomy 4:29)

In the context of God is, however, we do evil when our hearts are not set on seeking God. (2 Chronicles 12:14) Still, even if we have followed after false gods, have worshiped idols and have sinned in the sight of God, if we humble ourselves, pray and seek God, He will hear; He will forgive the sin; He will heal. (2 Chronicles 7:14) I, for one, am very thankful that God is that way … because He does not need to be that way. God is, and He defines the way it is.

The ultimate evil is in not seeking God. We do not think of evil in that way, but it is not for us to define evil. In the context of God is, evil is not acknowledging Him, not recognizing Him for who He is, not seeking Him. Evil is ultimately being separated from the God who made us.

Atheism and Fatherhood

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Foggy River LighthouseThis interesting study in the affect of absent or flawed fathers and the incidence of atheism in the atheist population is another indication to me that people, even rationalists, are often influenced by non-rational, emotional and personal factors in arriving at their worldviews. I explored these things in The Idol of the Mind previously. I certainly do not claim that Christians or theists are less influenced by other than rational factors, but we do not claim to be rationalists. Rational thought is not antithetical to faith in God – far from it; rational thought is, however, not the sum of all things for the Christian. There is a realistic and honest understanding that we are finite beings; that we, perhaps, are incapable of getting our arms and minds around the vastness of the universe and should not presume to think that the wisps of mist that we are in the eons of time can expand to the beginning and end of time and space and prove (or disprove) the existence of a Creator of it all. Of course, we “err” on the side that God exists; while atheists do not believe what they cannot prove. The truth is, however, that many (most?) atheists appear very intent on not wanting to prove that God exits, or even to consider the possibility. I expect there are some honest atheists, but I also suspect they are precious few. I have never encountered any more dogmatic or inflexible a personality than an atheist.

Straightening the Crooked Path

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When uneducated and inaccurate statements are made about evolution, materialism or scientific evidence, people smirk and are quick to point out the ignorance. Uneducated and inaccurate statements about the Bible raise hardly a snicker.

Apparently in defense of homosexuality, I have heard people suggest that the Bible endorses many forms of sexual and gender relations that most people today find more offensive than a loving, gay or lesbian relationship. That is the point of this Upworthy post – “The Top 8 Ways to Be ‘Traditionally Married’ According to the Bible” (sarcasm noted).

I am not going to take on the subject of homosexuality in this piece. I will leave that to others. My issue is with the claims that the Bible endorses deviant sexual acts in the Old Testament. The intention of this type of argument is to undermine the Bible as a standard for conduct, to undermine the reliability or the Bible and to suggest that people who believe the  Bible is inspired from God are either hypocrites or do not understand their own Scripture.

But the statements about what the Old Testament says beg the question of their accuracy. I should note at the outset that reports of things that happened are not endorsements of the actions reported. Would anyone mistake a newspaper article on the kidnapping and rape of a ten year old as an endorsement of kidnapping and rape of ten year olds?

Much of the Old Testament is a chronicle reporting things that happened. There are statements of what God purportedly communicated, to be sure, but much of it is written as a history. Clearly, there is a difference between a history or chronicle (report of what happened) and a standard of conduct. Was anyone confused in middle school when reading about the Holocaust in history books that the textbook was endorsing the Holocaust?

If you read the Bible from beginning to end, and attempt to understand what it says, you will find that it reads like a chronicle of God revealing Himself to men and women, and the responses of individuals and people groups, especially the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, to those encounters. The history includes an unfolding of knowledge and understanding, if you will, little by little over a long period of time. It is not terribly unlike the history of science and the unfolding of knowledge and understanding of the universe.

The Bible reports the ancient view of women as chattel, a view that was almost universally shared in every part of the ancient world during times in which physical strength and prowess determined a “might makes right” society. We find throughout the Old Testament examples of women being granted much greater rights and respect that the culture of the time afforded them. Still, the treatment of women reflected in the Old Testament must be viewed in the context of the culture of the time.

Compare that to Paul’s entreaties in the New Testament that husbands should love their wives as their own bodies (Eph. 5:28) and “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (a self-sacrificing love that exults the needs and interest of another above one’s own).  (Eph. 5:25) The whole passage in Ephesians is prefaced by this statement: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph. 5:21) Paul reflects a more “enlightened” view of women than what was reflected in the Old Testament.

The changes are not contradictory; they are progressive. The Bible chronicles the growth in understanding of what it means to be a follower of God. We have some a long way. The things that people commonly did thousands of years ago are no longer tolerated. Things that were accepted centuries ago are no longer accepted today. All that means is that people have changed; God has not changed. (Heb. 13:8)

None of the activities and relationships reported in the passages cited in the Upworthy piece purport (in the text itself) to have the “blessing” of God. Even the passage in Genesis 2:24 does not read as a command, but as a statement: “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh”.

The Upworthy piece and other pieces like it are gross mischaracterizations of the Bible and what it says by people who have not given serious effort to understand what they have read.  A serious discussion about anything should start from an accurate beginning point. Beginning a discussion with inaccuracy will not lead to understanding; it will just lead us down a crooked path.

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Postscript ~ As for commandments, Jesus actually raised the bar. One of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not commit  adultery.” Jesus said,

“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:29) 

The context of this statement is the pronouncement that Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. (Matt. 5:17) Jesus revealed that God’s standard is even higher than what the Pharisees thought. God’s standard goes beyond what we do, and includes what we think and who we are. 

Who has not lusted in their hearts? No one! By God’s standards, we are all deviant; we are all sinners; we have all missed the mark.

…. and that gets to the heart of the Gospel ….

but a person must understand the Law and the purpose of the Law to understand the Gospel  (Good News). Revisiting the Garden may be a good place to start. 

 

The Unsettling Nature of Man, and God

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2010-06-15 20.12.35I have been reading through Genesis the last couple of weeks. In reading the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Isaac’s twelve sons, who would become the twelve tribes of Israel, I have been impressed, negatively impressed, with them as people. I must not have really noticed before their blemishes.

Abraham, the father of faith, lied about his relationship to Sarah, not once but twice. When Abraham visited Egypt, and the Pharaoh’s princes were struck by Sarah’s beauty, Abraham instructed Sarah to say she was his sister so they would not kill him. When Pharaoh found out, he was appalled and let her go. Years later, when Abraham was living in the land of the Philistines, Abraham openly declared Sarah was his sister. After King Abimelech discovered the truth, he was equally taken aback.  Why did he lie about it? It hardly seems like a noble thing to do. I would call it cowardly.

After Abraham was told by God that he would bear a son and his descendants would become like the stars in the sky, a number of years went by. Sarah then offered her servant to Abraham, and the servant, Hagar, gave birth to a son, Ishmael. Such an act violating the marital covenant does not sit well with a twenty first century reader. It was also not God’s plan. God’s plan was to give Abraham a son through his wife, Sarah.

Isaac, of course, was the son God promised. He, too, seemed less than sterling as a man of God. He followed his father’s footsteps in deceiving the same King Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister, when she was his wife. Like father like son.

Isaac had twin sons, and he favored the oldest, Esau. God blessed the younger son, Jacob. How could Isaac have gotten it wrong?

As for Jacob, he deceived his father for the blessing that his father thought he was giving to Esau, and he did it with his mother’s help. In his old age, Jacob had become blind. Rebekah put Jacob up to pretending to be Esau to receive his father’s blessing. Deception seems to run in the family.

All of this has been unusually unsettling for me for some reason. I have stewed on it for days. Today it struck me that anyone looking at my life would be equally unsettled (or more I dare say). I am no example to follow. I have made many mistakes in my life, too numerous to count. I have done many things of which I am not proud, and my thoughts are another matter altogether. Why should I expect anything other than humanity from these men of old? The amazing thing is that God chose them!

Clearly, it was not their spotless virtue that is the testament of their lives. It was their faith. They heard God. They responded to God. They honored God with sacrifices and pillars and altars where they went. They believed God when He spoke. They lived their lives in deference to God. They relied on God. Their faith was counted to them as righteousness.

My take away is that these men were in right relation to God. I take comfort in that, even if I am bit unsettled by their weakness and humanity, as well as my own.  I am in good company, but more importantly, I am reminded of the importance of living a life with an attitude toward God.