A Killer God – update

Over the time that this blog has been in existence, one of the greatest source of questions and comments has been the subject of how a loving God can possibly require the wiping out of a nation or nations, as in the case of Israel being required to ‘remove’ the inhabitants of Canaan.

How can God require the deaths of men, women and innocent children, the questioners ask. My original assumption that my answers on this blog were sufficient has been proved to be false. People still ask the same old questions.

Now one of the things that does need to be said is that very often I find people are  selective in their reading and so don’t take in parts of what I have said. It is also quite clear that prior bias often blinds people to be open to consider alternatives, and so for these reasons hostile questions flow.

However, I am concerned to meet the needs of genuine seekers and to that end I have produced a three part booklet entitled “Taking Canaan” which can be found by following the following link: CLICK HERE

I hope this will prove more satisfactory for genuine seekers. It seeks to review what the Old Testament teaches about God and justice, then reflects on what justice is, and finally examines exactly what took place when God  instructs Israel to take Canaan. Hopefully the truth will shed fresh light in worried minds.

God and Satan

Question: Why in the Bible does God allow Satan to do what he does? If God is all powerful why didn’t He just destroy Satan?

It is clear from the Bible that God USES Satan for His own purposes. The following are some of those purposes as shown in the Bible (you will need to look up each of the references in your own Bible to catch the full meaning):

1. To reveal men’s hearts

• 1 Chron 21:1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel – he was to reveal David’s underlying sin of pride – in the parallel verses (2 Sam 24:1) it is seen as God who was behind it (to deal with the sin)

2. To bring judgement on unbelievers

• Rev 9:11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. (both names mean “Destroyer”)

3. To bring discipline to believers

• 1 Cor 5:5 by putting this sinful believer out of the church’s protection, it enabled Satan to come against him and humble him and bring him to repentance

4. To subjugate unbelievers

• 1 Jn 5:19b the whole world is under the control of the evil one
• Satan is allowed to rule where there is unconfessed sin, i.e. over unbelievers

5. To maintain humility in our lives

• One of the key things God does with his children is to seek to develop character in them.  As pride is always lurking, sometimes God allows us to be attacked so that we maintain our reliance upon Him and realise that of ourselves we are nothing.

• 2 Cor. 12:7 Because Paul received wonderful revelations from God, to keep him from getting puffed up, he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment him and keep him from getting proud.

6. To develop faith & righteousness in our lives

• Faith is one of the key elements God wants to develop in our lives, and so often He does this by allowing us to encounter trying circumstances where our faith is both revealed and developed.  Similarly, such testing times are to reveal and bring about greater righteousness within us.

• 1 Peter 1:7 – trials are testings, and testings reveal our faith – such revelation of our faith brings honour in heaven

• 1 Peter 5:8-9 – Satan seeks to attack us, but we are to learn to resist.

• 2 Peter 1:4-8 – the testing of our faith develops our lives in many ways

7. To bring about trials whereby we can be rewarded

• These trials, that involve Satan, make us rely upon God, His word and His Spirit and so the outcome of the battles we fight is that we appreciate Him, His word and His Spirit more and more.

• James 1:12 God blesses the people who patiently endure testing – testing develops us and God blesses through it

• 1 John 2:13,14 – it is a battle with Satan which we can win with God’s word, as we battle we rely on that word more and more

• 1 John 4:1-6 – our battle is also with Satan’s agents; we are to overcome in the mind and we overcome by the Holy Spirit within us, as we overcome we realise the wonder of who it is within us more and more.

• Rev. 2:17 – our reward, as we overcome Satan’s attacks, will be intimacy with Christ

• Rev. 2:26-28 – as we obey Jesus and have the victory so he is preparing us to take authority, both in this world and the next.

8. To teach us how to fight

• As we face such trials we learn how to overcome.

• Judges 3:2 God did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.

• Israel grew in their knowledge of the Lord and how to fight as they opposed the enemy. We do the same in the spiritual sphere.

9. To demonstrate God’s power over the enemy

• We need reminding who is who in the battle. Jesus IS Lord!

• Eph 3:10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made  known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

• As we triumph God is glorified in the heavens.

• Mk 1:21-27 As Jesus cast out a demon God was glorified.

• Acts 13:6-12 As Saul triumphs over Elymas God was glorified.

Conclusions:

Although Satan was apparently not created for these express purposes, God takes and uses his rebellion for His purposes.

As Joseph once said, (Gen 50:20) “You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Thus it is that in this fallen world where sin dominates, Satan is allowed access for the sake of God’s overall purposes.

We, therefore, need to maintain a right perspective so that we see:

• Where the enemy is being allowed activity because of man’s unrighteousness, and therefore the unrighteousness is the thing to be dealt with.

• Where the enemy should be resisted because he is simply seeking to expand his arena of control, and here we need to look to seek what God is wanting us to learn or develop in resisting the enemy, so we can co-operate with Him.

Why does God allow babies to die?

Question: If God is a God of love, why does He allow babies to die?

Answer:

a) Our Expectations

Well first of all, the question is rather limited. It might have been, why does God allow anyone to die prematurely, because surely the thought of premature death is what is behind your question.

We somehow expect everyone to live on into ripe old age, but so often we don’t. People do die of heart attacks in their 30’s 40’s or whatever other age we consider ‘premature’. Why do they, and why do babies die prematurely? More often than not it can be put down to what theologians call this ‘Fallen World’.

b) The Existence of a Fallen World

The reference to ‘a Fallen World’ means the world is not perfect like it was when God first made it, because the first man and woman (the first real humans) ‘fell’ from their state of perfection by going against God’s design and in so doing, introduced what the Bible refers to as ‘Sin’ into the world. In its most simple description, ‘Sin’ is ignoring God and living contrary to His design.

It is a very simple and straight forward analogy, but if you try running a car contrary to the maker’s design, it will soon breakdown. The effect of humanity living contrary to God’s design, the Bible reveals to us, was that it created strife between human beings, fear in animals, and a general breaking down of the way the world ‘works’. Thus we now have sickness, illness and infirmity as common experiences and ultimately they all exist because of humanity’s decision to live contrary to God’s design. Those working with genetics talk about faulty genes, but these aren’t accidents, they are the ultimate result of our living contrary to God’s design.

c) Why doesn’t God intervene?

This was a key part of the original question. If God is all-powerful and loving, why doesn’t He intervene, why doesn’t He step in and stop babies and adults dying prematurely? The answer is terrible: respect! God respects and honours our free will choices which most of the time, for many people, could be summed up as ignoring or rejecting God, His presence and His design and His will.

God gives us the right to live our lives just as we want and so most of the time He will not force Himself upon us (on occasions He does impose on us in measures that demand our attention). As soon as we take note of Him, respond to His calling and surrender our lives to Him and ask His forgiveness for our folly, and ask Him to lead us and help us, then He is there and will willingly intervene as we request and when He sees that would be best. Thus when ‘life goes wrong’, although it grieves Him (for He longs to help) He will stand aside and allow us to lead our lives as we will and cope as we will with the upsets of life.

Why doesn’t He intervene and stop all premature death and illness? Because He’s given us ‘the car’ to ‘drive’, and allows us to wreck it. To stop that happening, He would have to either change the laws of science or turn us into robots that would always use ‘the car’ perfectly according to His design. Once He gave us free will, He gave us the right to misuse ‘life’ and the only alternative to what we experience today, would have been to remove that free will and that would mean we cease to be human beings and all that that means.

We need to add that He doesn’t sit back and ignore our plight when tragedy hits. God anguishes with us. The Bible speaks of Him as a God of comfort and He comforts because He feels with us and for us. Jesus came to enable a closeness to come about between us and God, and in that closeness, although He usually does not step in to stop such things, He will be there for us. Ultimately the Bible indicates that God doesn’t make mistakes but we’ll have to wait until we get to heaven and see Him face to face, to know the truth about our personal circumstances. In the meantime He is there for us, even in the midst of immense anguish.

Why did God order Israel to sacrifice innocent animals?

Question: Why did God order Israel to sacrifice innocent animals?
In the Old Testament God seems to delight in instructing the Israelites to kill animals and offer them as sacrifices to him.  Is this the act of a loving, humane and kind God????

Answer:

As with most of these answers to difficult questions we want to try and avoid a quick, glib answer. If you are an animal lover, and many of us are, this question seems hard at first sight.

What we’d like to do is try and give you the big picture of God and animals, and so that means going back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and then following references to animals through to the time of the Law given through Moses, and later to the time of Jesus.

1. Animals at the Beginning

In the Creation description in Genesis, chapter 1, we find that when God made all the living creatures on the earth he made them vegetarians (see Gen 1:29-31) and His creation was very good.

In other words, no creature lived off other creatures. There was not what we call today, “the food chain”, and nature was not “red in tooth and claw”.

2. Animals at the End

When the prophet Isaiah was prophesying about the end of time when Jesus will have restored peace and harmony to all creation, he gives a beautiful picture of man and the animals living in total harmony (see Isa 11:6-9)

In other words, part of the work of God is ultimately to restore His creation to what it was at the beginning – unless you see these verses simply as a figurative passage explaining the peace to come.  The former interpretation is more likely as it matches God’s original design.

3. Animals In-Between

So what went wrong?  Why do we have animals killing animals, and people killing animals?  The answer is Sin, that tendency now within every human towards self-centredness and the exclusion of God.

In Genesis we find the story of what we call the Fall, the fall of God’s first two perfect human beings, who gave way to the temptation to disobey God.

The result of that Fall was momentous and is spelled out in that chapter: a breakdown in relationship between them and God (Gen 3:8-10), a breakdown between them and each other (Gen 3:12), a breakdown between them and animal life (Gen 3:13-15) and a subsequent change in physical life and experience (Gen 3:16-19).

However, also at that time there was a significant event that took place.  Because part of the fall of this couple involved their growing guilty self-awareness (Gen 3:10,11), God in both his compassion and His desire to convey a truth to us, provided them with clothing, which came from the skins of animals.

In other words an animal or animals had to die to “cover” these fallen humans.

A few chapters later we are told that the sin of the growing world population was now so great that it grieved God that he had made them at all.

While bringing judgement to limit or restrict this growth of evil, in the form of the Flood (Genesis chapter 6), God was careful to continue the life of the earth by both man and beasts.

However, after the Flood when God reiterates His desire for mankind to increase (Gen 9:1, reflecting Gen 1:28), He tells them that the fear of them will fall on all other living creatures, and they will also become food for the humans (Gen 9:2,3).

Now we are not told why this should be but it is probable that the fear that had come into the world at the Fall now extended to fear between man and the rest of creation and fear between the creatures themselves.

Why?  Perhaps it was that the other living creatures had an inherent sense of the thing called Sin that still prevailed in mankind, and the fear of man in them grew. Fear breeds fear and so it is probable that the fear spread from fear of man to fear of one another.

Perhaps it was from that point on that the stronger preyed on the weaker.  It was obviously from this point that nature became “red in tooth and claw”, and once there was death created by animals, there could also be death of animals brought about by man.

Recap:

Before we move on to consider the question of sacrifices, it is perhaps worth noting that because of man’s now inherent sinfulness, death of animals was quite usual – both animals being killed by animals and animals being killed for human food.

We will continue in this study to look at sacrifices because of the amazing truths that are revealed there.

4. Sacrifice of Animals

i) Abel’s Offering

Although we have not touched on it so far, the practice of sacrificing an animal is actually recorded after the Fall and before the Flood, in that Abel brought an animal offering as an act of worship to God (Gen 4:4).

We are not told why he or his brother brought a sacrifice, merely that it happened.  However, the indication within the story is that Abel thought about it and did it carefully as a sacrifice that cost him something, something he wanted to give completely to God.  The first picture of a sacrifice is that it is something given totally over to God as an act of worship.

ii) Noah’s Offering

Similarly Noah presented an animal sacrifice to God (Gen 8:20) after the Flood. Both these sacrifices appear to have received God’s approval, more probably for the heart that was behind the giving than the fact of it being an animal being put to death.

iii) Abraham’s Sacrifice

Years later, in the story of Abraham’s relationship with God, we find the Lord instructing him to sacrifice three animals and two birds, as part of a significant act of covenant making (Gen 15:6-10).  Note that Abraham did not do this to win favour with God, because he already had God’s approval (v.6), but more to increase the sense of solemnity in this procedure.

iv) The Passover Sacrifice

The next significant sacrifice to be mentioned is that of a Lamb at the original Passover (Exo 12:1-13). This was to be partly as food (v.4,8) and partly so that the blood of the lamb could be used as a marker on the doorposts of each house (v.7,13)

Before leaving the Passover sacrifice, it is worth noting that when John the Baptist referred to Jesus, he referred to him as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)  Similarly in the Revelation, John the writer sees Jesus in his vision, standing in heaven as a lamb that had been slain (Rev 5:6)

The writer to the Hebrews similarly speaks about Jesus’ death on the Cross as a sacrifice to take away our sins. (Heb 9:26-28,  10:10).  So what is the significance of a sacrifice?  To answer that we have to look at the Law that God gave Israel in respect of sacrifices.

v) The Law of the Sacrifice

While Israel wandered in the desert on their way to the Promised Land, God gave them a whole range of laws to govern their life as the people of God.  Some of those Laws were about how to restore their relationship with God after they had sinned.

In the book of Leviticus we find the Laws for the various offerings to be made to God (Lev. 1-7). One specific offering was called the “Sin Offering” and had to be made after a person sinned, e.g. Lev 4:27-29

In those verses we see various things:

1. The sinner was guilty – no excuses!  v.27

2. He was to take an animal as his offering – it’s going to cost him!  v.28

3. He was to put his hand on it’s head as it was killed – he was to identify with it, as if saying, this animal is taking my punishment for what I have done. v.29

4. He was to kill it himself – no cop-out – YOU do it!  v.29

Put simply like that we don’t catch the awfulness of what was happening. Look again!
While the priest held the animal steady, you the sinner put and kept your hand on its head, and then took a knife and YOU cut its throat!  YOU stood there and watched while the blood of this animal drained away and it eventually collapsed and died. YOU did this!  YOU were the cause of this!  YOUR sin caused the life to be taken from this innocent animal.  If you hadn’t done wrong this wouldn’t have been necessary!

Why was it necessary? For you to come to understand the awfulness of Sin!

We’re sorry if that is upsetting but that is what happened. How would you have felt at the end of it?  Sick probably!  Suddenly you see how serious sin is in the all-seeing eyes of God.

He knows its terrible effect on our lives, and how it separates us from His total goodness. He knows its potential to keep you from Him in eternity.  That’s how awful it is.

Tragically we live in an age where we have been told that “right is only that which is right for you”.  Wrong!  Right is what God says it is, how He has designed us to be, and more importantly wrong is what God says it is, contrary to the way He has designed us!

How do we deal with this sin, this guilt of ours?

1. We go to the lamb that God has provided – Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2. As we declare our belief in him and in what he did, it is like we put our hand on the head of the animal and identify with it.
3. We recognise that as part of the human race we helped put him to death on the Cross (we would have been part of it if we’d been there two thousand years ago – either by remaining quiet or by participating in it in some way!)  We affirm that we put the animal to death.
4. We ask for God’s forgiveness on the basis that our Sin and guilt has been transferred to the lamb, Jesus.
5. We receive His forgiveness, and go and live a life filled with the love of God, determined that the old life where sin reigned will be no more.   We receive His Holy Spirit, His power to live new lives.

This is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. This is what the sacrificial system was pointing forward towards.

Conclusions

1. God made the world at peace and in total harmony.
2. When we, the human race, decided to exercise our free will it was to disobey God. This is called Sin.
3. That Sin released a whole series of consequences on the earth,  which involved the death of animals by each other and for food for humans.
4. At the end of time God will restore that original peace and harmony.
5. In the meantime, the sacrificial system of the Old Testament period pointed forward to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who died in our place.
6. Thus no longer do such sacrifices need to be made. We are simply to receive the outworking of this particular sacrifice and live in the goodness of it.

Why did God order Israel to kill men, women and children?

Question: Why did God order Israel to kill men, women and children?
In the Old Testament there are a number of instances of God telling Israel to completely wipe out the peoples who inhabited the land called Palestine (e.g. Deut 7:1-4,16,24).  Doesn’t that make the God of the Old Testament a harsh and unjust God, completely different from the God of love portrayed in the New Testament?

Answer:

If we are to adequately answer this we will have to give careful consideration to what the Bible says.

To understand this apparent situation we need to understand:
a) the nature of God
b) the nation of Israel and the surrounding nations
c) the options of the inhabitants.

a) The Nature of God

The Bible’s descriptions of God are not at variance between Old and New Testaments.

For example in the Old Testament we find God saying, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezek 18:5)

In the New Testament, we find the apostle, Paul, writing “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).

However, in the Old Testament we also find God declaring, “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone” (Ezek 18:32).

Similarly in the New Testament, we find the apostle, Peter, writing about God, “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Now in both testaments, the way to avoid death was quite clear:

“Repent and live!” (Ezek 18:32) and “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

For the moment that will be enough about God:

• sin will be punished by death
• God doesn’t want death to come to man
• death is avoided by repentance, turning away from the sin.

b) The Nation of Israel and the Surrounding Nations

i) Israel

Israel were a nation created by God, starting from Abraham, then through Isaac and finally through Jacob, who was renamed Israel by God.  While in Egypt the families grew over about four hundred years to become the equivalent of a nation of well over a million people.

At the Exodus (see Exodus, chapter 1 to 12) God took them out of Egypt and meeting with them at Mount Sinai created a new nation out of them who would be a special people, specifically related to God (see Exodus 19).  The objective of this was to show the world the possibility of a nation being led and guided by God, i.e. to act as a light to the rest of the world, revealing the goodness of God and His plan for His world.

To achieve this possibility God instructed them to remove all the existing inhabitants of the land in order to create a new national identity.

ii) The Surrounding Nations

When we look at the people that Israel were told to destroy, we are told they were to be destroyed because of their wickedness (Deut 9:4), and because they worshipped idols and would turn Israel to those idols and away from God (Deut 7:4,16).

The picture we are given is of nations in possession of the land God had promised Israel, who were totally established in worshipping idols and all of the practices that went with that (e.g. sacrificing children).

From the beginning of the Bible we are shown mankind that has a propensity to turn away from God and turn to all kinds of foolish life styles that can only be described as pagan and uncivilised in the extreme!

This propensity to turn away from God is what the Bible calls ‘Sin’ and because Sin is living contrary to the design of the Creator, it means that such people live utterly destructive life styles.

Because mankind seems to be tainted with this tendency, it also spreads like a virus unless checked. If it is left unchecked, the moral direction of any society is downwards, as our own society is showing at the beginning of the twenty first century.

iii) Israel’s folly

God knew that if Israel simply went into the land and mingled with the idol worshippers there, they would soon be led astray by them. Hence the objective of removing all the existing inhabitants.

Today we understand the need to destroy Cancer cells before they destroy the body.  We may not understand it because we don’t understand the awfulness and destructiveness of Sin, but what we are considering in this question is a surgical operation.

A number of the wars fought in the last century and, indeed, in this century, have been those fought to prevent something worse happen.  This is what was behind God’s instructions to Israel (but wait until you get to Part c) below before you make a final judgment!)

In fact this mingling with the idol worshippers did happen, even while Israel were wandering in the desert on the way to the land (see Numbers 25:1,2).

After Israel had settled in the land and after their leader Joshua had died, they quickly gave way to this tendency again (e.g. Judges 2:10-13).

In fact so often did they give way, that eventually the Lord allowed the inhabitants who had not been cleared out of the land to remain to act as a thorn in Israel’s side to continually bring them to their senses (see Judges 2:18-23)

There followed a continuing cycle in their early centuries in the land: apostasy (e.g. Judges 3:7) – disciplinary judgment (Judges 3:8) – repentance (Judges 3:9a) – deliverance from God (Judges 3:9b,10) – peace (Judges 3:11).

c) Options of the Inhabitants

Returning now to our original question, we must look at the possibilities that were given to the inhabitants, which fit in with all that we have said so far.

There were actually three options:

Option No.1 – To leave the Land
There was nothing to stop the inhabitants leaving the land and this some did.

Option No.2 – To join Israel
Some of the inhabitants actually joined the people of Israel and this was perfectly acceptable. Examples of this were Rahab, a spy-prostitute (Joshua 6:25), and the Gibeonite tribe (read Joshua 9).

Option No.3 – To resist God and Israel and die
This did happen for a number – but it was their choice!   Similarly today as we saw in 2 Peter 2:9 the choice of death is a personal choice and NOT what God wants.

Our Difficulty in Understanding

We need to understand and hang on to the basic reasoning behind the instruction from God to destroy any unbelieving idolaters who resisted.  It was to remove a scourge of pagan lifestyle and to do all possible to prevent Israel being corrupted. The picture given above, of Cancer, needs to be borne in mind.

Where we have a difficulty in understanding all this, it is probably because we fail to see the awfulness of Sin and its consequences.

We live very much in a Society where virtually everything goes and because of that we find it difficult to grasp the concept of wrong that is so abhorrent to a Perfect God that He has to deal with it with destructive judgment to prevent worse happening.

And that brings us right back to the subject of Jesus. To pick up again on one of the earlier verses we quoted (Romans 6:23) “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus“.

God is always wanting to bring life.    WE are the ones who refuse it and prefer death instead!
May it not be so.

(J3) How does a Society decline?

Question: How does a society decline to then bring God’s gradual judgement?
What are the stages of decline that brings God’s attention and activity?

Answer:

Stages of Decline of a Society

The first stage in any society’s decline is godlessness. Jeremiah explained it prophetically thus as a word from God: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jer 2:13). The first sin was the abandoning of God – They have forsaken me. This is godlessness, the rejecting and ignoring of God.

The second stage is always unrighteousness, wrong behaviour. In the graphic language of Jeremiah’s prophecy, it is that having turned away from God who is the source of all life, they seek to create structures, or schemes, or philosophies or whatever, that can sustain their godless lives – and have dug their own cisterns. This is exactly what atheistic, materialistic humanism does.

Observe any society and these will be preliminary signs of decline – a  nation that ignores God and relies on  its own  efforts (godless), and which then subsequently adopts  behaviour patterns contrary to God’s design for humanity (unrighteous).

(J2) What is the Purpose of God’s Judgment?

Question: What is the purpose God’s judgment?
So if God does judge, why does He?

Answer:

God does not, according to the Bible, bring judgment hastily or nastily. There is always a clear-cut reason and it is always to do with people who are destroying themselves and one another by the godless and unrighteous lifestyle which they have chosen. However, when we ask about ‘reason’ we might do well to consider God’s apparent PURPOSE in acting as He does.

The Reason for God’s Judgment

The obvious reason for God’s judgment is the sin of people but behind that it seems that there are likely to be two objectives that God has in bringing this judgment.

i) Curtailing the Sin – total destructive judgment

Without doubt God sometimes brings destructive judgment, whereby the end result is total destruction, to stop the further spread of sin in an even worse way. The implication behind Gen 6:5 was that the sin on the earth had reached such proportions that the only course open was to remove the vast majority of the population and start again from a single family. Whether this was worldwide (as some geological commentators suggest) or whether if was limited to the area that we call the Middle East is unclear. Only the reason seems fairly clear. A modern parallel would be a surgeon cutting out a cancerous organ to save the rest of the body.

Similarly the deportation of the northern kingdom of Israel and the later destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of people of the southern kingdom, seem to be cases where God was basically saying, enough is enough, this can’t go on any longer, we need to start again. In both cases it was not a hasty judgment but one that came after years and years of warnings through the prophets.

ii) Chastising the people – limited self-destruction

The form of judgment that Romans 1 refers to, means that God lifts off His hand of restraint from a people so that they are allowed to continue to do the sinful things they want to do without hindrance, and self-destruction takes place. A similar idea is spelled out in 1 Cor 5 where the apostle Paul instructs the church at Corinth to put out of the assembly the man who was blatantly sexually immoral, and having no sense of repentance. The purpose of putting him out, would be that he no longer comes under the protection of the church so that Satan would have free access to him, and would no doubt push him further and further into sexual sin until it would become self-destructive when, it was hoped, he would come to his senses, repent and be restored.

Thus the purpose of this form of judgment is to bring people to their senses and back to God. Yet, observe it carefully, it is simply a judgment of people being allowed unrestrained activity. We foolishly think that we can control ourselves, but the reality is that once God takes his hand off us, the pressures of the temptations of Satan become so great we go further and further into the sin, until it is completely destructive of us. The only way to save ourselves from complete self-destruction is thus to call on the Lord for His salvation.

(J1) What does the Judgment of God mean?

Question: What does it mean to speak of the judgment of God?
Some people say our nation is under the judgment of God. What do they mean by that?

Answer:

This subject is clearly not one that is purely academic. It is one that has stirred the anger of atheists and the embarrassment of Christians. We’ll deal later with how a God of love can bring judgment but for now we’ll examine what the Bible indicates and then seek to apply that to modern day life in the United Kingdom. (Other Western countries could possibly apply the same analysis)

The Nature of God’s Judgment

In the Old Testament, most people would see God’s judgments as direct acts of divine intervention of a destructive nature, e.g. destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19).

However there are instances where God’s judgment is more in the form of a releasing of the wickedness that is already there (e.g. Isa 9:18,19). This conforms to the revelation that Paul had when he spoke to the church at Rome about God giving people up to their sins (Rom 1:24,26,28).

The Problem of Talking about God’s Judgment

The Bible IS clear that God does act to bring about what we are referring to as ‘judgment’ but the difficulty comes in applying the revelation. Does God still judge nations today? Are events happening in our world judgments of God?

One of the things about judgments that appeared (mostly in the Old Testament period) in the Bible, is that they only came after God had spoken through His prophets so that the leaders of the nation at the very least, heard and understood the warning. Such warnings came again and again before God acted.

Today, in the largely godless areas of the world, there is a dearth of such prophets and therefore warnings are not coming to national and other leaders. Does that mean that God does not judge nations? The probably answer is, no, for the purpose of the ‘releasing-the-wickedness’ form of judgment referred to above, is to bring a people to their senses gradually by allowing them free reign to get into a deeper and deeper mess until they come to their senses. Thus it is more of a process of correction rather than an act of destruction.

Are climatic catastrophes acts of God? Maybe they are simply acts of a world that is breaking down where sin has an effect beyond our understanding into the physcial realm, maybe they are specific acts brought by God to hasten our ‘coming to our senses’.

In all of these considerations we need to remember the prophetic declaration from the Old Testament, “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!” (Ezek 18:32). God’s objective is to bring life and not death wherever it is possible.

We will deal with other aspects of this in other questions and answers.

Does the Bible tell everything about God?

Question: Does the Bible reveal everything there is to know about God?
i.e. does the Bible tell us everything about God

1. Basic Answer:

The simple answer is no, but it does tell us sufficient upon which we may build our faith. Within the writings we find that God is still a mystery:

2. Mystery As to His Being

Ex 19 Although Moses spoke face to face with God there is no reference to any description of God.

Gen 18 Although God apparently came to Abraham in human form this doesn’t give us any further information about Him (God appearing in human form like this is referred to as a ‘theophany’).

Isa 6:1 says Isaiah “saw” the Lord but no description of the Lord is given.

Ezek 1:25 describes an apparent revelation of the Lord but Ezekiel can only use words like, “what appeared to be” and “he looked like” and all we are left with is the sense of some brilliant figure.

Rev 4 In the most amazing revelation of the throne room of heaven, the description of the One on the throne is limited to one verse and that to a couple of colours.

3. Mystery As to His Purposes

Prov 25:2    God often leaves things hidden
Deut 29:29 He keeps some things to himself
Eccl 11:5     We cannot understand how he creates
Rom 11:33 His decision making is beyond us
1 Cor 2:16 His wisdom defies instruction

4. Much Revelation

Despite all this God DOES reveal SOME things:

Amos 3:7- reveals His plans to His prophets
e.g. Abraham shown God’s plan for Sodom – Gen 18:17

He has revealed that His plan:

• originated BEFORE He made the world in that He
  • foreknew that man would fall
  • foreordained redemption
• revealed His blessing of man and the hopelessness of man through a chosen nation, Israel
• involved the sending of His Son from heaven to earth to bring about the possible reconciliation of God to man and man to God
• results in possibility of redeemed men spending eternity in the wonderful presence of God

What names does the Bible give God?

Question: What Names does the Bible give to God?
i.e. why are there lots of names for this one God in the Bible?

1.  Basic Answer:

Names in Hebrew culture were used to convey significance about the individual. When it comes to God Himself, it is no less so. The various names given to God, convey much truth about Him. Most of the words shown below come from the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and a few from the Greek of the New Testament.

Below are some of the names of God found in Scripture.

2.  Basic Old Testament Names (Hebrew):

These are the simple names given to God in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament:

El = “God” or “god” (seldom occurs in the singular )

Elohim (plural of El) = “gods” or “God” in His fulness to be feared
eg. Gen 1:1 “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens & the earth“

El-Shaddai = God of power & blessing
eg. Ex 6:3 “I appeared to Abraham…. as God Almighty” (El-Shaddai)

Adonai = mighty ruler) usually rendered “Lord”
(later on supplanted by Jehovah [see later])

3.  Covenant Old Testament Name

God entered into a covenant or agreement with Israel (see Ex 19). In the process leading up to that we find the Lord revealing Himself to Moses when He calls him to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt:

In Ex 3:14 we read, “I AM has sent me to you“.

Then in verse 15: “The LORD…. has sent me to you“

The word here printed “LORD” in Hebrew was “YHWH” which sounds like, in Hebrew (and was probably derived from), the word for I AM.

This is the only real “name” for God, all other words being more descriptions.

The Jews regarded this as the most sacred name and refused to even pronounce it lest they offend Lev 26:16 “Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death”.

It is thought that instead they first of all substituted the name “Adonai” (Lord) and then took the vowels of that and added them to the consonants YHWH to produce, by the beginning of the 12th century AD, the word we know in English as “Jehovah” (from the Hebrew Yahweh)

[We don't have original Hebrew manuscripts going back into the Old Testament because the Jewish scribes destroyed the scroll as soon as it started getting damaged, after having meticulously copied it out again first].

In our modern versions therefore, wherever the name Yahweh or Jehovah is mentioned it is printed in the capital letters “LORD”

We sometimes get a number of the names together:

eg. Deut 5:9 “I the LORD (Yahweh) your God (elohim) am a jealous God (el)”

“Yahweh” or “Jehovah” is the covenant name of God that indicates and reminds that God is a faithful, unchanging, covenant keeping God – ‘I Am’ signifies an ever present God.

“El” is translated “God” some 250 times
“Elohim” occurs 2,570 times
“Yahweh” appears 6,823 times!

The constant emphasis therefore, is of a God who enters into personal, enduring relationships with men and women. This is a far cry from the pantheistic impersonal “gods” of eastern religions.

4.  Compound forms of the Covenant Name

Jehovah is often linked with another word to give a compound name to convey a greater meaning:

Jehovah-tsidkenu = the LORD our righteousess e.g. Jer 23:6
Jehovah-shalom = The LORD is peace e.g. Judges 6:24
Jehovah-m’kaddesh = the LORD who sanctifies (sets you apart as holy)    eg. Lev 20:8
Jehovah-shammah = the LORD is there (abiding presence) e.g.Ezek 48:35
Jehovah-jireh = the LORD who provides e.g. Gen 22:14
Jehovah-rophe = the LORD who restores of heals e.g. Ex 15:26
Jehovah-nissi = the LORD my banner (standard against enemey)   eg. Ex 17:15
Jehovah-rohi = the LORD my shepherd or friend eg. Psa 23

Each of these clearly indicates the God who has covenant dealings with people. This is no God afar off, but THE God who draws near to His creation.

5.  New Testament Names (Greek):

These are names for God as they appear in the Greek of the New Testament:

Theos = equivalent to El, Elohim
Kurios = Lord, equivalent to Adonai
Pater = Father (but Father WAS also used in OT e.g. Deut 32:6 etc)