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The God of the Old Testament - Part 17:

Does God Have a Right to Judge and Does God Judge Right

By Mark L. Carlton

Before God judged Sodom and Gomorrah He granted a rare interview.  The man who conducted this interview was Abraham.  The subject of the interview was the justice of God.

God told Abraham that He would destroy Sodom if it was as bad as its reputation.  Since his nephew, Lot, lived in Sodom, Abraham was understandably concerned.  And so he began his interview by asking the million dollar question; “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”  He then proposed a hypothetical; “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the righteous who are in it?  He then stated his own view of the matter, “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike.  Far be it from You!  He then concluded the question that lies at the heart of the questions many sincere seekers have with the God of the Old Testament: “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?”  It seems to us that He should, but from our limited perspective it doesn’t always look like He does.

Since there is a discussion of this very issue in relation to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah it sometimes puzzles me that this passage is seldom referenced in our discussions of the judgments of the God of the Old Testament.  It seems to me that it should, and that the teaching of this passage ought to serve as a framework for our understanding of the doings of God, not just in Old Testament times but in our time as well.

There are a number of things this passage teaches us about God’s administration of justice, but before we discuss these things I would like you to consider an unstated premise which underlies Abraham’s questions.   He does not question God’s right to judge, in fact he assumes it when he refers to Him as “the judge of all the earth.”  His questions only concern the righteousness of God’s judgments.

Abraham’s unspoken assumption that God has the right to judge is the unspoken problem that many have with the judgments of God.   I ran into an example of this mindset this morning.  I was discussing this with a young man who has run into trouble with the law.  He knows that he is going to have to do some jail time, but he does not plan to go before the judge.  He has decided to turn himself in at the county jail instead.  

A friend reminded him that this would just make the judge angry and result in more time being added to his sentence.  But he said he still wanted to do it because he didn’t want to have a judge tell him what he has to do.  Incredibly, this man would prefer a longer jail sentence to submitting to the authority of the judge.  Avoiding the judge is his way of saying, “I am in charge of my own life and I going to do it my way.”  It is his way of telling the judge, “You have no right to judge me!” 

This attitude shocks us, but it should not.  It is common these days for people to say or think, “What right do you have to judge me?”  Judging others is considered one of the greatest sins men and women living in our culture can commit.  The only verse in the Bible that most people agree with these days is, “judge not lest ye be judged,” so this young man’s attitude is nothing more than a consistent application of a principle that most people these days accept.  It shocks us that he would have this attitude toward a judge, but it should be more shocking to find this attitude directed against THE Judge of all the earth, and yet it is a common attitude these days.           

The only difference between many skeptics and the soon to be incarcerated young man I have described, is that the skeptic, especially the well educated ones, are more subtle.  I saw this some time ago in a discussion at a forum I sometimes visit.   The question was whether our faith would be shaken if a massive object - such as an asteroid or comet - were to strike the earth.  My answer was that such an event would strengthen my faith because my interpretation of the book of the Book of Revelation leads me to believe that just such an event may very well occur.   One who responded to me talked about the fact that this sort of teaching was the reason she had turned away from an earlier profession of faith.

This led me to a ponder the question, “Why?”  It goes back to the issue we are discussing, a God who does such things as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This woman has clearly set herself up as the judge of the human race and decided that we are not worthy of such things; she has also decided that if Yahweh is God He should be rejected and condemned because of such things;  but most importantly, she is saying, “God has no right to judge the world!”

Abraham lived in a time when God’s right to judge was assumed.   For most of human history the right of God (or the gods) to judge was never a question.  But it is now, and I think more than we realize, the cultural consensus that no one has the right to judge anyone else has clouded our thinking so that we look at what is in fact a very holy thing, such as the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and see a bad thing; if not a bad thing then certainly something very troubling to our sensibilities.  But is the problem God’s or ours?  Along these lines it is very interesting to notice what does and does not trouble our evolving sensibilities these days.  

But assuming, as Abraham did, that God does have the right to judge let us move on to consider whether or not He is right when He judges.  For Abraham the key question to determine this was whether he judged the righteous with the unrighteous.  The assumptions here are very simple: God has the right to judge the wicked, more than this, as the Judge of all the earth He has the responsibility to do so.  But if the wicked and the righteous are treated alike then God would be unrighteous in His judgment.[1]

 Sodom and Gomorrah gave God the perfect opportunity to both answer Abraham’s question, and His subsequent dealings with Lot and his family affords us an illustration of his answer.  His answer to Abraham was an assurance that the announced judgment would not be unjust.  In fact, God was so concerned with seeing the innocent not be judged with the unrighteous that He finally assured Abraham that He would not judge Sodom if there were as few as ten righteous men in the city.   

God revealed an important principle to Abraham (and us) in responding as he did.   The principle is this: When God judges He will be careful to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked.   In the case of Sodom, God demonstrated this by removing the only righteous man in town.  However, we might be tempted to question the principle as we continue to read the Old Testament, because there were times when God’s judgment of the wicked does impact the righteous.  For example, God judged Judah by sending the armies of Babylon against the city of Jerusalem.  But a number of young men were taken into captivity.  Once in Babylon most of these young men adapted very quickly to paganism.  In doing this we might surmise that they were worthy of the judgment they endured.  But there were four other men, most notably, Daniel, who proved to be godly.  So were not the righteous and the wicked equally impacted by the judgment?   Keep reading and you will see that even though Daniel and his friends were impacted by the judgment of Judah, God did not treat them all the same.  He made a very real distinction between Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-Nego, and their un-named and unremembered fellows who suffered with them.   Simply put, the same event was used by God in two different ways.  For the wicked it was judgment, for Daniel and his friends there was another and higher purpose.  In fact, we might even say that the event that brought Judgment upon the wicked resulted in a promotion for the righteous.

Here we begin to see a principle that will be developed throughout scripture.  The righteous can be sure that even if they suffer God will inject their suffering with meaning and purpose.  Thus, even though the  righteous may be called to experience the safe suffering as the wicked they will never be treated like  the wicked, because, as the New Testament teaches us, God ”causes all things to work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purposes.”[2]  So the righteous may suffer when the wicked are judged but they will never be collateral damage, God will see to that.

Note, finally, an illustration of the principle I have been talking about.  God saw to it that Lot survived the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  God clearly made a distinction between righteous Lot and the inhabitants of Sodom, but it would be erroneous to say that he was not deeply impacted by it.  Before everything was said and done he would lose his home, his wife and his honor.

Lot did not deserve the same fate as the men of Sodom, though his wife showed that she did.  But his decision to move to Sodom and raise his daughters in that wicked city was a choice that came with a bitter consequence.   The New Testament book of II Peter tells us that Lot was “oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men,”[3] and that while he lived among them he “felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds.”[4]  But I note, he continued to live among them.  In fact, the angels had to take Lot and his family by the hand and drag them out of the city because they were hesitant to leave.  As a friend of mine says, “O how we love the things we love to hate.”[5]

Considering all of this might we conclude that God does indeed make distinctions between the righteous and the wicked.  Abraham was righteous, and God took him into his confidence, warning him of the judgment to come.   The cities of the plain were wicked and so God judged them.  Lot was not as righteous as Abraham or as wicked as the people of Sodom; so he was shown mercy and compassion…but he was also severely chastened by the God who “scourges every son he receives.”[6] 

In conclusion; it seems that God can use the same act of judgment to accomplish a variety of purposes, but we can be sure that He will not treat the righteous the same as he treats the wicked, even though both are impacted in some way by the same event.   It seems, then, that God can use even evil to accomplish His good end, and often He has and does.  One needs look no further than the cross to see it.         

 

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[1] Understand that in this essay we are speaking strictly of the suffering caused by the Judgment of God and not suffering per se.  Everyone in this sin cursed world will suffer, but not all suffering is direct judgment for sin.  The suffering of the righteous is a good subject, and we will get to it, but in part of our study our focus is narrower. 

[2] Romans 8:28b

[3] II Peter 2:7

[4] II Peter 2:8

[5] Tom Huddleson.  A former nemeses, now a dear friend.  A genuine genius, and award winning newsman and editor.  An agnostic for a while…but dying now, a believer. 

[6] Hebrews 12:6

The God of the Old Testament - Part 16: Preface to the Judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah

By Mark L. Carlton

The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was legendary even in Abraham’s time.   The very first mention of these cities in the Bible tells us that, “the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord.”[1]

Abraham was well aware of Sodom’s reputation for wickedness; so much so that he later refused a fortune rather than have it said that the king of Sodom had made him rich.[2]  When we come to the 18^th chapter of Genesis Abraham learned that God too was aware of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Our analysis of the Great Flood taught us that God hates human evil; it literally grieves Him.  An examination of the Biblical account of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah reveals that God has not changed in the intervening 1000 years. He still knows what is going on and He still hates human sin. 

The thing that makes the record of God’s judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah so interesting is that God took Abraham into His confidence before He judged the notorious cities and revealed some important information concerning His administration of justice.  

Before we consider the new revelation that was given to Abraham we need to discuss the specific nature of Sodom’s sin.  This is necessary because theology has not been exempt from post-modern-revisionism. 

Everyone has known what Sodom’s sin was for thousands of years.  The term Sodomy pretty much says it all.  Recently, however, the gay rights movement has birthed birth to theologians determined to change our understanding of all of the passages in scripture that have been understood as condemning same sex unions.   Naturally, then, the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was one of those portions of scripture that needed to be rethought.

I first came across the “new” view of Sodom’s sin years ago when I read, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?  Another Christian View, by Letha Scanzoni and Virgina Mollenkott.  It was there that I first learned the real sin of Sodom was being inhospitable.  I laughed when I first heard this explanation.  I could not believe the authors were serious.  In my estimation it is a bit of a stretch to suggest that the thing God found most troubling about the whole incident at Lot’s house was its breach of etiquette.  But the authors are indeed serious and they are not alone.   Today, Sodom’s lack of hospitality is a widely accepted apologetic among gay advocates and their liberal theological allies.

Scanzoni and Mollenkott also focus on the violence of the threatened rape, suggesting that it was the violence of the act they contemplated rather than the act itself that God found troubling.  Apparently God would have had no problem with the incident had one of the angels struck up a loving, consensual, mutually supportive and satisfying relationship with a man in a gay bath house.  This too seems a bit of a stretch. 

When the Bible condemns same sex unions it always focuses on the act itself.  Therefore, if the scripture is correct in saying, as it does,[3] that God finds sexual unions between two men abominable, how much more would He disapprove of the coupling of angels and men?

Scanzoni and Mollenkott also suggested that there is some ambiguity concerning the intent of the men of Sodom, since the word “know” does not necessarily carry a sexual connotation.  They offer the explanation that it can refer to nothing more than “a desire to examine the strangers credentials.”[4]  Apparently they wanted to check out Lot’s credentials too since they were only prevented from treating him “worse than them,” by the intervention of his angelic guests. 

Since the men of Sodom were going to treat Lot worse than his guests, I suppose we should presume that they were going to ask him to produce a passport as well as his driver’s license.  But there may be something to this interpretation since they had Lot pinned to the door when the angels rescued him.  Clearly, they were just looking for his wallet.   Scanzoni and Mollenkott’s exegesis is still laughable after all these years, and it would be funny were it not so sad.

Some have seized upon Ezekiel 16:49 as proof that Sodomy was not the reason for Sodom’s destruction:  

“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and the needy.”

Sounds convincing, doesn’t it.  Unfortunately for those who use this verse, there is the 50^th verse too;

“Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.”

I wonder what those abominations were, because it sure sounds like it was those abominations that caused God to remove Sodom.

In the law God sometimes told Israel that they should view certain things as abominations.  You can substitute the word disgusting for abomination if you want, because that is what it means.  There are also a few times when God says that certain things are abominations to Him.  He doesn’t mention a lack of hospitality, but he does mention the sorts of sexual acts the men of Sodom wanted to perform on Lot’s guests.  Unfortunately for the men of Sodom, it turned out that the men they lusted after were angels on a fact finding mission.

Another theory, the one I subscribe to, is that the traditional understanding of the reasons for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - an understanding shared by both Christians and Jews for the better part of 3500 years — never needed revision.  Certainly Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of many sins other than Sodomy, but nothing epitomizes the moral decay of Sodomite civilization more than what the men of Sodom intended to do that evening on Lot’s doorstep.

The focus on the sin of Sodom is less important for this series than God’s revelation to Abraham before He destroyed the city.  You may recall that shortly before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham was visited by what he thought were three men.  It turned out that two of the three were angels, the same two angels who will later visit Lot in Sodom.  The third “man” was none other than the LORD[5] Himself. 

In the New Testament we are assured that no one has seen God the Father at any time.  Who then is this third visitor who is referred to as Yahweh?   Who is this mysterious visitor who stays with Abraham when His companions leave for Sodom?  Christians understand this third visitor to be none other than the second person of the trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

One of the most famous of all Messianic prophecies is found in the writings of the prophet Micah.  It immediately follows the prophecy that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem:

“But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.“  (emphasis added)

Here Micah tells us that the promised Messiah has been around for a while, and that we should understand that he had a career before His nativity in Bethlehem.  When Christians read about an individual known as, “the Angel of the Lord,” or when we are introduced to a man, as we are in Genesis 18, only to have that man start speaking and have His words attributed to the LORD Himself, we understand that we are seeing Jesus Christ.  We are seeing the goings forth of the promised Messiah before His nativity.  We refer to these divine sightings as, Theophanies.  So, if this interpretation is correct, the conversation between Abraham and this man referred to as Yahweh in Genesis 18 is actually a conversation between Abraham and the One who will later be known as Jesus of Nazareth.  

For our purposes, though, the subject of the conversation is even more important, because Abraham and his divine guest are going to be discussing the rationale behind the judgment of these wicked cities.  The LORD’s initial explanation is very simple:

“The outcry of Sodom is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly great.”

Here the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is said to be crying out in the same way that Abel’s blood  cried out and informed God of Cain’s treachery; and once again we see that God is aware of and concerned with human sin and that He is prepared to judge it when it reaches, as it were, a critical mass.   He continues:

“I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

There are many questions we will come upon in our survey of the Old Testament that I will have to leave hanging, unless someone specifically asks me to address them.  We have one of those questions here.  Later revelation will inform us that God knows everything.  But here and in other places we see Him verifying things later scriptures will inform us He already knows.  He will do this later when He tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice His only son, Isaac. 

There are a number of reasonable answers to these sorts of questions, but that would soon lead me astray from the object of this series of messages, so even though the question is a good one, I will not be treating it directly in this series other than to say that the purpose of God in everything said in this text seems to have to do with helping Abraham understand the Divine reasons for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.   This, then, is the way we will understand it.[9]

What do we learn from the statement that God is going down to see if what He has heard is completely accurate?  I think one principle we can draw from this is that when God judges He moves with an abundance of caution.  Also, the statement, “and if not, I will know,” seems to suggest that God is just as interested in searching for reasons not to judge as He is with confirming reports of the cities’ wickedness. I think this understanding of God is also confirmed in Abraham’s subsequent interview of the God Who for a few hours had been his guest.   

Abraham asked the million dollar question when he asked, “Will you indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked?”[10]  Remember, when Abraham asked this question he was still learning, step at a time, about this God who had called him out of Ur.  What he had learned about Him so far was very positive.  But now, for the first time in his personal experience with God, he has learned what Noah’s generation learned the hard way; God knows about, cares and about, and will ultimately judge sin.  Certainly, as Creator, God has the right to do whatever He chooses to do with His creation.  But is He — as some say — arbitrary, cruel and capricious?   That’s what Abraham wanted to know. 

So, what is the answer?  We will discuss God’s answer to Abraham’s big question in next week’s message.

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[1] Genesis 13:13

[2] Genesis 14:23

[3] Leviticus 18:22 - “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”

[4] Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Mollenkott, Is the Homosexual my Neighbor?  Another Christian View, p. 55

[5] Yahweh 

[6] Micah 5:2

[7] Genesis 18:20

[8] Genesis 18:21

[9] Since God’s stated purpose in this entire dialogue is to “make known to Abraham what he is about to do (Genesis 18:17, it seems reasonable to proceed on this assumption.

[10] Genesis 18:23

The God of the Old Testament - Part 15: The Once and Future Judgment

By Mark L. Carlton

Most of the critics of the God of the Old Testament are guilty of “Cherry-Picking;” choosing those acts of Divine retribution which support their theory that the God of the Bible is a cruel and sadistic tyrant.  Overlooked in their cursory reading of the scriptures are occasions when God’s judgment is so measured that it barely registers on the Richter scale.  God’s first judgment after the Great Flood is one of events.  The event I am referring to is the Tower of Babel.

Last week I pointed out that God entered into a covenant with the human race after the flood.[i]  As far as the Bible is concerned, this is the only covenant God made with the entire human race.  The Bile calls it, “The everlasting covenant between God and man and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”  I will be referring to it as the Eternal Covenant.

Babel was the first time after the flood that the human race violated the Eternal Covent.  But when they were corrected for it we do not see a vengeful God pouring out wrath and indiscriminately destroying human life.  Instead we see a gentle intervention aimed at forcing humanity to that which it is ever reluctant to do, obey God.

The Eternal Covenant is extremely important for developing what I refer to as a Biblical Philosophy of History or understanding human history from a Biblical perspective.  The reason the Eternal Covenant is important is that it establishes a standard by which God judges the nations.  So when the Bible talks about God judging some people we understand what is happening.  Certainly there may be many factors in play, but one thing is certain, they must have violated the covenant.

In addition, the Eternal Covenant helps us to look at human history and understand the reasons for the rise and fall of nations.   It also gives us the ability to understand our own times.   But more importantly for us and posterity, the Eternal Covenant will be the reason for God’s future judgments and His final intervention in human history at the end of the age.

The Eternal Covenant has two parts to it.  First, God has covenanted to do or not to do certain things.  Second, He has clearly stated what He requires of the human race.

For His part, God made these promises:

1. To never to curse the ground again because of us, or to destroy the earth with a flood. Note, God did not say he would never again destroy the world, just that He would never again do it with a flood.
2. To maintain seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, day and night for as long as the earth remains.
3. To put the fear and terror of man into every beast of the field, bird of the sky, etc.

In turn, the human race, represented by Noah and his sons, were blessed and given certain privileges and responsibilities:

1. The human race was given the responsibility of being fruitful and multiplying, and filling the earth.
2. The human race was given the privilege of eating meat, just as it had previously been given fruits and vegetables. However, we were commanded not to eat the blood of the animals we kill for food.
3. The human race was given both the privilege and the responsibility of executing justice upon the earth.

Notice that the first responsibility God gave to man under the Eternal Covenant was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  After the flood the human race was fruitful, and it multiplied.  But under its first great political leader, Nimrod, the human race soon made it clear that it had no intention of filling the earth.  In fact, it was their stated goal not to be scattered over the face of the earth.  And it was this desire to stay together as a one-world community under the leadership of a single man, Nimrod, which led to their ambitious building project on the plains of Shinar:[iii]

“It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land Shinar and settled there. … They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the earth.”[iv]

With the plan to build a great city, and what would come to be known as the Tower of Babel, humanity’s great one-world dream was born.  But because of Divine judgment it was stillborn. 

This leads us to the question; Why?  What was wrong with Babel?  I believe the Bible gives us the answer — though it is more implied in Genesis than clearly stated — in the statement God made when He announced His intention to intervene: “Now nothing which they purpose will be impossible to them.”  While various interpretations have been offered for this statement, I believe the point is this; God knows that our great Utopian dream is ultimately the most dangerous idea we have ever come up with. 

The last century’s secular attempts to resurrect the dream underscore this theory and should serve as a warning against it.  But the one consistent lesson we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.  And so history is forced to repeat itself.  As British poet, Steve Turner, pointed out, “It has to.  No one listens.”  But for those who may have forgotten the twentieth century’s attempts at constructing as a secular Utopia, let me refresh your memory. 

We are all familiar with the Nazis, who were responsible for the deaths of nearly 21 million of their own people, in their attempt at rebuilding the tower.  As you may recall, Hitler’s tower was built with a slight tilt to the right.  This has caused many Utopians to think if it were just tilted to the left things might be better.  But that too was tried in the last century by various Marxist regimes.  Their results were even worse. 

According to an article appearing on Newsmax;[v] “By 1987 there were 15 Marxist states which had managed to kill at least 1,000,000 of their own citizens,” not in war, but in times of “peace.”   From 1917 until 1987, seventy short years, the Utopians of the left killed between 170 and 360 millions of their own people, 5 to 18 million times the number killed by fascism.

However, ignoring the lessons of the past century, our political leaders continue to build the tower in our time.  The debate is over the slant of the tower.  Some want to tilt it to the left; others want to tilt it to the right.  But no one seems to be asking whether the tower should be built at all.  And so the vision first dreamed on the plains of Shinar, continues it inspire.  But it is like many dreams we have had before.  It starts hopefully.  We think it is going to be a good dream.  Then, all at once, it turns into a nightmare.

But let us return now to God’s gentle judgment of the original building project.   As I look at it, the thing that strikes me most is how measured it was.   As we look at the judgment at Babel it is clear that God had no desire to destroy the human race.  Instead, His actions seem calculated only to force the race to separate and fill the earth with diverse groups of people. 

But, I see more than a Divine desire for human diversity at play in the judgment of Babel.  It seems to me that God’s grace is displayed here in the midst of His judgment.  I see God, recognizing the ends that the human race could not see, moved to save that generation from themselves, by frustrating their dream of Utopia.  And so God put a stop to humanity’s one world dream…at least for a season.      

The result of the judgment was that the human race was separated into tribes, the tribes began to migrate, and the earth was filled with diverse peoples, just as God intended.  

Millennia have past since God confused the languages at Babel, and yet the ancient idea of Babel is making a big comeback in modern times.  Today the human race seems more determined than ever to unpack the dream from its collective unconsciousness and to rebuild the ancient tower?   But what will happen when we find a new Nimrod and unite behind his calls for unity? The scriptures indicate that God will not be as gentle as He was the last time we tried it.      The prophet, Isaiah, foresaw it all:

“Behold, the LORD lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. The earth has been completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the LORD has spoken the word. The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the eternal covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left….The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack. For its transgression is heavy upon it, and it will fall never to rise again.”

As I stated last week, I believe that there is an unstated reason so many today are offended by the God of the Old Testament.  Their real fear, and perhaps dread, is that if God judged in the pasts He just might do it again.  And, if Isaiah is to be believed, this fear is well founded, He will.    

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[i] I am aware of Covenant Theology and the theological covenants.  But in this and all future messages I will only speak of the covenants that are so named in scripture.   The first covenant that is actually named as such is this covenant that God made with the human race after the flood.

[ii] Genesis 9:16b

[iii] This plain is often identified as the present site of Babylon.  However, the Bible says that Nimrod’s kingdom included Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh (Genesis 10:10).  The Bible says that all of these cities were located in the land of Shinar, so any one of them could have been the site of the tower.  There is no archeological evidence for such a tower a Babylon.  However, there is evidence that such a project was started and abandoned unfinished in Uruk (Biblical Erech, from which we get the name, Iraq).

[iv] Genesis 11:2-4

[v] Steve Montgomery and Steve Farrell, Newsmax, September 24, 2001

[vi] Isaiah 24:1-6; 20

The God of the Old Testament — Part 14: The Eternal Covenant

By Mark L. Carlton

After the flood God entered into a covenant with the human race.[i]  This is the only covenant that God made with the entire human race.  It is called, “The Everlasting Covenant between God and Man and Every Living Creature of All Flesh that is upon the Earth.“[ii]  It has often been referred to as the Noahic Covenant.   I will be referring to it by its Biblical name, “The Eternal Covenant”.  

Some have viewed the Eternal Covenant as the beginning of human government.  I am sure there were human governments before the flood, but I will agree that the Eternal Covenant marks the beginning of God ordained human government.  Perhaps the most significant thing about the Eternal Covenant is that it places the sword of justice in the hands of man. 

With the establishment of the Eternal Covenant, God began to hold human race responsible for administering justice on His behalf.  Specifically, government is to use the sword God has place in its hands to protect human life, and execute those who would prey upon the lives of fellowman.[iii] 

For our purposes the delegating of justice to man is vital to an understanding of the God of the Bible.  Perhaps the fullest explanation of the God ordained role of Government is found in the thirteenth chapter of Romans.  There, no doubt thinking back to the Eternal Covenant, Paul affirms that God has placed the sword of justice in the hands of human government. 

The specific sword Paul refers in Romans 13 is the machaira, or the executioner’s sword.  Paul says the in the lawful use of this sword government is acting as “a minister of God for good.”    

Paul is speaking of the sword both literally and metaphorically.  In context he defines the role of government as an authority established by God to reward good and punish evil.  This is actually a very nice definition of justice.  True justice should include both reward and retribution.  The righteous should be rewarded and the wicked punished.  Justice should ultimately consist of giving every man or woman what they have coming.  And in ordaining human government, God was delegating a portion of His work of justice to human agency.

I would also suggest that the proper administration of justice requires passion.  Justice may be blind but it must never be indifferent.  Our own sense of justice speaks of this.  For example, when we read of the brutal rape and murder of a child such as Jessica Lansford, good men and women are outraged, and rightly so.   Anger is not necessarily a sin, though often sin results from it.  There is a righteous indignation, and there is a holy indignation.   The Old Testament sometimes refers to it as the jealousy of God, but more often we speak of it as the wrath of God.

It is interesting to me that in speaking of human government the apostle Paul refers to it as, “a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.”  I note that both vengeance and wrath are the proper functions of human government towards those who practice evil.   The Eternal Covenant also makes it the responsibility of Government. 

But as I read the Old Testament I note that God anticipates that our natural tendency to empathize with one another will make it difficult for human government to administer justice.  And so we read things like this:

“But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies…you shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may be well with you.”[iv]

This tendency to feel compassion toward our own is the one of the reasons justice is so often miscarried by judges.  We are often scandalized these days when a judge gives out a light sentence to someone who has committed some terrible crime, and we wonder; “How can s/he do that?” 

The psychology of the judge is really more easily understood than most will admit.  In fact, we might do the same thing were we in his or her place.  We know only of the crime that has been committed, but as the trial unfolds the judge hears the defendant’s story.  The judge sees the defendant’s family sitting on the other side of the bar.  He sees the look in defendant’s eyes.   He sees his fear, his remorse.  He sees him smile, and maybe laugh during a lighter moment. 

As the trial progresses the judge begins to feel compassion toward the defendant.  The victim gradually becomes a photograph.  But sitting before the judge day after day is a real, living, breathing, feeling human being,  a person really not that much different from the judge in many ways.  And so the judge, moved by pity, passes down a sentence that denies the victim the justice.  It is hard to be a judge.

We want our judges to be compassionate, and we will allow a few mistakes.  But when a judge consistently allows compassion to trump justice, then an outraged public will cry for his or her removal from the bench.  Why?  Is the judge a bad person?  Not usually.  The sorts of judges we are discussing are often very compassionate people.  But they are just lousy judges, because justice requires a smoldering righteous outrage at evil, and a willingness to administer the wrath on those who practice it. 

The wrath of God was pictured in the tabernacle and then later in the temple by the bronze altar.  It was carefully maintained so that it was always burning.   God is merciful and compassionate too, but when His goodness was revealed to Moses it is important to note that it also included justice; His unwillingness to allow the wicked to go unpunished. 

Some are bothered by this aspect of the divine character, thus this series of messages.  We find individuals like Oprah Winfrey telling us to lose this concept of a jealous God.  What they are really asking for is an unjust God.  But is this really what we want?   If a human judge who winks at evil and acquits the wicked is abhorrent to us, then why would we desire it in the Judge of all the earth?

May I suggest a reason?   Might the unstated reason why so many are offended by the God of the Old Testament be their fear that if God judged in the past He just might do it again? 

As a mock trial coach, I am a friend of two county judges and one district judge.  In fact, last year our county judge was our attorney coach.  I have no fear of these judges.  In fact, I appreciate them.  I am comforted by the fact that we have such good people administering justice here in western Nebraska.  But if I broke the law I would dread standing in front of them.  Is our real problem with the wrath of God based on similar sentiments?

The fact that there is a God who is outraged by human wickedness and committed to dealing with it is a comfort to me.  But then, through Jesus Christ I have been justified, and I have been assured that “In Christ there is no condemnation.”[v]  But what of those who the Bible says are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God?[vi]

Jesus said this about them; “that the Holy Spirit is convicting them of sin, righteousness and judgment.”   This means that there is a universal sense of guilt among those who do not believe; a sense that there is a righteous standard that we somehow fail to reach.  And because of this we fear the judgment of God.   Though a man may claim that he does not believe in God, it is a rare man who isn’t afraid to die.  

Point a gun at an atheist and he or she will be as frightened as anyone else.  Of what?  What is so frightening about death if it is just an endless, painless sleep?  Could it be that Jesus was right?  Could it be that there is a conviction buried deep within us that it is appointed unto man once to die and after death the judgment?

I’ll end with this from the book, Whatever Happened to Sin? by the late Karl Menninger.

On a sunny day in September, 1972, a stern-faced, plainly dressed man could be seen standing still on a street corner in the busy Chicago Loop. As pedestrian hurried by on their way to lunch or business, he would solemnly lift his right arm, and pointing to the person nearest him, and solemnly states loudly the single word, “GUILTY!”

Then without any change of expression, he would resume his stiff stance for a few moments before repeating the gesture. Then, again, the inexorable raising of his arm, the pointing, and the solemn pronouncing of the one word “GUILTY!”

The effect of this strange j’accuse pantomime on the passing strangers was extraordinary, almost eerie. They would stare at him, hesitate, look away, look at each other, and then at him again; then hurriedly continue on their ways.

One man, turning to another who was my informant, exclaimed, “But how did he know?”

“Guilty!” Everyone guilty? Guilty of what? Guilty of overparking? Guilty of lying? Guilty of arrogance and hubris toward the one God? Guilty of “borrowing,” not to say embezzling? Guilty of unfaithfulness to a faithful wife? Guilty of evil thoughts - or evil plans?

Guilty before whom? Is a police officer following? Did anyone see? Will they be likely to notice it? Does he know about it? But that isn’t technically illegal, is it?

I can make it up. I will give it back. I’ll apologize. I wasn’t myself when I did that. No one knew about it. But I’m going to quit. It’s a dangerous habit. I wouldn’t want the children to see me. How can I ever straighten it out? What’s done can’t be undone.

If Menninger is painting an accurate picture, then it is no wonder to me that modern man fears the God of the Old Testament.  Indeed if He has judged before, He might just do it again.

---

[i] I am aware of covenant theology.  But the first covenant that is actually named as such is the covenant that God made with the human race through Noah after the flood.

[ii] Genesis 9:16

[iii] c.f. Romans 13:1-7

[iv] Deuteronomy 19:11-13

[v] Roman 8:1

[vi] John 3:18

Note: I first published this essay  in February.  From time to time I remove some articles that have not drawn much attention.  I recently did this with this essay.  However, I have learned that an atheist website has referenced it and that an article has been written in response to it.  I am republishing a edited version of it, so that those who are interested can read the entire article in context.  — Mark

During his sermon last Sunday our senior pastor said that as far as the Bible is concerned, atheism is a moral not a knowledge problem. The Psalmist’s statement, “the fool has said in his heart; there is no God,” notwithstanding, our pastor’s statement is substantially correct.  In the past I have often made the same point more broadly by saying, “There is plenty of evidence for believing if you want to believe. Unbelief is not an evidentiary problem, but a moral one. “

Now you may disagree with both of our statements. If you are an atheist or an unbeliever I have no doubt that you do. But from time to time there have been a few unbelievers honest enough to admit it. That’s why I posted this quote by the well known atheist, Aldous Huxley:

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning: consequently I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption….for myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was…liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

This is a remarkable testimony, and one which many others could make if they were honest about it. In his book, What’s So Great about Christianity, Dinesh D’Souza has a chapter entitled, Opiate of the Morally Corrupt: Why Unbelief is So Appealing. In this chapter he argues that one of the reasons atheism is so attractive to many is that it liberates them to enjoy ”the pleasures of sin for a season.”

Other writers, such as Paul Johnson, in his book, Intellectuals, and E. Michael Jones, in Degenerate Moderns, have made the same point. In these books the authors present powerful evidence in support of the proposition that the main reason for the apeal of unbelief among many of the leading lights of modern infidelity, is - or was - their desire to be liberated from “a certain system of morality…because it interfered with [their] sexual freedom. “

But for unbelievers and atheists who live what almost anyone would consider a  moral life, the very suggestion that their unbelief is rooted in immorality is offensive. The reason for this is that this culture tends to define morality on the basis of an individual’s treatment of other human beings. But remember, in this post I am defining morality as it is defined in scripture, especially in light of the Ten Commandments and the teaching of Jesus.

Jesus was once asked; “What is the greatest commandment of the Law?” His answer was that the greatest commandment is that we love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind. He went on to define the second most important commandment for us; that we love our neighbor as ourselves.

Notice that Jesus placed our love of God on a higher level than our love for our fellow man. He then went on to add that the entire law hangs on these two commandments. His point was that commandments 1-5 hang on the greatest commandment, and commandments 6-10 hang on the second.

Understanding this truth almost drove the young Martin Luther to insanity. He reasoned, I think correctly, that if loving God with all of our heart soul and mind is the greatest commandment, then not loving God must be the greatest sin a human being can commit.  Luther then set out to obey the great commandment. But he soon discovered that no matter how hard he tried he could not love the Lord with all of his heart, soul and mind. As a result, Luther began to be tormented in his conscience, even by the smallest sins. But rather than driving him to insanity, Luther’s conviction of sin drove him to rediscover the truth of salvation by grace through faith.

Now, taking Luther’s initial observation, and applying it to the subject of this post - the morality of unbelief - I think it is safe to say that as far as the Bible is concerned the greatest sin a person can commit is the sin of unbelief. The Bible assures us, for example, that it is the only sin for which there is no forgiveness. The Bible also warns us that it is the only sin for which men and women will ultimately be damned (John 3:18). So from a Biblical standpoint, unbelief is worse than murder, adultery, stealing, perjury or covetousness. From a Biblical perspective; the hubris that refuses to even acknowledge one’s creator is the greatest of act of immorality a human being is capable of committing.

It should also be pointed out that the motive for committing this sin is also worse than those that would move someone to commit a crime such as murder, because ultimately the motive behind this sin is nothing less than deicide and regicide; the desire to do away with God and seize His throne.

I have seen this from time to time in my debates with atheists, as some - like Huxley - have gloried in the meaninglessness of a universe without God, not as an excuse for moral excess, but as an opportunity to celebrate their autonomy. By denying God they can justify for their Godless form of existentialism. By denying God they are liberated to define their own morality, meaning and purpose. They are liberated to become the captains of their fate and the masters of their souls. They are liberated to take to themselves the prerogatives that heretofore - and according to scripture - belong to God. In other words, they want His job! But in order to have it they must kill Him first. Nietzsche - like Huxley, another honest atheist - understood this. But unlike most today, he understood the implications of it too.

The God of the Old Testament - Part 13: How Does God Feel When He Judges?

By Mark L. Carlton

I think it is important that we pause in our survey of the judgments of the Old Testament to focus on a subject I brought up in my previous message, God’s feelings about His own acts of Judgment.  I say this because it has been my observation that in all of the discussions of the God of the Old Testament I have been privy to, the way God feels about His own acts of judgment has never been addressed.     

The very idea that God has emotions is a new thought to many people.  Yet when we look at the God of the Bible we are confronted by a Deity who feels the same sorts of emotions we feel.  This should not surprise us when we stop to think about it.  After all, the Bible says we are made in God’s image and likeness.  So why should we be surprised to discover that He has emotions? 

We might have inferred that God experiences emotions such as joy from the pleasure He took in His creation, when He saw that it was, “very good.[i]“  We might have inferred such emotions as love and compassion from His gracious treatment of Adam, Eve and Cain after their sin.  But beginning with the flood, the Bible begins to specify God’s emotional reactions.   Specifically, we are told that when God saw the wickedness of the antediluvian world He felt both sorrow and grief.[ii]  

Even more remarkable than the fact that God feels emotions is the Bible’s repeated insistence that our actions can cause Him to feel such things as joy or sadness.   Thus the Bible teaches that we human beings are important to God and therefore significant.  Why else would the Creator and Sustainer of the universe take notice, let alone allow Himself to be hurt by the likes of us?  

The importance of understanding that God suffers, and that we can inflict suffering upon Him, is enormous.    In fact, it is a foundation stone of Christianity.  John Polkinghorne explains it this way: “The Christian God is the crucified God, the one who is not just a compassionate spectator of the suffering of creation but a fellow-sharer in the travail of creation.[iii]“ 

To illustrate his point, Polkinghorne refers to something quantum theorists refer to as, “the EPR effect.”  He explains: “The counter-intuitive togetherness-in-separation that implies that two quantum entities that have interacted with each other remain mutually entangled, however they may subsequently separate in space.  Effectively, they remain a single system, for acting on one ‘here’ will produce an immediate effect on its distant partner.[iv]“

As we study the scriptures it does seem that there is some sort of EPR effect between God and his creation, and that the suffering of the broken creation somehow deeply impacts its Creator even though our sin has separated us from the One we once interacted with.   This seems to be especially true of the suffering of the believer.  In fact, the New Testament refers to the suffering of the believer as a continuation of the suffering of Christ Himself.[v] 

Earlier generations of Christians understood this.  For example, consider the world of the old hymn, Does Jesus Care?

                Does Jesus care when my heart is pained

                Too deeply for mirth and song;

                As the burdens press and the cares distress,

                And the way grows weary and long?

 

                O yes, He cares; I know He cares,

                His heart is touched with my grief;

                When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,

                I know my Savior cares

Perhaps part of the weakness of the modern evangelical church is that it has stopped singing songs of substance that passed down and impressed upon the heart the important truths of the word of God; such truths as this one, that God is touched with our grief.   As a result the average Christian really doesn’t know enough about the God he repetitiously praises in his modern worship songs to be able to answer the questions serious seekers are asking about Him.   

In addressing the world’s questions about the God of the Old Testament it is important that we understand such simple concepts as the idea that the brokenness of this world hurts God, and that even His acts of judgment are not painless exercises in chaotic destruction, but a painful work that God’s own Holiness requires of Him.  

I would encourage those who question the judgments of the God of the Old Testament to read it again, this time ignoring the judgments themselves so that you can focus on the emotions of God.   If you do this you might be surprised to discover that the God of the Old Testament is not the ogre those who hate Him often accuse Him of being.

Sometimes when I hear the new atheists’ attacks on God, I wonder if they are confusing him with some other god.  The arbitrary cruelness they attribute to Him seems to be more in keeping with the gods of other ancient people than the God of the Bible. 

For example, in my last message I referenced the fact that one of the ancient flood myths says that god sent the flood because the human race was too noisy.  In other words, He arbitrarily and cruelly destroyed the people of the earth, not for their sin and wickedness, but because they were getting on his nerves.   The rantings of Richard Dawkins and his parrots would be a fitting rebuke of such an arbitrary deity, but they seem to me to completely miss the mark when talking about the longsuffering God of the Old Testament Who is on record as saying that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. 

So how did God feel about the flood he sent upon the world?  He apparently did not feel that good about it, since He swore afterwards that He would never again curse the world or destroy every living things the way he did it in Noah’s time (with a flood) again.[vi]

But a skeptic might protest, “What about that enormous loss of life?”  Let me offer this very simple response, and it would apply to the other divine judgments we will discuss as well; Since we did not create all of those individuals, it is hard for me to imagine that we could possibly love and care more about them than the longsuffering God Who did.   What I am suggesting is that none would feel the pain of the destruction of creation more than its Creator.  I know this because I am an artist.

 A couple of years ago our local visitor’s committee here in Ogallala embarked upon an ambitious project of purchasing a number of bronze sculptures for our city.  Their first was a horse and rider which was placed on our historic Boot Hill.  If you ever get to Ogallala you really ought to check it out, it is quite impressive.  But there was some controversy that local artists were not given an opportunity to compete for the commission.  The committee’s position was that a work by a “famous” artist would draw tourists.  But they assured us that local artists would have an opportunity to compete for the next statue.

We have a restored a 1920s gas station on our main street in Ogallala.  This year the visitor’s committee announced that they were going to commission the creation of a life sized sculpture of a gas station attendant to place in front of “The Spruce Street Station.”  True to their word, they accepted proposals from both professional and local artists.   From twelve applicants, I was selected as one of the three finalists.  I was the only amateur to make the cut.  Each of the finalists were then given about six weeks to complete a 12″ clay mockette.  

 I was told by a number of our local cynics that I was just chosen so that they could say that a local artist was allowed to compete and that they already knew who they were going to choose.  Another told me that because the driving force on the committee had a personal dislike for me I didn’t have a chance.   I suspected they were right, but I determined to do my best anyway and make the choice difficult for them. 

For the next six weeks I worked hard and produced the best piece I have ever created.  When I took it into the Chamber of Commerce office and compared it to the only other piece that had been submitted at the time, I realized I had accomplished my goal.  My piece was far- and-away the better of the two. 

Several days later, a friend of mine, who is on the visitor’s committee, stopped by my table at the coffee shop and told me that he thought my piece was the most detailed and the best of the three, and that I had a good chance of winning the commission. 

At this point I made the mistake of getting my hopes up.  It was a mistake, because a few days later I received a call from the owner of the foundry telling me they had selected one of the other pieces.   To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.  I was crushed.  My heart was broken because I will believe till my dying day that mine was the better piece and that considerations other than the quality of the work made the decision. 

 So, what is an artist with a 12″ clay mockette — that he cannot afford to cast and that he wouldn’t have a buyer for anyway — to do?  After all, unless one has a restored 1920s filling station, there is not much demand for a 1920s filling station attendant.   Also, what does an artist do with his deep hurt and the  sense that he has been the victim of an injustice? 

My very immature answer was to roll my mockette into a tangled ball of wire, paper, tape, foil and clay, and toss it in a dumpster.   It was probably not the right thing to do, I have regretted doing it.  But I did it, and having done it I can tell you how a creator feels after destroying a valued creation. 

 I can tell you that it gave me no pleasure in doing it.   In fact, it was one of the most painful things I have ever done.  It was like rolling up my heart and throwing it away.  I hate to admit it, but I cried for about a half an hour afterwards, and It makes me sad to think or write about it to this very day.   In fact, as it stands today, I am planning on giving all of my existing sculptures to my children and I do not ever intend to sculpt again[vii].    

 So, how does a creator feel when he destroys a beloved creation?   I assure you, it is not a good feeling.  So let me suggest that rather than visualizing God as a vengeful, sadistic tyrant, we view Him as grieving over a creation that must be judged by a just yet longsuffering God, who feels more pain in judging than we can ever comprehend.

 

---

[i] Genesis 1:31

[ii] Genesis 6:5-6

[iii] John Polkinghorn/ Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship  p. 21

[iv] Ibid

[v] Acts 22:7-8; Colossian 1:24

[vi] Genesis 8:21; 9:11

[vii] Subject to change if offered the chance to compete for another commission

The God of the Old Testament – Part 12: The Rampages of Nature and the Pain of God

By Mark L. Carlton

Two weeks ago my wife and I witnessed and were almost victims of a rampage of nature in central Nebraska.   We were on the way to Branson, Missouri and were almost caught in the tornados that eventually hit Kearney, Grand Island and Aurora, Nebraska. 

Growing up in the Midwest I have been through many bad storms and tornado warnings, but this was the first time I have ever seen a tornado.  Actually, we saw three tornados and there was another one about 100 yards from us that kicked up so much dirt that we couldn’t see it.

We were parked at a rest stop at the time, hoping to wait out the storm.  But when a big sign came cart-wheeling in front of us I decided to make a run for it.   We arrived at the Kearney interchange just as the storm sirens started to sound, so we decided to keep driving.  Fortunately, we finally outran the storm.

The Weather Channel has a regular feature about these sorts of events;  they call it, The Wrath of God.  Insurance companies refer to the damage they cause as “acts of God.”   But what is really happening when a cyclone or a tornado strikes and leaves a trail of death and destruction in its wake? 

My reading of the Old Testament (and I think the New Testament too) leads me to answer the question, sometimes.  As I have previously written, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.  In fact, we live in a world that has been cursed as a result of human sin.  Because of this, sometimes accursed things happen.

Jesus once weighed in on a couple of accursed events that happened in His day.  It all began when He was asked about an atrocity committed by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.  Pilate had apparently killed some men from Galilee who had come to the temple to worship.  In the process, their blood had been mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.  In commenting on this outrage Jesus also referred to another event, one of those acts of God.  The tower of Siloam in Jerusalem apparently collapsed killing 18 men.

In commenting on these tragedies Jesus told us that we should not assume that those who died in these tragedies were worse sinners that other men.     But, interestingly, Jesus did not deny that their deaths were a result of a more general judgment of sin.  On the contrary, He warned his listeners to learn a lesson from these tragedies.  What lesson?  That “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish[i] “

Jesus’ answer may seem harsh, yet if my life had been taken by the tornados that struck central Nebraska I would hope that a similar message would be given at my funeral.  If fact, I would hope the pastor would use Luke 13:1-5 as his text.  I would hope that he would use my death to remind those few who gathered to mourn me that they should remember that their day will come too.  I would hope that he would remind them of the point I made in last week’s sermon; we live our lives on the Green Mile, death row.  And barring repentance, none of us is going to get out of here alive.  

 Truly the scriptures are correct in declaring; “it is appointed unto man once to die,”[ii]  and someday, when the bell tolls for us, something natural, something of this world, is going to be listed as the cause of our death.   So whether we die as a result of diseases, plagues, crime, war or natural disaster, someday something will cause our death.   But the Bible points to a deeper cause.  Paul said it best, “The wages of sin is death,[iii]” and since all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, there is a sense in which the physical death of every man and woman is used either to carry out the sentence we have earned, or in the case of the forgiven, as the means God will use to bring us home.

So God may in fact use a tornado, or the butchery of a tyrant like Pilate for purposes of judgment.  In fact, Christians believe this is exactly how God used Pilate in the case of Jesus.  But in a broader sense, a cursory reading of the Bible makes it clear that sometimes God uses tragedy to judge peoples and civilizations that have sinned so grievously His goodness demands that His justice remove them.  What I mean is that there comes a time when God would cease to be good if He did not use some means to judge the wicked.  The first example the Bible gives us of this principle is the Great Flood.   

In responding to one of my earlier arguments an atheist acquaintance argued that my God was a sadist.  One of the things he pointed to was God’s killing of millions of innocent people in the flood.  But in bringing this accusation against the God he chose to reject what the Bible says about the reasons for the flood.   The Bible says the flood was sent upon a world that had it coming:

                “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”[iv]

                “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.  And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”[v]

                “Then God said, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them…”[vi]

Now I know that someone will ask, “What about the children?”  I do not intend to dodge the question.  However, I will be deferring my answer to it until my discussion on the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.   But for now I would ask you to meditate upon a statement God made after the waters of the flood had cleansed the earth: “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”[vii]

Now let us consider some of the lessons we learn about the God of Old Testament from the story of the flood.   In the Bible’s first recorded judgment, the judgment of Adam and Eve, we learned that God had established a moral order in the universe, and that He expects humankind to submit to His moral will as it is revealed to them.  We also saw that He was compassionate and gracious to the sinning couple.  In the second judgment, the judgment of Cain and Abel, we learn that God hates murder and that He is the avenger of innocent blood.  But once again we note His mercy in His decision to allow Cain to live, even though he had taken the life of his brother.   But with the flood we begin to learn things about the God of the Old Testament that set Him apart from every other god men have ever worshipped.    

Beginning with the flood, we begin to see just how much God hates sin.  We still see His grace and mercy in such things as the preservation of Noah and his family and in the 120 years he gave the human race to avoid the judgment of the flood by responding with repentance to the preaching of Noah.[viii]   Had there been no flood, we might be deluded into thinking that God is not all that bothered by human sin.   After all, in the years from Cain to Noah we see God doing nothing about the growing wickedness on the earth.  This could be interpreted as indifference.  But with the flood we have our first glimpse of the wrath of God, and we begin to see just how much He hates sin.   We also note that God is indeed willing to use the forces of nature to pour out devastating judgment on the wicked.  We will see it again as we continue our survey of the Old Testament, and the New Testament warns us that we will see it again at the end of the age.

But there are other things we learn about the God of the Old Testament from the Genesis flood.   We note that He sees and knows what is going on in the earth, and just as important, He is impacted by what He sees.   Here we see what we might have missed; the God of the universe has emotions; He even feels pain… and our actions cause it.  Consider what is said about God in the verses we quoted earlier in this message: “The Lord was sorry…He was grieved in His heart.”   Commenting on this, the late, Francis Schaeffer, made this observation: 

“We begin to lose our humanity as soon as we begin to lose the emphasis that what we do makes a difference.  We can glorify God, and both the Old and New Testament say that we can even make God sad.  That is tremendous.”

Indeed, it is tremendous.  In one of the ancient pagan flood stories, God destroys the world because people are too noisy.    The God of this theological system is arbitrary and cruel.   It posits an angry, vengeful God who delights in the destruction of the world.  This theology has found a home in the theology of many of God’s modern critics.  But is this an accurate picture of the God of the Old Testament?  I think not.

The Old Testament says God “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”[ix]  The Bible speaks of a longsuffering God[x] — “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger.[xi]”  Read the Old Testament prophets; there you will see a God mourning the sin of His people and agonizing over the judgment their sins are bringing down upon them.  

When I read the Bible, Old Testament or New, I see a God who suffers when we suffer, even when our suffering is our own fault.   When I read about the flood I read about a God who graciously reached out His hands to a doomed humanity for 120 years before a judgment that justice could no longer defer was finally poured out upon them; and I see a grieving creator doing away with something He loved and would have preferred not to destroy.  As an artist, I think I can in some measure understand His emotion.  I will be discussing this in next week’s sermon.          

The God of the Old Testament – Part 11: Dealing with the World’s First Murderer

By Mark L. Carlton

 

I misspoke in last week’s message when I said that the flood was the second recorded instance of God’s judgment of sin.  I forgot about his judgment of the first murderer, Cain.  God’s judgment of Cain is  too important to skip over so this message will be taking a look at it, but before we talk about Cain I want to reflect on a few of the things God’s first judgment, and the one we’re about to look at, teach us about God.

 

Paul points out that we can discern the existence of God through the things he has made.[i]  I have referred to this natural revelation as, “The Silent Sermon,” because on the basis of the 19^th Psalm, “Day to day pours out speech, and night after night pours out knowledge.”[ii]

 

The Psalmist is telling us that everywhere in the world, really, everywhere in the universe, every moment in time the glory of God is being declared to every rational being through the things that God has made.  Paul adds that the silent sermon reveals the existence of God to everyone.  As a result, every man and woman who has ever lived is responsible for their response to at least one sermon that they cannot not have heard, the silent sermon.  But though the silent sermon does reveal certain things about God, there are other things that we learn about God through the record of his special dealings with the human race.

 

We learn a great deal about God from the judgment of Adam and Eve.  We see that He is not a God to leave the guilty unpunished, but in the midst of their judgment we can also see his love for the sinful couple through his mercy.   The postponement of physical death for many years is mercy.  The covering of their nakedness with the skins of animals is mercy and also the first indication that sin can only be covered through the shedding of the blood of the innocent; an animal that was not involved in any way in the transgression of Adam and Eve had to die to provide them with the skins that covered their shame.

 

 The earth was cursed and broken, but not completely.  Man would have to work hard, but the earth would still produce food for him.  One of the great mercies shown to the fallen couple was the posting of cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life, so that they or their descendents would not eat the fruit of the tree and live forever in their sins.  But the greatest mercy of all was the gift of hope, the hope that one day the woman’s seed would crush the serpent’s head.  This is the first prophecy in the Bible of the coming Messiah and his suffering.  The serpent’s head would be crushed, someday, but the heel of the one who crushed it would be bruised.  I have often wondered if those who removed the body of Jesus from the cross remembered these words when they looked at the bruised heals of the Messiah as they prepared His body for burial.

 

So in Genesis three we begin to learn that that there is a moral order in the universe; and the creator, whose character is reflected in this moral order, is the one who judges and punishes those who violate the moral order.   Being the creator gives Him this right. The potter has right over the clay.[iii]  But we also learn that His judge is tempered with mercy, and from this we infer that He must have love and compassion for us.  Why else would he promise to send the woman’s son to crush the serpent’s head?  And at such cost!  Why else would He offer His amazing grace to save a wretch like me?

 

 Now we move on.  The sin that was first seen in the couple in the garden has now manifested itself in their first born son.  His brother is lying in the field, his blood soaking into the ground.  Cain thought that no one saw when He rose up against his brother in the field, but God was watching, and his brother’s blood is crying out to God for justice.

 

From the genealogies we learn that the first murder happened almost 130 years after creation.[iv]  This means that the human race may well have numbered in the thousands when Cain killed Abel.  If this is indeed the case it may be that Cain was a clan or tribal leader.  This helps us to make sense of the text that tells us Cain built a city and named it after his first born son, Enoch.  It seems likely that after his judgment when he settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden, he took others with him.  

 

Now as you read the previous paragraph you may be asking yourself that old question, “Where did Cain get his wife?”  Genesis 5:4 tells us that Adam had other sons and daughters in addition to Cain, Abel and Seth.   Cain and these other sons must have taken wives from among their sisters, nieces, cousin, etc.  Some object to this obvious answer by pointing to the Law’s condemnation of incestuous relationships.  To answer this objection I refer the reader to the first message in this series where I discussed the principle of progressive revelation.  But to summarize it briefly; God did not reveal his moral will to the human race all at once.  Rather, he revealed it gradually over time.  And, as Paul explains in Romans 5:13,” sin is not imputed when there is no law.”  But don’t let this idea that early man married their sisters, nieces and cousins bother you.  Even if you are an evolutionist you have to believe the same thing. 

 

After all, the evolution of a single couple capable of reproducing through random mutation and natural selection would, given the odds against it, be a remarkable thing.   But assuming it happened.  Where did that first couple’s sons get their wives?   I think we reach the same conclusion whether we believe in mitochondrial Eve or the Eve of the Bible.

 

But let’s get back to the subject of the judgment of God.  I don’t want to get hung up in the details of the sacrifices that were offered or God’s attempt to encourage Cain to do the right thing, or the murder itself.   I want to focus on just two things: (1) God’s statement that, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to Me from the ground”; and (2) Cain’s response to God’s judgment.

 

The first observation I would like to make is that the blood of the innocent cries out to God for justice.  Thus we learn that the creator of the world is also its judge, the one responsible for seeing to it that the guilty do not go unpunished.    In Genesis four we learn that innocent blood cries out to God for vengeance.  But as we continue reading through the Genesis we will learn that other sins do the same.[v]   An understanding of this principle is indispensible to an understanding of the God of the Old Testament and the defense I am making of Him. 

 

My defense of the God of the Old Testament rests on this principle; that when the moral order of the universe is violated, whether by Cain or by you or me, a cry for justice rises to the God of the universe.  God is loving and merciful; because of this His judgment is often postponed.  Paul speaks of this and warns us not to misunderstand the patience of God. [vi]  Peter speaks of the same thing.[vii]   But though the wheels of divine justice often grind slow, they grind sure, and as it was revealed to Moses, the goodness of God requires that He not leave the guilty unpunished.[viii]

 

Notice now Cain’s response to the judgment he received.  I would suggest he received an incredibly light sentence, considering the nature of the crime. He was banished from the land he loved, he was denied access to the presence of God, and sent into the world as a vagabond.   But notice the wickedness of the Cain’s heart.  Instead of responding to the mercy he received with gratitude, Cain responded by complaining that his punishment was “too great to bear.”  His only concern seems to be that someone would hunt him down and do the same thing to him that he had done to his brother.

 

In Cain’s response I see a picture of the consistent reaction of the human race to the grace that God pours out upon us.  Isn’t it just like us to look at the way God treats this fallen world, which is actually quite gracious considering the nature of our sin, and complain that He is not being fair?    

 

Could it be that the guilty are not really the best judges of the fairness of their sentence or the conditions on death row?   I think of this whenever I hear Richard Dawkins or one of his parrots hurling accusations against the God of the Bible.  I wonder what makes them imagine that they are morally qualified to judge their judge; and I shudder at the foolishness of a person who would rail against the one who may just end up passing sentence on them. 

 

“Ah, but I don’t believe in God,” they may protest.   And they may be right.  Perhaps God does not exist.  But just in case they are wrong, does it not make some level of sense to cool the rhetoric?

 

Finally, I note that as far as we know Cain never responded to the mercy of God.  As far as we know, he never repented.  This too is a picture of the history of our fallen race. Again and again, God has extended His mercy and grace to the worst of sinners, only to have it thrown back in His face. 

 

These days some are shaking their fists at God as they throw his mercy back in His face, and they call Him all sorts of terrible names.  Based on their reading of the Old Testament they think they have found justification for it.  But when I read the Old Testament I read a different narrative.  I read the story of the unrequited love of God.  I see Him calling out to fallen Adam, “Where are you?”  And I see him giving mercy, again and again and again; but I see the mercy rejected again and again and again too.  Finally, when justice can be postponed no longer I see God do what He refers to as His strange work,[ix] and judging those who in spite of all His efforts, refuse to repent.

 

The God of the Old Testament — Part 10: The First Judgment; Paradise Lost

By Mark L. Carlton

We move now to the first judgment of God recorded in the Bible, the expulsion of the human race, which at the time consisted of just two human beings, from paradise.

I anticipate that some readers might want to argue with me about the historicity of the events recorded in the first four chapters of the Book of Genesis, so let me clearly state my position.  I realize that many modern scholars see the first and second chapters of Genesis as two separate accounts of creation.  But as I said in a previous message, I believe that the teaching of Christ ought to be definitive for a person who calls him or herself a Christian, and it just so happens that Jesus based a major teaching, His teaching on marriage, on these chapters.

As I examine Jesus’ teaching marriage I notice two things.  First, He treated the first and second chapters of Genesis as historical.  Second, He did not treat these two chapters as two separate accounts of creation but two complimentary accounts of the same event.  Given, then, that the one Christians refer to as the Lord treated the text this way, it seems to me that we who call ourselves Christians should do the same;   unless we’ve decided that Jesus was also wrong when He said, “a disciple is not above his teacher or a servant above his Lord.”   Since I consider myself a disciple of His I defer to my Master.

I also note that when Adam is referred to in the apostolic literature he is treated as an historical character.  I also note that the historicity of the fall lies at the very foundation of the Christian doctrine of salvation.  It is the reason we need a savior.

Without the fall it would be possible for the Christian to agree with the humanist manifesto and say, “No deity will save us, we must save ourselves;” and we could join hands with  Michael Jackson and the others who recorded his song, “We Are the World,” and sing, “There’s a choice we’re making, we’re saving our own lives.”  But because we believe in the fall, we Christians sound a discordant note.  Instead of saying,  “There’s a choice we’re making; we’re saving our own lives,” we sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet that sound, that saved a wretch like me;” and contradicting the seminal document of secular humanism, we declare: “If we are to be saved some Deity must do it, because we cannot save ourselves.”   

But for the purposes of this message I am not going to be arguing for the historicity of the book of Genesis.  Instead I am going to assume the same thing that a skeptic would, that it is nothing more than a legend or a myth.  As a legend it would be or contain the memory of some event lost in the primordial past.  As a myth, it is a religious story told to communicate some truth about the human condition. 

The reason I am comfortable treating the early chapters of Genesis in this way is that in the context of this series of messages I think I can make the same point whether one considers the story of the garden and the fall as true history or as a legend or a myth, because in all cases the point of the story remains the same; we live in an imperfect w