Posts Tagged “old testament”

We haven’t covered the entirety of what the Bible has to say about Elijah. If you want to see how Elijah’s life on this earth ended you can pick it up in 1 Kings 20-22 and continue into 2 Kings through chapter 2. Also James mentions Elijah in chapter 5:17-18. The context is in regards to prayer, but the first statement stands out, it says, “Elijah was a man just like us.” That’s the bottom line from this panic series. I think Jim’s talk illuminated that truth very well this past weekend. The first two weeks of the series could have easily lulled us into a place of thinking that Elijah was some kind of superhuman guy who didn’t deal with the same things you and I do. But this weekend we saw Elijah get weary, fearful, selfish, short-sighted, depressed, despair, suicidal and angry. He hit the panic button. “Elijah was a man just like us”.

Before I dive into the answers to the questions posed in the previous post I should say that this blog is not sufficient for detailing the depths of the answers to these questions. You might ask, “then why did you open this can of worms to begin with?” Good question. I would rather address questions in the best way possible with the tools available than to pretend the questions aren’t there. I live my life asking big questions. I can’t not see problems when I read books, when I read the Bible, when I consider God (this is why I don’t usually sleep well!). So I think its worth chewing on these questions and exploring the answers.

The answers (I believe) reflected in the Bible to the two questions the last post closed with are simply yes and no. Yes, there are things that God values more than physical human life. No, we should not measure God against a standard of good that we create. Both of these answers may be unexpected, jarring, shocking or upsetting. Yet I believe the Bible teaches them both clearly.

Lets look first at what God values more than physical human life. Notice that “physical” is a key word in that sentence. 2 Peter teaches us that to God, “…a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:5). So God, who sees well beyond our limited perspective on our limited time here on this earth is much more concerned with our eternal location, and state than our temporary one here on this earth. That just makes sense. Yet its hard for us to get our heart and mind around because the here and now is what we tend to focus on the most. Jesus said it this way, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28). Some take that verse to be referring to Satan. It doesn’t, it refers to God. Only God has the power to take physical life and spiritual life away. In other words, losing our physical life on this earth is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Not by a long shot. So with that being said physical life is still a huge value to God. He created it, He created it good, He commanded that it not be murdered or unlawfully taken away from anyone. So, what is a higher value to God?

1) Remaining faithful to God is more important than physical life. (Hebrews 11, Revelation 2:10)

Many martyrs have given their physical life instead of denying their faith in Jesus. Paul said it appropriately, “for me to, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21

2) Love is more important than physical life. (Romans 5:6-8)

Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” John 15:13

3) Justice is often valued over human life. (Exodus 32:25-28, Acts 5:1-11)

The fact is that sometimes justice demands the taking of physical human life. This is why God ordered the first death sentence to Adam and Even for their sin. (Genesis 3)

Many say that God has often violated the most famous of His 10 commandments “You shall not kill”. The problem with that accusation is that isn’t the command. The command was “you shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). God Himself also commanded the taking of human life for the offense of murder (Exodus 21:12-14).

The really tough question comes out when you speculate on what may have been the eternal destination of those who God killed in scriptures like we referenced in the last post. Especially for those who certainly did not follow after the one true God, but were engaged in idolatry. Without delving into an explanation that would be much longer than what this post could contain I would refer you to Romans 9 for further study.

Now onto the second question.Is ‚Äúgood‚Äù as we understand it a standard that we should measure God against? The reason I say no is simply because you and I are not good. So how could we think that we would be able to grasp any understanding of good outside of the character and actions of God. In Luke 18:19 we find Jesus saying to the rich young man “why do you call me good?….No one is good -except God alone.” Now while Jesus was inferring that He is both good and God, He was also pointing out clearly that you and I are not. The only way that you and I have a standard for good is because of what God has revealed to us through His word and His character. Therefore we cannot construct our own version of good apart from God and try to measure His character, or actions against that standard.

Therefore if God does something it is most certainly not evil. God cannot and does not sin, He never violates His character. Yet, we see throughout scripture God using the evil behavior of people to accomplish ultimate good. This is never more clear than in the cross itself. I’ll close with this quote by John Piper from his book, Spectacular Sins and their global purpose in the Glory of Christ.

“At the all-important pivot of human history, the worst sin ever committed served to show the greatest glory of Christ and obtain the sin-conquering gift of God’s grace. God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.”

If you want to study further on these amazingly difficult questions I recommend reading, The invisible hand of God by RC Sproul.

alright so lets just cut right to the chase. I have been studying 1 Samuel lately and today I read chapter 15. In it God commands the reigning king of Israel, Saul to exact vengeance upon the Amalekites for something they did way back in Genesis 17. Here is what God tells Saul to do through his prophet Samuel.

“now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

So what do we do with that? Seriously, here we have God commanding the violent slaughter of women and babies. How on earth can we call this God good? Obviously this is not an easy question but I think in order to get at the answer we have to back all the way up to what God had already done. I’ve recently read some really smart Bible commentators say that all of these instances of God’s people warring against other nations and people were a result of people misunderstanding the commands of God. That God didn’t really command these actions, people misinterpreted because of the cultural influences they lived in. Meaning these were violent times, violent people prevailed and so Israel, its prophets, its kings and its leaders were just unknowingly being disobedient when they did things like kill women and children. I find that to be incredible. Lets take this example from 1 Samuel 15 for starters. If you read the chapter Saul actually gets punished for not fully carrying out God’s command. Saul allows the people to keep some of the spoils of the battle. They keep some of the best sheep and cattle. Just as a side note what does it say about Saul’s character that he seemed to have no trouble slaughtering women and children but not some sheep and cattle? Because Saul didn’t fully carry out the direct command of the LORD he had his kingdom stripped from him. So I find the argument of misunderstanding lacking. Not to mention the fact there are plenty of times in scripture where God doesn’t use people to carry out the killing of others, He just does it Himself. So even if you believe that people like Samuel just misunderstood God, you would still have to reconcile punishments God Himself gives out throughout the Old Testament. Within the first 6 chapters of the Bible we see God punish Adam and Eve with death (even though not immediate, the punishment was severe). Later, God sends a flood on the earth that destroys every man, woman and child on the planet with the exception of Noah and his family. What I mean to point out is that while we often gloss over the horror of what a worldwide flood must have been like for the sake of making it a nice story to teach kids in Sunday School, God has been doing things like this from the beginning. Actions like we find God commanding in 1 Samuel 15 were not unprecedented in the least.

So I’ll conclude this post with some questions to consider that I will address in the third post, soon to come.

1) What if physical human life is not the highest value? Could there be things that God values more than physical human life?

2) Is “good” as we understand it a standard that we should measure God against?

Think about these questions and search the Bible.

First things first. Before we jump into trying to deal with this issue we need to settle on what tactics we shouldn’t employ.

1) claim that God was a lot grumpier in the Old Testament and that he has settled down in His old age and left His days of commanding and inflicting violence on people behind. Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Jesus is God, so what is true about God the Son is true about God the Father and God the Spirit. God doesn’t change. Which means that He doesn’t mature, grow or get further enlightened. James 1:17 tells us that the Father God is one “who does not change like shifting shadows.”

2) That the Old Testament is of no use now that the New Covenant has come. Lets just focus on Jesus and not worry with the Old Testament. The problem with that is, Jesus worried with the Old Testament. Jesus viewed the Old Testament as authoritative and binding when properly applied. In fact the entire sermon on the mount is a perfect application of the Old Testament law. Within it Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear , not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18)

3) Turn the historical events of the Old Testament into allegorical stories meant to teach us spiritual lessons. Many people mythologize and allegorize the old testament whenever its convenient in order to avoid dealing with hard questions. Again, Jesus didn’t view the old testament this way. In dealing with one of the most often allegorized stories of the Old Testament, that being the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish, Jesus took a literal view of this story. In Matthew 12:40 Jesus says, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Not only did Jesus literally believe that Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish, but He literally believed He Himself would die, and rise after three days.

People do other things to avoid the tough ethical questions that the events of the Old Testament raise, but these are perhaps the three tactics most often employed. Now that we know what not to do in dealing with this question we can deal with the question head on. I’ll try my best to do that in the next post.