Open Thread Discussion: Group Punishment/Blessing in the Bible
December 11, 2008 by iMonk
In my Bible classes, I often will come up with a topic that relates to what we’ve been studying, and I’ll ask the students to prepare to debate either side of a proposition related to what we’ve learned.
I thought this week’s topic would make for an interesting topic of discussion. Our students, like any group of students, really dislike group punishment. So now that we have completed most of our study of the Old Testament, I’ve got them working on debating the following proposition.
“God’s use of group punishment and group blessing in the Old Testament is inherently unfair.”
Groups in this case are families, cities, nations, tribes, even the whole world.
So, what do you say? What would be your criticism, defense, questions, examples or insight? What would you contribute to our discussion?
I don’t believe God sinned, but I believe I would be sinning if I killed women and children in any war for any reason. Therefore, there is a disjoint in ethics that has to be explained. My ethical sense to show mercy to women and children appears unreliable when compared to God’s commands in scripture.
iMonk
“… I believe I would be sinning if I killed women and children in any war for any reason. Therefore, there is a disjoint in ethics that has to be explained. My ethical sense to show mercy to women and children appears unreliable when compared to God’s commands in scripture.”
To expand on my cultural concept. In WWII “we” in general operated on your ethical concepts. And when the war was over most of the combatants got over it and got on with their lives. Heck, at my wedding rehearsal dinner my dad and mother-in-law got into a discussion of a bombing raid they both remembered. He was in a B24 and she was on the ground in Germany ducking the bombs. And look at us and Japan and Viet Nam.
Now consider the Balkans and much of the middle east. Many of the conflicts there date back centuries. And mothers raise their orphan children to remember their dead father in the war and expect them to exact revenge at some point or pass on the directive to their generations. This is a concept that’s alien to most of us with a western European background.
I think the OT era was taking place in an era where the mindset of tribe and extended family honor and loyalty was way more important than national loyalty or long term “lets bury the hatchet” issues.
Christ was a change.
I would say I’m half and half on the group punishment deal. Where God brought judgement is often difficult to understand, such as the amelikites, though to be fair isreal had suffered as a group under the amelikites for about 300 years before God judged them. I think that if the group has sinned then the group should be punished, it’s just when a group is punished because only one or a few have sinned. An example from today would be Islamic stereotypes because there are a few militant groups who use terrorism. Would we accept christianity being judged because of the KKK? Or do we like it when collections at church are all judged by televangelists who are raping their followers so they can buy their next leer jet?
There are group punishments as well as group confessions, and I am about the same on those as well. There was a time when america could have repented and confessed for their treatment of blacks, but to force a nation to repent for the sins of it’s fathers when those sins have already been expelled is a bit silly. It would be like expecting Germany to repent for Nazi Germany, or Japan to repent for the Empire. They were both judged as a group at the end of the war. America didn’t have a quick judgement and to be fair may still be going through it’s time of penance to this day, but the point is that it has left behind slavery, and segregation and most people today don’t have issues with race yet are still being judged. In some ways I think it’s fair and in others I don’t.
We first need to teach our children, “There is a God and He ain’t us.[or me]”
It is really hard to explain the mystery of God to people. I left a Methodist upbringing as a child and wandered lost because I was told about the God of the Old test. Vs. God of the new Test. You know He who is and was and will be world without end, Amen. How did God get a make over? This leads to comedians making jokes about God mellowing out when He had a kid.[How will that joke play at Judgment?]
Years later I came to understand God changed not, but His Covenant sure did. God doing or allowing or ordering something has nothing at all to do with what we should do. He is God and we are not. When we can create worlds, or at least calm storms, then we can entertain the question of God like decisions. Do you really have a problem with God taking out Sodom and then telling us we will be known by our love? I don’t. Not a little bit.
The first lie was that we could be like God. It still is a lie. Using the actions of All Knowing God to justify the actions of idiot man would be like asking gerbils to fly a plane. Jet plane, in the dark, in a storm.
God not only has affected nations negatively for the sins of the previous generation[s], He blessed and blesses based on the obedience of previous generations. If you think that unfair take it up with the management.
Is it possible the Amelikites had to go because they or one of them would have killed an ancestor of Mary, the Blessed Mother? Just a thought, I do not know but God does. See?
The minute we are all knowing we can go for exterminating. We can teach our children that exterminating people groups is wrong as we teach them the difference between God and Man. We can teach them God did what He had to do to bring Salvation to man. Temporal deaths vs. eternal life.
Raffi, call me collect about God and the individual, I will tell you where to send the $10 after I explain the individual relationship with God and His actions.
In Sarah Vowell recent (very funny, informative and largely sympathetic) book on the New England Puritans “the Wordy Shipmates”. She describes an episode in the Pequot War that has come to be known as the “Mystic Massacre”. On May 26, 1637 a force of about 400 pious God fearing Calvinist from Boston attacked a nebouring village of hostile natives. The European settlers light fire to the Pequot stockade and killed over 600 hundred men, woman and children as they fled their compound. In the wake of the blood bath the puritan settlers (also known as the Pilgrims) joyously celebrated God’s providence. Christians (especially of the Reformed persuasion) need to be very careful about we deal with these very problematic texts. I am afraid that we may be sowing seeds that will grow into future crops of violence and hatred.
God Bless
Steve in Toronto
Not sure about this one. I struggle with the “holy killing” concept the OT portrays.
The only thought I have had in relation to Saul and the Amalekites is that perhaps eliminating the people, animals, and wealth was to prevent Israel from being seen as opportunistic raiders, killing everyone, but keeping the spoils in terms of flocks, slaves, and possessions. Their mission would be seen as one of wealth-gathering as opposed to some sort of “cleansing” by God.
I think Saul’s story is so horrifying in its implications because it involves people taking action against other people. We don’t seem quite as upset when God floods the earth and wipes out men, women, children, and countless animals.
The difference is that we can “blame” God for that.
I don’t know about you but the flood story scares me as well. The difference is that I can put my self in the place of an Israel foot soldier (or a puritan musketeer). What would I do if my leader told me it was God’s will for me to smash the head of a crying child? I hope and pray that I would tell my commander (King, Priest, President or Officer) to go to Hell.
What would you do?
Peace (and I really mean it)
Steve in Toronto
Steve..I’m not disagreeing with you. The flood scares me…Hell scares me…Revelation’s punishments scare me.
“sinners in the hands of an angry God”..and all that
I have a hard time reconciling these themes with the themes of God’s love and forgiveness.
You and me both sister.
Regarding the Abraham and Isaac bit, for whatever it’s worth, the Jewish tradition is a bit different than the way we think of it. According to the Jewish tradition, Isaac was not a little kid but was a youth in perhaps his early teens. And when he’s asking about where the animal for the sacrifice is, he figures out what’s going on. Then as Gen 22:8 says “So then they went both of them together.” That is, Isaac knowing that he’s to be sacrificed goes with his father out of obedience to God and Abraham. In fact, Jewish tradition says it was Isaac’s idea to be tied up so that he wouldn’t in natural fear of death and pain struggle and either hurt Abraham or cause the sacrifice to be blemished.
Like I said, “for what it’s worth.”
The story of Isreal’s King Manasseh is instructive here:
Manasseh had promoted idol worship in the temple, burnt sacrifice of live children, all around horrific stuff (2 Kings 21:1-9). In 2 Kings 21:10-12, God pronounces judgement on the nation of Isreal “because Manasseh, King of Isreal, has done these abominations”: Group punishment for the sins of Manasseh.
In 2 Chronicles 33:10-13 Manasseh himself was imprisoned in Babylon, “and when he was in great distress, he entreated the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. When he prayed to Him, He was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom.” Manasseh eventually dies and is buried with his fathers, and 2 Chon. 33:18-30 records Manasseh personal, individual repentance and restoration to the Lord.
After this, King Josiah leads the nation to great acts of repentance (2 Kings 22 and 23), including a thorough purging of idolatry and a restoration of the Passover. Here we see group repentance. After all this, “however, the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath with which his anger burned against Judah, BECAUSE of all the provocations with which MANASSEH had provoked Him” (2 Kings 23:26)
So one the one hand, you have Manasseh, one of the worst kings of Isreal, who repents and experiences personal restoration and grace from the Lord.
On the other hand, God says that the nation of Isreal, after their group repentance and cleansing, must still be punished as a group in exile because of the personal sins of Manasseh.
Raffi, if this is worthy of an Amazon gift card, I’ll donate it back to Michael
Re: Obed
And this is supposed to make me feel better about the text? Søren Kierkegaard wrote a wonderful book about this story called “Fear and Trembling”. Most evangelicals will recoil from the conclusions that Kierkegaard draws from the text (That the Christian faith is ultimately founded on a necessarily irrational “leap of faith”). But I am increasingly finding it impossible to escape his conclusions.
God Bless
Steve in Toronto
From the standpoint of group blessing, the “new commandment” Jesus gave to us is to love “one another”. It’s new because it’s a commandment that requires obedience of BOTH of us to fulfill it.
The old commandments addressed individual behavior: love God and your neighbor, honor your father and mother, don’t kill, etc. I could try to obey these solo.
The ‘one-anothers’ that permeate the New Testament (especially Paul’s letters) require the obedience of the group: if you love me but I don’t love you, then we have not loved “one another”, and you will not experience the blessing (“by this all men will know you are My disciples”) even though you have exercised your personal obedience to this command.
Steve in Toronto: “And this is supposed to make me feel better about the text?”
Maybe. There’s a big difference between a father being willing to kill a child and a father and willing son being willing to make that same sacrifice. Especially since 13 is the age of majority in Judaism.
But mostly I was just throwing out a different POV.
I was recently listening to a debate between an atheist and a Christian about ethics. This concept came up near the end of the program and the Christian did not seem to have an answer for it.
The man representing the atheist position stated the that ‘if God’s outside command can transcend the ethical framework then that throws a monkey wrench into the whole machine of Christian ethics.
As imonk was saying how do you tell your kid that killing innocent people is always wrong except if God tells you to do it? Does anyone think God speaks in such a way (commanding specific actions) anymore? Was not God’s final word Jesus?
I would be very interested in how people answer these questions both theologically (as many in this thread have shared) but also in the pastoral sense (i.e., if I was a confused parishioner coming with honest questions that wouldn’t go away by stating that God did it so it must be ok).
My view:
God revealed Himself over time and in the context of what people comprehended at the time. Which is why, through our twenty-first century eyes God looks like an unfair or jealous God.
At the time of the Old testament people’s identity was through a group. When Joshua entered the Promise Land, time after time he conquered, killing every man, woman, child, livestock, salted the earth – all standard practice of the time. Seems horrific to us but normal mode of operation at that time. He was not conquering an individual but conquering a group.
We have grown – especially in the United States to be individualists. But God in the Old Testament dealt with people on a communal level whether that be Noah and his family, Abraham and his tribe, Moses and his people, Joshua and the Chosen, David and the Israelites.
Even in the New Testament Jesus calls out his woes, not on individuals but on cities, groups of people (Pharasees and scribes). In Luke’s version of the Beatitudes He calls out his Oracles and curses on all, not individuals. When Paul, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit went out to convert the heathen and share the Good news he also created or encouraged Churches so that Christianity would be a communal thing and not individualistic.
Group punishment does appear to be “unfair” but it is not unjust. Fairness is a child’s notion of justice the idea that all circumstances and tests should be equal. Life is incredibly unfair some are strong intelligent, rich and beautiful while others are not. Some are severely tested and others skate. I think the right answer has already been given by cey and others (I peeked at the others papers – I guess that’s unfair too!).
We have to be like Job. God does as He will, His reasons are not always given. His generosity to us post Incarnation is likewise mysterious. Doubtless I’m no better than those that perished as a group in the OT. Why I have been graced with a chance to know Christ and they were not is a mystery, maybe it is partly to teach us gratitude here and now. Just another reason to thank God for His generosity.
If you guys think God was barbaric in the OT wait until the Return! Blood as high as the bridle of a horse, death on a level never seen.
Remember Abraham told his servant,WE will be back, that was faith.
Why do you worry about people’s fate here on earth, a span of only 100 years or so? God is in charge of eternity. Rest assured that the souls of the OT slaughters will have just as long to spend in their final abode either way. Next thing you know you will accuse God of sinning for the people in Hell.
Mants, if a parishioner asks a question about God telling Him to kill anybody, they need serious psychological help, not pastoral. We will sit and wait for the po-po.
All y’all need to go read some Dispensational writings or at least get a Scofield, maybe one of those chart things they are fond of.
Terri and Steve, Just God, He is a Just God, and only God is just.
When you get to Heaven make sure to give God this little ethics lesson, I’ll be the one with my face buried in the floor and smoke coming off the seat of my pants. After you get Him staightened out, say Hi!
@Steve: You’re gonna have to ask Michael. He’s the judge.
But let me take a (rather long) stab at this.
“God’s curse.” “God’s wrath.”
I’m assuming that when most of us are saying these things, we’re referring to the “God” fully revealed in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, who exemplified, embodied, and redefined (for us sinners) “Love,” and thus revealed that central characteristic of the One He called Abba.
And if it is that God to which I refer when I use the term “god” in a Christian context, and the more directly and consciously I do so, the more I get the sense, “in my bones” (a la Lewis) that phrases like “God’s wrath” and “God’s curse” are oxymorons. Either that, or the terms “curse” and “wrath” have developed such a different connotation today than from biblical times that they has since become oxymorons.
Don’t get me wrong. I wholeheartedly believe that God is grieved to the core of his being by our sins, both individually and collectively as a human family. But I can’t get myself to embrace the resultant reaction when it has historically been labeled “God’s Wrath.” What does it mean to say “Love’s Wrath?” “Agape’s Wrath?” The wrath of the Prodigal’s father in Luke 15?
And the more I think about it, meditate and pray about, the more I come the same recurring thought, which is this. Sometimes the best we can do, within the parameters of our limited and impoverished language, is simply the best we can do. But that doesn’t limit the immeasurable qualities of God to have to fall within those limitations. Failing to recognize this sometimes makes us slaves to that language rather than slaves of the Creator and Lover of the cosmos. The ancients spoke about “the heavens” as God’s realm because the mystery of that aspect of the space/time universe was the best analogy to the mystery of God’s realm of existence. But look where at the damage that such language has caused throughout Christian theological discourse over the centuries. And that’s but one example, leaving aside myriads of other areas where this danger has also been realized (”second coming” language, “salvation” language, etc.).
Here’s the thing. I think one of great contributions of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy was that it allowed us as a body to recognize that doctrinal statements that may appear paradoxical within the Western Enlightenment world were, rather, illuminations of a larger truth within the Kingdom of God. “First shall be last,” “He who wishes to find his life must lose it,” and many other “strange” utterances by our King are paradoxical, folly to those who are perishing, but they make utter sense within what Wright and Lonergan call “an epistemology of love.”
“God’s Wrath,” in my humble opinion, does not fall within that category.
Here’s what I think is going on with phraseology like wrath, curse, etc., that are categorically inconsistent with the God revealed in Jesus Christ, when such phrases appear in the Bible. In one, very narrow sense, they are true. God created this world, and because He loved His creation, He bestowed it with freedom, the dignity to choose His way or to choose otherwise. And here’s the catch. In so doing, God (and only God) knew the consequences of choosing the latter. Doing so would necessarily bring forth dire consequences, things that would appear to the flawed human eye as wrath, curse, etc., when, in actuality, these are simply the natural consequences of our own choices, as opposed to the ultimate paradox of the vengeful actions of (what we know, through Christ) to be a loving, faithful, God; a God who endures patiently the flaws and foibles of His children, respecting their dignity if they chose to foresake him, and consistently ready to embrace and forgive, in fact, to foresake His own dignity by running toward us to embrace us when we, even half-heartedly, choose to turn shamefully home, only to find that the best robes have been prepared and the fatted calf slaughtered to celebrate that return.
So did Jesus take on God’s wrath on our behalf on the cross? Absolutely!
Did a vengeful God appease his bloodthirst by requiring the sacrifice of His own son because he so loved us? Absolutely not!
Did Jesus, on the cross, exhaust the consequences of our collective, human sin by willingly and lovingly allowing those consequences to fall upon His person, His perfect image-bearing humanity, the exemplar of perfect humanity. I think that’s one aspect of what was going on, yes.
And like a legion of modern voices are striving to proclaim, that’s one aspect of what was going on. There are a myriad of others, old and new, and we forget any one of those aspects to our peril. But let’s also not forget to re-imagine not just the doctrines, old and new, but the language we have used to communicate them. “Confessing Jesus as Lord,” as but one example, means something very different today than it did within the Roman Empire under Caesar. Maybe it is precisely that language that has allowed some aspects of the gospel message to become marginalized in the first place. May God give us wisdom to recognize where that has occurred, and the imagination and courage to help change it, to His glory.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
“God’s use of group punishment and group blessing in the Old Testament is inherently unfair.”
According to whose rules? When we see God not performing according to our principles of justice, we judge God.
By the way communal temporal punishment does not change eternal individual judgment, which will be highly personalized. Presumably innocent Amelikites may receive eternal life if they yearned for God but did not know of the requirement for Baptism (we call this “the Baptism of desire”) the presumption of righteousness may be granted them. Or true innocents like infants would be Baptized by Angels and afforded graces in that way. We only know part of the story. Further temporal group punishments and rewards still exist. I get to live in the US – a great worldly benefit given to me unfairly one might say. Innocents are caught in poverty, war etc all the time. Isn’t that “unfair”. Since God knows all circumstances when He judges those given less and put in trying circumstances will be judged less harshly than those given more (we are told as much). Therefore for those of us given much we must appeal to mercy, especially when we recognize how little we have done with the gifts He has given us.
ky boy but not now,
>Now consider the Balkans and much of the middle east. Many of the conflicts there date back centuries. And mothers raise their orphan children to remember their dead father in the war and expect them to exact revenge at some point or pass on the directive to their generations. This is a concept that’s alien to most of us with a western European background.
i think that’s a very valid point. so let’s say we modify the scenario a bit hypothetically and not only kill the men, but also the women, teenagers and youth. and let’s say that the age of the children spared is kept fairly young. what would you say to that? why would God command the killing of small children that could have been adopted and assimilated into the israelite community?
What does it, group punishment in the OT, teach us about Christ, the redemption he has won for us, and the final judgment? Part of the struggle, or problem, is that there is a tendency to read the OT in a sort of vacuum. That is to say, there is a tendency to read it without redemption in view.
Kobra you sound like Michael
It’s been my understanding that archeological evidence doesn’t support the narrative of the Children of Israel sweeping in, wiping out entire enemy cities and populations, and taking over the land in a fairly short and decisive manner. I stand with St. Augustine in seeing much of the OT as meant spiritually and not literally, and I assume that there’s no real ethical problem here because it isn’t a flatly literal fact of history that the Israelites, in response to a clear and direct command of God, committed genocide. No doubt they committed other acts equally horrible (most peoples have, throughout history), but it seems unlikely they did this one, and is obvious (to me) that God did not command genocide.
So the question for me is, what is the real meaning of these passages? How is the Church to understand a narrative about the origins of the people of God in which there is a swift takeover of the land, and no tolerance for the enemies of God?
The Manicheans rejected the Church in great part because a literal reading of the OT made it intolerable for followers of Christ. St. Augustine taught against that, and I stand with him. These passages either are not cold, literal historical descriptions, or they describe a God who is not the one of the Old Testament and the Manicheans were right.
Donning asbestos overcoat….
Kat said…
“According to whose rules? When we see God not performing according to our principles of justice, we judge God.”
But isn’t that the point? Several on this thread have spoken about our inability to understand goodness and justice because of the fall, but how can we say God is good or just if we do not understand what those words mean? If I cannot decide if an action by God is just or not then how can i say God is good? i have just a sort of fideism.
It seems to slip into a Divine Command theory of ethics, i.e. God orders people to kill babies, this is not a sin because God orders it. So really there is no objective right or wrong just whatever God says is right is right what He says is wrong is wrong.
I actually think that Divine Command Ethics was what the ancient Israelites believed and they justified their atrocities by saying that God told them to do it. (I am not a biblical inerrantist so I don’t think every word in the bible was dictated by God) Anyway just a thought.
O.H. watch what archeologists you go by. Until recently some thought David a “Theological concept”, Now there is just too much proof.
Manichean rejection or any other gospel group is still rejection. Humanists have grounds for rejection as do communists and Hindus we can’t alter our Truth to suit. If St Augustine convinced a bunch of Gnostics on that one they would reject on some other grounds. Gandhi rejected as too many of his countrymen would go to hell. It is still rejection .
Inerrancy aside, do you know of any other more accurate historical document from the bronze age? It tracks.
Is group punishment or group blessing unfair? If it is then class-action civil suits are unfair. Declaring war on anyone would be unfair even if you thought the reasons were just. Declaring war on a culture that practices child sacrifice would be unfair. I know the primary question pertains to whether or not God’s use of group punishment or blessing is unfair but how could we have had a civil rights movement in this country for blacks or given women the right to vote if group punishment or blessing is unfair? Now we could discuss whether or not it is fair for God to use group action but I’m not sensing that people are discussing group action generally. Is group punishment or reward inherently unfair in itself or just the way people see it used?
Great thread.
What is fairness?? Particularly God’s definition (presuming His is the one that really counts), not ours.
Rom 9:21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Topher,
you had some interesting things to chew on. Does God get an exemption because He is God??
Yes, He does…. Do I comprehend it? No…… I do know God is beyond my understanding, but even that can be woefully inadequate. God has reveal only portions of His nature to us. I am forced to lean on those things that I do understand about God, all the while having to acknowledge the difficulty of the tension which these things bring.
I’m left with the choice of abandoning my faith, or cleaving to that whichI do know, at least with some certainty.
Deu 29:29 “The secret [things belong] to the LORD our God, but those [things which are] revealed [belong] to us and to our children forever, that [we] may do all the words of this law.
IMonk said – “it is more coherent to say that killing children is always wrong than it is to explain why it’s sometimes right. I’d prefer to deal with my idea of the nature of scripture than actually have a theory of how I can tell my son that it’s ok to kill your child if God tells you too.”
I’m hearing a lot of people dissing the concept of fairness in this discussion. I think the Bible is clear that God is “fair” – Scripture declares that “there is no partiality with God.” Rom. 2:11 – the idea of being fair, of giving everyone fair play is inherent to Christianity. And it’s tied to God’s nature – God is fully just, fully good, and is fully merciful and fully loving. The Bible is clear on this.
So back to IMonk’s question (which is also a common reason that the honest atheist will give for not believing in the Old Testament God) – killing children is always wrong. Or, to put it even more succinctly – murdering the innocent is always wrong. If my son asked me if it would be ok for me to kill a child if God told me to, the answer would be that God would NEVER tell me to because it would be against His Nature.
well what about Abraham & Isaac? the story speaks for itself – well what about God telling the nation of Israel to slaughter every man, woman, & child of different Canaanite nations? I don’t know – there is obviously something in this story that I don’t understand. I do know that God is all just, all good, all merciful, and all loving – that is the God of the Bible.
closet fundy,
Be careful with Romans 9 – I can’t even count the number of times evangelicals have turned to Romans 9 to explain away things that they say God does, that Romans 9 never actually says God does.
Paul asks if we can blame God for making us sinful? No, we can’t. Does that mean that God indeed made us sinful? No, it doesn’t.
Paul asks if the potter has the power to make clay for both good and bad purposes? Yes, the potter does have that power. But does THAT mean that God created people for both good and bad purposes? No, it doesnt.
Michael, you said:
So my counter-assertion, and other statements, was an attempt to offer what I would contribute. I assumed, because you talked about teaching through the Old Testament in a Bible class, that this was a discussion based on Christian presuppositions. How would I logically discuss this seemingly paradoxical idea with fellow believers? I would probably appeal to the need for consistency with the way we talk and think about these things, as well as the need for consistency with the biblical message.
You seem to have assumed that I (and the other readers) knew that you had non-Christians in the class, for whom a more apologetic approach would be necessary. In light of that, I probably would have approached it differently.
You later said:
Aha– well, this is, possibly, an altogether different direction than your initial post suggests.
If I were discussing/debating this topic– with that goal in mind– with a group of students, mixed in belief and unbelief, I would probably discuss the idea of justice and what it means. Who gets to determine what is just? Who gets to wage justice? Are there any absolutes in the matter? If not, how do we ever determine justice– and how can we look upon other cultures and epochs of history and declare the acts of those people and times unjust? If so, then what are those absolutes, how do we know them, and what do they imply about our culpability?
Next, let’s talk about responsibility: Do we bear any responsibility for our fellow man? If not, then why do we support institutions like hospitals, fire departments, and soup kitchens– why not just hoard our resources and erect ways to protect our own interests? If so, then what is the extent of that responsibility? Do my actions have impact beyond my own life? If not, then why do we impose a sentence of vehicular manslaughter on the drunk driver who kills a pedestrian child? If so, then how am I held accountable for my actions when they impose on others– and how do I bear a responsibility for the actions of others, whether their actions impose on me or benefit me?
Finally, let’s draw it all together: If we assert that there are no absolutes when it comes to justice, let’s face the facts that we live that claim out inconsistently every day. What does that imply about our supposed belief? If we claim there is no responsibility that we bear for others, then again let’s own our inconsistency.
But if justice is real, and the standards for justice exist beyond me, that at least leaves open the possibility that God, if He exists, holds the cards on justice. And if we acknowledge that we do share in responsibility for one another, at least to a degree– and that our actions at times impose upon others, and at other times benefit them, and vice-versa– then that opens the door to the possibility of all bearing the responsibility for the mistakes of the one, and all receiving the blessings for the sake of the one.
Which would seem to be the theological underpinnings of the first Adam and the second Adam.
Here’s a question:
Do we believe that God still operates this way?
Did Jesus’ death change our relation to God from group to individual?
If so, then was it really a change, or a revelation of the way God has always done things?
If it changed nothing in this area, then how does that work in history now?
ok…that was more than one question.
What about passages where God declares that he loves Jacob but hates Esau? And in those passages he’s not giving solid reasons other than that he reserves the right to love and hate whom he will.
J.P.
I probably agree with most of your statement on Romans 9. I referred to that passage to emphasize sovereignty in a general sense which I believe that passage gives a strong foundation to.
As others have brought up Adam and Jesus as addressing this issue, and the issue of God’s justice being “fair” or not, here is my take.
ISTM that insomuch as we all share our part in the curse of Adam–and the Apostle Paul seems to state clearly we all do–we all share our part of of the group punishment of the Fall. If we agree with Paul’s statement that “all sin”, then the fairness argument seems to me to fall flat. Subsequently, all the exterminations, massacres, pillages, and other horrors of the OT are merely a sub-plot to the Curse we all are taking part in. “We all got it comin’, kid,” said a wise sage.
The OT, IMHO, is the story of God manipulating the circumstances and events of the Curse to bring about its own end. If I understand anything about covenants, then it seems to me that in the covenant with Abraham God stated unequivocally that He, Himself, would take the fall if Abraham failed to live up to his side of the bargain. In the end, Abraham and his seed failed. In turn, God, in Jesus, took the fall on the Cross. The Cross and the Resurrection put an end to the Curse.
Now, insomuch as we all share[d] our part in the group punishment of the Curse, we all now share our part in the group Blessing of Jesus, the Good News. God had set all that was so morally wrong with the OT right/i>, making good on the covenant he made with Abe.
Again, ISTM that in the final analysis we struggle with the justice/fairness of God in the OT because we struggle with the facts of Jesus. I don’t blame the secularist for being offended at God after reading the OT because, after all, he doesn’t believe Jesus did anything about it in the NT.
Was it “fair” for Jesus to be ostracized, crucified and killed to save a people that brought the Curse upon themselves and, in effect, didn’t want his brand of salvation anyway? Yet, we all reap the benefits of a saved world, and mostly don’t think twice about it. How is that fair? It isn’t. But it is just.
dad-gum html tags!!!!
AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!
If we as a group can be saved on account of another man’s righteousness, then we as a group can be judged on account of another man’s sin.
Because humanity fell corporately by the sin of the first Adam, the church is saved corporately by the righteousness of the second Adam, Jesus.
All lesser instances of corporate judgment or blessing are subsumed in that.
Also, why limit the question of group blessing/judgment to the Old Testament?
Mt 23.35: “[S]o that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.”
Note the “you” in the “whom you murdered.” If corporate blessing/judgment is wrong, then Jesus is wrong and unrighteous.
Obed,
Again the “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” reference is also from Romans 9, but if you look at the verse Romans 9:13, the Apostle Paul is quoting directly from Malachi 1:3. And, in the context of Malachi 1, Jacob is the nation of Israel and Esau is the nation of Edom – “they will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord.”
So in “those passages” it is NOT saying that God reserves the right to hate only some individuals and love only some individuals. God hates and punishes the evil of nations. And He will punish a nation as a whole. But this is completely different from saying that God creates some individual people specifically so that he can hate and punish them eternally – because THAT brings Him glory. I, like George MacDonald, would rather be an atheist than believe in a tryant divinity like that.
Scripture is clear that God does bless and punish groups or nations. Scripture is also clear that God loves and deals fairly with every single individual human being He created (particularly regarding that person’s eternal state), regardless of whether that person was a descendant of Jacob or of Esau.
IMonk,
(slaps forehead) I didn’t realize it at first, but I guess there is a very simple hyper-Calvinist explanation for group punishment, group blessing, and the ability of Israel to slaughter every man, woman, & child of a sinful, non-elect Canaanite nation.
The first instance I see is when God punished the human race for Adam’s sin.
Scripture shows the ‘fall’ was planned by God. He wanted man ‘in our image’, knowing ‘both good and evil.’ That ‘knowing’ didn’t happen until the encounter at the Tree of Knowledge. Afterwards God said, ‘behold, now man has become as we..knowing both good and evil.’ We are ‘appointed’ once to die (group death/the fall). The ‘fall’ was the fulfilling of the creation of man like Jesus was the fulfilling of the Law.
Rats! This always happens, I end up agreeing in principle and heart with Closet fundies! Yet they reject me, sigh..
Terri , of course god still operates that way, there are peoples of the earth being wiped out now as I type. I hope and pray that Jesus’s death and resurrection changes your relationship with Him as an individual and with the Church as a group.
God has always “done things” based on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Man kind was banished from the garden with the idea that the death and resurrection of the Messiah would rejoin us spiritually. David was forgiven based on the blood of Jesus. That is what it is all about.
This tread made me nuts. You just can’t compare God’s behavior to a class action suit! Sorry. Imonk, just teach the kids out of the New Testament, stick to god is love and He made puppies. this is hard!
During our years of Christian experience, we have been indoctrinated to believe various scripture according to the interpretation of carnal man rather than allowing the author of the Book to reveal the meaning and intent of His words. For example, we rant and rave about Jonah….accusing him of disobedience for going to find a boat rather than to Nineveh. During the ‘boat’ experience, Jonah ‘gave himself’ to deliver the men on the boat….like Christ would do later. He died, was buried in the belly of the fish, and resurrected after three days. How much more empowered sermon do the think he delivered at Nineveh ….after the experience? Jonah’s experience was a concrete lesson to help us understand the death Jesus would die….dead, buried in the belly of hell, resurrected after three days…all for the purpose of ’saving the boatload’ of fallen man.
There is nothing the ‘vessel’ can say to the potter.
Is that a general “you” which you are using? Because if not…there is a breadth of assumption about me, and what I believe, in that statement that is breath-taking.
On another note…..I have to agree with the way JP sees Romans 9.
The “what if” always makes me think Paul himself doesn’t have a precise answer and is trying to convey his thinking about the paradox. I don’t take that as a “this is absolutely the way that it is”…..more like “this is how I make sense of it in my head/experience”.
Just reading this now and honestly, I agree with the initial agrument. It is unfair. I cannot come up with a way to justify in my mind the “God” character in the OT endorsing mass genocide. I put my hope in the thought that the “new covenant” has wiped out this mentality.
And I don’t buy the argument that its perfectly fair just because humanity is sinful. What about children? I’m really not comfortable with them being murdered in the OT. And I don’t believe that children are sinful. My toddler is not sinful yet and he has experienced more pain already than most people do in their lifetime – in my opinion, probably more pain than crucifixion. I work regularly in a medical setting with other children in similar situations. I will not chalk up that kind of suffering to being a “consequence for original sin of humanity”
If I had to chose between accepting God’s omnipotence and his love I’d pick the love. I don’t think that Jesus came to punish.
OBED…What about passages where God declares that he loves Jacob but hates Esau?
He loved Jacob because Jacob had a heart for the things of God. Esau put his trust in things of the flesh (beans) to sustain life rather than in the promises of God. Scripture says Esau ‘hated’ his birthright. Also, Esau lied. He had no intention of keeping the bargain. Likewise, Abel obeyed God and brought a blood offering. Cain discounted the will of God and brought veggies.
So the whole nation (every individual) was wicked? And the whole of Israel was righteous? Hmmmm….
Actually, like was mentioned above, “Jacob” and “Esau” were metaphors for Israel and Edom, respectively. But nonetheless, does Jacob’s “heart for the things of God” include scheming his brother out of his inheritance?
At what point did Jacob develop a “heart for the things of God?” Up to Bethel he has no thoughts of God. After Bethel he’s in an “you take care of me and I’ll eventually honor you” relationship. Only after Jabbok is Jacob a man who says “I will not let you go until you bless me.” Pretty late in the game.
Again, we are looking at this through 21st century eyes. The writers of these pieces of the Old Testament, or the Oral Tradition that came down before these stories were written down were of another time, when women were considered possessions, slaves were commonplace, revenge of family name the norm and wars were devastating. Children were not valued the way they are today (at least those children that were not first-born male). It’s like reading history and stories from the early middle ages of Western Europe. Why would a person ever want to swaddle their baby – wrapping it so tight that it couldn’t move and it’s pulse would slow dangerously low and hang it up for hours at a time so that he/she could get their work done – horrific in our time but commonplace in that time.
And, as Obed mentioned, some of this was metaphor, be it Yahwist, or Elohist or Dueteronomic or Priestly point of view or purpose.