A few nights ago I was talking with my incredibly smart and beautiful wife about the violence of God in Scripture and how we can interpret both in light of Jesus Christ, and we realized that in some ways, Christianity has fallen into the same trap that Judaism fell into so many years ago.
Before Jesus came (and in fact, even today) when Jewish people read their Hebrew Scriptures and saw a violent God doing violent things, they projected this onto their expectations for what the Messiah would be and do when He finally came. They saw a violent God, and so were looking for a violent Messiah. They wanted a Messiah who would throw off Roman rule, would slay the enemies, kill the wicked, and banish all the unrighteous into eternal pits of darkness and gloom.
This was partly why the Jewish religious leaders rejected Jesus as the Messiah. He did not fit the bill! He did not live up to their expectations. He did not match what they read in the Bible. He did not fulfill the expectations, promises, and prophecies of what the Messiah would do when He came. And in fact, on numerous occasions, Jesus flat-out told them that the reason He was not doing these things is because they had misread and misinterpreted their Scriptures.
Hmmm…. now take those two paragraphs and substitute in what Christians think about the second coming of Jesus….
By an amazing twist of hermeneutical skill, we Christians have learned to nod our heads at both Jewish and Christian interpretations of Scripture.
We say, “The Jewish interpretation and understanding of God was correct. They just got the timing all wrong. God is violent and bloody, and so is the Messiah. But Jesus didn’t come the first time to kill all the sinners; He will do that when He comes again. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! Let the bloodbath begin!”
Frequently, due to sin, rebellion, and the other factors, God simply withdraws His protective hand and allows sin, Satan, and chaos to have their way.
A dog can understand bits and pieces, I suppose, but they have very little idea about speech, electricity, rules of games, logical thought, or many of the other things that make us human.
Another explanation for why bad things happen in this world is that Satan is seeking to destroy the things of God.
I have been a U2 fan for nearly 25 years, although the more recent albums have not really been my favorite…. but whatever.
A young college student from Grace University will not be given her degree this year, even though she earned it.
The death of Jesus on the cross is the pinnacle and apex of the incarnation. It is His most triumphal moment. Which of us would seek to take it from Him and say, “No, no! Jesus! You cannot die a criminal’s death! You are innocent! That is only for guilty people. You must live! You must rule! You must reign! You must act like God!”
Forget for a moment that you live 2000 years after the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, and forget that you have the New Testament which tells you about who Jesus was and what He did. Imagine that you pick up an ancient history book and it tells you about three men who were put to death around 33 BC for religious and political crimes. Two of them were criminals and one was a rabble-rouser, a trouble-maker, and a blasphemer. If you knew nothing else about these three men, you would assume they were most likely guilty.
We typically think of the incarnation as something that happened only when Jesus Christ became human, that is, when He was born of a virgin, grew up as a boy under the parentage of Joseph and Mary, became a man, and then lived, taught, ministered, suffered, and died. Strictly speaking, this is probably true. The definition of “incarnate” is “to become flesh.” So prior to the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, it is not exactly accurate to say that God was in the flesh—that God was human. God only became human when He entered the womb of a woman and grew up as a human, just like one of us.