When God Pled Guilty Archives - Page 10 of 20

RETREAT!!!!!

I give up.

I wave the white flag.

I surrender.

I hang my head in defeat.

I slink off into the woods with my tail between my legs.

Over a year ago I set out to put a theory of mine down on paper about how to reconcile the violence of God with the self-sacrificial non-violence of Jesus Christ. The theory had been percolating in my mind for over a decade, and I finally decided to tackle the issue head on.

After 100,000 words, I give up.

If you read this blog much last year, it is almost the only thing I posted on… up until October 13. Then the posts stopped.

Why?

Because I hit a road block. A pot hole. A speed bump. A dead end.

What was the road block?

Only one little thing called…

…Scripture.

Most of what I had written was a hypothesis, a theory, about how to reconcile the violence of God in the Old Testament with the sacrificial love of Jesus in the New. My book was called When God Pled Guilty, and I was basically arguing that just as Jesus took the sins of the world upon Himself on the cross, so also, somehow, the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament is God taking the sins of Israel upon Himself through the testimony of inspired Scripture.

In other words, to the outside observer, Jesus hanging on a cross looks guilty (even though He wasn’t). So also, a casual reading of the Old Testament makes God look guilty (even though He isn’t).

I thought that there were enough hints and clues scattered through the Bible to show that the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament are really just Him taking the blame and shouldering the responsibility for the bad things that happen in this world which He does not prevent from happening.

I thought I had a pretty good theory going…. until I tried to get the theory to match with the violent portrayals of God in Scripture. I soon found that all my theorizing hadn’t gotten me past the 1 yard line… of my own side of the field. I still had 99 yards to go, and the defense was shutting me down faster than the Seahawks shut down Peyton Manning…. (sorry Bronco fans…. I wanted Manning to win too).

Sigh.

Honestly, I should have seen it coming. Want to know why?

My wife was never convinced.

My wife is the greatest theologian and Bible scholar I know.

She has what I call “intuitive theology.” She doesn’t read a lot of books or spend dozens of hours each week studying… but she always knows more theology than I do, and always asks penetrating questions which shoot holes through all my acadamagician ideas (Yes, I just coined that term… it’s a cross between academic and magician… because that’s what most theology is. We throw some verses in a pot, mix in some fancy Greek and Hebrew and a quote from Barth, mix it up, blow smoke in people’s faces, and then Voila! — A book that everyone must buy!)

Anyway, my wife was never convinced of my theory, and so I should have known it was doomed from the start.

Another nail in the coffin though, was when I was recently interviewed by Drew Marshall (listen to the audio) and when I briefly mentioned this idea to him, he asked if I had been smoking marijuana. Ha!

But aside from my wife and Drew, there are a few other reasons I am abandoning this theory.

1. Occam’s Razor

No, this is not a new razor put out by Gillette (Now with 8 Blades!!!).

Occam’s razor is a principle used in science and other problem-solving fields which states the simplest solution is often right. Specifically (according to Wikipedia), Occam’s razor states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

If you did any reading of my hypothesis, you know that it was not simple. It is not a hypothesis with the fewest assumptions. To the contrary, my hypothesis was so complex, so difficult to grasp, and so full of details, I myself had trouble keeping it all straight in my own head!

Heck, I had already written 100,000 words on the topic, and was only about half-way done. (A typical 200 page book is about 60,000 words.)

2. Modern Disasters

A second reason I am giving up is because ultimately, I had no good explanation for the most difficult question of all… which is why bad things happen today. My hypothesis did very little to provide an explanation for this.

In my (abandoned) theory, I argued that the Old Testament portrays God holding back disasters upon people until, as a result of their great evil, they departed from God’s protective hand. I think that this can actually be seen time and time again in Scripture.

But then, what does this mean for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, or the December 26, 2004 tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people? How does my theory explain people like Hitler and Mussolini getting to live so long while they brought incredible amounts of evil upon the world? How comes they seemingly hadn’t departed from God’s protective hand?

What did my theory have to say to the millions and millions of little girls who are sold into sex slavery to be raped by as many as 40 or 50 men every single day?

Nothing.

Other than that “God didn’t do it,” my hypothesis could say nothing helpful, loving, kind, or hopeful to such situations or such people caught in a living hell.

3. Couldn’t Even Refute the Calvinists

I am actually not that interested in “refuting” Calvinists, but one area of Calvinistic theology which has always troubled me is the insistence by some that since God is sovereign, He is the cause of everything. If you press them, some will say that while God is not the “author” of evil, He is the primary cause behind all evil, sin, and suffering in the world. (For examples, see John Piper’s quotes here and here.)

Calvinists say that everything that happens in the world is because God’s wills it to happen.

So when a family gets in a car accident and the husband and wife escape, but their children die in a ball of flame when the car explodes, their Calvinistic pastor says that while we don’t understand why such things are God’s will, we must trust that God knows what He is doing because everything happens is according to His will. (This really happened, by the way).

The same argument is applied to Katrina, tsunamis, Hitler, and the raping of little girls.

In my opinion, such a god is monstrous, and is not worthy of worship.

But in the hypothesis I was presenting, I was saying that God “inspired” human authors to write negatively about Him in Scripture so that He could take responsibility for the bad things which happened on earth which He did not prevent from happening.

If that is true, then why I am upset at Calvinists for saying that God caused the bad things that they were ascribing to Him? If my hypothesis is true, isn’t saying “God willed your children to die in a burning car while you watched” the same thing as saying, “God sent a flood upon the earth so that everything which had breath died a horrible death by drowning”?

In my view, of course, God didn’t actually do either thing, but also in my view, God is willing to take the blame for that which He does not prevent, so I shouldn’t get too upset when people blame God for the evil things that happen in the world. After all, God apparently inspired some biblical authors to say the very same things about Him!

If God takes the blame for that which He does not prevent, then it is not wrong to blame God for the horrible events which happen in the world which He does not prevent.

This I could not accept.

4. Back to Ignorance

Last month I spent several days reading, editing, revising, and arguing with myself about the 100,000 words I had written.

I got the end (which was actually the middle, because the second half hadn’t been written yet), I realized I could have saved myself 99,997 words, and just written, “I don’t know.”

My fancy 100,000 word answer turned out to be little more than a long way of saying, “I have no idea how to reconcile the violence of God in the Old Testament with the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ in the New while still maintaining a conservative view of inspiration and inerrancy.”

Yes, I know. Many of you think I should just abandon inerrancy.

I would really hate to do that.

Pray for Me, Please?

Believe it nor not, this is a crisis of faith for me.

I cannot, CANNOT believe that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the same God who drowns millions, burns cities, and commands His people to slaughter women, children, and animals.

Something else is going on in the text, but I just cannot figure out what.

My wife, with her intuitive theology, says it is something that cannot ever be figured out.

But my brain, which God gave me, cannot live with the tension. Something must give.

I seem to be left with only two options: Either Jesus truly is violent like God and He was hiding this dark side from us during His ministry, or Jesus truly revealed God to us and the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament are in error.

The day after writing that post, when I was at work, a new thought occurred to me. A key, I’ll call it. It allowed much of the original hypothesis to remain intact, but organized it all around a central thesis which simplified and clarified the entire idea.

Although… just as I am writing this paragraph… a new thought has occurred to me…. what if? No. It can’t be.

Hmmm….

A brand new theory has just presented itself…

It seems simple…

Memorable…

Elegant…

…Heretical.

Hmm. I better run it by my wife…

If I decide to share it, you’ll be the first to know!

As a side note, many who read my blog tell me that Greg Boyd is coming out with a book later this year that sounds similar to what I was arguing. When I first heard this, I read some of his blog posts and listened to some of his sermons, and honestly, I cannot tell if he is arguing the same thing or not. I guess we will see. Apparently, if the ideas are similar, he has not hit the same road blocks I have… I look forward to reading his book… I think it is called The Crucifixion of the Warrior God.

Note: I wrote the preceding post last Saturday. As you see at the end, in the process of writing the post, a new idea occurred to me. I thought more about it on Sunday, prayed about it, looked at some key biblical texts, and (maybe most important of all – ha!) talked to my wife. She is still not convinced, but she sees promise in the idea. So, I’m back in the saddle again. Hopefully some new posts on understanding the violence of God will be published soon… I am still not sure my new approach has adequate answers to the four problems I stated above, but I think it is a move in the right direction.

Comparing God with Hitler

By Jeremy Myers

58 Comments

I talk weekly with people who are pretty antagonistic toward Christianity. One of them recently sent me this picture:

It is interesting because I am still in the middle of a long series on how to understand the flood in light of Jesus Christ, and the flood is exactly what this image talks about when comparing God with Hitler.

So how would you respond to this image?

Most Christians would say something like this: “Well, God is God and so He can do what He wants. Hitler wasn’t God, and so it was wrong for him.”

I reject that answer. If God can behave like Hitler, but it’s okay because He’s God, I don’t think God deserves our worship.

My conviction, however, is that God is not like Hitler; God is like Jesus Christ. We must read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus, and see that Jesus shows us what God is truly like, even though much of the Old Testament portrays something quite different. When God looks violent in the Old Testament, it is not because He is violent, but because He is taking the sins of the world upon Himself, just as Jesus did on the cross.

This is a challenging proposal, and I am trying to write a book to defend it (When God Pled Guilty). But the further I go, the harder the book becomes. That is why you have been seeing fewer and fewer posts on it. I cannot decide whether to push ahead or just give up in defeat.

Any thoughts on what I should do? How do you understand the violence of God in the Bible? Also, how would you respond to that image above?

The Flood According to 2 Peter 2:5-7

By Jeremy Myers

13 Comments

When seeking answers on how to understand the flood in light of Jesus Christ, we must also consider what Peter writes in 2 Peter 2. His statements are critically important, for Peter lived and walked with Jesus, and would likely have heard how Jesus explained the flood. Furthermore, since Peter was one of the apostles, his explanation of the flood event in 2 Peter 2 provides an authoritative, biblical explanation for how to understand this difficult passage.

Translating 2 Peter 2:5-7

Note first that, as with the Hebrew text in Genesis 6–7, the temptation exists to retranslate the Greek text in 2 Peter 2:5 so that it shows something different from what is usually found in most English translations.

And in fact, this would be somewhat easy to do, since these first several verses of 2 Peter 2 are full of Greek participles, which are notoriously difficult to translate and understand in context. With Greek participles, there are always a host of questions about how the participle is functioning in context.

So just as with the Genesis text, I initially thought of basing my understanding of this passage on a different translation of 2 Peter 2:5.

But in the end, I decided against this option for two reasons.

First, the average English translation of this text is fine, and second, I do not want readers of the English Bible to think that the only way they can see Jesus in the violent passages of Scripture is through creative translations from the Greek and Hebrew.

The Context of 2 Peter 2:5

The key to 2 Peter 2:5—as with any text in the Bible—is context. Peter begins this section of his letter by warning about false teachers and how they bring swift destruction upon themselves.

This initial verse is critical for understanding the rest of this section in 2 Peter 2. After talking about how the false teachers are bringing destruction upon themselves, Peter is going to give several examples from biblical history about other groups of people who were destroyed.

In the following verses, God is often implied to be the agent of destruction—as the one who brought the destruction, as the one who carried it out. But as 2 Peter 2:1 indicates, the reason for the destruction is quite clear: the false teachers bring this destruction upon themselves. They are the ones who brought it. They are ones to blame (2 Peter 2:1-3).

Furthermore, in the verses that follow, the primary action of God is not death and destruction, but deliverance and rescue of people from destruction. The repeated emphasis in 2 Peter 2:4-9 is not on how God destroys people but on how God saves and rescues people.

Peter gives three examples. First, he writes about the angels who sinned, and so were not spared (2 Peter 2:4). Peter then sets these angels in contrast to Noah whom God did rescue when the flood came upon the earth (2 Peter 2:5). Finally, Peter mentions Lot, who was rescued from Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Peter 2:6-8). In 2 Peter 2:9, Peter summarizes his point by saying that the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials while allowing the unrighteous to continue toward their punishment.

Following these three examples, Peter goes on to emphasize once again that these false teachers have every opportunity to escape destruction, but they continue moving deeper into sin, wickedness, and corruption until they too are destroyed (2 Peter 2:10-22). Just as Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2:1, the actions of the false teachers are bringing this destruction upon themselves.

God is not sending the destruction, but rather, is seeking to deliver and rescue people from the destruction. Yet when destruction comes upon these false teachers, it is the natural consequence of their life and behavior. The only way that God is “responsible” for their destruction is that He set up the rules by which people could either seek life or seek destruction. When people seek destruction, destruction will come!

2 Peter 2 and the Flood

So it was in the case of the flood. When Peter writes in 2 Peter 2:5 that the flood was brought upon the people at the time of Noah, Peter uses the exact same word he uses in 2:1 to write about how the false teachers brought destruction upon themselves (Gk., epagō, “to bring upon”). The flood was brought upon the people in the days of Noah in the same way that destruction is brought upon false teachers, and chains of darkness were brought upon angels who sinned, and fire and brimstone was brought upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

The great sin of the people who lived at the time of the flood invited in the destruction that took their lives.

Even in 2 Peter 2:4, Peter says that the angels were handed over, or delivered up, to their judgment. This again is the common terminology used throughout Scripture to describe the process by which God gives His creatures the freedom to go their own way, even when it is in rebellion to Him. He hands them over to their sin. He gives them up to it. God’s creation lived in sin and rebellion and as a natural consequence of their wickedness, death and destruction came upon them.

In 2 Peter 2, Peter is clearly revealing the idea that sin cannibalizes itself and when sin takes root and leads us further away from God, there comes a point when we depart from God’s protective hand, and invite ruin and destruction upon ourselves.

When this happens, however, all is not lost. God is faithful to rescue, redeem, and deliver a righteous remnant for Himself out of the death and destruction that comes upon the wicked.

The Consequences of Sin in 2 Peter 3

This is exactly the point that Peter makes in 2 Peter 3. In 2 Peter 3:3-7, he returns to the topic of the flood to make his point once again about how God will deal with people who follow their own evil desires in the last days. Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:6 that the world perished when it was flooded with water. God’s creative work is described in 2 Peter 3:5 as causing the heavens and the earth to be formed out of water and by water, but when people sinned, they brought the waters back in upon themselves, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:6). Notice the imagery Peter uses of God pushing back the waters to create and bring form to the world, and how the waters bring the flood and destroy the world that God created. The cosmic warfare motif we saw in Genesis 1–8 is evident here in Peter’s writings as well.

Peter is clearly painting this contrast that we have already seen between the creative work of God in bringing order to the chaos in Genesis 1, and the exact opposite of this, when the waters came back upon the face of the earth and destroyed all that God had created. Through this contrasting imagery, Peter is showing that he understands the imagery and symbolism of the flood event, and that God was not causing or sending the flood, but was doing everything He could to rescue and deliver people from it. The flood came as a result of sin and rebellion, of nature out of control, or the destroyer seeking to destroy, of sin cannibalizing itself, and of people separating themselves from the protective hand of God.

Peter’s ultimate point is made in 2 Peter 3:9: God does not want anyone to perish, but wants everyone to come to repentance. God does everything possible to withhold the flood waters, to stop the destruction, and to restrict calamity. God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone, not even the death of the wicked. He does not want the wicked to die, but wants them to repent and so He does everything He can to give people ample opportunity to repent.

But there comes a day when their sin is so great and their rebellion has gone on for so long, that the cannibalistic nature of their sin and the destroying power their rebellion carries them out of the protective hand of God, and He has no choice but to let destruction come. He gives them over to their sin.

Notice one last thing about the 2 Peter 2 passage. Peter ends his letter by talking about the second “flood” that will come upon the earth, but this time it will not be a flood of water, but a flood of fire (2 Peter 3:10, 12). The imagery of the world being consumed with fire is identical to the image used by Jesus in Matthew 24 which we considered in a previous post, and so nothing else needs to be said about it here.

How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

The Flood According to Jesus (Matthew 24)

By Jeremy Myers

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In Matthew 24:36-44, Jesus provides insight into the causes and events of the flood.

Matthew 24:36-44 is not about the Rapture

This is a popular proof text for teaching on the rapture of the church. Note, however, that if this passage is about the rapture of the church, the previous context indicates that it is “after the tribulation of those days” (Matthew 24:29) that Jesus “will gather together His elect” (Matthew 24:31). So this would seem to argue against the “pre-Tribulation” view of the rapture.

Furthermore, in the specific context of Matthew 24:36-44, Jesus equates those who are “taken” in this future event with the people who were taken away by the waters of the flood (Matthew 24:39). If this passage is truly about the rapture of the church, it seems strange for Jesus to equate the rescue of the church with the destruction of the people at the time of the flood.

So it seems more likely that Jesus is not describing the rapture at all, but some other future event. What future event?

Matthew 24:36-44 and Revelation 19–20.

The imagery Jesus uses in Matthew 24:36-44 fits best with similar imagery used by the Apostle John in Revelation 19–20. In these chapters, John describes a Satanically-inspired rebellion which results in fire destroying those who side with Satan (Rev 20:9). Both Jesus and John describe the Son of Man coming from heaven on the clouds to conquer (Matthew 24:30; Rev 19:11-16), carrion birds gathering to feast on the carcasses (Matt 24:28; Rev 19:17-18), and the passing away of heaven and earth (Matthew 24:35; Rev 21:1).

We will look at much of this imagery in a later post when we consider the violence in the book of Revelation, but the imagery is only brought up here to show that when Jesus talks about the flood in Matthew 24, He likens it to a similar form of world-wide judgment that falls upon the earth at the end of days.

The Attitude of People at the time of the Flood

Why does this second judgment come? Curiously, here in Matthew 24, Jesus does not mention any sort of sinfulness. Jesus says that at the time of the flood, “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (Matthew 24:38).

There is nothing wrong with these things, as Jesus Himself ate and drank during His ministry. At one point, He was even accused of being a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11:19). And while He did not get married, He attended weddings (cf. John 2:1-12) and did not forbid His followers from getting married.

So Jesus is not describing sin in Matthew 24:38, but is rather revealing an attitude or behavior that characterized the people at the time of the flood and which will also characterize the people He is describing in Matthew 24:36-44.

What is this attitude? What is the failure? It is living life as if nothing else matters beyond this life. It is when people fill their lives with some of the blessings of life—such as eating, drinking, and marrying—so that they ignore the signs of the times in which they live and the testimony from God about what is coming unless they all heeded the warnings and followed the ways of God (Matthew 24:32-33).

At the time of the flood, Noah served as “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet 2:5) who proclaimed and warned the people of the flood that was coming. But they were too busy with eating, drinking, and getting married to pay any attention or to make any changes in their lives. As a result, they were caught unprepared when the flood waters came and took them all away. So shall it be at the end of days when the Son of Man comes.

The Flood of Fire

In Matthew 24, Jesus does not describe exactly how the people will be taken away, but the parallel passage in Revelation 20:9 indicates that fire will come down from God out of heaven (cf. also 2 Pet 3:7).

Here again, however, we must be careful not to read something into the text that is not there. The imagery of “fire” in the Bible is widely misunderstood by most Christians.

It is commonly thought that whenever the Bible mentions “fire” it refers to the “hellfire” or the fire of wrath and judgment. Yet how can it be that the God revealed in Jesus Christ, who refused to rain down fire on the Samaritans and condemned such an idea when it was suggested (cf. Luke 9:54-56), would then turn around and rain down fire on those who reject Him at His second coming? It seems highly unlikely.

I will suggest another way of reading Revelation in a later post which allows Revelation to highlight and emphasize the love and grace of Jesus Christ, rather than portraying Him as a vengeful deity who comes to earth to bathe in the blood of His enemies, but suffice it to say for now that the fire which comes down out of heaven in Revelation 20:9 is related to the image of the flames of fire that burn within the eyes of Jesus (Rev 19:12), and the sharp sword which comes out of His mouth with which He strikes the nations (Rev 19:15; cf. Rev 1:14, 16).

The sword that comes out of the mouth of Jesus and His eyes of flame are not instruments of death. God is not in the business of incinerating His foes.

Instead, the sword that proceeds from the mouth of Jesus most naturally represents the Word of God, by which He creates, restores, and redeems the world. The eyes of flame represent the glory and purity of God, whose eyes burn with love and passion for all people. Though the Lord is a consuming fire, it is not that He burns with rage toward sinners, but that, as discussed above, the all-consuming love and holiness of God burns away anything that draws near which is not filled with the righteousness of God.

Scripture is clear that the fire which brings healing and restoration to the righteous people of God is the same fire that brings destruction and devastation to those who have set their ways against God (cf. Isa 33:10-16; Mal 3:2-3; 4:1-2; 1 Cor 3:12-15).

The fire of God is like the fire of the sun. Just as all the oceans of the world would do no more to quench the fires of the sun any more than would a single drop of water, so also, all the sins of all the people of all the world can do no more to quench the inferno of God’s holiness than would a single unkind thought from one person. Sin cannot taint God, for all sin is incinerated by the fire of God’s love, holiness, righteousness, and glory.

When God comes to finally and ultimately bring healing and restoration to the earth, everything that is in opposition to God is consumed by His purifying fire. The refining fire brings out the gold, jewels, and precious stones so that the wood, hay, and stubble are no more. What this means for the people who are in stubborn rebellion against God will be considered in later posts as well when we look at the topic of hell.

Jesus Brings Redemption and Renewal

The point here is that when Jesus returns to set right all wrongs, to heal all hurts, and to restore all that is crooked, He comes with healing, love, and righteousness, calling all people to Himself to be redeemed and renewed.

This call for deliverance is exactly what God did for the people who lived in the days of Noah. But they would not heed the warnings, and when the flood came they were carried away by the waters.

So also, when the Son of Man comes, if people will not heed the warnings, rather than being rescued by God’s purifying fire, they too will be carried away.

In Matthew 24, Jesus is not saying that when He comes again, He will be coming to obliterate and incinerate people. Just as God wanted to rescue as many as possible from the waters of the flood, so also, God wants to rescue as many as possible from the fire that will come upon the earth.

This is one reason He is delaying His coming and why He asks preachers of righteousness like Noah to go out and spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all who will hear and believe.

How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

The Flood According to Isaiah 54:7-9

By Jeremy Myers

5 Comments

One Old Testament passages which sheds light on what happened at the flood is Isaiah 54:7-9. Though not much is said in this text to explain the cause or reasons for the flood, the text does reveal God’s activity during the flood.

Lots of people believe that God was the one who sent the flood to kill all the people on earth, but Isaiah 54 suggests otherwise.

Isaiah 54 and the Flood

In Isaiah 54, Israel is feeling as if they have been abandoned and scorned by God. God likens them to a woman who has borne no children, and is facing the shame and disgrace of being barren (Isaiah 54:1, 4).

God tells them to sing for joy, to forget their shame, and to remember their reproach no more (Isaiah 54:4). Why? Because God Himself is Israel’s husband (Isaiah 54:5). And since He is God the whole world, He will give more children to Israel than she ever could have had in any other way (Isaiah 54:1-3).

God does admit that his wrath came upon Israel for a while, and that for a mere moment He turned away from Israel (Isaiah 54:6-7). But God then promises that with great mercy and everlasting kindness, He will gather them, protect them, provide for them, love them, and take care of them (Isaiah 54:7-8, 11-15).

God’s wrath is not God’s anger at sin, but is rather the natural consequence of using God’s good gifts in a wrong way. God gave us the ability to love and make free choices, but when we abuse love, and use our freedom to make bad choices, we experience the natural consequences of these decisions. Future posts on the wrath of God explains this concept in more detail and looks at several key biblical texts.

Why the Flood Came Upon the Earth (Isaiah 54:16)

For now, notice something quite surprising in this text. In Isaiah 54:16, God explains why the flood came upon the earth. Using the imagery of “the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire” God says, “I have created the spoiler to destroy” (Isaiah 54:16).

The Hebrew word translated as “spoiler” is the Hiphil participle from shachat. It could also be translated as “the destroyer” (cf. NAS, NIV, NET). More interestingly still, the Hiphil participle of shachat is also used in Genesis 6:13 and 17 in reference to the destruction that came upon the earth. By using such imagery, God explains why the flood came upon the earth: it came because the destroyer destroys. This is the fourth principle of the Chaos Theory.

But what does it mean when the text say that God created the destroyer to destroy? Is not the destroyer opposed to all that is good and Godly? Yes! God is not a destroyer, but a Creator. Nor does God “send” the destroyer to destroy. The destroyer destroys because he is a destroyer. And since everything that exists has it origin in God, it can be said that God created the destroyer. This idea is troubling to some, but note carefully how God explains this.

How the Destroyer Came to Be

Before God mentions that He created the destroyer, God says that He created the blacksmith (Isaiah 54:16a). The blacksmith blows on the coals and brings forth the instruments for his work. Though God created the blacksmith, it is the blacksmith who does his work and brings forth the tools and instruments from his forge.

While many tools that come off a blacksmith forge are used for good purposes, some blacksmiths create tools and instruments that can be used for evil. Sometimes, an instrument or tool which the blacksmith created for good could be used to cause great harm to others. Take a knife, for instance. If a blacksmith makes a knife to cut vegetables, but someone else uses it to kill humans, it is not the knife’s fault, the blacksmith’s fault for making the knife, or even God’s fault for making the blacksmith.

This is how to understand the statement by God in Isaiah 54:16b that He created the destroyer. It is not that God was out for bloody revenge, or because God wanted someone else to do His dirty work for Him. The destroyer is not God’s super-secret hit man who does what needs to be done so God can keep His hands clean.

No, Scripture is clear. When God creates, He only creates good things for good purposes. There is no evil intent in the heart of God. The destroyer was not created to be evil, or to do bad things. In fact, it might be best to realize that the destroyer was never created at all as “the destroyer.” Just as God did not create humanity sinful, but we became sinful through our rebellion, so also the destroyer became destructive, also as a result of rebellion.

Death, decay, and destruction are the natural consequence of disobeying God and going against His will. The only way that God can be said to have created the destroyer is by saying that He created a being with genuine free will, and in so doing, restricted Himself from intervening when that free being chose to depart from God’s perfect will.

God did not make or create death and destruction, but did allow for their possibility when He created life and gave freedom to His creation.

It is the same with human beings. When God created humanity with the freedom to go against His will, this freedom necessitated the possibility that history would go bad if we went against His will, which is exactly what happened in Genesis 3, and the negative consequences of this decision are felt in Genesis 4 when Cain murders his brother, in Genesis 5, where the phrase “and he died” is repeated over and over and over, and then in Genesis 6 when people become so evil that the destruction of all mankind becomes inevitable and God steps in to save and rescue Noah and his family.

This brings us back to what God says about the flood in Isaiah 54. Just as when Israel became evil and departed from God, He sought to gather them to Himself and show mercy to them (Isaiah 54:7-8), so also this is what God says He did in the flood. The flood came upon the earth, but God worked to rescue people from it, and when it was over, He promised that such a thing would never happened again (Isaiah 54:9).

In the end, Isaiah 54 shows us once again that behind the terrible death and destruction of the flood, there is a beautiful theme of God’s love, grace, and mercy as He seeks to rescue and deliver people from the storms of life. God promises that even if the mountains crumble and the hills disappear, God will lever depart, and His covenant of peace will never be removed (Isaiah 54:10).

God Does Not Forsake His People

Isaiah 54:9-10 is similar to what God said elsewhere: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb 13:5). Though Israel may leave and reject God, God will not leave or reject them. In fact, though it appears from various events in her history that He has abandoned them, it is they who abandoned Him, and though He walked with them, calling them back, pleading with them to return to His righteous ways, they walked straight into the maws of destruction.

In those catastrophic events brought upon them by the destroyer when they left the protective hand of God, it seemed to them that God was angry with them, that God had left them. But quite to the contrary, God was there all along, suffering alongside them, helping them bear up under the crushing burden of pain and loss, and waiting with them until the heavy cost of justice had been poured out by the destroyer. Then God led them forth, back into righteousness and life, restoring unto them light, liberty, freedom, and joy.

The promise of God in Isaiah 54 is that even if Israel abandons Him, He will not abandon her. Even if destruction comes, He will try to rescue as many people as He can from this destruction, and bring them back from it as quickly as possible, just as He did in the days of Noah. According to what God says in Isaiah 54 about the flood, He did not bring the waters of destruction; the destroyer brought them. Instead of bringing death and destruction upon the world in the flood, God was involved in three other activities.

God Rescues, Redeems, and Delivers

The first thing God did in the flood was call people back to Himself so that they might be delivered. He did this through the preaching of Noah.

The second thing God did was that when the flood waters came upon the earth, He sought to rescue, redeem, and deliver as many people from the flood as He would come. In the end, only eight were saved.

Finally, when the destruction was over, He sought to bring light, hope, healing, and restoration back to the earth as quickly as possible. He did this by sending the wind to push back the waters, and then by blessing Noah and his family in their efforts to be fruitful and multiply upon the face of the earth.

What then does God say about the flood through the prophet Isaiah? That although He created the mechanism by which the flood came (Isaiah 54:16b), His commitment before, during, and after the flood was to never depart from His children, even though they may try to depart from Him (Isaiah 54:8-10).

When the text says that God had forsaken his people, and hid His face from them (Isaiah 54:7-8), this does not mean that He had abandoned them, but that the people had strayed so far from God that when destruction came at the hand of the destroyer and as a consequence for their sin, it seemed to the people that God was absent, that He was punishing them, or that He was no longer involved in their lives.

If there is one thing we learn from Isaiah 54 about the flood, it is that although it appears as if God sent the flood as punishment, it actually came as a result of humanities departure from the protective hand of God, and because the destroyer had set out to bring destruction upon the people of the earth as the just consequence for their great sin.

How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

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Waving the White Flag Before the Onslought of God’s Violence

…Scripture.

My wife was never convinced.

1. Occam’s Razor

2. Modern Disasters

3. Couldn’t Even Refute the Calvinists

4. Back to Ignorance

Pray for Me, Please?

Comparing God with Hitler

The Flood According to 2 Peter 2:5-7

Translating 2 Peter 2:5-7

The Context of 2 Peter 2:5

2 Peter 2 and the Flood

The Consequences of Sin in 2 Peter 3

The Flood According to Jesus (Matthew 24)

Matthew 24:36-44 is not about the Rapture

Matthew 24:36-44 and Revelation 19–20.

The Attitude of People at the time of the Flood

The Flood of Fire

Jesus Brings Redemption and Renewal

The Flood According to Isaiah 54:7-9

Isaiah 54 and the Flood

Why the Flood Came Upon the Earth (Isaiah 54:16)

How the Destroyer Came to Be

God Does Not Forsake His People

God Rescues, Redeems, and Delivers

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