Have you ever heard someone say that God cannot be near sin? That sin cannot be in God’s presence? That the reason sinners are separated from God is because God is so holy and since we are sinners, we cannot be in the presence of God?

Sin Cannot be in God’s Presence

Doesn’t this seem strange? How is it possible that sin could have this much power over God? Can one sin really do God in? Doesn’t it seem stranger still that if this were the case, God would allow Satan into His presence (Job 1:6)? And more strange still, if God cannot even be near sin, how then did God come to earth as a human being?

No, I think that we have severely misunderstood what the Bible teaches about sin and the holiness of God.

God is an eternal ocean of grace, mercy, love, and righteousness and knows that no amount of sin can diminish or overcome His holiness. Sin does not taint God, but rather, God soaks up all sin. When, in the person of Jesus Christ, God steps into the evil of the world, it does not overpower Him, but He overcomes it.

Sometimes we get this crooked view of God where He cannot be near sin because sin would somehow taint His holiness. Such a view gives sin way too much power and gives God way too little.

God is not like a pristine white couch upon which no one can sit for fear of it getting soiled. No, sin cannot be in the presence of God because whenever God draws near to sin, the raging inferno of His love and holiness washes all sin away. God can no more be tainted by sin than the ocean could be dyed red with a single drop of food coloring.

This is why God takes all sin upon Himself in Jesus and in the Old Testament.

Sin crushes, enslaves, and destroys humanity, but it vanishes away into nothingness at the smallest touch of God’s blazing holiness.

God Takes Our Sin and Guilt

This helps explain some of what I have been arguing in recent posts, that just as Jesus became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21) and took the curse and our guilt upon Himself (Gal 3:13), God took the guilt and sin of Israel upon Himself as well.

In recent posts, I have argued that God does not try to acquit Himself from guilt for the sin of the world because God knows that in a way, He is guilty.

He knows that the only reason there is sin, wickedness, and evil in the world is because He created a world where such things were possible. He created a world in which genuinely free agents could possibly do horrific things. And when they did fall into horror, though they themselves were responsible for the decisions and choices they made, God does not let Himself off the hook.

We tend to think that God created us with freedom, and then when we used that freedom to disobey God, God blames us for it.

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I have been saying in my posts on the violence of God that God inspired the biblical writers to say that He told them to do the violent things they did, even though He did not. The reason God did this was to take their sin upon Himself. Just as Jesus became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21), so God became sin for Israel. This doesn’t mean God became guilty, nor does it mean that God became a sinner. It simply means that God took their guilt upon Himself just as Jesus did upon the cross. To read more about this line of thought, see the list of posts at the bottom of this article.

One of the possible objections to this view is that it makes God out to be a liar.

Yet we know that God does not lie.

So how can God inspire biblical authors to write that He commanded Israel to do things that He did not actually command them to do? I believe it is because that although God is not guilty for these things, nor did He want them to happen, He nevertheless views Himself as ultimately responsible for what goes on in this world. Why? Because He created a world where such sin and horror was possible.

In a way, God truly is guilty. It is not that He sins or is a sinner, but He made a world where horrible sin and nightmarish tragedy was possible. So when the nightmare began, God took the blame, and through divine responsibility, took it upon Himself to make the nightmare stop. Ultimately, God pled guilty for the sins of the world, and paid the penalty on the cross by dying a sinner’s death. One of my favorite theologians put it this way: Jesus “dies as a criminal, under the curse of the Law—as if to say, ‘Look, I’m as guilty as you are in this situation because I set it up in the first place; let’s just forget about blame and get on with the party;” (Capon, Mystery of Christ, 34). 

And this actually reveals the primary problem with all other theories about the violence of God in the Old Testament.

In previous posts we surveyed various proposals about how to understand the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ. All of those proposals were rejected for various reasons, but the main problem with all those views is this: they all try to get God off the hook. They all try to wash God’s hands of evil. They all try to explain why a good God can command such horrible things and still be good.

The problem, of course, is that in Scripture God never tries to get Himself off the hook. To the contrary, if He inspired Scripture to contain the information it does, God seems to go out of His way to put Himself on the hook. God seems intent in Scripture on laying the blame for all the sin and violence of the world directly at His own feet.

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In previous posts I have suggested that Jesus became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21), and since Jesus reveals the Father to us, it seems to follow that maybe this is what God was doing in the Old Testament in the violent sections.

There are various ways this could be described. Just as Jesus became the sin-bearer for the world, maybe we could say that God made Himself the sin bearer for Israel. Or maybe we could say that He absorbed their sin, or soaked it up, took it on, took the blame, took the fall, or bore their “sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Pet 2:24), and in the case of God, His body and the tree would be the divine revelation of Himself in Scripture.

This does not mean that God is guilty for these horrendous crimes. He is not.

God is no more guilty for the sins of Israel than Jesus is guilty for the sins of the world which He bore on the cross. But Jesus, out of His great love, became sin for us, just as God, out of His great love, also became sin for us.

Jesus intentionally set His face to the cross so that He might bear the sins of the world, just as God had been intentionally inspiring human authors of Scripture to write what they did so that He might bear the sins of Israel. In this way, the dark depictions of God form the very foundation stones on the path of God’s love and grace.

How did God Become a Sin Bearer?

There is great mystery in how this worked for Jesus, but if we read the actions of Jesus back into the actions of God in the Old Testament, and we see there how God took the sins of Israel onto Himself through the inspired revelation of Scripture, then this helps us somewhat understand how Jesus accomplished this for the sins of the whole world on the cross.

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This post continues my attempt to “think by writing” about the problem of a violent God in the Old Testament. Please know that I learn by writing, and by interacting with others (in conversations and on this blog) about these matters. So what I write is not necessarily what I will believe, but is my attempt to think things through based on where Scripture seems to lead me.

So bear with me when I am not so clear (as in the last post), and as I sometimes seem to wander off into heresy (as in this post).

Let’s think through this together!

In the previous post, I said that basically, just as Jesus became sin on the cross (2 Cor 5:21…. and whatever that means… I am still not sure… but am researching and studying it, so if you have ideas, go back there and help me out…), I believe that God was doing something similar in the Old Testament.

I said that “Just as Jesus became sin for us, God became sin for Israel.” Let me try to unpack this a little bit more in the next several posts.

First, let’s start with this shocking idea:

God is Repulsive

When we look at what Israel does in the Old Testament and are repulsed by it, we can know that we are feeling the right thing, for this is what Jesus did on the cross. He became repulsive. He became despised, rejected, forsaken, and shamed (Isa 53:3).

So also with God in the Old Testament. If we despise what He is described as doing, and are tempted to reject and forsake those shameful depictions of God, then we are feeling exactly what God wants us to feel.

Rejection of the violent portrayals of God is good and godly.

Many people believe that God is a moral monster, that He is guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity, that His hands are covered with more blood than Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Pol Pot combined.

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