When people seek to defend the idea that God is violent “because the Bible says so,” what they are really doing is allowing the violent portrayals of God in the Bible to override and trump the loving and merciful portrayals of God elsewhere in Scripture, even when both portrayals are talking about the same historical event.
Though both depictions of God are equally inspired, many biblical interpreters choose to let the violent depiction of God override and trump the loving depiction. In this way, it is not a matter of just believing the Bible; it is a matter of choosing which passages take precedence.
This practice is especially shocking when it comes to the revelation in Jesus Christ. Although Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God—the Word of God incarnate—many Bible teachers and writers allow the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament to override and trump the completely non-violent revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
When people want to defend a violent and vengeful God, they typically jump right over Jesus and go straight to Old Testament texts.
But isn’t this backwards?
If a basic rule of hermeneutics is that the simpler and clearer texts should override the more difficult and troubling texts, and if Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God so that He can say “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,” why do we choose to let the more troubling, difficult, and violent texts override and trump the loving, merciful, and Christlike texts?
It is not a matter of one approach considering the whole counsel of God while the other approach neglects certain portions. No, both approaches consider the whole counsel of God. It’s a matter of choosing which parts of Scripture trump, interact with, and explain the other parts of Scripture.
As I continue to seek to understand the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament, my approach has been to see Jesus Christ as the interpretive principle, the guiding ethic, the hermeneutical trump card of all of the Word of God.
Why?
Because Jesus is the Word of God.
No matter which text we consider, the basic questions are these: Does it look like Jesus? If not, how can we understand this text in light of Jesus? Or, how can we explain and apply this text in a way that looks more like Jesus? And ultimately, how can we apply this text so that it inspires us to love and live like Jesus?
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!
“Because Jesus is the word of God”, what a perfect statement! It doesn’t get clearer then that. Always reflect on the scriptures that speak and show Christ’s life when reading any other part of scripture. Christ is the word of God. Past, present, and future.
Well said Jeremy. As someone else who has come to understand Jesus as the best definition of the “Word of God”, do you know how and when that phrase came to refer to the Bible instead of Jesus? As far as I know, within the pages of scripture, “Word of God” (capital W) always and only refers to Jesus. I’ve tried to find the origins of this Bible == Word of God, but so far I haven’t been able to gain any insight.
It might just be a matter of semantics, but I think that when we reinforce the Bible as the Word of God we risk taking Christ away as the core of our faith and putting the Bible in his place. This can be dangerous, especially if you take a ‘flat’ reading (all verses are created equal) or if, like you say above, you don’t read the text through the lens of Christ.
I enjoy this comment. Nice addition.
Well, there are a few places where Jesus seems to identify the Hebrew Scriptures as “the word of God” (e.g., Mark 7:13; Luke 4:4; 8:11, 21; 11:28; John 10:34-36; etc.) and various other NT writers seem to do the same. The Greek does not differentiate lower case “word” of God from upper case “Word” of God in the Greek.
Regardless, your point is true. We must focus on Christ and keep our eyes on Him, so that we read and interpret the word of God (the book) through the Word of God (Jesus).
Can you get my husband to understand this?? 😉
Great post.
If I were living with a homicidal maniac who randomly slashed at me one day each month, I not would let the fact that this person was kind and sweet the other 29 days cause me to continue to live with this person. You can not put violent acts of rage and vengeance that killed millions of people, including innocent children, infants and babes in the womb on one side of a balance and then claim that the loving God presented by Jesus makes the sides equal. Even if Jesus promised heaven to everyone, past, present, and future, it would not make up for the suffering caused by God in the Hebrew Testament. And Jesus makes no such promise. He still sets conditions on his love and he also condemns billions of people who have not heard his word to eternal suffering. No, thanks.
Your comment eloquently highlights the problem that I think Jeremy is trying to unpack in regards to understanding the violence of God in the old testament and contrasting that with God revealed in Jesus. It is a dilemma that I think Christians don’t spend enough time and thought on, and ultimately we have to decide which picture of God we believe most accurately reflects him.
If we view God primarily as Jesus suffering on the cross saying “Father forgive them”, we have to reconcile that with the God of the Old Testament that destroys nations and kills babies. I can respect that this dichotomy causes you to reject Jesus altogether; this issue is also my greatest source of doubt. There are various theories that try and give better understanding to this issue; one that I like is the notion that God gradually reveals more of himself to mankind over time. In this view there are events or actions of ancient days incorrectly attributed to God, and Jesus’ revelation brings correction and a better understanding of God’s true nature.
I don’t think I would agree that Jesus places conditions on his love, especially when you consider the instances where Jesus interacted directly with people. I hold onto my faith in Jesus because I find his story and teachings highly compelling. So I go from there and try to make sense of the rest.
Mike,
Your “theories” are ways to make excuses for Yahweh being a monstrous and vengeful god. If those “theories” are needed to make him palatable to modern Christians, there is something wrong with modern Christianity. Why not accept the “theory” that the Hebrew Testament is a compilation of stories by bronze-age nomads that has no relationship to modern Christianity? Take the good stuff that Jesus said and forget the evil Yahweh. At one time, it was important for Christians to be able to point to a long and ancient history – that time has past.
As far as Jesus placing conditions on his love, consider what is necessary to get into heaven. A Jesus who unconditionally loved humanity would bring every human into heaven. Instead, Jesus requires faith, at least, and possibly good works. Those who, due to location and time period, have not been exposed to the words of Jesus go to hell. In order to get into heaven, a person must have lived at a time where it was possible for some other person to have told them about Jesus. If you lived in Australia before the coming of Europeans, you were just out of luck. Similarly, if you use the mind God gave you to think logically about religion and reject it, you go to hell.
Prinzhal,
I agree. I completely agree. 100% What I am saying (in other posts anyway) is that Jesus shows us that God DID NOT in fact do the things that Old Testament authors ascribe to his name.
If I go kill my neighbors, and then tell the police, “But God told me to,” will that help me avoid prison time? I hope not! But this sort of thing worked back then, at least for warring nations. It still works today when one group of people attacks another group of people.
If you believe God did not do the evil things in the Hebrew Testament then you have no faith in the Bible. How does a person know what to believe and what to consider false? Talking snakes and donkeys? Yeah, that makes sense. God killing 1000s of innocent children and fetuses? No, that was somebody else or it is just a made up story to make a point.
It appears that you consider the early Hebrews as genocidal liars who killed their neighbors and blamed Yahweh. Even though Yahweh was manifesting himself and performing miracles at the time, he could not stop the Hebrews from slaughtering men, women, children, infants, and animals, just to make a point of how “tough” the Hebrews were? Yahweh then comes across as a bit of a wimp. Maybe the miracles were made up along with the stories of Yahweh ordering the murders? Maybe the whole Hebrew Testament is a bunch of stories made up by the creative mind of humans?
Prinzhal,
I don’t expect you to read all the posts in this entire series, but please know that I have attempted to answer these sorts of questions in numerous posts previously. To answer them here would unnecessarily duplicate a whole bunch of material I have written on elsewhere, and would make for a VERY long comment.
Agreed. Jesus is the lens through which we must view all of the Bible. While that sounds great in theory, and many people would tacitly, or even with great show agree to such an idea, I fear that in practice the Bible is often not seen through the lens of Jesus, but rather through the lens of a certain theology or through the lens of the beliefs of groups or even individuals.
The Bible has become THE Word. Jesus is, well he is just Jesus, the mysterious God person who for some convoluted reason had to be murdered by humanity. Jesus is not our hermeneutic. Our hermeneutic is our belief system, the system of our group. The Bible says what our belief system has decided it says. If our belief system says the Bible says/supports X, then we will believe that the Bible does. We end up with a very twisted view of not only what the Bible says, but also of who Jesus is.
Jesus wants us to sit in an expensive building for an hour a week to listen to music and a non-interactive lecture about what we should believe. While we’re there, we should also give the place money to fund the activity and all that goes with it. Jesus wants us to own expensive houses, take cruises, etc., etc., etc. THE Word tells us that stuff. It’s all there, somewhere. Or not.
Great insights, Sam. I am coming to learn that Jesus is the Word of God as you have said, and am attempting to let Him help me read not only Scripture, but read by own life as well.
In my walk of faith in God through Jesus the Christ of God, I have to confess it shocked me when I pursued study due to Jesus saying “I AM” to the crowd in Gethsemane and they all fell back on the ground (John18.6). After looking at many Old and New Testament passages, including his statement “Before Abraham was, I AM” (and the Jews wanted to stone him for blasphemy), in context, it became clear – Jesus is Yahweh of the Old Testament.
Any disciple dwelling on John’s Prologue must wrestle with the fact that the Word became Flesh and pitched his tent with us. It refers in part to the celebration of the feast of Tabernacles. He is the way for us to access God, know God, and live by faith. I have come to despise the use of “The Word of God” in reference to the Bible. But then, I’ve lots of funny quirks.
Peace to all with whom God is well pleased! Shalom.
Yes, I think coming to see Jesus as the Word is a truth we never fully grasp and can never come to the end of. But it is so central!
I agree that we should read the Bible with the glasses of Jesus. However, I received a question that I could not answer. I am told that the Bible interprets the Bible because if Jesus is the hermeneutic key how would we know about Jesus without the Bible? that is, the Bible interprets itself.
What do you think?