In my recent series on trying to understand the violent passages of Scripture in the Old Testament in light of the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, I have the nagging sense in the back of my brain that all our theories and ideas on this subject (and in many other areas of theology as well) are about on par with a dog trying to figure out what humans are doing when they sit around talking, playing a card game, or just watching TV.
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.
I suppose that in some ways, all our speculative theology is little more than comic relief for God. You know… when we have a hard day, it is enjoyable to sit down a read a funny book or watch a humorous sitcom. I wonder if, when God has a hard century of running the universe, He gathers the angels together and says, “Let’s see what crazy idea Jeremy Myers wrote about on his blog today! Ha ha ha! That’s rich! Hilarous! So funny!”
God is not mocking, of course. But I imagine He sometimes laughs at our feeble attempts to understand Him and His ways.
But I don’t think it was supposed to be this way. I think that as a result of the fall, we lost much of our ability to understand and interact with Him, this world, and one another. I think that as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, and as a natural consequences of living spiritually separated from God for so long, we have lost much of our capacity to know God.
But when Jesus Christ returns, Paul says that we will know Him, just as we are fully known (1 Cor 13:12). I wonder what that will be like? We will be given back some “senses” that we didn’t know even existed?
I think it will be a bit like the three year old boy in the following video who has never heard a sound, but who was given the ability to hear. But through the miracle of modern medicine, he was given the ability the hear.
As you watch the video, look at the wonder and shock on his face when he hears his first sounds, and especially his daddy’s voice.
Yeah, that’s going to be us when we finally see Jesus face to face, and we become fully human, the way He originally created us, the way He intended us to be.
When Jesus returns and we receive our new and perfect bodies, with new and perfect brains, unhindered by sin, whole new realms of possibility and knowing will open up before us, and just like the little boy in that video, our eyes will open wide with wonder and we will says, “Hey! What’s that? Wow! I never knew this was possible!”
Until then, we just muddle through as best we can, using sign-language and unvocalized grunts in attempts to explain the infinite mysteries and wisdom of God.
Of course, that is what Jesus is for…. God knew how difficult it was for us to understand Him and His ways, and so He sent Jesus, to show us what He is like. Although our feeble attempts at theology might be fairly amusing to God, the one sign we can all point to as we seek to know God is Jesus Christ.
The more you get to know Jesus, the more you get to know the Father… So you want to understand God? Just look at Jesus.
I think you’re really on to something here, Jeremy. Truly, God’s ways are higher than our ways, and our feeble attempts at understanding them often fall short. But that’s exactly why we just have to trust what he has revealed to us in plain human language through the Scriptures.
Our trying to fit the peacefulness of Jesus with the violence of Yahweh is like that dog watching humans. The dog can only understand certain direct commands given to him. And we are only expected to understand the direct revelation God has chosen to give us.
That revelation shows us a perfectly loving God who is also violently wrathful against sin. I’m okay with that tension. He’ll explain it all some day.
I just can’t fathom that God expected us to come up with such a convoluted hermeneutic (one that seems to make him out to be a liar) in order to understand half of what he told us in plain language.
Yes, His ways are higher than ours! So true. However, I have never been comfortable with explaining away the mysteries of God by appealing to “mystery” or “paradox.” I think God wants to be known as fully as possible for us humans, which is one reason He sent Jesus.
No matter which way we read Scripture, much of it is incredibly unclear and convoluted. This is the nature of Scripture. Take the parables as one example. I think there are reasons for this…
Yes, parables are very interesting. I’ve heard that the Hebrew word for parable includes the idea of a riddle. Jesus even said that the reason he spoke in parables was so people wouldn’t understand. Quite a strategy!
The only times I can feel fully confident in my interpretation of a parable is when Jesus provided the interpretation immediately after giving it. Thankfully, he did so on many occasions.
Right! I am with you… of course, sometimes even his interpretations are cryptic!
That was a great video, Jeremy. I think as I have been posting on this topic I realize how far removed we are in time and understanding from the situations we are trying to analyze, namely the violent justice brought by God on various people. If we knew exactly how evil some of these societies had become, or all the spiritual and demonic dynamics going on behind the scenes, and how that time differed from the time of Jesus and the time since His saving work at the cross, we might better be able to understand why God would actually command that they be killed. But like the little boy and the dog watching TV, we probably don’t have a clue as to what was really going on, and so we come up with our theories thousands of years later, immersed in a totally different culture, according to our limited hearing and vision.
We don’t have the just mind of God, but there are times when we might be moved to take violent action and feel justified, such as if someone was violently raping and trying to knife our child and only we were there to protect them. In that case, we would understand and feel fully just and righteous in going to their defense. This is because we are on the scene and know all the particulars of the situation. But maybe someone who read about us years later and didn’t have all the details would judge us to have a violent side because we clubbed that attacker over the head and conclude we weren’t acting very Christian.
yes, there really are a lot of cultural and historical gaps to try to bridge in understanding Scripture, especially these violent texts of the Bible.
I agree that I have violent tendencies toward violent crimes in the same way you do. I am trying to decide if these tendencies are Godly or of the fallen flesh…
Yes, we must lightly hold to our theology and our interpretation of Scripture, even those passages which seem clear to us. If all of these ideas, interpretations and understandings were so clear and simple, then why do they vary so widely from person to person, group to group?
May we not divide over these things, but be united in love for God and neighbor.
Right. So much of our theology must be held ever so lightly… this not only leads to more gracious and humble living, but also helps us when/if our theology changes. If our whole world is wrapped around a certain doctrine, if it changes, our life crumbles along with it.