Name: Anonymous 2013-08-23 17:45
I was teaching through the book of Judges a number of years ago when one of my students rightly observed that the Jewish conquest of Canaan was, in fact, nothing short of a God-ordained genocide. So appalling was this thought to my student that he left the group and never returned. But what was perhaps the most troubling thing to me was that none of my other students really seemed to grasp the significance of the discussion.
Our God is a God of genocide.
He ordained and commanded the killing of pregnant women. Infants and children. The elderly. None were to be spared. And few were.
This strikes at the heart of almost everything that we deem right and just by human standards and raises hard questions. Are we willing to follow this God - this God who commanded the killing of pregnant woman and infant children? This God who commanded the total genocide of an entire race?
Our willingness to bow before this God upends our natural reference points and forces us to reevaluate our concept of justice. What is true morality? What is true goodness? The fact that the true God is a God of genocide forces us to define true morality, goodness and beauty in light of him - or reject him altogether. The purest and highest justice is that which brings about justice for the greatest good. Do we really believe him to be the greatest good? How many souls would we be willing to trade to secure his justice? Is any price too high? Is he worth it? He asks us to make no excuses for him. He stands with blood stained hands and no apology. Will we bow?
Too often we define God’s moral attributes in relation to humanity strictly, as though God’s movement towards man defines his character. But we are not the same. We are a different and lesser race. We are the creature to the creator. The love of God is not defined by its relation to man, but by its relation to the inter-relations of the Trinity. Only there does true justice exist. Only to himself is God bound to honor divine rights. Were God to damn the whole race of man, though we be without sin, he could not be deemed unloving as long as it served some purpose of love towards himself within the Trinity. We have the same rights before God that the animal world has before man. Or do we suppose that even God is bound by our “inalienable rights?”
Yet the wonder of it all is that God has purposed to make himself one with the creation. In Christ there dawns a day where we even now stand before God, not as creatures, but as true sons and daughters. The life of Christ in us is the divine life, the life that merits true justice and love. No longer is God’s love towards us the mere grace of the Creator to the creature. In Christ it is the grace of a father to his child. But we must never forget that we merit God’s love towards us not because we are sons of Adam, but because we are brothers of Christ – and this by grace through faith, apart from works.
Our God is a God of genocide.
He ordained and commanded the killing of pregnant women. Infants and children. The elderly. None were to be spared. And few were.
This strikes at the heart of almost everything that we deem right and just by human standards and raises hard questions. Are we willing to follow this God - this God who commanded the killing of pregnant woman and infant children? This God who commanded the total genocide of an entire race?
Our willingness to bow before this God upends our natural reference points and forces us to reevaluate our concept of justice. What is true morality? What is true goodness? The fact that the true God is a God of genocide forces us to define true morality, goodness and beauty in light of him - or reject him altogether. The purest and highest justice is that which brings about justice for the greatest good. Do we really believe him to be the greatest good? How many souls would we be willing to trade to secure his justice? Is any price too high? Is he worth it? He asks us to make no excuses for him. He stands with blood stained hands and no apology. Will we bow?
Too often we define God’s moral attributes in relation to humanity strictly, as though God’s movement towards man defines his character. But we are not the same. We are a different and lesser race. We are the creature to the creator. The love of God is not defined by its relation to man, but by its relation to the inter-relations of the Trinity. Only there does true justice exist. Only to himself is God bound to honor divine rights. Were God to damn the whole race of man, though we be without sin, he could not be deemed unloving as long as it served some purpose of love towards himself within the Trinity. We have the same rights before God that the animal world has before man. Or do we suppose that even God is bound by our “inalienable rights?”
Yet the wonder of it all is that God has purposed to make himself one with the creation. In Christ there dawns a day where we even now stand before God, not as creatures, but as true sons and daughters. The life of Christ in us is the divine life, the life that merits true justice and love. No longer is God’s love towards us the mere grace of the Creator to the creature. In Christ it is the grace of a father to his child. But we must never forget that we merit God’s love towards us not because we are sons of Adam, but because we are brothers of Christ – and this by grace through faith, apart from works.