stooj said:
these aren't my own questions, a friend asked them. but i need some help formulating answers. her questions are:
- "why dusnt God appear to ppl nowadays, like how he did to jeremiah?"
- "why God wasnt as forgiving in the old testament like he was in the new?"
- "why did he go killing innocent people?"
yeh, she said she just doesn't understand him sometimes. answers answers answers ppl! accurate bible references wud be great. thnx
To appear to people now in the way he appeared to Jeremiah would be a retrograde step. God's revelation of himself throughout human history has been progressive culminating in the Incarnation (Heb.1). This is the supreme revelation of God to Man which will never be superceded. Neither will God go back to revealing himself in a 'partial way' when he has already given his fullest revelation in his Son. Once God had revealed his fullest revelation it became the responsibility of the Church to make that revelation known throughout the world.
The Bible teaches us that God by Nature and Character is Immutable [absolutely impervious to and utterly incapable of change] (Mal.3:6; Heb.13:8). That means that God never changes the basis on which he acts toward his Creation. God will never bless us for something which, under exactly the same circumstances, he formerly disciplined us. This means that we can always know at any given point in time exactly what both pleases and displeases God. That will NEVER change.
What does change however, is the way in which God responds to us according to how we behave with respect to him and his Immutable Nature and Character. God tells us that if we do what is right then he will bless us, however, if we do what is wrong then he will discipline us (the discipline increasing in intensity) until we either repent or until God decides that we no longer voluntarily wish to live under his authority and allows us to go our own way until the Day of Judgment. God's fundamental Nature and Character are Immutable. This means that God is no more or less judgmental than he ever was or ever will be. Neither is he any more forgiving or merciful now that he ever either was or will be since God does not change.
The Bible tells us that his preference is to be merciful and to forgive (Eze.18; 2Pet.3:3-10) because he is Love (1Jn.4:8), but he is also always internally consistent and will not compromise on his Righteousness Holiness and Justice in order to be loving since that would not be true Love but a compromised caricature of true Love.
God does not kill 'innocent' people. The Bible teaches that 'in Adam' the entire human race are guilty of sin (Rom.3:9-18) from conception, rather than birth (Ps.51:5).
The Biblical doctrine of Imputation and Impartation
The Scriptures teach us that death was introduced into the creation by Adam as a result of his sin (Rom.5:12-20) and God with regard to sin and condemnation has used this to condemn the entire human race by association [Adam's guilt is imputed to our 'moral accounts' and his fallen and rebellious nature is imparted to each and every one of us (though, on judgement day, we will only be held accountable for our own specific sin, not Adam's as well.)].
Just as in competition the individual competitor or team either attain victories (or suffer losses) on behalf of the community that they represent (be it either a school, a village, a town, a county, a state, a country or the entire human race) so in this case, Adam, as our representative, suffered the loss of being in that righteous relationship with God, because of his sin, the consequences of which, in turn, have been passed on to us.
This might, at first sight, seem incredibly cruel and unfair of God to do this but his reason for doing this is so that he can use exactly the same principle with regard to salvation in respect of Christ [In order for God to use the principle with respect to redemptive salvation he has also to use exactly the same principle with respect to moral guilt ('sin') and condemnation, otherwise God would be violating his just nature and God cannot do that]. This means that salvation can actually be attained solely by Christ, but its benefits can be credited/imparted to us as the community (in this case 'the human race') that Christ represents.
If God did not use this principle then each one of us would individually, have to attain salvation for ourselves, which, for a sinner to try and do in the face of an absolutely holy and righteous God is absolutely impossible (and even that is the biggest understatement ever in the entire history of the human race!)
In other words, God has to condemn the entire human race ['in Adam'] in order that he might then be able to redeem them ['in Christ'] (Rom.11:32). This is what Paul is talking about in his letter to the Romans (Rom.5:12-20) and his first letter to the Corinthians (1Cor.15:20-23).
God could not leave the entire human race in a state of perpetual 'innocence' since it was necessary for us to 'grow up' morally speaking so that we would truly be 'in the image of God' in the fullest and most mature sense. For this reason humanity has to go through the experience of sin and all it's consequences (this is what human history is really all about - the whole of human history has a salvific [salvific = relating to salvation] dimension to it) in order to then experience the saving grace of God which is the means by which we attain spiritual maturity and take our place along side God as 'heirs with God and joint heirs with Christ' (Rom.8:17). How would we ever know of God's grace, mercy redemption etc. unless we had first experienced sin?
Therefore the idea of 'innocent' people (including babies) is a myth because 'innocent' people cannot be saved and therefore are destined for the everlasting Lake of Fire.
I think the issue to which your friend is referring is the annihilation of entire ethnic groups [the Canaanites] as commanded by God during the Old Testament theocracy when God ruled the nation of Israel directly. This is often cited by those who oppose Judeo-Christianity as 'proof' of the capricious nature of YHWH - the God of the Bible. However, there are many factors that these detractors fail to take into account.
Firstly, the annihilation of ethnic groups is not instigated on the arbitrary whim of a sinful human tyrant but rather is the Divine Judgment of the One True God, the sole Creator of the Universe, who's absolute right to do whatever he wants with his own Creation is incontestable (Dan.4:34-35).
Secondly, the sin that warranted God's divine judgment was so heinous and morally repugnant that, after giving the Canaanites more than enough time to repent, the only option, in the face of their refusal to repent, was total and absolute annihilation. God was teaching the Israelites about the real nature of sin and its utter corrupting and destructive capacity when left unchecked. God was teaching the Israelites that sin is moral cancer and that it destroys first the spirit and then the body. There can be no 'live and let live' policy with sin. Whatever it contaminates must be utterly destroyed, without exception. (Rom.6:23(a)). This is the love of the Father protecting his children from the effects and consequences of that which would utterly destroy them far more mercilessly than God ever destroyed the Canaanites. Sadly, these lessons have been utterly lost on much of the Christian Church today which, as a result, is terminally ill with the same moral cancer. God will not save people who refuse to separate themselves from their sin irrespective of whether they are inside or outside of the Church (Matt.7:21-23; 25:41-46).
When whole communities are contaminated with the moral cancer of sin to the degree that the Canaanites were, then the only answer is to 'amputate' them from the human body in order to stem the infection.
The hideous image of Molech, the god of the Ammonites, once more rose in the valley of Hinnom and Manasseh himself lead the way in consecrating his own children, not to YHWH but to this grisly idol, or as the phrase ran, making him pass through the fire to the god; as if the flames, burning away the earthly impure body, let the freed soul pass through them, cleansed from all taint of earth, to unite with the godhead…Human sacrifice became common at the “high places of Tophet†in the valley of Hinnom; the stately central mound, on which the idol towered aloft, rising deep and large in the midst.
Night time seems to have been the special time for these awful immolations [to immolate = to set alight]. The screams of the children bound to the altars or rolling into fire from the brazen arms of the idol [through the hole in its chest where the child fell into the flames below – the idol was hollow and white hot]; the shouts and hymns of the frantic crowd; and the wild tumult of drums and shrill instruments, by which the screams of the victims were sought to be drowned out, rose in discordance over the city [Jerusalem]; forming, with the whole scene, visible from the walls by the glow of the furnaces and flames, such an ideal of transcendent horror, that the name of the valley [‘Ge Hinnom’ = ‘Valley of Hinnom’] became, and still continues, in the form of ‘Gehenna’ the usual word for ‘hell’ [i.e. the everlasting lake of fire].â€Â
Cunningham Geikie Hours With The Bible: Manasseh To Zedekiah (New York: John B. Alden, 1887) 25-26; quoted in Ravi Zacharias Deliver Us From Evil (Word Publishing 1996) pg 135.
Simonline.
