No Gospel without Law, no Mercy without Wrath

Faith, I understand completely what you are saying.But I completely disagree.I've thouht about this subject a lot over the past several years. I've started to really read the Bible, rather than simply being preached to by clergy. I've examined some of the past doctrines of my faith, and the conflicts and horrors that have resulted over simple theological disagreements.My conclusion is that God doesn't care about our specific theology - all He cares about is our hearts, and out intentions and willingness to help others.When it comes down to it, when you really think about it, the Bible doesn't have to be literally true. It doesn't have to be true at all, in fact. Even as 100% allegory and symbolism, it still acts as a basic guide that can lead us to God, and it's root message of forgiveness, mercy, and love stand even without the actual events described in the Bible.I've determined that the way Jesus told us to live, by loving out neighbor, helping others, forgiving our enemies, and trying to do good, is the way I want to live. I believe He did exist, but if I find out tomorrow that He didn't, that's still the way I want to live my life. Biblical inerrancy is irrelevant - true or not, the lessons tought are valid.I've looked at the evidence for the accuracy of various Biblical stories - things like the Exodus, the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gammorah. No physical evidence supports these accounts. God would have had to deliberately cover up any evidence that these events ever happened - and I don't believe God would be so deliberately misleading and deceitful.Next we have people like Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson. We have "Christian" ministers today who will claim that every natural disaster is a punishment from God, that the 9/11 terrorism attacks were a punishment from God, that AIDS is a plague from God to punish gays. Some of these "men" even actively support the murder of gays.Given that we have such misguided people invoking God's name today, I think it would be foolish to assume that such people did not exist a few thousand years ago.The destruction of Sodom and Gammorah could easily have been a story told by a bigotted man to support his preconceived notion that homosexuality is evil - and have no basis as the actual Will of God.The murder of every last man, woman and child by the Hebrews invading another nation was attributed to a command from God - but did they actually receive such a command? Perhaps the soldiers were simply overzealous and did some pretty evil things. Perhaps, as the victors, they simply wrote that God had commanded it as justification.After all, who would question the Will of God?I understand where you are coming from Faith, I really do. I respect the fact that you are able to believe so strongly in the literal truth of the Bible despite observable evidence to the contrary. But I resent the notion that I am somehow "rejecting God." My faith is based on personal experience and a personal relationship with God. The Bible is the guide that led me to Him, but I worship God, not a book written by men about God. Men misunderstand, exaggerate, and lie all the time.As you so eloquently put it in another thread: I, and those who believe as I do, do not reject God, Faith. We simply have a different understanding of Him than you do. While I will debate against you about personal beliefs and the inerrancy of the Bible, I respect the strength of your faith, and I repect your right to beleive however you wish. I'd like to ask you to do the same. I don't do this, and I haven't seen anyone else on the board do this either. Some of us believe differently than you do, Faith. I simply don't believe that God ever made those condemnations.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

I so absolutely totally completely think that just about every word you wrote is wrong that I'd better just leave it be and we'll just have to agree to disagree. You are quite sincere and polite and that's welcome, but where would I begin, and is there anything really to discuss when there is such a world of difference?This message has been edited by Faith, 08-28-2005 07:05 PM

Yes and no. We can decide to allow or disallow certain behaviors, but we have absolutely no say in how well they work.
From an evolutionary standpoint, with a species' given attributes, in a given overall situation, certain behaviors are simply more optimal than others. Some behaviors, if universally practiced, would quickly lead to extinction -- and extinction ain't subjective. Extinction just the realization of 'woefully deficient' -- those behaviors would be, objectively, woefully deficient for that place and time. They would be in error, and in evolution's trial-and-error process, the errors die.Now, it's not surprising that humans, having woefully deficient attributes for living solitarily, do have the instincts to behave in a way that is well-suited to living in a group, and so are social animals. This 'morality' was not made and determined by people -- it was tried and found to work by Nature.
Now, we do seem to have a problem in that humans evolved in small groups, so are suited to that. In small groups, who constitutes 'us' and who constitutes 'them' is clearly defined. We look after the 'us'; but the 'them', as competitors, are fair game. However, in larger groups, such as what we have after the development of agriculture, the line is blurred. We need a personal connection for a strong 'us', but humans can only bond with so many people. So, in a larger group, this means that each person places a good percentage of the others in an inbetween state -- perhaps something akin to a long-term truce. Instinct, however, doesn't seem to cover this, so behaviors are only regulated by how a person is perceiving them at any given time (subjective). If as 'us', everything works fine. If as 'them', as those behaviors are not conducive to societal cohesion, there are problems. So, we need laws to harmonize everyone to 'us', which allows for larger, more efficient societies.Hmmmm... did I have a point in there?

Yes, God showed His people favor and others no favor, such as Pharoah, but even favor implies the possibility of disfavor.What I'm trying to do in this thread is reconcile the New Testament portrait of Christ with the Old Testament descriptions of God's punishments of various nations, and judgment against sin in general and all the related elements of God's wrath that people so frequently object to. The point is not that people are saved (or favored by God) without experiencing wrath but that salvation only makes sense in relation to condemnation. Without the reality of condemnation there is no need for salvation. Without the reality of wrath there is no need for mercy. Certainly some may go through their lives experiencing only God's mercy -- or mostly. But if God hadn't chosen Abraham and Abraham hadn't responded with faith in God, Abraham would be condemned by the Law same as everybody else. Oh it has everything to do with it. I've said that I'm talking only about the MORAL LAW, not the ritual practices of the Jews, which no longer apply. Only the Jewish followers of Jesus continued to follow all the Jewish laws, which was no longer required but perfectly all right until they tried to force them on the Gentile believers too.I don't mean Law in that sense, but the moral law that runs the universe which is intuited to various extents by all human beings, and developed in such concepts as Karma and the Tao for instance. Other religions teach wisdom for living in order to maximize blessings and minimize the punishments of the moral law, or in the case of some versions of Buddhism even the supposed complete cessation of the workings of karma in Nirvana. All the teachings God gave the Israelites through Moses aimed to show them how to live within His Law in the same way, and what would be the dire consequences of violating it. The Book of Proverbs is another collection of wisdom on how to be blessed and avoid being cursed by the universal moral law. The knowledge of good and evil was not a good thing but plunged us into moral conflict and the inability to consistently choose what is good, as I said before on this thread. From the Fall on we have been violators of the moral law I'm talking about, or "sinners," and it has taken its toll in all kinds of sufferings and calamities throughout the millennia. There would never have been death or any form of suffering if it hadn't been for our breaking this law, which is the same as disobedience of God, the sin first committed by Adam and Eve but by all of us since.All the calamities of the Old Testament are meant to demonstrate the punishments given to humanity for these transgressions. That is my main point on this thread. There is a reason for them, and that reason is also the reason God sent His Son to save us from them. There is no other cause of calamity than sin, although any particular calamity is not traceable to any particular sin, it's just the human condition. We all suffer it. We're all transgressors and we all suffer the consequences. If you tell a lie you violate the moral law of the universe. If you steal from another you violate the moral law of the universe. If you practice idolatry same thing. It is these violations of the Law we will all answer for when we stand before God on Judgment Day. The Ten Commandments spell it out and further elaborations of those commandments in the Pentateuch spell it out, and Jesus showed its spiritual nature in His Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. And again, the idea of Karma is a way it has been recognized and the Tao as well, and in fact many tribal religions have some recognition of this universal moral standard. Jesus taught the Samaritans who were not Jews, and healed Gentiles who asked for it, such as a Roman centurion and a Canaanite woman, whose faith He praised above that of the Jews, and it was He who sent Paul to the Gentiles. That was the plan from the beginning, although the gospel was to go to the Jews first and He stayed mostly within the Jewish camp. But the Messiah was not just for the Jews. He was promised to all people beginning with God's promise to Adam and Eve. Job had faith in the promise of the Messiah and Job was not a Jew. The Jews were the chosen people from whom He would come, and as such the first to receive the promise of salvation from sin through Him, but no, the promise was to all humanity from the very beginning.To sum it up, the Ten Commandments are the laws of the universe in a nutshell, by which all human beings are judged and will ultimately be judged, and the evidence that they are universal is that versions of them appear in all the laws of humanity and most of us agree that they are good, as I've argued at length in earlier posts on this thread. It is because we are condemned for our violations of this Law that we need a Savior through whom we can be forgiven for them, since if we have to face God without that forgiveness we will be condemned forever.

Hi Faith,Would you be kind and present those MORAL laws you describe? If you could either paraphrase all those you can or give me the verses where I can find them, I'd appreciate it.I'm still confused on which are the ceremonial and/or dietary laws. If you could just provide the moral laws for right now, I'd be grateful.

mispost*This message has been edited by prophex, 08-28-2005 10:56 PM

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porteus@gmail.com

I don't think this thread should have been Ok'd because there are no verses that are the verses in debate posted. Just some rhetoric basically.And a lynching of prophex.Why don't you state the points of dispute, the parts where God killed people in the OT.I'd like to read those verses.

That's easy.In no particular order.Noah's flood
Exodus 32:27
Exodus 12:29
Joshua 6:21-27
Numbers 16:49
Deuteronomy 7:2Want more?

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Those who call themselves Christians but reject God's judgments are on precarious ground. You can't have Jesus unless you know that all God's judgments are righteousness and justice and that you are condemned justly for your offenses. Jesus came to save us from just that condemnation. What Jesus is it you think you are following if you reject the Jesus who came to save from the very Law that you are so offended by?

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This is the root of ignorance that people talk about that exists in the heart of the Christian community. This is where it is, when people read and go with the flow, they don't question, they don't use their brains, they simply think quickly of a SIMPLE justification, that EVERYTHING GOD DOES IS RIGHTEOUS, SO THE SLAUGHTER OF HUMANS IS JUSTIFIED. This is your flaw, this is where you falter. The first statement is as true as I know the word of God to be. The second seems like it just doesn't fit. This is where my search begins, and yours ends in unquestioning BLIND belief. To the contray to what fallacies you have been brought to believe in, God does not want us to behave in this manner, he wants us to question, to not blindly accept, to be on the watch for false ideas. This is where when I read about the killings of the firstborns I have the urge to know about God, his judgement, why God would do this. If that urge doesn't come to you Faith, then maybe you are the one who is dead in Christ, who is luke warm, and not me. -Hypocrisy-

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If all you do, as so many here do, is shake your fist in God's face and call His condemnations unjust, putting your own judgments above His, you just dig yourself deeper into your own condemnation and take yourself farther away from the forgiveness, love and mercy He is holding out to all through the gift of the Messiah Jesus.

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This was the whole point of my post, Faith. I said that was happening to me, I became torn from my God, because of my lack of understanding. You seem to think that this was a bad thing, but as I begin to understand God's judgement, I come closer to God. My relationship is stronger now, now that I know him, this is why i strive to gain wisdom of God, I couldn't love something that I didn't understand, but this feeling, this salvation is for me, no matter what you believe.

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You have put yourself in an unresolvable muddle this way I'm afraid. The deaths attributed to God that you refuse to accept were God's righteous judgments based on His righteous Law, and Jesus came to die for offenders against that Law, so that you can't truly know Jesus or say that He is a part of your being if you reject the very righteous Law that condemns us all under the wrath of God.

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We are all the offenders, even you have rejected his law. I am in no muddle, I seek God. You read the books, but you refuse to get anything from them, you have missed the point Faith, to condemn me with a splinter in your eye was a flaw in your own logic. Matthew 7 clearly says; "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged." Don't worry about me, I am seeking, and I will find, whereas you have not begun your search.

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Our condemnation under the Law is the reason Jesus died -- to save us from that very condemnation and clothe us in His own righteousness as we are sinners with no righteousness of our own.

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God has revealed to me that righteousness, is also a human characteristic, Matthew 5:10; "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Remember that God made us in her image, that we can be of God. That we can be saved. You give humanity such a bad rap, that you have forgotten how much God cares for us, and how we can strive to be Christ-like, not in Bible memorization, but in the way we act everyday to the Father, and to our peers.This condemnation of mine that you have distorted out of a dream, is simply not true. You can't take away my saviour.

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porteus@gmail.com

Okay, the string is well past this quote, but I'm trying to catch up. You all write so damn much.Faith said: As an Archaeologist, I gotta tell you this is way off. There is quite a lot of external evidence for many things in the Bible. Several stories in the OT are based in fact, if not wholey (holy) true. More in the NT.This, however, does not mean that all the stories in both are true. (Or, to be clearer, that they are factual. IMHO a story can be "true" meaning that it carries some moral or philosphical truth, even though it is not a factual accounting of real events -- see Aesop's Fables).Much of the Bible is nuts and bolts stuff that doesn't apply to us today at all. There's a passage - I'll get the quote if I need to - that basically says, if I rape a woman who's a virgin, she's gotta marry me.Good luck selling that one to the victom's family.

Well, some would argue that there wasn't a single anonymous writer. Just about everything Jesus preached could be found in the writings of other philosophers in the century or so before Jesus' birth. It's easy to theorize that either a collection of works was tied together and that the overall story is a collection of wisdoms from several writers, or that Jesus in the "missing years" was well read and built a "unifying theory" of religeon which became his message.As for the OT stories and geniuses. Some of the OT is pretty bad. I'm not talking about the murder sections either. I'm talking about the long string of begots, or the spoils of war sections. Parts of the OT read like an accountants ledger.Still, there are gems. But, the OT is hardly the only source. Every religion in the world has stories of equal granduer and substinance. These stories often develope over time, becoming "better" as tellers find ways to make them more and more relivant to current society.A large problem that faces Christianity is it's inability to adapt. The archaic stories of the OT often have no relivance to modern society. As a result, society grows further away from the religion and newer "better" religions rise up to take it's place.This is exactly what launched the Protestant revolution.Mormonism and Scientology have both enjoyed a great deal of success largely due to the fact that they address issues in modern people's lives more directly than religions trapped in tradition.

And yet it was the bureaucracy that got the last laugh. The Gospel of Thomas isn't a part of the Bible. Why? It's because that Gospel is very dangerous - not to worshipers, or to Jesus, but to the Church.Thomas quotes Jesus as saying, "The Kingdom is Heaven is HERE". Not, that it's coming. That it is here. That all that's needed is that people open their eyes.That's almost Buddist (but that's not my point).My point is this: The Church (the Bureaucracy to end all bureaucracies) can't sell that horse. There's no power in telling people that the Kindom is here. The power is in telling people they are "almost there". Then you can get people to do whatever you want.

The laws are all through the Pentateuch is the problem. The Ten Commandments are the fundamental moral laws and they are given in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Exodus through Deuteronomy cover many separate applications of the moral law, some which relate only to the times they were given in. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7, elaborates those laws.Moral laws are about our obligations to God and neighbor. They're easy to tell from the other laws. Ceremonial laws are such things as instructions for the observance of holidays such as the Passover, for the service of the priesthood, specific rules about Sabbath observance, menstruating women and that sort of thing. Laws about food are also specific to the Jews and not part of the moral law.Rather than my going through the entire Pentateuch and indeed the entire Bible to sort them out for you, I think it would be easier if you raised specific issues if you have them.This message has been edited by Faith, 08-29-2005 02:46 AM

Hi, The thing about the 'external evidence' for the Bible stories is that this evidence only becomes credible the closer we get to the time of the writing down of the text.If you work your way from Genesis through the Bible it is quite striking how amazingly inaccurate the early books actually are. From Genesis through 2 Kings you will struggle to support a single event or person as being supported from external evidence. But, the texts slightly improve when the post exilic writings are examined. I think you will find that she only has to marry you IF you want to marry her. There are other criteria taken into consideration as well, for example whether it was a rape or whether she consented or not, and whether she was betrothed or not. But these 'laws' reflect the society that they were used in, there is nothing supernatural about them.Brian.

I didn't intend to lynch Prophex. He did a good job of stating the conflict of a Christian who finds it hard to accept the punishments of various peoples in the Old Testament, as so many others here at EvC also do. I simply used his quote as a take-off point but many others have said much the same thing. It's about how people have trouble reconciling the wrath of God with the love of God and usually end up claiming the wrath parts of the Bible aren't true, but Prophex's post was more subtle in that he want to accept all the testimony of God and is honestly struggling with it.I thought the topic would be easily recognized by people but if I need to discuss particular verses that's fine too. They've been quoted many times here but later if necessary I'll look them up again.This message has been edited by Faith, 08-29-2005 02:56 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 08-29-2005 02:58 AM