“All you need is love”, as the song goes, does not take us very far.
It is simple enough to state that God loves people and hates sin and evil. About this, conservative and liberal Christians will agree. This very agreement should make us wary, however, realizing that it does not take us very far. For clearly, conservatives versus liberals have very different values and beliefs about God, people, sin and evil. When we examine specific scriptures that talk of God working in ways that seem unloving to the human perception, the radical differences in values, beliefs and interpretation become apparent.
God in control of all…including evil!?
Numerous scriptures talk of God’s ultimate control over all of creation, both the good and the evil, both the light and the darkness. God controls evil nations and uses them to discipline His people, He allows Satan to touch His people, and God Himself is described as hardening people’s hearts.
The over-conservative response will have no problem with these verses, and that in itself is problematic (on the basis of Scripture).
The over-liberal response will find these verses unacceptable and will reject them as not being part of the true revelation of love that can still be found in the true heart of the Bible, a response which is even more problematic.
Maintaining the mystery and holding the tension.
Our understanding of God, His kindness versus His wrath, and the way He sovereignly controls and works through ALL of creation (both good and evil) is ultimately a mystery and we must be satisfied with respecting the tensions presented in Scripture, avoiding all extremes (Deut 5:7-10; Rom 11:22).
We must avoid extreme conservatism where God is distant and enjoys this distance. In such a mind-set God is a war God and He has no problem with the warring He has to do in Scripture. Equally, He has no problem with our wars, backing our warmongering like a proud father. This god is clearly an idol, made in our image.
Equally problematic is the extreme liberalism where God is so close to us that he is actually just a projection of our sentimental fantasies. This god is a hand-wringing pacifist, a codependant of the human race, no less a man-made idol.
God as revealed in Scripture.
The true God revealed in Scripture is offensive to all people, liberal and conservative, and will not be made a mascot of either camp. He dwells in unapproachable light and can only be understood in part. We are not let off the hook of ongoing, humble searching and unceasing aligning and transformation as we await His fuller revelation (1 Co 13:9-10; 1 Jn 3:2; Rev 22:4).
In these in-between-times we must grapple with the clearest revelation of Himself God has given, His creation-salvation-recreation history, starting before the creation of the world in Christ and culminating in Christ (the Alpha and Omega), as recorded and revealed through the Bible.
The tensions, offences, and mysteries revealed in these Scriptures are our lot, and, while challenging, they are not an insurmountable obstacle for those who are humble and childlike. However, to the proud, rebellious and self-sufficient they will never be anything but foolishness (1 Cor 1:18-29; Mat 11:25-26; Mar 10:15).
We are actually allowed to question God.
Proceeding from this set of caveats, it is permissible and necessary, according to Scripture itself, to question God and His ways. Such questioning is never from presumption, arrogance or bad faith. It is part of being in a genuine love relationship, and when done according to the Scriptural pattern it always leads to acceptance, humility and worship (irrespective of whether God has responded with a rational explanation or resolution of the pain).
We thus see, for example, that Job complains to God concerning His treatment of Job (Job 7:20-21, 10:2-7), when the wicked seem to get off scot free (Job 21:29-30). Job is ultimately rebuked by God (Job 40:2,8), who never explains Job’s suffering but merely displays His sovereign glory and curation of creation (Job 38:1-41:34). Job gives us one of the profoundest models of repentance in Scripture (Job 42:1-6), showing the authenticity of his relationship with God in contrast to his friends who did not truly know God. God vindicates Job and requires Job’s friends to receive Job’s sacrificial prayer to prevent their punishment for vain ideas and inaccurate speeches about God and suffering (Job 42:9).
In similar ways we see how Habbakuk undergoes a process of having his consternation over God’s toleration of evil (Hab 1:2-3) turned to praise when he sees the bigger picture of God’s sovereignty and providence (Hab 3:17-19). Similar painful cries of consternation and the varying ways they are answered occur throughout Scripture (Psa 13:1-6, 73:1-28, 74:1-23, 94:1-23; Jer 14:8-9; Rom 9:1-11:36; Rev 6:10).
The benefit of struggling with God in this way.
In addition to giving ourselves Biblical permission to wrestle with God’s ways, and allowing a deep revelation of His sovereignty, providence, power, goodness and wisdom (or simply put, His God-status, relative to our creature-status) to minister to our consternation, we can also read the Scriptures with greater wisdom and sensitivity, avoiding unnecessary stumbling blocks.
Misreading Scripture, misreading God.
In other words, struggling with God’s otherness, relative to us, is enough of a challenge without unnecessarily multiplying the challenge by reading difficult verses legalistically. When we do this we ignore the limitations of all human language and communication, and we lack literary and narrative sensitivity, looking at these verses in isolation from other verses that emphasize God’s kindness and mercy.
When we focus on the difficult verses in this way we reach wrong conclusions about God and end up embracing the extremes of certain of Calvin’s doctrines. On the other hand, if these difficult verses are ignored and not allowed their full weight, then we end up with the God of extreme Arminianism and liberal humanism.
We cannot validly shy away from the wrath of God revealed in Scripture.
The Bible forbids us from reducing God to the level of our understanding and commands us to believe in and relate to God in His fullness as He has revealed Himself in all of Scripture. Read the following verses slowly and carefully and you’ll get the point:
But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the Lord your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done. (Deut 2:30)
“See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. (40) I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear: As surely as I live forever, (41) when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. (Deut 32:39-41)
For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses. (Josh 11:20)
“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! (Isa 10:5)
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. (Isa 45:7)
Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken. (16) Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You hope for light, but he will turn it to utter darkness and change it to deep gloom. (Jer 13:15-16)
“I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD. (12) “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God.” (13) He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the LORD God Almighty is his name. (Amo 4:11-13)
“In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. (10) I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. (11) “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. (Amo 8:9-11)
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. (15) Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face— in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” (Hos 5:14-15)
Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. (28) They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. (Act 4:27-28)
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. (19) One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” (20) But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'” (21) Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? (Rom 9:18-21)
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. (Rom 11:22)
They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (11) For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie (12) and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. (2 Th 2:10-12)
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. (10) “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. (11) But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” (12) The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (Job 1:9-12)
When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. (13) For he says: “‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings. (14) As one reaches into a nest, so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations; as people gather abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the countries; not one flapped a wing, or opened its mouth to chirp.'” (15) Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it? As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up, or a club brandish the one who is not wood! (Isa 10:12-15)
God’s wrath does not contradict His kindness.
I think it is Biblically appropriate to allow these “hard” verses to be “softened” or balanced by other parts of the Bible. For example, verses that portray God as punishing with wrath need to be read alongside other verses that clearly teach that He does not enjoy punishing and prefers people to repent.
This verse in Exekiel shows the perfect tension between the themes I am discussing:
Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust? (30) “Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. (31) Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? (32) For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! (Eze 18:29-32)
A more nuanced understanding of God hardening hearts.
Similarly, verses that talk about God hardening hearts need to be read alongside verses that reveal a more complete picture.
Any divine hardening always represents one vector, direction, or movement in the ultimately mysterious dealings of God, in His efforts to bring grace to all who will not resist it.
Therefore, if the following three verses in Romans chapters 9 to 11 are read in isolation, one is led to a hard Calvinist position that God simply chooses some to be saved and some to be damned (double predestination).
For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (Rom 9:15)
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. (Rom 9:18)
as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.” (Rom 11:8)
These above three verses need to be read alongside the other verses from the same three chapters of Romans that reveal the fuller picture and that ultimately leave us with the following mystery: God wishes all to respond to His grace, but not all will, and that in no way contradicts the perfect and limitless love and Sovereignty of God.
And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. (Rom 11:23)
For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (33) Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (Rom 11:32-33)
Nonsensical talk about an angry Old Testament God.
This very careful and cautious attempt to understand God’s nature and fullness through Scripture, neither understanding his wrath without his love, nor his love without His wrath needs to be strongly distinguished from the cavalier fashion in which some evangelicals talk about the God of the Old Testament being a God of wrath and the God of the New Testament being one of love. I have even heard someone from the pulpit use the term “anger management” to talk about how God is presented in a different way in the New Testament.
This is inappropriate in two ways.
Firstly, if, as this line of thinking suggests, the Old Testament descriptions of God are inaccurate, i.e. they represent a false picture of the wrath of God which the New Testament corrects, it means that the whole Bible has become destabilized and untrustworthy. By the same logic we could just as easily say that the New Testament picture of God is false (a wishful-thinking distortion) and the Old Testament picture is more accurate.
Don’t try “help out” God or Scripture.
When we try and “help out” Scripture and God in this way we are no more pleasing to God than, Uzzah, who inappropriately tried to stabilize the ark of the covenant when it was being returned to Jerusalem (2Sam 6:6-9). The real fault lay with David who had not respected the Biblical commands for transporting the ark (1 Chr 15:13-15), a mistake he subsequently corrected (2 Sam 6:12-15). This allusion is appropriate to our present discussion because the ark represented the presence of God but it also contained the covenant law of Moses, the word of God.
Job is also correct when he rebukes his comforters for trying to help God out with their ill-timed theological platitudes and their spinning of reality to help God out:
Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf? Will you speak deceitfully for him? (8) Will you show him partiality? Will you argue the case for God? (9) Would it turn out well if he examined you? Could you deceive him as you might deceive a mortal? (10) He would surely call you to account if you secretly showed partiality. (Job 13:7-10)
A Bible that needs to be radically reinterpreted and that needs us to choose between which verses and themes we keep and which ones we discard (the basic method of liberal theology) is hardly worthy of our trust as the Word of God.
Both wrath and grace are more sharply portrayed in the New Testament.
Secondly, such a line of thinking is simply ignorant of the nature of the New Testament, where BOTH God’s grace and God’s wrath are much more sharply and clearly revealed. The following verses, which provide balance and fullness when read together are all from the New Testament:
But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Rom 5:15)
If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! (2Co 3:9)
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, (27) but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. (28) Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. (29) How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? (30) For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” (31) It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb 10:26-31)
