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In this study, I answer some questions sent to me by a dear sister in Christ. I figure if she has these questions, many others who read the original study have them too. (Does God Kill People?) The questions and thoughts she has should become clear by the manner in which I respond to her. I hope you enjoy this.
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First of all…I corrected my mistake in the blog post, for God did not kill the Amalakites….he (apparently) told Saul to do it. He didn’t kill the 400 prophets of Baal, he (apparently) had Elijah do it.
And……. you’re right.. when you read the Old Testament, “Clearly, God does kill, He killed people in the OT…. ” At least, that’s what it says in the OT. But is that the truth? In the OT, God killed. But in the NT He does not. What started my change in thinking that it was not the true God killing people in the OT was this.
John 1:17, 18 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. (led Him out into clear view).
If truth came by Jesus Christ, then the OT isn’t true! Of course, I don’t believe what I just said, exactly as stated. But……. I’ve come to understand that the OT was smoke and shadows (Hebrews is full of just such references to the OT), and that God is not clearly seen or revealed in the OT.
If it was Jesus who led God out into clear view, then God was not in clear view before Jesus led Him out.
In John 8:19, Jesus said to Jews, Then said they unto him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, You neither know me, nor my Father; if you had known me, you should have known my Father also.
This was spoken to Pharisees, who certainly knew the Old Testament very well….yet in all that knowing, they did not know the true God, the Father of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, in John 14:9, He that has seen me has seen the Father.
So if we want the true understanding of God, we have to look at the life of Jesus, His Christ. And did Jesus kill? No. Was Jesus harsh? Direct, but not harsh. Was Jesus vengeful? No.
Do you believe God is love? Well, if God is love, and has always been love, then why did Jesus say, in
John 13:34, A new commandment I give unto you; That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.
Why was the commandment to love one another only coming NOW? If God is love, and never changed from the OT to the NT?
And so, first I want to see and understand the God that Jesus revealed, led out into clear view. And then I need to understand the OT in light of the clear God, made known by Jesus.
This is not an understanding one comes to overnight. But if God doesn’t change, then it must be man’s ability to understand God which has changed, from the OT to the NT. God hasn’t changed….we have. Remember, the spirit with which we are born is greater than the spirit of the OT prophets. Greater in authority, greater in understanding and power. This the Scripture plainly reveals, when Jesus said:
Luke 7:28 For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
You and I are in the kingdom of God….which (according to Romans 14:17) is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
The problem that has persisted in the reading of the OT is that we, who have this holy spirit of God, who can understand the deep things of God (I Cor 2:10-12), have continued to read the OT, thinking that those who lived back then could understand it like we can. That is absolutely not the case. The OT was not written to us. It was written to men who had not the holy spirit of God, who were not born of God. Who could in no way understand of God what we are able to understand today. And so it was written condescendingly.
It would be like you explaining to your 2-year old child the fact that Grandpa died. Your explanation were he now 15 years old would be quite different. Neither explanation would be false, but the explanation you’d give if he were 15 would be more true than the one you’d give were he 2 years old. And if your child were to be able to compare the two explanations, he might get confused, until he understood exactly what I’m telling you today. At 2, you told him in a way he could understand.
Another, clear, way to look at it is this. In the Old Testament, God would tell man….Now don’t play near the cliff, lest I cause the rocks at the bottom of the cliff to jump up and smash you and kill you or maim you. Today, He’d explain the law of gravity, and warn us against playing by the cliff, lest we fall and get injured or killed by the fall. Unless we have discovered paragliding, or free base jumping (is that what they call it, with a parachute), in which case that warning would not be relevant. Today, we are free, because by the spirit of Christ within, we can know and understand the truth! Today, there is much more available!!!
Let me be clear. The OT is the Word of God……to men who had NOT the holy spirit of God, who could in no way see or understand the true God.
But today we can understand the true God. And so let us not go back and accept as clearly stated truth that Word of God directed to natural man (with no spirit of God within). Rather, let us accept whole the Word of God written to men born of the holy spirit of God, in whom Christ dwells, and then understand the OT, written to unspiritual man, in light of the truth of God as revealed by the spirit of Christ.
II Corinthians 3….the whole chapter, lays out plainly the difference between the OT and the NT. Note verses 14-16, speaking of the Jews of the OT.
II Corinthians 3:14-16 But their minds were blinded; for until this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it (Israel) shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
Now as to good and evil, I refer you to the study on The Tree, which is also in the Blog. What was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Good and evil exists in the world, that is true…..in Satan’s world. But in Christ Jesus all things are of God. So in Christ does not exist good and evil. And in Christ is the restoration of the true will of God for all of His creation. Remember, Adam and Eve were told to not eat of the tree of the knowing of good and evil….but they did. The tree of the knowing of good and evil, of right and wrong, was not a tree planted by God, but rather by His enemy, Satan. See Who put the Tree in the Garden? Everything God had created, all the trees God had put in the garden….were good….were very good.
Darkness is defined by the absence of light, this is true. But light is not defined by the absence of darkness. There does not need to be darkness in order for there to be light. If we look at it physically…..let’s say a being could live 10 miles from the sun….when would be darkness? Where would be darkness?
Who has the ultimate power of death is the devil, not the true God which Jesus led out into clear view. God sent Jesus to defeat the works of the devil, the greatest of which is death.
I Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
In order to defeat the devil, Jesus had to defeat his greatest weapon….death. This he did, by meeting it face to face, and kicking its ass when he was raised from the dead, to die no more.
This idea that death is of God has arisen from the erroneous concept of “the sovereignty of God.” That everything that happens is God’s will. It is not! Death is not of God….ever. Death does not come from God, is not sent by God, is against the very nature of God. Now ultimately God will triumph, the seed of which ultimate triumph has already been sown and is in fact growing in Christ. But for now, Satan gets his way too often. And that includes people dying.
The message of the resurrection is the message of the defeat of him who holds the power of death.
If death were of God, then that would mean that God sent his only begotten son to suffer and die in order to defeat with his right hand, what his left hand was doing. So then God defeated God, allowing his son, whom He supposedly loved, to suffer horribly and die in order to do it!
Jesus said, in Matthew 12:25 Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.
God cannot go against His own purposes and will. No, lest God be found to work against Himself, against His very nature, death cannot be of God. The true God, as revealed by His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, is a God of life, of love, of deliverance from the bondage of death and corruption.
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Other related studies:
Does God Kill People?
The God of Death – Part 1
The God of Death – Part 2
What is Truth?
The Unforgivable Sin
This is very interesting. I was just reading on CNN an article about how the Bible couldn’t be true because it told people to kill others, and the man writing the article said that the Bible represents the true “nice nature” (I’m summing up) of man. I was thinking about this yesterday for moment; like he is right in the sense that it isn’t “god like” to tell others to kill because most people I think see God in the new testament way and looking at him in the old testament is confusing. The one question I have is obviously God wouldn’t kill them but to suggest or ask one man to kill another is contradictory to the typical view, so why would God ask another to kill another? Now I am not biblically savvy in any way, but what I think through my young and so far shallow understanding, in my view of where I am at, is that God allowed Man to chsose between staying forever in the light, or allow darkness into the world, and man in the end chose dark. From my understanding, God didn’t tell his OT followers or believers to kill fellow believers but unbelievers. I’m reminded of Sodom and Gomorrah where God would spare the town and I mean not allow the devil to destroy it If ten rightous men would be found but since none were there (except Lot who left) the blessing of God was no longer there because of how the entire cities had allowed darkness to rule there except again for Lot who left. I guess what I’m trying to say is I think God told His people to kill the unbelievers If they posed a threat to His people but when it came to the actual death, which God knew would happen, God wasn’t killing that was the devil basically being allowed to kill, God’s protection being removed from them or the place. Based on your understanding does this sound like the right way to view this part of what you discussed? Are there more specific versus that you are aware of?
First of all using the title a God of Death can be misleading-he truly is the author of life.
But to say that God, who is also a just and righteous judge, does not kill is completely ignorant of the fact that he holy and will judge all that will not follow him.
God still punishes the ungodly old and new testemant alike and with capital punishment if necessary as demonstrated by
Acts 5:1-10 when he executed Judgement on Annias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit. Clearily God demonstrated
he will execute justice here.In Revelation 19 ;11-21 Jesus God in the Flesh Slays all of the remaining unbelievers with merely
the word of his mouth-what does this prove -it proves that although God is not a God of death he is also a just Judge and will uphold his own word on unrepentant sin and to say he does not kill not only is not scriptural but denies his holy nature and is
blatantly wrong-Christ sacrifice spares us the judgement but we still need to be aware of his holiness.
The “god of death” is referring to the devil, not the Father of Jesus Christ, who IS the author of life, as you say.
Ananias & Sapphira were not killed by God. They died of shame. Shame killed them. The god of death killed them.
Peter never says the Holy Spirit will kill them. He simply prophecied that they were going to die…..but never indicated it was God that would be doing it.
Your reference to Revelation is a good one…..and not one I am prepared to answer properly here.
The judgment of God you refer to is more clearly explained by Jesus himself in John 3:17ff. Those who don’t accept Christ dwell in condemnation ALREADY.
Those who do not accept life dwell in death ALREADY. This is not, never has been, nor ever will be, the will of God.
The perfect will of God is clearly displayed in and through the life of Jesus Christ.
God can’t kill…..because God is life.
And hey, nice to hear from you JIm. I pray you’re doing well down there in beauatiful, sunny Florida.