Good and Evil, Towb and Ra

Faith & Science Conversation
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I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

This fits the question God asked through Amos:

“Does disaster come to a city,
unless the Lord has done it?”

Then there’s the whole thing with Egypt and all the plagues.

God doesn’t need to do things to keep Israel from thinking other gods were more powerful; indeed He did things to Israel that everyone in the ancient near east would have looked at and decided that YHWH was a loser! The biggest example is the Exile; defeat in war was recognized by everyone as indicating that the losers’ god(s) were weak – but God flat-out claims that He sent Babylon against Jerusalem, just as He sent the plagues against Egypt, just as he sent fire on Sodom and Gomorrah.

So we have the problem that God is recorded as sending calamities on people, including His own people. One way out is to say that was the claim the writers made but they got it wrong, or another that He was just speaking in terms the people would understand, or the interesting one you gave.

But at the root of the claim

I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

is God’s taking responsibility for everything that happens in His Creation.

I don’t particularly worry about it. I presume you’ve heard of the trio “the world, the flesh, and the devil”? That listing has the devil in the right place – the least of our worries. I just consider that God is the potter and we are the clay and try not to squirm or protest when He shapes me.

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More than one professor of exegetical theology has said that nine-tenths of all theology rests on prepositions (in the original language, of course).

Heck, one of the early big splits in the church was over a preposition: At Chalcedon, both sides agreed with the Definition except for one little difference; one side wanted ἐν (en) while the other held for ἐκ (ek), ἐν meaning “in” and ἐκ meaning “from” (and perhaps not oddly, both sides were correct in light of the worst heresy they were fighting – and explaining that would be a journey through two prepositions).
Two words small enough that the difference was that one had an “n” and the other had a “k”, which has led some to say that the Council of Chalcedon split over a single letter – the one that followed the “e”.

Far more important theologically are two of the shortest prepositions, the two I mentioned above! Not just later theologians, but Paul spoke regularly about whom or what we are in, and both he and Jesus had comments on where things are from as well as what certain things are for.

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I’ve not heard of the “the world, the flesh, and the devil,” but I know the the Bible has a few things to say about the matter:

1 Pet 5:8,

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

2Cor 2:11,

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Eph 4:27,

Neither give place to the devil.

Eph 6:11,

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Rev 12:9,

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Looks to me like the devil tries to do some of his own shaping of us. I’d say that would be well worth the squirming!

I think the devil’s most valuable tool is Christians either denying his very existence or minimizing his influence in this world. To be sure, God can absolutely protects us from the devil’s attacks, but if we don’t even see and acknowledge his attacks, we can be shaped and molded by the adversary at his will. People keep wondering why all the mass shootings. Well, the answer is pretty simple; the devil is having a heyday in our world these days. Ditto for all the other insanity we see on a daily basis. It certainly doesn’t originate with God. He is a God of order. Always was and always will be.

Despite Jesus having revealed God, too many Christians still blame Him for what the devil actually does. But here’s the real amazing thing, despite their utter defamation of His character, He still loves and forgives. How would you feel if someone accused you of a murder you didn’t commit? I know it’d be plenty hard for me to forgive that person. Good thing I’m not God or we’d all be sunk! :slight_smile:

I think you are right in thinking “worry” is not the right response, but the scriptures do plainly tell us to be aware of the devil and take appropriate steps to thwart his constant attacks. After all, we are more than conquerors!

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Israel did not have a corner on truth. The scriptures declare quite the opposite. But it wasn’t their fault. There was no way they could have known about the things Jesus later revealed about the true nature of God.

1John 3:8,

He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

What works of the devil do you suppose Jesus destroyed? Maybe cancer could be one? Maybe even all calamities?

The very first thing God did in Genesis was to tame the waters which the ANE (Israel included) believed was the source of all chaos and calamities (Gen 1:2). Why would He suddenly change and become the very source of that evil and calamity?

God allowed Israel to believe much of what all the other ANE folks believed, even though much of it was not actually true. God gave them sacrifices (just like all the other ANE) even though He had no delight in them (Is1:11). He gave them the temple (just like all the other ANE), even though He did not need any man to build it for Him (Acts 7:48-49). That’s just a small sample of how God accommodated Israel’s long held belief about the gods which they absorbed by the prevailing culture of that time.

Until Jesus revealed God (John 15:15, 16:13, 17:26, et, al.), He was highly misunderstood in many ways by Israel. Didn’t matter to God though. He let a lot go since it really didn’t interfere with His ultimate goal.

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I’d vote for either number 2 or number 3.

I’m not so sure about number 1 though. I think they wrote what God told them to write, but much of it was an accommodation to their deeply seated beliefs about the gods. Didn’t matter though. God was smart enough to work around it to bring about His ultimate goal.

I once read a story about missionaries who worked with a tribe in Africa that practiced female genital mutilation. Their had been several other missionaries that went before them and told the tribe they had to stop that practice. They immediately got booted out. This later group of missionaries decided not to bring it up at all. In fact, they supplied surgical tools and other things to facilitate the safe performance of the operation. Why? After all, they did not in any way approve of the practice. But they did understand that the main thing was to preach Jesus to them so they could become children of God. It worked. After many years the tribal leader came to them and asked if the mutilations were OK or against God’s will. The missionaries told them the truth and the practice of genital mutilation came to an immediate halt. Mission accomplished via a selective accommodation. If they could do that, why would it be so surprising that God could do the same?

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A sacrifice may be required without delighting in it.

As some translations have it:

…the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Revelation 13:8

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Didn’t think about that, but it’s true as true can be!

That was the only sacrifice that actually did anything useful.

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Well, God honors obedience.

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Yep!

1Sam 15:22,

And Samuel said, Hath the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey [is] better than sacrifice, [and] to hearken than the fat of rams.

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I seem to recall that sacrifices were commanded by God :slightly_smiling_face:, so obedience was still important in that respect, not that the sacrifice did anything in itself.

But of course, your Samual citation puts things in perspective. A sacrifice or the prospect of a future one did not give them a license to be otherwise disobedient and sin willy-nilly in other ways. (Those among us who know that our salvation is assured are sometimes accused of believing that, that we consider ourselves to be ‘entitled’ and it is a license to sin. We just know our adoption is irrevocable and that no one can erase our Father’s signature on the adoption papers. :slightly_smiling_face:)

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Far from a license to sin, our sure salvation ought to motivate us to do the works that God prepared for us.

Eph 2:10,

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

We do good works because we know we have that permanent salvation, not to maintain it (Gal 3:1).

We love him because He first loved us. People, being like we are, have a hard time fathoming such love, but it’s no big deal for God. He is love!

Sounds fantastic, too good to be true? Sure. And it did to Paul also:

Rom 11:33,

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable [are] his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

But it is what it is. I’ll defer to God’s judgment. It’s something I sure would have never thought up. I’m not that smart!

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Right on, bro’! (That is not necessarily an affirmation of your very last sentence. :grin:)

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An interesting conversation with you and @Dale on God’s expectation, and the necessity (or not) for animal sacrifice. This reminds me of a post I made awhile back in a different thread which I link to again below. Basically, the concept being argued by Pastor Thomas Horrocks is that God accommodated the Israelites by specifying a sacrificial system in Leviticus, but it was never his “Plan A”, or something he “needed” to live in covenant with his people.

The blog is longish–starts of with some general principles of interpretation of God’s actions in the Old Testament but I think it is well thought-out. His main thesis is : "According to Jesus, there are some things in the Bible that were never God’s primary will for his people, but God, as a loving parent, made certain concessions, or accommodations, in order to slowly bring them along to further maturity. the link to the blog post is here: Who Needs Sacrifice? Part 1 – Thomas L Horrocks

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What about Jesus’ sacrifice?

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Jesus’s incarnation and death seem to have been necessary for reconciliation with God, but there are many “Atonement Theories” about the mechanisms of how that actually worked. Here, we see God submitting himself voluntarily to be killed “sacrificed” for others, but this doesn’t necessarily mean he needed the killing of other created beings for his own satisfaction.

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It’s interesting to me that at the first mention of sacrifices in the bible (Cain and Abel), there’s no suggestion that God asked for these, or provided any specific instructions. The brothers seem to have spontaneously brought sacrifices out of the blue (perhaps an innate human tendency towards “works and ritual” to make things right or to gain favour of the god?). God seems to have accommodated the good heart (intention) of the one act while rejecting the heart of the other.

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The fascinating thing is that this is a theme taken up by the prophets later and in their day included burnt offerings and sacrifices that God had commanded.

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In the specific situation these were not sacrifices commanded by God, they were thought up by Saul, though he claimed to Samuel that it was “the people” who had kept all the best livestock for sacrifices. There’s an echo here back to Genesis 3, where Adam, confronted with what he had done, blamed Eve, who in turn blamed the “Shining One”, a.k.a. the serpent. Saul is trying to weasel out of his responsibility as commander of Israel’s army (such as it was), by which status he was responsible for the actions of his troops. If Samuel hadn’t shown up, while there might have been a lot of sacrifices performed my bet is that a lot of that livestock would have managed to end up in the herds of Saul and his soldiers.

It’s interesting that here God reveals his standard: partial credit doesn’t get given! This, too, shows up again in the prophets and by the time of second Temple Judaism had been refined into a principle Paul references later: he who fails in one part of the Law is guilty of breaking it all – this isn’t a production line where 98% within parameters is acceptable; only 100% counts at all.

So there’s a dual lesson: making up your own stuff to make God happy while using that as an excuse to only partially obey isn’t acceptable, because only 100% is acceptable – in other words, 99% good doesn’t qualify as good.

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The Incarnation was necessary in order to be able to die a human death, and a human death was necessary in order to break the power of death over humans. By dying, Jesus in essence broke death; it clamped its jaws down hard and only found out on the third day after that all its teeth had shattered on this unique Man. Of course death might have gotten a clue that something was odd when Jesus didn’t die in the usual way, by a failing body overcome by its wounds but instead by choosing the appropriate moment and deciding to die.

As for other creatures dying, those pleased God not because of the deaths or blood or smoke themselves but because each sacrifice was both a declaration of loyalty to God (sincere or not) yet even moreso because each sacrifice was a link connecting to the coming ultimate sacrifice. I look at it as being similar to how it says Jesus endured the Cross for the joy to come; God was pleased with the sacrifices for the coming sacrifice of His Son.

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Yes. I just taught a Bible study on that very thing. The idea is seen in more areas than sacrifices. For example, on the one hand God went to great lengths telling Israel how to build a temple, then on the other hand we learn that God does not dwell in any temple made by hands! All the other ANE gods had temples and that is what Israel expected so God “humored” them. At least His temple instructions were done in such a way as to point to Jesus. It was through Jesus that God always intended to live with people in the promised land. That “temple” is elucidated in Revelation:

Rev 21:22,

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

What a Father we have!

Thanks for that link. I already read what it says about divorce. Excellent insights.