IF YOU READ THE OLD TESTAMENT LITERALLY... IF YOU READ IT ONLY BY THE BARE LETTER... IF YOU READ IT WITH ONLY NATURAL EYES... ...THEN ...YOU ...MUST ...LABEL ...GOD ...A ...CHILD-KILLER! Here is the proof! Thus saith the LORD... Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling. - 1 Samuel 15:3 Joshua destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD commanded. - Joshua 10:40 The LORD delivered them before us; and we destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones. - Deuteronomy 2:33-34 Kill every male among the little ones. - Numbers 31:17 The wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and... Samaria shall become desolate... they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. - Hosea 13:15-16 With thee will I [the LORD] break in pieces the young man and the maid. - Jeremiah 51:22 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. - Psalm 137:9 He that strikes his father or his mother shall die the death. -- Exodus 21:15 He that curses his father or his mother shall die the death. -- Exodus 21:17 If any man has a son that is stubborn and disobedient, which will not hearken unto the voice of his father, nor the voice of his mother, and they have chastened him [The Hebrew word for chasten means literally chasten with blows.], and he would not obey them, Then shall his father and his mother take him, and bring him out unto the Elders of his city, and unto the gate of the place where he dwells, And shall say unto the Elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and disobedient, and he will not obey our admonition; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him with stones unto death: so thou shalt take away evil from among you, that all Israel may hear and fear. -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21 Their fruit shalt Thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. - Psalm 21:10 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born... let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. - Psalm 58:3,8 As for Israel, their glory shall fly away like a bird, and from the womb, and from the conception... Give them, O Lord: what will Thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts... they shall bear no fruit... - Hosea 9:11-16 Every living thing on the earth was drowned [which no doubt included pregnant women and babies]... Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. - Genesis 7:23 NOW, After reading the above, are you sure you want to believe God literally ordered all these children killed? Add to this all the worlds children killed in the Genesis flood, all the vast nation of Egyptian children killed in the Exodus, and all the children of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the children killed in the Promised Land raids, and I ask you this one simple question. Does this align with the picture of Jesus we see In the New Testament? Does it align with the below passages of Jesus showing His heart for all children? Any theology should be be graded on how it views and treats children. NEW TESTAMENT VERSES PAINTING GOD AS CHILD PROTECTER At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus , saying , Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? And Jesus called a little child unto him , and set him in the midst of them , And said , Verily I say unto you , Except ye be converted , and become as little children , ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven . Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child , the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven . And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me . But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me , it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck , and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea . Matthew 18:1-6. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple , and saying , Hosanna to the son of David ; they were sore displeased , And said unto him , Hearest thou what these say ? And Jesus saith unto them , Yea ; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise ? Matthew 21:15-16. If your spirit-quickened conscience just cant see God as a killer of children, then I invite you to consider a different way to read the Old Testament, a way that the Apostle Paul employed, a way the early church Fathers Augustine and Origen and Gregory of Nyssa employed, a way John Wesley and C.S. Lewis employed, a way of reading Scripture which 2 Corinthians 3:6 describes as reading by the spirit RATHER than by the letter, for the letter kills but the spirit gives life. If you will learn this dynamic, you will never again believe or say God is a child murderer. You instead will boldly see Jesus as only a child protecter. But why does the Old Testament appear to say, on the literal level, paint God as a child killer? Because the Old Testament saints view of Satan was dim and partial at best, they were clueless that Satan was an enemy of God to be resisted wholeheartedly. Rather, they simply resigned themselves to the fact that all the occurrences of evil and destruction on the earth were just the judgments of God to be humbly endured RATHER than zealously opposed. God first brought the evil according to His secret and mysterious purposes. Then, God wrathfully punished us for the very evil He brought by inflicting the various curses of Deuteronomy 28. Satan was merely the executing angel obeying Gods orders. Satan had no dog in the hunt, nothing personal, just doing his job. HERE LIES THE LOST KEY TO RIGHTLY READING THE OLD TESTAMENT. When the Old Testament describes Yahwehs great life-giving works of mercy, healing, blessing and deliverance, we can rest assured that it is our Lord Jesus being manifested. But, when the Old Testament APPEARS to say God is violent, angry, cruel and oppressive, it is NOT talking about the GOD we know through the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. Rather, it is talking about the motives and methods of Satan, the rebel ruler of the fallen world, who seeks the destruction of every man, woman and child who has ever lived. The term is MISATTRIBUTION. It means assigning the WRONG source or cause of an action, purpose or event. Simply put, the Old Testament destructions of Satan have been wrongly attributed as the wrath of God. This is the MOTHER OF ALL MISATTRIBUTIONS because it ultimately FRAMES GOD for EVIL. The result is a bipolar image of God that leaves us double minded and unable to receive much of anything from Him. We become poor petal-pluckers who vacillate back and forth-- God loves me, He loves me not--- God hates me, He hates me not--- God blesses me, He blesses me not--- God saves me, He saves me not--- God answers my prayers, He answers my prayers not. So how do we read the Old Testament in New Testament light? How to we retranslate the Old and dimmer understanding of Satan to accommodate the New and better understanding of Satan? Simply put, we must allow the Spirit to re-divide the terms God and Lord in the Old Testament. We have to PURGE THE DEVIL OUT of the Old Testaments usage of the names of the Lord. This explains why John 1:18 says that nobody prior to the Gospels had truly seen God at ANY time-- because all had wrongly blended the nature of Satan INTO their image of God. The result was that nobody had a pure understanding of Gods absolute love and goodness. The early Church largely believed that the primary way to read Scripture was non-literal. The greatest Biblical scholar of these Church Fathers was the 3rd Century martyr Origen. He, following the Apostle Pauls lead, wrote that the key to rightly understanding the Old Testament was to read it ALLEGORICALLY rather than LITERALLY. Allegory is language that says one thing and means either something MORE than what it says or something OTHER than what it says. --- Theologian R.A. Norris, in his article on Allegory in THE WESTMINSTER HANDBOOK TO ORIGEN. These church fathers would no doubt agree with Karl Barths sentiment that he loved the Old Testament far too much to read it literally. The key is to read Scripture by the Spirit and not by the dead letter, for the letter kills and makes God out to be a killer, but the Spirit gives life to the Scriptures. 2 Corinthians 3:6. The early Church Fathers did NOT read the Old Testament by the bare letter, nor should we. Ignorant assertions about God appear to be nothing else but this: that Scripture is not understood in its spiritual sense, but is interpreted according to the bare letter. Origen, On First Principles 4:2.1-2, 4. Wherefore, in the Old Testament there is a veiling of the New, and in the New Testament a revealing of the Old. According to that veiling, carnal men, understanding things in a carnal fashion, have been under the dominion, both then and now, of a penal fear. On the other hand, spiritual men... have a spiritual understanding and have been made free through love which they have been gifted. Saint Augustine (On Catechizing the Uninstructed 4:8; NPNF 1/3:287). Augustine also wrote that, “if a passage seems to endorse wickedness or wrongdoing or to forbid selflessness or kindness, it is figurative” and not to be read literally. He believed that all Scripture must be interpreted through the love of God and neighbor, on which all the law and prophets hang (Matt. 22:37-40). The major way we misquote God is when we quote the letter of the Scripture instead of the Spirit of the Scripture. 2 Corinthians 3:6. We need to modify our use of language to conform to the Spirit RATHER than trying to force the Spirit to legalistically conform to our language. We must allow the character of God to define the meaning of Scripture RATHER than allowing the letter of Scripture to define the character of God. Language, as imperfect as it is, still is to serve God, not vice versa. Jesus is not a child-killer! A child-thriller yes! A child-healer yes! But never a child-killer!
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:16:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015