Chapter
5: Aspects of God's Judgments
Chapter
5 Contents
5.1
Introduction
5.2
Recap: the way God works to bring Justice.
5.3
Not a Hasty God: a Cool, Calm and Collected responder
5.4
Not a God of knee-jerks: clear objectives
5.5
Sharpening the Focus on Righteousness
5.6
God's Judgments sometimes involve discipline
5.1
Introduction
As
we suggested in a previous chapter, the very subject of the judgments
of God creates in so many people negative emotions which sometimes
challenge our integrity. What I mean by that is that I have observed
two sorts of reactions to the subject of judgment according to the
position or outlook of a person.
First
of all Christians: Christians often tend to cower and hope that in
some way the deep down worries that they have are wrong when it comes
to the subject of God's judgment. It is as if in their sub-conscious
minds they have this horrible feeling that perhaps God is a ‘hard
man' (Mt 25:24), and that He does do nasty things – and they don't
know why and they can't reconcile it with what Jesus reveals of Him
– that He is love!
But
then at the opposite end of the spectrum we have the crusading atheists
who pound at God for being a vindictive and destructive despot (who
they don't believe exists!) and who make negative comments that so
often have little foundation, revealing an ignorance of the Bible.
Now
both groups suffer from ignorance, from never having taken the trouble
to really go through the Bible in detail and think through the issues
in detail. That is what this book hopes to remedy.
However,
whenever this subject comes up it also seems to evoke a shouting match
which simply cries, “What about xxxxxx?” and lists off a series of
snippets of things they believed happened in the Old Testament. Their
recall of these things are often quite inaccurate (because they have
not read thoroughly and carefully) and rarely do they consider why
these things happen or what alternatives there could have been in
the circumstances reported.
What
these reactions also reveal is an emotional turmoil that comes from
being ill-informed and from failing to think through these issues
and is based more on presuppositions of prejudices than anything else.
Because of this, we feel it necessary here to hold back from ploughing
in to view the many judgments in the Bible and instead to pause and
reflect on some of the issues that may shed light on it.
5.2
Recap: the way God works to bring Justice
Again
and again we want to emphasise that our objective is not merely to
observe the acts of judgment but we want to try to look at the reasoning
behind them. To put forward such reasoning requires us to think long
and hard about what the Bible tells us of God and what we can reasonably
infer from that. Let's expand on what we have already touched upon
in previous chapters. In His role as Judge we may suggest that there
are three stages to be observed:
•
Stage1: He assesses
all that happens and determines whether it was righteous or unrighteous
(i.e. conforming to His original design, or not!),
•
Stage 2: He decrees
what should happen in respect of those events, and specifically
in respect of the people involved, and
•
Stage 3:
Then He acts in accordance with that decree, and
this we see as the act of judgment that appears in the records of
Scripture.
Now
we need to reiterate what we have said before when we had observed
He is perfect. This is vital to understand:
•
In the first stage, His assessment
is uniquely accurate because He alone sees and knows
all that happens and there is nothing about it that is outside His
knowledge and understanding.
•
In the second stage, His decree
of what should happen is perfect because He alone
has the knowledge, understanding and wisdom to know what various outcomes
would produce. So He knows:
•
if He does nothing, what will come about.
•
if He brings discipline whether it will bring
a change in life or simply a hardening of heart.
• In
this determining the decree, He knows whether terminating a life or
lives will be the best for the circumstances and, even more, for those
who are left.
•
In the third stage, bringing
about the judgment, we will find that this may come
through a variety of means and it will be this that we will go on
to consider in two chapter's time. In the meantime there are various
other issues that ought to be considered.
5.3
Not a Hasty God: a Cool, Calm and Collected responder
To
overcome the false assumption that God acts hastily or petulantly
(as certain crusading atheists suggest) we need to regain the bigger
picture that the Bible brings to us, specifically that of God who
rules on a throne. As we have sought to suggest above, with what we
know of God, He doesn't act impetuously but weighs and assesses the
circumstances before coming to an objective decision which is then
followed by the actions we refer to as a judgment of God.
No,
the bigger picture says the judgment of God is the
decision and this then followed by the action.
Because
it occurs so many times in the Bible, we perhaps take for granted
the picture of God ruling from a throne in heaven, and it being a
place of sovereign control. See Ex 17:16, Psa 9:7,8, Isa 6:1, Ezek
1:26, Dan 7:9, Rev 4:2-4 and Rev 20:11,12. The last one of those references
indicates something significant:
Rev
20:11,12
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on
it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for
them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne,
and books were opened.”
The
picture here is of an end-time judgment of all human beings who have
to stand accountable before God. When it says ‘and
books were opened' these are records kept of human behaviour.
Everything about this picture speaks of a cool, calm, accountability,
long-term considerations. Nowhere is God shown to act hastily.
This
whole concept of a throne speaks historically of a sovereign ruler,
one who is all-powerful and with all authority.
In
the days of Daniel, an incident occurred involving King Belshazzar
and a word from God came to him in the form of writing on a wall that
indicated, “You have been weighed
on the scales and found wanting.” (Dan 5:27) Again the
picture that is conveyed is of a judgmental decision that had been
carefully assessed – you have been weighed – and the king found wanting
as a result. (He also had time to repent but failed to do so and was
murdered by a competitor.) There is nothing rushed, nothing capricious,
nothing hasty about all this.
5.4
Not a God of knee-jerks: clear objectives
There
are two verses from the Psalms that bring a further perspective:
Psa
89:14 “
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your
throne; love and faithfulness go before you,” and,
Psa
97:2 “
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his
throne.”
He
works to bring righteousness and justice.
So
God works to bring righteousness on the earth. What actually is that?
If it is His will to bring about righteousness on the earth we ought
to understand what that means.
Let's
give a very simple definition: righteousness
is behaviour that conforms to the way God has designed us to live.
When
He created the world, as we've seen, we read it was “very
good” (Gen 1:31) – including us. He made us to
live in harmony with Him and in harmony with each other and with His
world. Now any behaviour
that is contrary to that is unrighteousness. (The Gospel of Jesus
Christ is all about how unrighteous human beings can become righteous
by believing in and following Jesus).
Justice,
we suggested in the previous chapter, is all about bringing anyone,
anything or any situation back in line with that original design which,
linking it with what we've just said above, is also all about getting
people to live righteous lives.
When
He assesses, decrees and acts in judgment, it is to bring justice
in respect of the offender and also for the rest of the world. In
other words, justice brings right order and outcome to
the offender and everyone else. A good life
for all is the intended outcome of justice.
This
is the objective we find in the revelation of the Bible. However,
I am aware that for the sceptic trying to work out these things, so
far the definitions of righteous living seem a little cold and so
we'll try and remedy that below.
5.5
Sharpening the Focus on Righteousness
It
is easy to be too vague about ‘right living' or ‘the good life' and
what it means to be ‘righteous' so before we move on we ought to check
out what these things mean in more detail. In the next chapter we'll
consider the ‘good life' from God's perspective but here let's consider
being good from our side. Note the following:
Psa
25:1,2
“The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all
who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it
upon the waters.”
The
psalmist, David, starts from the point of seeing God as the Creator
of all things. That may have various consequences, but he has one
particular one in mind:
Psa
25:3 “Who
may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?”
David
appears in a point in history where Jerusalem has become the city
with a Tabernacle on one of the high points and this is seen as God's
place of encounter through the priesthood. He wonders and worries
about how you can be good enough to approach this God. He comes up
with a fourfold answer:
Psa
25:3,4 “He
who has clean hands / and a pure heart, / who does not lift up his
soul to an idol / or swear by what is false.”
Why
are those four things significant?
1.
“He who has clean hands.”
•
In the Scriptures speaking of hands like this
refers to behaviour; for example,
“if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands-- if I have
done evil” (Psa 7:3,4) or “the
wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.” (Psa
9:16) or “repay them for what their
hands have done .” (Psa 28:4)
•
Clean hands therefore speaks of behaviour
that is guiltless.
2.
“ a pure heart”.
•
References to ‘the heart' in the Scriptures
refer to our inner state, the direction of our will (towards or
away from God), our intent and inner desires (to get our own way
or live God's way).
•
This is all about right attitudes and
motives.
•
A heart of love for God and for His will for
us is the second measuring stick or bench mark.
3.
“ who does not lift up his soul to
an idol.”
- This again is about being godly,
about relying upon and relating to God and not
turning to superstitious worship of ‘beings' or ‘spirits' or ‘gods'
who are not God, leaning on or relying on anything that is not God.
4.
“ who does not … swear by what is
false.”
- We night simply say, ‘who lives
by the truth'. Lies, unreality, perjury and so on have no room in
God's kingdom.
- This is all about having
truth at the heart of our lives. Truth and integrity are
to prevail.
A
righteous life? Behaviour that is
- guiltless,
- with right attitudes and motives,
- relying upon and relating to God,
and
- about having truth at the heart
of our lives.
Each
of these issues are very simple when it comes down to it, and you
either have a person who is righteous and godly in attitude, who holds
firmly to God and will only speak or live the truth – or you don't!
The Cross of Jesus Christ was and is all about Jesus taking our punishment
(that was justice) when we fall short in any of these areas, in order
for us to be right with God.
(For
the sake of those with a weak conscience, a righteous life is one
whose heart is inclined towards God and towards His will as found
through Jesus Christ. None of us will be perfect this side of heaven
and therefore we will get it wrong from time to time. The work of
Jesus' Christ on the Cross, we are taught through the Bible, deals
with
•
first of all that previous self-centred and
godless attitude and lifestyle that we had before we came to Christ
and then,
•
second, in our ongoing life, the occasional
failures that we make subsequently when we get it wrong).
5.6
God's Judgments sometimes involve discipline
God's
judgments, we would like to suggest, bring either destruction
or discipline. As we move on in two chapter's time
we will see examples of God bringing correction, life changes to people;
this is what discipline does, and this is God's preferred intent.
Discipline
brings order
I
remember a group of us parents talking once and someone was having
trouble with their child and the parents generally were exchanging
views and experiences. Someone said, “Well I can't remember the last
time we had to discipline (name). I think once you have the discipline
thing sorted it doesn't remain an issue. Yes, it was painful for a
while but now we never have trouble, we have a harmonious household.”
I think if you had watched that parent and their household at one
point in their family experience, you would have seen conflict and
painful discipline, but now there is peace and order and they are
all happy.
I
remember Nicky Gumbel, instigator of the Alpha courses, telling a
story of when he took his son to play football and the referee hadn't
turned up. Nicky was persuaded to referee but he didn't know all the
rules and couldn't impose order and discipline, and so mayhem broke
loose and bad attitudes prevailed. Eventually the proper referee turned
up and took over and brought order, and peace prevailed and the boys
thoroughly enjoyed playing under the discipline of a referee who knew
and imposed the rules.
The
point I am seeking to make is that discipline and order is necessary
for peace to prevail but experience tells us that it doesn't have
to be heavily imposed all the time; once it is established that is
it. Thus when it comes to the Bible we find the same thing. Yes, there
are times when God brings serious disciplinary judgment but those
times are rare. Now I say all this because of the bad press the enemy
would seek to give God in our minds – but the truth is different.
Get all the facts
Imagine
a group of terrorists is holding hostage a bunch of tourists and their
country send in special forces to get them back. A fire fight takes
place and terrorists are killed, but the judgment on the terrorists
means freedom for the hostages. No, the terrorists were not open to
reason and so stronger measures were taken. That is probably the nearest
I can get with a modern example to the deliverance of Israel from
Egypt. One person's judgment can be another person's deliverance.
Now
suppose a bunch of bandits overrun and take control of say, an area
in Texas . The FBI turn up and try to reason with them – to no avail.
The army is sent for because the bandits are very heavily armed and
proclaim resistance. When the army arrives with much greater force,
the bandits would be wise to give up, surrender and leave (if that
was an option), but they are foolish and so they fight the army and
a number of them are killed.
Now
watch! Someone hears that the army are going in and later that a number
of the bandits were killed and mouths off about how heavy handed the
American authorities were. What they didn't know was that negotiators
had sought to talk the bandits off the land for several days before
the army slowly advanced with overwhelming superior power – and were
then fired upon by the bandits who kept up a rain of fire until eventually
the army returned fire.
The
loud mouth simply didn't have the knowledge and misjudged the situation.
That is what I find happens over the instance of Israel being told
by God to take back the land of Canaan from awful pagan practices
that included child sacrifice. We'll come to it in one of the studies
on individual judgments later on so we won't say more here than lack
of information often results in wrong assessments when it comes to
this sort of thing.
Get
all the Options
So
discipline is activity brought to bring about change of behaviour
and that, we have suggested above, is what God much prefers to bring.
In
chapter 2 we noted the threefold declaration found in Ezekiel:
Ezek
18:23 “Do
I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign
LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and
live?” and
Ezek
18:31,32 “Rid
yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart
and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel ? For I take
no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent
and live!” and
Ezek
33:11 “As
surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure
in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways
and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house
of Israel ?”
Destructions
is God's last option and as we will see with some of the examples
in later chapters, far from the capricious and hasty God of the ranting
atheists, God again and again and again shows incredible restraint.
Death, we say again, is the last option. Discipline that changes behaviour
is much preferred.
With
this in mind, we are in the next chapter going to take a wider view
of the Biblical testimony in respect of God to counter the poorly
founded prejudices so often found in His detractors. In earlier chapters
we considered His characteristics of love and goodness; in the following
chapter we will expand that to consider His restraint, His care and
concern, His compassion and His desire to redeem mankind wherever
that is possible.