Sin, Wrath, Flood, Cross

I want to take up a question I asked earlier: "Is the cross a condemnation of human violence, an act of divine violence, or both (or neither)?"

For starters, let me postulate that God hates sin.

I'll define sin as a breakdown of humans’ ability to love and relate to God and one another; alienation (to be mended later by reconciliation) is a good word for it. This alienation defies God's purpose for creation, with the result that God (often violently) punishes whoever is responsible. He may avenge sin in this way because it is in nature to do so, or he may do so out of an insistence that humanity know how much he hates sin. The flood suggests the former, the cross the latter.

Genesis 1–7 begins with God’s intimacy with creation and shows how humanity breaks and increasingly defies that intimacy. I believe the flood is a key to the story of Scripture, because it shows God’s response to sin: God ultimately removes it or punishes it, whatever the cost.

It is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of the flood (whether one thinks it literally happened or is a myth intended to make a theological point), in that God was willing to destroy almost all of creation, out of both wrath and a loving desire to make creation good again. God starts again with Noah, who does love God and his family, but of course he and his descendants fall again into sin and alienation.

These early stories describing the pervasive sin both before and after the flood suggest a key point about humans: while the occasional individual (like Enoch or Noah) whole-heartedly seeks a realtionship with God on his/her own, humanity on the whole will inevitably descend into sin and alienation from God if left to ourselves.

So God makes it easier for humans by setting certain terms to define the relationship. He begins with Abraham and eventually establishes the covenant with Israel, in an effort to win back their love and to use them to win back the love of the world. But, of course, the people break this relationship early and often and continue to fall into sin. God responds to their sin, as he did during the flood, by destroying Israel’s world, via the exile, to make the nation good again.

In the incarnation, God conclusively defies divine/human alienation; though already present with Israel in many ways over the centuries, God now becomes a human to achieve the full intimacy of relationship.

The cross, I’m convinced, is beyond human comprehension. Scripture describes Christ’s work in various ways, many of them centering on animal sacrifice, and yet we never quite understand why sacrifice (animal or divine) should mend the broken relationship between us and God. I suspect that animal sacrifice was intended to demonstrate the weight of our iniquity, but of course it could not really settle the matter conclusively.

Here I would suggest that the crucifixion must be understood in light of the flood. I shouldn't over-press the point, since the NT itself doesn't draw this connection, but I do think it can help us make sense of divine violence in general and the cross in particular.

Both the watery destruction of the entire world and the death of the incarnate God underline the weight of sin in God’s eyes, but in powerfully different ways. In Genesis, God executes his wrath upon humanity and creation; in the crucifixion, God takes it upon himself. In one sense, this means that Christ suffers the punishment we deserve, but in another sense it is a proclamation to us that God will not allow human weakness to prevent relationship between God and his creation.

God was unwilling to leave sin ultimately unpunished, lest we think it unimportant. The cross, then, is not a condemnation of human violence, but a condemnation of human sin. If divine violence was inevitable, God chose the most gracious act of violence possible, in that God in the flesh was the willing victim.

The hope, it seems, was that all people in the world would look at the cross and recognize both (1) that we are sinners who need to repent and (2) that God loves us passionately and will forgive our sin so that we can be reconciled to the creator who loves us.

The beauty of the cross is this: only the crucifixion has proclaimed to humanity both the boundlessness of God’s love and the full weight of our sin without destroying us to teach us the lesson.

The Elect and Divine Justice

NOTE: At the tail end of my last post, Matt and "friend" are just getting into a discussion of whether there are errors in Scripture; in the meantime, I'll be pressing on here with another angle on divine violence.

ANOTHER NOTE: Let us be clear up-front that I believe Christ has commanded clearly and without exception that Christians are to work for peace in the world and are not to use violence against one another or against outsiders. Violence, as I will continue to argue, is a specifically divine prerogative, and Christ has given no indication that God wishes us to carry it out for him any more.

I have argued for a Scriptural consistency in God’s use of violence as a means of punishment; here I’ll suggest why Christ would renounce violence himself and teach his followers to do the same. Though I believe Christ reveals God to us, I do not think his stance against violence means God opposes violence per se. Rather, I would argue that Jesus’ teaching and practice on this point reflect (1) the new covenant being established and (2) the nature and purpose of the Incarnation.

Within God’s various covenants, he uses violence in various ways. At the time of the flood, God has no particular covenant with the people, so he judges them according to their thoughts and behavior, which are only wicked all the time (Gen 6:5). He punishes them with an unmediated act of divine violence. Later, God violently delivers Israel from Egypt in accordance with his covenant with Abraham. Israel is his elected people, and God uses (again, unmediated) violence against their enemies to establish and uphold his covenant with the elect. When God gives Israel the promised land as a part of his covenant with them, the violence against the Canaanites is carried out by the elect, at God’s command. Later, in the conquest of Israel and Judah by Assyria and Babylon, the violence is directed against the elect and carried out by others, apparently through God’s manipulation of geopolitical circumstances. It is worth noting that this violence still upholds God’s covenant with the elect; Deuteronomy warns that God will use violence to instruct sinful Israel so that it can follow God faithfully in the future.

It is also worth noting that in these examples God uses violence by at least four different means: forces of nature, (e.g., the flood), his own hand (the angel of death in the Exodus), the people of his covenant (in Canaan), and other nations (Assyria and Babylon).

The biggest theological problem I know of in the OT is the genocide described in the conquest of Canaan. Theologically, I would argue that this extreme violence is grounded in God’s election of Israel to be a people to serve him exclusively. Israel is not undeserving of the same kind of destruction (Deut 9:4-6), and in fact God has nearly destroyed them on more than one occasion. But, it is evident that Israel will not serve Yahweh exclusively if followers of other gods are present, and this is one stated rationale for wiping out men, women, and children (Deut 7:2-6). God’s primary concern is the purity of Israel, and he acts accordingly. Whether we can accept that rationale or not, it is grounded in God’s covenant with his elect. The only defense I can think of from a Christian perspective is that this is what was necessary for God to establish a people through whom he could bring Christ to the world. Of course, we might suggest he should have given the matter a bit more thought.

Jesus, establishing yet another covenant (the kingdom of God), is himself nonviolent not because God has changed, but because God is creating a different sort of covenant with a different group of the elect. In Christ, God throws open access to the new covenant, so that everyone alive is elected, at least if they’ll accept it. Because every outsider is a potential member of the new covenant, there is no sense in destroying them. In the conquest of Canaan, God sought to drive out certain groups to make room for the elect; now God sends the church to transform those groups into the elect.

Jesus does teach nonviolence as he inaugurates the kingdom of God, but it is not because that kingdom is inherently nonviolent; rather, it is because God wishes to throw open the kingdom to as many as will willingly enter before the end. Jesus’ parable of the weeds (Mt 13:24-43) reflects this situation; presumably weeds can become wheat before the harvest. Revelation describes an end time when God will unleash violence, directed primarily against the powerful (e.g., Rev 18), but also against those who serve them. Revelation hints that even this violence is intended to drive people to repentance (Rev 16:9, 11). In any event while the kingdom of God belongs by right to the meek and the peacemakers, God eventually will give it to them using violence against the powerful and the wicked.

The nature of the incarnation provides a second reason why Jesus did not teach or use violence in his ministry. Christ, as God in the flesh setting an example for how humans are to act toward one another, behaves according to God’s wishes for humanity. God insists that the new covenant under Christ leave every opportunity for every person to repent and turn to God. God himself may remove the opportunity for repentance at times (e.g., Ananias and Sapphira), but the believer is not allowed to take that initiative (Rom 12:19).

In my opinion, the reason for the discrepancy between divine and human behavior is that God can be truly just, while a human agent lacks the full knowledge and consistent character to always judge justly. If a Christian decided that another person’s life should be forfeit, he or she might make a mistake and unfairly take away that person’s opportunity to repent. While many people nevertheless die unfairly, a believer is not to participate in such injustice. Therefore God retains the prerogative to use violence to achieve justice, and Jesus, as a human teaching other humans, reflects this truth in his own behavior.

The task of Christian theology is a constant struggle between what we want (or experience) to be true of God and what we find in Scripture. In many cases, we may feel that certain scriptures can be downplayed because they are not consistent with God’s character in Scripture as a whole. However, in this case, I continually find that it is Scripture as a whole that testifies to God (and Christ) as a divine warrior who will bring justice to the earth through violence if need be.

Currents of Divine Violence through the Old and New Testaments

God's doing what he's knows is the right thing, assuming that he has a better grasp on the knolwedge of good and evil than we do, and we should stick to sinful and not sinful.

I'm going to jump off from this comment and attempt to defend the idea that divine violence can be seen as a just practice consistent with God's character throughout Scripture.

I would say that liberalish North Americans (which probably includes everyone reading this) typically see violence as an inherently bad thing. This is natural for us, because we have witnessed it or experienced it in situations such as the Holocaust, the USA's ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, child abuse, slavery, September 11, suicide bombs in Israel and Iraq, KKK lynchings, police brutality, Europeans' removal/extermination of Native Americans, the Vietnam Conflict, and ongoing wars and genocide around the globe.

We can think of few instances where most everyone would agree that widespread violence was justifed, the easiest of which is the Allies' efforts to overthrow the Third Reich.

The Bible, on the other hand, often describes violence as being divinely ordained and therefore (at times) good, if regrettable. Just six chapters into the Old Testament, we see God's destruction of almost every person alive along with most of the animals, in the flood story. The theme continues with the plagues on Egypt, the conquest of Canaan (which involved wiping out men, women, and children), and the destruction and exile of Israel, then Judah.

(A quick note: for anyone skeptical of a religious group that claims God is always on their side, note that in the exile God specifically used violence against Israel. I would argue that this shows his concern was justice, not victory.)

One Christian response to this violence is to claim that things changed under Christ. True, we might say, the OT describes horrific acts, and maybe we don't know what to make of all that, but the important thing is that Christ has shown us God's true nature as a God of peace and love.

I think that biblically, this claim that divine violence died with Christ is partly right and partly dead wrong. Jesus' teachings on loving one's enemy and turning the other cheek are well-known, so I won't repeat them (check out the Gospel of Luke 6:27-36 if you've never read it). The problem is, the New Testament affirms its share of violence as well. God strikes dead Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), then Herod (Acts 12:23); Matthew apparently believes that God brings about the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (Matt 22:5-7; 23:35-38); Paul warns the Corinthians that God is striking them with illnesses to teach them not to mistreat the poor in their assemblies (1Cor 11:29-32); and then we have the bowls of God's wrath poured out upon the world in Revelation.

Now, I'm not in favor of force-reconciling Scriptures that claim different things, but in this case I actually see a clear consistency in God's character throughout the Bible.

Looking back at the OT passages, I think it's significant that the ones I have mentioned are all specifically described as acts of divine justice against human wickedness. At the time of the flood, "every inclination of the thoughts of [humanity's] heart was only evil all the time" (Gen 6:5); the plagues are called "mighty acts of judgment" against Egypt (Ex 6:6); God implies to Abraham that his descendants will destroy the inhabitants of Canaan because of their sin (Gen 15:16); God tells Jeremiah when the destruction of Jerusalem is imminent, "Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth––so that I may pardon Jerusalem" (Jer 5:1).

The NT passages mentioned above, like the OT passages, all clearly indicate the human sinfulness that is being punished.

But here's the difference in the NT: humans no longer are commanded to carry out God's divine violence; that prerogative is reserved for God. God has established a new covenant, under which we no longer carry out his acts of violence for him. Consequently, I think Jesus' words show us not something about the nature of violence in the eyes of God, but rather a new way for humans to act.

The implication, as I see it, is that God considered, and still considers, widespread violence to be a legitimate act of justice in response to human wickedness. Under his covenant with Israel, he called on his people to carry out that violence. In Christ, he calls believers to renounce violence and allow him to avenge wrongdoing in his time.

So under Christ, violence is sinful, but not inherently evil. Oddly enough, this lengthy defense of the integrity of divine violence has landed me, as a human, somewhere near the camp of the pacifists.