Hi Paidion,
I will gladly respond to your question presently. However, you have not been very diligent in responding to my questions and challenges to you, including:
1. Why did Jesus say that "God commanded" the killing of a rebellious son, but you say God did not command this?
2. Who do you think sent the flood of Noah's day and who do you think rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah?
3. Why do you think Luke (companion of the apostles) knew less than you know about the character of God, when he thought the angel of the Lord stuck Herod?
4. Why would God say of Moses that he was "faithful in all my house," (striking even Moses' sister with leprosy for criticizing him), when in fact Moses very unfaithfully misrepresented to Israel what he claimed God had told him face-to-face?
5. If God does not kill people, who killed all the firstborn in Egypt, after sending nine hurtful, and even deadly, plagues?
6. Why did God, when declaring His name to Moses (Ex.34:6-7), describe Himself in terms that contradict your description of God?
7. Why did the psalmists and the prophets, who spoke more often of God's lovingkindness and mercy than Jesus did, fail to understand (as you do) that these things cannot be true of God if He remains the judge who settles scores with sinners?
8. Why did Jesus say that God would "destroy those vinedressers" (the Jews who killed His son) (Mark 12:9) and would "burn down their city" (Matt.22:7), while you say God wouldn't do that?
9. If it was not God who struck down Ananias and Sapphira, why did the whole church come under great fear at their death? What was it that they feared?
10. How do you explain the mass deaths caused, in the Book of Revelation, by the direct manifestations of "the wrath of the Lamb"?
These are a few for starters. If necessary, we can take more later.
I now come to your question to me:
How do you explain (according to the OT) that God supposedly punished minor offences, even with death, while seemingly doing nothing about major atrocities which some people wreaked upon others? And this continues to be the case right to the present day.
First, you are determining, without warrant, that the offenses which God punishes are "minor." I have read my Bible, too, and I would not be prepared to say that any willful disobedience against God is minor. If the wages of sin is death, then the death penalty cannot be excessive as a punishment for sin.
If your question is why God
immediately executes the sentence on some sins, and waits to execute the sentence on others—including some whose sins seem to us to be more grievous, my answer would have several parts:
1. The fact is, both the Old Testament and the New Testament (and Jesus Himself) declare that God sometimes judges men by killing them—either through supernatural or governmental means. Since we are not at liberty to deny what Jesus (or His prophets and apostles) affirm to be true, we should do with this information the same thing that we do with other statements of scripture,
viz., let them shape our thinking, so that we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
2. Since all men will be judged (some very severely) postmortem, there is no reason to believe that the punishment for "minor sins" will be as great as that for "major sins." God is just and will reward every man according to his works. Most men receive a portion of their judgment in this life and a portion in the next. We do not know that there is anything more desirable about reserving the majority of judgment for the next life. The man who suffers premature physical death can not be assumed to be ultimately punished more than sinners greater than himself, who live long, die peacefully, and face the wrath of God on the other side. Habakkuk complained that Israel was being punished prior to Babylon being punished, though Israel was (reportedly) less sinful than Babylon. Well, God judged Babylon too—just not as early.
3. The
timing of God's judgment upon certain people is no doubt determined by factors known to God—often with a mind to protecting the lives or the sanctity of His people. There is a noticeable pattern (e.g., the Red Sea destruction of Egyptian armies, the deaths of Nadab, Abihu, Korah, Achan, Ananias and Sapphira) of God taking-out certain wicked folks—sometimes for what seem to us to be lesser offenses—in order to be setting a precedent as a warning to others. He sometimes makes an example of an offender at the outset of a new institution (Israel, the priesthood, the Church), while He seems not to move similarly against even more heinous offenses falling later in history. If He delays judgment in other cases, it does not mean that sinners have gotten away with their sinning and have ultimately escaped judgment. Whether we can appreciate His reasons or not, we can observe that God seems to think it wise to set a precedent as a warning. That's what we are told God did in destroying Sodom (2 Peter 2:6). Paul also said this was God's reason for judging the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness—namely, as an example to us all (1 Cor.10:5-6). Even if God were not to tell me His reasoning, I am on His side, and trust that His reasons for doing what He does are better than any reasons I could bring for objecting to His actions.
You are right that I have many sympathies with the Anabaptists—not only theologically, but also temperamentally. However, as with all other matters, I am obliged to correct even my Anabaptistic leanings, whenever scripture demands it of me. I do not identify with any movement, except the Jesus movement—which means my conscience is captive to the word of God, not to the papacy, or to the reformation, nor to the anabaptist leadership.
Now I have some responses to your comments:
"to physically injure or kill someone" does not describe a loving action."
Your definition of "a loving action" is....what?
If God only acts in love (which I believe to be the case) and yet finds it necessary to eliminate corrupting elements that threaten His people, then I am forced to conclude that such actions, on God's part, must fall within the realm of possible
loving actions. On what authority do you exclude them?
You have said that all of God's judgments are remedial. I would not deny this (though I don't see specific scripture affirming this axiom, it seems reasonable enough to me, in the absence of scriptural denials). If this is so, then it would mean that even God's taking a sinner's life prematurely would be a remedial act. Why would something that serves as a corrective be regarded by you as "unloving"?
Actually taking a life may be very loving—if not to the criminal, then at least to his victims. If "loving" means that we never do to the criminal anything that hurts or displeases him (which, I suspect, may be your definition of love), then we must also object to his being arrested, fined, or imprisoned—or rebuked or resisted in any way—since this might displease him and seem to him not to be "loving treatment." These penalties differ from execution only in degree, not kind. If a man is not a criminal, it would be unloving and unjust to arrest, fine, imprison or execute him. If he is a criminal, and deserves these penalties, he has forfeited the life opportunities lost to him through the imposition of a just punishment. If criminal justice,
per se, is unloving, then there is no place for human governments in God's world. This clearly is not what scripture teaches. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, but Paul said that the government official does not bear the sword in vain, because he is the executioner of God's wrath on those who do evil. Your disregard for Paul's authority and insight has been duly noted. The problem is, Jesus chose him and commissioned him to speak for Him. To receive one whom Christ sends is to receive Christ (John 13:20). What then does it mean if one rejects the one that Christ sends?
To kill someone even in order to protect someone else is wrong, and against the spirit of our Lord's teachings.
This idea is not clearly taught in scripture. If God has commissioned the state to defend the innocent against violent attackers, and the state official fails to do so, I would say that the official has acted contrary to the teaching of the New Testament (and contrary to love). God loves the helpless victims at least as much as He loves their attackers. How is it loving to sacrifice the former for the latter—and where does the Bible support this choice?
"I tell you not to resist an evil person."(Matt 5:39) Once before I was a pacifist, when I taught school at a Hutterite Community, I asked one man what he would do if an intruder were attacking his wife and family. He replied, "I don't know what I would do. But I know what I should do."
It would be a shame if such a verse which, in its context, clearly says nothing to forbid the defense of the helpless (only forbidding self-defense), should become the cause of one's allowing innocent victims to be unnecessarily victimized. To bless the wicked and to curse the innocent seems to be standing the entire teaching of scripture on its head.
You sometimes get angry, but this in no way indicates that you are not a loving father. I certainly agree with this. But might you in a moment of anger spank one of your children, while later, one of your children committed a MUCH greater offence, but you would be likely restrain your hand because you didn't happen to be angry at the time? And if so, is that how God is?
Absolutely not. Even I am not like that. I never spanked a child in anger, and if I were obliged to do so, I would never decide on the severity of the punishment by appeal to how angry I felt. This would be monstrous. God does not punish harder because He is more angry at some sinners than others, but because justice demands different penalties for different crimes.
If you are right, why does God often turn a blind eye to such atrocities, while supposedly bringing such a hurtful judgment on the Jews in A.D. 70, where many starved, and some killed their children and cooked them up for food? If God is like that, no wonder people blame Him when they suffer deeply or lose a loved one. If God is like that, He is unfair.
If God does what the Bible says that God does, then God is unfair? How then did all the authors who describe God's doing these things also emphasize how good and just God is? Is it you or they who may be out of touch with what is or is not "unfair." And when you say, "No wonder people blame God when they suffer..." you make it sound as if they are justified in rebelling against God's righteous disposition of His creation. I am in the habit of taking God's side against His detractors. I'm not changing that policy.
But the scriptures say that God is just (fair). He is fair to everyone. He loves everyone. He does not kill people. He does not kill people here on earth in order to punish them. All of His judgements are remedial. He disciplines His children. Ultimately, He will correct His enemies. There is no malice or wickedness in Him whatever.
Most of this paragraph is true to scripture. The part where you say, "He does not kill people. He does not kill people here on earth in order to punish them," is, of course, a denial of many scriptural statements, which means that there is no reason to believe that this particular part of your statements tells us any reliable information about God. God spent 4000 years revealing His character to His worshippers prior to Christ's arrival. When Jesus came, I don't think He contradicted anything God had revealed about Himself to the prophets.
Also, if your affirmation that "God is fair to everyone," is supposed to reflect some reality about His distribution of earthly lots to individuals, I think Job and David, Joseph and Jesus, and many others would have to disagree with you. They were not treated fairly at all. If "fairness" means that He gives people
in this present life only what is deserved, then Job's comforters were right, and Job was wrong. I agree that God is fair, but I believe that He is not limited to the present life to settle all scores and balance all the books.
So my question to you from your understanding, is how can God, who is just and fair, punish, even by death, some evildoers while seemingly ignoring most of them?
"For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He ponders all his paths." (Prov.5:21)
"The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good." (Prov.15:3)
God is not ignoring anyone.