Slow Revelation of God?

Recently I went to Greenbelt festival, a Christian festival of music, arts and justice. And whilst there, I went to a talk by John Dear, an American priest and peace activist, arrested many times for organizing peace protests against violence and wars. Essentially, he's very into peace. And in his talk, the topic of the Old Testament violence was brought up, especially the taking over of Canaan, the Promised Land. And he described the OT as a 'slow revelation of God'. That the attacks on other tribes revealed a community struggling with violence. And that throughout the OT, Israel were discovering who God was, and what he was like, and once you leave the history books and get to the prophets, especially Isaiah and Amos, we see a God who is incredibly concerned with peace and justice and who rebukes his people for holding religious festivals whilst ignoring justice for the poor and oppressed. Of course, in the OT, this is not limited to the prophets, as many actions in the history books and laws are based on justice and God's concern for the poor. And once we reach the gospels, we see the ultimate revelation of God in human form. And the sermon on the mount being an example of Jesus' longing for peace.

To me, this begged the question, 'So how do we read the verses in Number and Joshua etc. that explicitly claim that God condoned and ordered killing'. So after he had finished his talk, I asked him this question, to which he replied very frankly, 'That's not God'. This greatly challenged my view of the Old Testament, as apart from Genesis chapters 1-12, I had seen the rest of the book as more or less entirely literal. But then I thought, for a collection of 66 books, written by over 40 authors in several languages, spanning several continents and multiple genres over 2 millenia, we often read the Bible in an incredibly straight forward way, and from the viewpoint of our modern culture, which means that a lot of the time, we get things completely wrong. So I asked a few people of what their thoughts on the matter of violence in the Old Testament were, and got some interesting and thoughtful responses.

We can't ignore the fact of God's wrath. That God is holy and completely separate from sin, and from Romans 3:23 and 6:23: 'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God... For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.' This speaks of our redemption from the punishment of sin, that we can be forgiven and our sin can be taken away, if we ask. But the verses are also clear that 'the wages of sin is death', and being pointed to Genesis 15, we are told that the people of Canaan were sinful people, and that they had been persistently rebellious and idolatrous, and conquering their land was judgment on their sin. (Genesis 15:16 'In the fourth generation your descendants will come back [to Canaan], for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached it's full measure) This speaks of God's patience and willing for repentance, but intolerance for sin.

However, whether or not you believe that God commanded the killing of the inhabitants of Canaan, many questions are raised on either side, and whilst I have heard several viewpoints, I am far from being certain of exactly what I believe. And I am very interested to hear people's viewpoints on the matter. Although we sometimes have to remember not to focus too much on the matters that aren't vital and realize that as long as we know the importance of God's saving love and grace, the other topics - whilst interesting and helpful to understand - are not worth fighting over. With this in mind, I would still love to hear what people think on this matter and on others.

'To obey is better than sacrifice'

I've started reading the book of Isaiah today, and in the first chapter is a recurring theme that is echoed throughout the Bible. It's in the history, poetry and prophetic books of the Old Testament, and it's also featured in the gospels and the letters of the New Testament. The theme is that obedience to God, is better than to sacrifice.

Obedience in Worship

This is first introduced in 1 Samuel Chapter 15, when God tells Saul, the first king of Israel, to completely destroy - without exception - the tribe of the Amalekites after what they did to Israel (v2-3) But after attacking the Amalekites, Saul spared the best of the cattle as a sacrifice to God (v9,15) Because of this act of disobedience, God rejected Saul as king, and sent Samuel to him with this message:

'Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as much as in obeying the Lord?

To obey is better than sacrifice

and to heed is better than the fat of rams' (v22) 

The Old Testament sacrificial system of worship outlined in Leviticus 1-6 essentially required that the Israelites sacrifice animals to atone for the sins that they had committed, that the animal died in their place. Because of this, they regained the fellowship with God that their sins had stopped them having. The outward symbol of sacrifice was intended to reflect their obedience to God, and the inward repentance that they felt. Repentance being that the worshipper was both deeply sorry for what they'd done, and that they strived to change their ways.

However, Saul had his priorities upside-down, by keeping the best cattle from the Amalekites, he distinctly disobeyed what God had instructed, and therefore the outward symbol of sacrifice was meaningless and hollow as the obedience it was supposed to represent was not there. Because of this, God said of him: 'I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.' (v11)

This is a very important message for the church today. It shows that our act of worship is not just what we do on Sunday mornings or evenings, but what we do for the rest of our week as well! For what good is singing to God in what we call 'times of worship' if for the rest of our week, we live as we want, and not how God wants?

This is reiterated many times throughout the Bible. Notably in Isaiah 29 v 13 Where God says: 

'These people come near to me with their mouth,

and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me is based on merely human rules

they have been taught' 

This verse was quoted by Jesus in Matthew 15 v 7-9 in reference to the Pharisees. The passage speaks of how if we're not careful, our worship can become just a ritual that we're used to, where we go to church each Sunday, sing some songs and then leave, without our hearts really being in it. We need to avoid this at all costs, to avoid your worship becoming a ritual, remember the price that Jesus paid to allow you to enter into a place of worship, and what he did so that you could meet with God. Remembering this will ensure that you don't take times of worship for granted, and that it won't just become a meaningless ritual.

Giving God The Best That We Have 

A similar message is given in Malachi 1 v 6-14 where the Israelites are becoming increasingly lazy with their sacrifices, so much so that they're offering blind and diseased animals as offerings! (v8) This goes directly against God's command to sacrifice only animals without defect (Leviticus 1 v 3; 3 v 1; 4 v 3 e.t.c...) Perfect animals were required as they reflect God's perfection, and show that he deserves the best. And making sure that the animal had to be without defect ensured that offering it was indeed an act of worship, allowing it to be diseased of blind would mean that people could sacrifice them purely for convenience of getting rid of cattle that they had no use for and that would be of no use to them anyway. (v14)

This also contains a very important message for our lives today! Not only does it repeat the importance of obedience to God, but also it challenged the quality of our worship today. Do we give God the best of what we have? If we take time out to sing worship, or to read the Bible, is it the best part of our time, or is it once we've finished everything else and we have some spare time on our hands? If we give to charities or to the church, do we give a full amount, or do we give whatever remains after we've bought everything else we want? I personally know that it's usually the latter in my case, and that this is really a challenge to worship and give the way that God wants.

For reference, here are other instances in which obedience over sacrifice is mentioned:

• Psalm 40 v 6-8
• Psalm 51 v 16 - 17
• Proverbs 21 v 3
• Isaiah 1 v 11-17
• Jeremiah 7 v 21-23
• Hosea 6 v 6
• Matthew 12 v 7
• Mark 12 v 33
• Hebrews 10 v 8-9

Obedience and Sacrifice

Whilst I may have made it sound in the last two sections as if obedience and sacrifice are not compatible, I didn't mean it to sound this way, and it's crucial to note that they are not! As an example, I'll note two important instances in the Bible where obedience and sacrifice both played a part together.

The first of these is with Abraham and Isaac in Genesis chapter 22 where God commands Abraham to give his only son Isaac as a sacrifice (v2). This must have come as a bit of a shock to Abraham, and it fairly obviously must have been one of the most difficult decisions that he ever had to make. But in obedience to God, he complied, and set off to sacrifice him the next morning (v3) However, in the end, God sent his angel to stop Abraham at the last moment, and revealed to him that it was a test of his obedience (v11-12) He must have been overjoyed, and because of his obedience, God blessed him immensely! (v15-18) This shows that we must be willing to give God everything, holding nothing back!

The other example is the most important event in history, Jesus sacrificing himself for us, his creation. This is foreshadowed by Abraham and Isaac, as God says to Abraham, 'Take your son, your only son whom you love', sound familiar? In John 3:16, perhaps the most well known verse in the Bible, Jesus says that God gave 'His one and only son' and in Mark 1 v 11, God says to Jesus 'You are my Son, whom I love'.

In the garden of Gethsemane in Matthew chapter 26, Jesus says 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.' (v38) and  later on says 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will' (v39) This is the most beautiful example of obedience and sacrifice working on the same level, Jesus asked if it was possible for him not to endure the pain on the cross, and yet he obeyed God, his Father, to the point of death. Obedience leading him to give himself as the sacrifice. This is wonderfully put in Martyn Layzell's song 'Lost in Wonder':

'And though Your soul was overwhelmed with pain,

Obedient to death You overcame.

The sorrow that surrounded You was mine,

"Yet not my will but yours be done", You cried.'

Marytn Layzell (C) 2003 Thankyou Music, CCL 2357