False Image of God – Vengeful and Angry Bully

Deutsch

A false image of God automatically leads to a correspondingly misleading interpretation of the Gospel. Especially if one relies solely on what one has heard and read from others. Therefore, the basic rule is: Read the Bible yourself and verify everything! False images includeinsbesondere ein zorniger, wütender und grausamer Gott des Alten Testamentes. Dem ist aber nicht so!

The image of the angry father

Is God truly a merciless avenger and purifier when people’s behavior “goes against His grain”? Such claims are at least not uncommon, and they are almost exclusively based on examples from the Old Testament. The New Testament offers hardly any scenes that could serve as a “cruel God.”

Although Revelation certainly offers such points of attack, one would also have to admit that the prophecy given to John is highly topical. The “scribes” often dismiss the Book of Revelation either as a pure fantasy story or, preferentially, as a long-concluded series of events. The “end of the world” described in Revelation is interpreted as a narrative of the “contemporary authors” that concluded with the slavery under the Romans, the destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD), and finally the extermination of the land of Judah after the Bar Kochbar revolt (132 to 135 AD).

A “cruel God” of the Old Testament and such an exemplary “humane” Jesus Christ also lead to ideas that the God of the Old Testament must have been someone completely different. Ideas also circulate that Jesus Christ should be loved, but the Father despised. All of these are the consequences of a false image of God.

Reading the Old Testament yourself

Für die The only depiction of a cruel God is usually the Old Testament, which shows how God unleashes His wrath in an unbridled manner. It is often stated that God commanded the killing of man, woman, and all children, even in frightening detail. A popular verse (an excerpt) on this topic is 2 Kings 8:12:
“and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.“

“He who reads for himself is wiser,” because such an excerpt from a verse can be placed in any context. But who said this sentence to whom and why? The prophet Elisha said this to Hazael, the king of Aram (9th century BCE), roughly the area of ​​present-day Syria, but already with Damascus as its capital. Hazael was waging war against Israel, and the prophet Elisha knew what was in store for Israel. The massacre described in this verse excerpt was thus directed against the people of Israel.

A protecting hand does not last forever

If God actually withdraws His protecting hand or calls for the “sweeping away” of all the inhabitants of a land, either without exception or with only a few exceptions, then a tremendous amount of time has already passed, and what feels like an endless amount of patience has been exhausted. This applies to the Gentile nations as well as to the people of Israel, or to the land of Judah that remained at a later date.

If a people has fallen away in such a way, and this does not only mean theft, fraud, robbery, and murder, but also abominations in every conceivable and even unthinkable form. And if repentance is no longer possible due to hardened hearts, then the end of the line has been reached.

Example of Sodom and Gomorrah

A prominent and very good example is the region around Sodom and Gomorrah. An extremely fertile lowland around the area of ​​today’s Dead Sea.

While the higher-lying surroundings were already rather barren around 2,000 years before Christ, the people of Sodom, Gomorrah, and other cities enjoyed a virtual paradise. An extremely fertile land, fruits, vegetables, and grains grew practically on their own, without much effort for cultivation, sowing, and harvesting. Furthermore, the people were generally wealthy. The opportunities for a “career” were great.

Lot, Abraham’s nephew, also recognized these advantages. For a time, the two and their herds roamed the region together. After both herds had grown in size, however, things became tight. Abraham suggested going their separate ways in the future and left it up to his nephew to choose where he would like to go. If Lot said “there,” Abraham would move in the opposite direction. Lot chose the fertile lowlands and ultimately moved to the city of Sodom (Genesis 13).

Now, however, the “customs” of the inhabitants of the land of Sodom and Gomorrah were known. They worshipped idol sacrifices, sacrificed humans, celebrated sexual rites, and prostitution was commonplace. This degeneration, however, was not a new phenomenon; it had been present for generations.

The judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah

When Abraham was 99 years old, God decided to put an end to the abomination surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord spoke to Abraham about it, and he was concerned about Lot, his nephew, and the other people who hadn’t succumbed to this moral decay. And indeed, God allowed himself to be negotiated with, for Abraham asked whether judgment would still come upon the cities if 50 righteous people lived there. Abraham negotiated down to 10 righteous people and then dared not do so again.

What was God’s response each time Abraham set the hypothetical number of righteous people for the trial?
– 50 righteous people – “I will spare the place” (Genesis 18:26)
– 45 righteous people – “I will not destroy them” (Genesis 18:28)
– 40 righteous people – “I will not harm them” (Genesis 18:29)
– 30 righteous people – “I will not harm them” (Genesis 18:30)
– 20 righteous people – “I will not destroy them” (Genesis 18:31)
– 10 righteous people – “I will not destroy them” (Genesis 18:32)

Not exactly the answers of an uncontrollably angry God.

Lot and Family – The Only Saved

But God found none other than Lot and his family. Lot, his wife, and his two daughters weren’t exactly “exemplary” in terms of their faith. The environment was already rubbing off on the daughters. Finally, two angels sent by God came to the city of Sodom to persuade Lot to leave as quickly as possible. For destruction was a foregone conclusion.

When both envoys visited Lot’s house, it wasn’t long before numerous Sodomites, from boys to old men, stood at their door, ready to abuse the two strangers (guests!). After a scuffle, the besiegers were struck blind by the two angels.

After dawn, the two angels hurriedly urged Lot to finally leave. He hesitated, however, arguing that something might happen to him in the surrounding mountains. Apparently, the only remaining option was for the two angels to seize Lot, his wife, and two daughters and lead them out of the city. They weren’t going to make the necessary escape on their own. Lot and his family subsequently fled to the highlands of the eastern Jordan, via Zoar. The area later settled by the Ammonites and Moabites.

Meanwhile, inferno broke out over the area of ​​Sodom and Gomorrah.

“Even” Lot and family saved

Lot’s daughters, clearly raised under the influence of Sodom, fed their father alcohol and, one after the other, allowed themselves to be impregnated by him (Genesis 19). The son of the older daughter was Moab, the progenitor of the Moabites. The son of the younger daughter was Ben-Ammi, the progenitor of the Ammonites. While Hagar, the maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah, and mother of Ishmael, the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, is at least mentioned by name, Lot’s two daughters remain only anonymous. Their names remain insignificant.

Lot himself was selfish, choosing the quite fertile land when they went their separate ways, rather than leaving it to his older uncle Abraham. God did everything in his power to save Lot, but he “stubbornly”—obviously unable to fully imagine the coming destruction in the face of the seemingly peaceful dawn—everything seemed perfectly normal, and whining that something might happen to him in the mountains. Ergo, lack of faith at best. Nevertheless, Lot was saved by God.

Jesus Christ took Lot as an example

In His warning sermon about the end times, Jesus Christ not only mentioned the terrible times of Noah, but also compared the circumstances of the end times to the time of Lot, Luke 17:28-29:
“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.“

Everything was going on as usual, nothing unusual, everything seemed normal. Everyday life. But then it struck people completely by surprise and unprepared. At least for those who didn’t care about it and had no interest in the gospel.

Judgments on pagan peoples

Further examples demonstrating that God is not an angry, uncontrollably lashing out executioner, but only initiates the consequences when the apostasy has reached an irreversible state, even after a long period of patience, are the expulsion of the pagan peoples in the land of Canaan after Israel had crossed the Jordan River after 40 years of wandering in the desert. The rituals, customs, and traditions of the pagan peoples were not far removed from those of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The “natives” of Jerusalem

The perpetration of atrocities also affected the city of Salem (Jerusalem), which, before its conquest by the people of Israel, had been a stronghold of idol sacrifice and human sacrifice to the “deity” Moloch. The sacrificial rituals took place in Ge-Hinnom (Greek: Gehenna), a valley south of the Old City of Jerusalem. This is also the place where the “eternal fire” burned, as it was used by the Judeans themselves as a garbage incinerator.

This place of eternal fire, which is actually meant when “hell” is mentioned in the New Testament, has been reinterpreted as a legend surrounding an eternally burning hell that torments souls (Info).

These conditions had existed in Salem for centuries.

Idolatry also among the people of God

At the time of the prophet Elijah, only 7,000 of the people of Israel did not bow their knees to the idol-god Baal. At God’s judgment on Jerusalem, too, all those who complained about the terrible conditions were marked beforehand and accordingly spared. God doesn’t simply sweep the table with the palm of his hand, but looks at each individual person. Whether Gentile or His people.

Judgment on Egypt

Long-awaited, long-awaited, and ultimately, instead of taking matters into his own hands, he resorted to the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. He conquered Egypt. On his “road south,” the Babylonian king also razed the then world-trading city of Tyre (Phoenician). This was also a stronghold of idolatry and the birthplace of the priest’s daughter Jezebel, who married the King of Israel, Ahab, and thus brought the great apostasy to the people of Israel. Jezebel was the direct antagonist of the prophet Elijah.

Judgment on Babylon

While Nebuchadnezzar somewhat recovered after a seven-year rebuke from God (Daniel 4), the subsequent kings of Babylon did not follow suit. They continued to rebel against God, and the last ruling couple, father and son, Belzasar and Nabunides, indulged in idolatry. At his (final) feast, Belzasar used the cups and other vessels plundered from the Temple in Jerusalem. The barrel overflowed.

“Mene, mene, tekel upharsin!” (Daniel 5:25) was the message written by God on the wall in the banquet hall. The prophet Daniel understood this message and announced judgment upon King Belzasar. That same night, the king died as a result of the cloak-and-dagger action of the Persian leader Cyrus. The city and kingdom of Babylon fell virtually without significant resistance.

First chastisements for repentance

God had not spared His people when it came to finally bringing them back to the right path. One chastisement followed another. Prophets sent out, however, could do little to stop the stubborn people and their kings. They simply wouldn’t (Jeremiah 6:16), and Jesus Christ also recognized this when he mourned over the city of Jerusalem with tears in his eyes.

Matthew 23:37:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!“

Jesus Christ prophesied the fall of Jerusalem (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), and so it came to pass. In 66 AD, the first Roman siege came. They withdrew unexpectedly, but returned after three and a half years. The second siege followed, and that sealed the fate of all who remained in Jerusalem and did not flee beforehand, as Jesus Christ urgently advised. In 70 AD, Jerusalem, including the Temple, was completely destroyed.

God is not this vengeful God

God warns, admonishes, warns again, sends prophets, chastises through (very) adverse circumstances, tries to move people to repentance, shows a patience that is incomprehensible to humans, waits not a few months, but sometimes centuries, and only allows the final consequences when all possibilities have been exhausted. All this not only clearly demonstrates that God is not the wrathful avenger of heaven, but that He also leaves people entirely free to exercise their own will.

However, God does not allow willpower to lead to a permanent disregard of the Ten Commandments. The foundation, the basic law, so to speak, for a world created by Him, which means a lasting coexistence in love and harmony. This earthly world has become a spectacle for the universe; everything with eyes is watching and can see where the disregard of God’s law leads when man brings his own “justice and morality” into play and rebels against God (Info).

God gave His only begotten Son

It is all too easy to forget that God gave His only begotten Son, John 3:16-18:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.“

God who steps out of line

“One” God humbles Himself, coming into this world as a human being (Philippians 2:5-8; John 1:14) to overcome the world. He allows Himself to be whipped and spat upon, takes on our sins, and allows Himself to be executed vicariously on the cross. The reason: to open a way to salvation for us despite our fallen nature, so that His grace would not conflict with His equally immutable justice.

What “ancient patriarchs” could conceive such a deity? These “strange” characteristics alone are an exclusive feature compared to all the actually conceived “deities” of historical cultures, all of which ascribed heroic qualities to their deities in some way. The “Spidermen, Supermen, Captain Americas, and their opposing villains” of antiquity. Constantly on the move to dispense justice so that the viewer can sink complacently into their armchairs.

But that is exactly what God is NOT like, and He never will be. No matter how hard humans try, invent their own worlds, take fictions at face value, and elevate their own moral standards as the standard of this world, it would still be just a fantasy God, just as “clever minds” like Immanuel Kant conceived. The truth can be found in the Gospel, and this is neither “approximate” nor “relative,” but absolute.

Bible verses from King James Version (1611)