Chapter
11 - The Judgment of God as seen in the Old Testament
Do
not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do
not be afraid of any man,
for
judgment belongs to God. (Deut
1:17)
Contents
of Chapter 11
11.1
The Meaning of God's Wrath and Anger and the Purpose of His Judgment
11.1A
God's Perfection
11.2
Discipline is training for an outcome
11.3
Correction is action to bring change of behaviour
11.4
Judgment is actions in line with justice to bring change
11.5
God's Righteousness: His activity is always right and never wrong
11.6
The Reasons for God's Judgment
11.7
The Forms of God's Judgment, t he ways God works
11.8
Grace & Mercy: How these characteristics of God are constantly
seen.
11.9
And So?
Within
this chapter we will examine the language that is sometimes
used to describe of some of God's corrective activities:
His anger, His wrath, His judgment, His discipline and His correction. |
We
will also see the purpose or nature of God's
judgment and the instruments He uses to
bring judgment, and how judgment depends so much upon the heart of
the offender which God sees.
11.1
The Meaning of God's Wrath and Anger and the Purpose of His
Judgment
Mostly
we associate ‘wrath' or anger with unrestrained outbursts
of extremely hostile emotions witnessed by words and even
deeds. Because we are so often unclear on the characteristics
of God we think of God's wrath or anger in these terms but
an examination of Scripture indicates that this is not so. |
Distinguish
God's anger from human anger |
For this whole subject of God's love, it is vital that we understand
this concept of ‘the wrath of God' and ‘the judgment of God' because
they are NOT what most of us think!
Anger,
a dictionary of pastoral ethics suggests, is…
‘a response to wrong doing… may be negative or positive, unloving
or loving…. redemptive or destructive… a neutral emotion.'
It
is right to feel emotional about wrong doing and anger is an emotion
that says ‘this should not have been' or ‘this should not have happened'.
Anger
shows an absence of complacency about such wrongdoing, and God is
never complacent or indifferent about His world and the people on
it.
Wrath
is anger that has determined that action should be taken
against this wrong-doing. It is anger moving into retribution or judgment
or correction.
NB.
God doesn't get angry over our stumbling attempts of His
children to get it right when we make mistakes.
The
wrath of God is a cool, calm purposeful bringing of a judgment
that is deserved. It
is a bringing of justice.
Yes,
God is upset by our foolish godlessness and unrighteousness and, yes,
He does rise up to take action against such attitudes and behaviour,
but God's anger is never out of control.
Put
more simply we might say that:
| Anger
is the strong negative emotion of indignation and
displeasure |
|
Wrath
it seems in Scripture refers to anger in action.
|
In
his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul says that God's ‘anger-in-action'
is directed at godlessness and wickedness:
- Godlessness
is the absence of God in our thinking that comes from our wilful
rejection of Him and which opens up the way for -
- Wickedness,
which is wrong that is done with evil intent. The intent of the
person is to positively do evil, wrong, harm etc.
It
is righteous to be angry at wilful, positive-intent evil that harms
both His planet and the people on it.
God
has made us with a wonderful world and with immense individual potential
– specifically to be and do good, in the image of our Creator. To
purposefully go in the opposite direction to cause hurt, harm or damage
in a purposefully destructive manner, whether it simply involves words
or, more likely, specific acts of hurt or harm, is a cause for negative
emotions of indignation and displeasure, being the expression of the
emotion we call anger. God is right to show this
indignation and displeasure when He observes this
wilful godlessness and unrighteousness that we call evil, that seeks
to cause harm or destruction.
Now
we mustn't confuse the outworking of God's anger
with the emotion of His anger. Anger is the emotion
and the emotion, in some situations, is closely linked with His calculated
decision to take remedial action.
We
do need to note in passing that when
God brings discipline or judgement, it is a form of remedial
action. i.e. it is corrective!
| The
Action of God, i.e. the Judgment of God |
In
legal terms, when a Judge passes a judgment, he declares a right assessment
of the truth of a situation which now results in remedial action being
brought, e.g. "This man is guilty of theft and will therefore
go to prison." Thus we will soon see that:
| God's
'judgment' is action in line with
justice to bring change. |
In
terms of purpose or nature,
we will need to remind ourselves again and again, that put in its
simplest form God's Judgment is either:
| |
1.
Death, where God sees that nothing He can say or do
will change the heart or mind of the individual in question,
and so He stops their ongoing misdemeanour by removing the person,
or
2.
A Corrective action, in order to bring people to their
senses so that they will return to God, to a place where they
are able to live as He designed them to live, receiving all
the goodness He has planned for them, i.e. it stops a person
following the course they are following so that they follow
a new path that is not hurtful, harming or destructive, or
3.
A Corrective action designed to bring change as above,
but which, if not heeded, will bring death.
|
|
Now,
as we stated above, we are going to see that God does take action
(wrath = anger-in-action) and the form of what we would call
judgment is clearly corrective,
i.e. designed to bring change of behaviour.
Thus
we should see that, although God's wrath is obvious, it isn't necessarily
destructive, it isn't necessarily designed to kill or destroy people.
We will see that in the remainder of this chapter. So, we shouldn't
misunderstand God's ‘wrath' and see it as a vindictive or spiteful
act, which is what it so often is in human beings.
GOD'S
WRATH is thus seen to be His anger or indignant displeasure
that is of such a magnitude, because of the nature of the
sin, that it results in action by God against those committing
the sin with the purpose of bringing, where
possible, a change in their behaviour and,
quite obviously, an end to the sin (which is always destructive
of human beings).
|
Before
we move in detail into examining particular things that happened in
the Old Testament, we should conclude Part 1 with a consideration
of the general principles of Discipline, Correction & Judgment
as we find them in the Bible, which simply expand on what we have
said already.
We
need to remember all that has gone before, especially the descriptions
of God that we have seen so far, and then examine what happened and
what was said in the light of these descriptions. We also need to
understand what has been said on this page so far. If it is not clear
to you, please may we request that you reread and take in what we
have written above.
These
three concepts - Discipline, Correction & Judgment -
occur many times in the Old Testament, and it is these, I suspect,
that make many of us (and especially the atheists) uncomfortable.
NB.
Having written this page, I have subsequently seen something in respect
of God's perfection which I recommend you consider: 11.1A
God's Perfection
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11.2
'Discipline' - is training for an outcome
If
anger is the emotion that under certain circumstances
becomes wrath, which then is the action we
call judgment, then we need to look at two other
words that describe the purpose of God's action, the first
of which is:
| Discipline,
which means training that develops self-control and
character. |
Reminding
Israel what had happened to them, Moses spoke about this:
Deut
4:35,36 “You
were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God;
besides him there is no other. From heaven he made you hear his voice
to discipline you.”
In
other words God's intention, through speaking to Israel, was to train
them to become His people who lived according to His design-laws.
Indeed
later in Deuteronomy He reminded them that part of their training
was observing how He had moved in power on their behalf to save them
out of Egypt (Deut 11:2-7).
We
often think of discipline as punishment, but God always views it as
training. It is not destructive but formative.
In
the New Testament, the writer to the Hebrews was to comment about
God's discipline:
Heb
12:11 “No
discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.
Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace
for those who have been trained by it.”
Note
therefore, that God trains for an outcome.
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11.3
'Correction' - is action to bring change of behaviour
The
concept of correction, the second of those words,
is very similar –
| Correction
is action taken to bring about change of
behaviour. |
Prov
29:15 “The
rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left
to himself disgraces his mother.”
The
whole point of God's relationship with Israel was so that He could
train them, correct them and bring them into a place of understanding
where they could see that God had designed the world in a particular
way and that He had designed us to ‘work' in a particular way. When
we ‘worked' or lived like that then blessing flowed, partly because
God brought blessings, but more simply because we were operating or
working (if you will excuse the mechanical sense) as we were meant
to. Because God is good and God is love, that way meant it is enjoyable
and for our pleasure and benefit.
Yet,
the truth is that Israel displayed the same sinfulness that is seen
in all of mankind and foolishly turned away from God, rejecting all
the goodness that is available when we live as designed!
In
Leviticus we find God challenging Israel:
Lev
26:23 “in spite
of these things you do not accept my correction but
continue to be hostile toward me.”
- The
“these things” had been a
variety of punishments which were being used as forms of discipline
to bring correction (change of behaviour).
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11.4
'Judgment' - is actions in line with justice to bring change
Now
we need to go back and consider the overall description of what is
sometimes seen to happen. Let's repeat what we said above:
| God's
'judgment' is action in line with
justice to bring change. |
Judgment
refers to an act of judging. When it is God bringing judgment there
are always two aspects to it:
i)
the act of assessing wrong or determining wrong and rendering a
just verdict, and
ii)
the act of bringing the decreed correction.
Now
there is nothing strange about this because we are very much aware
of the law enforcement aspects of our own nations:
•
lawmakers who decree the Law,
•
police who apprehend apparent lawbreakers,
•
judges who determine the truth of the situation and determine
corrective punishment, and
•
prisons that implement the punishment (or whoever is involved
in whatever other form of
punishment
is applied).
In
respect of God He is lawmaker, judge and applier of justice.
We
observed above that 'punishment' can be one of three forms:
1.
Death, where God sees that nothing He can say or
do will change the heart or mind of the individual in question,
and so He stops their ongoing misdemeanour by removing the person,
or
2.
A Corrective action, in order to bring people to
their senses so that they will return to God, to a place where they
are able to live as He designed them to live, receiving all the
goodness He has planned for them, i.e. it stops a person following
the course they are following so that they follow a new path that
is not hurtful, harming or destructive, or
3.
A Corrective action designed to bring change as
above, but which, if not heeded, will bring death.
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11.5
God's Righteousness: His activity is always right and never wrong
Something
to be noted along the way is the description of God that occurs again
and again in the Bible: that God is righteous and everything He does
is righteous.
This
simply means that everything about God – His thoughts and His
actions – are always exactly right. Because He has total knowledge
and total wisdom He never ever makes a mistake. |
God
is righteous because He never says or does anything wrong. |
Now
obviously that is a faith statement which is in line with the Scriptural
teaching and if you say, “Can you prove that?” I have to reply, “Yes,
but only when you die and face God.”
Our
difficulty is that we do not have total knowledge and we are so often
motivated by self-centred emotions, so that our ‘judgment' is often
wrong – but God's isn't!
If
we don't understand the grounds on which God declares judgment (and
He always does make it clear in Scripture WHY He is bringing punishment),
it is simply that we don't understand the awfulness of an attitude
or action of an individual or group. Instead we foolishly blame God
for what we assume (wrongly) is injustice.
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11.6
God the Judge: The Reasons for His Judgment
In
thinking about Judgment we are considering God as both the Judge and
the one who implements the judgment. Here first we consider His activity
as Judge.
Contrary
to the claims that God is hasty and unkind, we need to remind ourselves
of the truth as revealed in the Bible.
We
have observed so far that God
is all-wise and all-knowing, that He is compassionate, gracious, slow
to anger, abounding in love and utterly committed to what is right.
I
want to suggest that
a)
Such a person is the best one to make the rules (fitting in with
the way He's designed us), and
b)
He's the best person to implement them (I wouldn't want a harsh,
changeable, picky individual
to do it!)
Rather
than go into a list of ‘wrongs' that God is against (because he is
picky, as the atheists say), may I suggest instead that you look in
the Bible and see the specific things and see them as things which:
a)
are stopping individuals or groups coming to a wonderful knowledge
of this God, and
b)
are preventing us receiving all the good things that He has for
us, and
c)
are actually destructive in some form or another.
Ask
each time, what is it that is stopping this person or these people
entering into a relationship with God and receiving all the good things
that He desires for them? Consider also the harm that such things
do to us and to those around us.
In
general terms the things that hinder us coming into a relationship
with God, may be attitudes, e.g. pride, or they may be practices,
e.g. occult activity, or a whole range of other things.
So
the key issues are:
-
what is it stopping that coming about, and
-
is there an implacableness in that person or individual that means
they will never change (and thus
hinder others in coming into that experience of God), or
-
is there a hope of change in them?
Only
God knows the answers to these questions, but He DOES know the answers
and those answers go towards His right assessment (judgment) of the
individual or group of individuals. We need to bear this in mind in
all of the case studies that follow in this book.
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11.7
God
the Judge: The Forms of His Judgment, the ways He works
Remember
we are considering God as both the Judge and the one who implements
the judgment. We are now moving on to ‘implementing the judgment'.
| a)
The Purposes reveal the Form |
Can
we start by emphasising some things in the things we have already
noted above, where we have twice declared God's judgment to be either:
- Death,
where God sees that nothing He can say or do will change the
heart or mind of the individual in question, and so He stops
their ongoing misdemeanour by removing the person, or
- A
Corrective action, in order to bring people to their senses so that
they will return to God, to a place where they are able to live
as He designed them to live, receiving all the goodness He has planned
for them, i.e. it stops a person following the course they are
following so that they follow a new path that is not hurtful,
harming or destructive, or
- A
Corrective action designed to bring change as above, but which,
if not heeded, will bring death.
| b)
Dependant on the People |
We
note therefore that it will depend on:
•
whether the person or group will not change (and death is the likely
outcome), or
•
whether they will change (and something lesser is more applicable
to help bring about the
change).
We
also need to note God's desire in all this:
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?”
Thus
there may be instantaneous deaths (judgments) brought about by some
catastrophe (e.g. Num 16:32) but mostly the form of the judgment means
delay and opportunity for repentance.
Thus
we find that often the judgment was another nation coming to attack
apostate Israel. This meant that they had plenty of time to turn back
to God and seek His help – which was ALWAYS forthcoming when that
happened. The opportunity was ALWAYS there for repentance, and judgment
was ALWAYS averted when that repentance came.
In terms of the instrument God uses, the forms of judgment appear
to be one of two kinds:
1)
Those involving freak acts of nature, e.g. weather conditions
or earthquakes etc.
This
first kind, the atheist says is just Nature, but when they occur specifically
after God has warned, then nature or not, I suggest it must have a
divine motivation behind it!
2)
Those involving other people.
This
second kind is the most common kind found in the Old Testament, and
these fall into two groups:
i)
Those where God directs action to happen
An
example of this is God directing Israel to clear the people out of
the Promised Land. These were primitive peoples who worshipped idols,
sacrificed their children and so on. (Read your Bible and you'll see
the ‘so-on'. We'll consider this in detail in later chapters.)
Having
said what we've just said, this particular example wasn't that clear
cut. The options for the inhabitants were:
•
flee the land and be saved,
•
change and join Israel – as the Gibeonites did, or
•
fight and possibly die (some did and some didn't in practice)
Our
difficulty when considering those times is to appreciate
a)
how primitive those societies were, and
b)
how warlike they all tended to be.
ii)
Those where God lifts off His hand of restraint
and the enemy are allowed to let their unrestrained hatred for others
to rise up and cause them to attack.
Where
God lifts off His hand of restraint, this reveals a reality that most
of the time we don't think about, or even understand. Yet the Bible
does clearly indicate that this is how God often brings judgment –
He simply lifts away any restraint and (in the O.T.) let's the warlike
natures of individual kings and their people rise up against the nation
that God is wanting to discipline.
Very
often, therefore, in fact the majority of times, God's so-called judgment
comprises letting sinful kings and sinful peoples do what their hearts
want to do, and that brings pressure to bear on the nation under scrutiny.
| d)
How God 'directs' people |
How
did God get an enemy nation to come as a disciplinary agent against
Israel? The Bible indicates that He uses Satan as His agent to do
it, either by command or by permission.
1
Chron 21:1 Satan rose up against
Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
2 Sam 24:1 Again the anger
of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them,
saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."
- to
reveal and discipline David's pride God used Satan to stir his proud
heart to count the men under him to show how great he was - thus
taking glory from God.
In
the book of Job we see the Lord giving Satan leeway to come against
Job. We then see the following:
Job
1:15 the Sabeans attacked
- How
did Satan get these invaders to attack Job's farm? All he needed
to do was to speak into their minds what was already there - hostility
towards others - and point out Job's affluence to them. How easily
they would have responded.
- Hostile,
self-centred people only need a whisper in the mind to stir them
into action.
- Thus
God - through Satan - would only have to speak into the minds of
foreign kings and counsellors to get them to rise up against Israel
to discipline them.
- We
almost certainly do not realise how much God can speak into our
minds or the minds of others to either restrain or release wrong
actions from the wrong motivations that are already there!
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11.8
Grace
& Mercy: How these characteristics of God are constantly seen
What
comes through to the careful Bible reader, but which of course
is absent from the understanding of the person who never looks
at the Bible or doesn't take time to carefully read it, is the
fact that when God brings judgment He first brings warning after
warning. |
God
always brings warnings |
| God
always gives time |
It
is God's grace that allows a people to carry on rejecting Him
while He sends His messengers to them again and again, i.e.
He doesn't act straight away. |
I first saw this many years ago in my studies of Jeremiah (which you'll
find in our Bible Studies section of this site) where, before the
Exile to Babylon, God pleaded with the kings and the people,
through Jeremiah again and again.
In
fact a study of that period of Israel's history reveals that
God was speaking to all parties through a variety of His prophets.
Many years before he had warned of this through Isaiah,
and these prophecies were in existence and known about in Israel already.
In
Jerusalem, Jeremiah was God's mouthpiece to the various
kings and to the leaders and people in the years leading up to the
Exile which occurred over a decade culminating in Jerusalem's
destruction in 587BC.
With
the early exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel was God's mouthpiece
to the ordinary exiles and to the people still back in Israel.
With
later exiles, Daniel was carried into Nebuchadnezzar's
court where he was God's mouthpiece to him and to following kings.
In
each of these situations, God was speaking into the situation to bring
knowledge of Himself. Thus He carried on speaking in the midst of
the captivity in Exile which lasted for fifty years, and seventy years
between the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the completion
of the new one.
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11.9
And So….
The
picture is clearly of God seeking to bring mercy to bear on these
foolish peoples. Mercy and grace come through again and again. NEVER
say that God is hasty and harsh, for that is a complete contradiction
of the Old Testament record!
As
previously let's remind ourselves what we have considered in this
chapter:
| 11.1
The meaning of God's wrath and anger and the purpose of his
judgment
11.2
Discipline is training for an outcome
11.3
Correction is action to bring change of behaviour
11.4
Judgment is actions in line with justice to bring change
11.5
God's Righteousness: His activity is always right and never
wrong
11.6
The Reasons for God's Judgment
11.7
The Forms of God's Judgment, the ways God works
11.8
Grace & Mercy: How these characteristics of God are constantly
seen. |