If God is Good. . .Why is He so Mean and Angry?
For the last year and a half I've been reading through The Bible one book at a time.
The Bible is a
This morning I finished
reading Jeremiah. Yes, I did.
The whole thing. And I'm proud of
myself. It's one of the long ones--52
chapters, 61 pages-- and I'm not talking about light, easy reading here. The Book
of Jeremiah is a deep, dark book.
Jeremiah has been called
the weeping prophet. He suffered from what I'm sure would be diagnosed today as
long-term clinical depression. And it's no
wonder. God chose him to deliver a
ranting tirade to His much-loved people, the Israelites.
The tirade is full of threats of judgment because of all the evil they are engaged in, and, to make it worse, God tells Jeremiah, at the very beginning, that the people will not listen to him and that they will end up being judged. Harshly. As in near total destruction.
The tirade is full of threats of judgment because of all the evil they are engaged in, and, to make it worse, God tells Jeremiah, at the very beginning, that the people will not listen to him and that they will end up being judged. Harshly. As in near total destruction.
How's
that for a life's career calling?
The Israelite kings
hated hearing the message God told Jeremiah to give them, and they did terrible
things to him. (This was possibly the
first recorded case of "shooting the messenger.") They once threw him
into an empty cistern in the city and left him there to starve to death. One sympathetic colleague finally pled for
mercy and they hauled him up and threw him in jail instead.
Jeremiah is so
miserable in his performance of this depressing assignment that at one point he
says:
"Cursed be the day
on which I was born! . . . .Cursed be the man who brought the tidings to my
father, saying, 'A son is born to you!' . . .because he did not slay me in the
womb, so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb always
great."
(The is the second recorded case of "shooting the messenger.")
But then Jeremiah picks
himself up and goes on to pronounce God's harsh judgment.
I have to confess that
for most of my life I've been somewhat appalled and even embarrassed about how
vindictive God seems to be in the way he treats the nations of antiquity. He pours judgment out on every evil nation,
including his own chosen one, whenever they rebel against him (which is quite
often). God is poetically vicious in his prophetic proclamations against
rebellious people in the Old Testament, and the history recorded there describes
how God carries out his prophesied judgments in great and gory detail.
So what is this? Is God a good god, or is he mean,
self-serving, vindictive and evil?
I have struggled with
that question, at least internally, for most of my life (see February 22 post),
and much I've read in the Old Testament seemed to point me toward the second of
those two options.
But I have realized
this perception comes out of a superficial reading of The Bible. It is
dangerous to jump into the middle of a book, read a random passage quickly, and
decide on an interpretation of the words without seeing them in their context.
That's what I'd always
done with my reading, especially in the Old Testament. But this time, I slowed down. I plowed
through the whole book, making sure the plow went deep into the mucky soil of
the text, studying the vicious pronouncements of judgment in their
context. And it was an eye-opener for
me.
I came away from this
reading of Jeremiah being amazed at
the loving patience of a holy God, and understanding more about the anguish of
his holy heart as he sees his people resisting his love for them and slowly
destroying themselves in the process.
Jeremiah
29:11 says,
"For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for
you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil,
to give you hope in your final outcome."
But they were not ready
for his plans. They wanted to trust in their own.
He is certainly angry in his
rants against them, but he is not mean. I now see in the Book of Jeremiah the same heart that Jesus reveals when he speaks
to Israel on his way into their City for the last time,
"Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Matthew 23:37)
"Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Matthew 23:37)
Jesus spoke these words
on his way to the cross where he would give his life to redeem us all from the
results of our determined waywardness. His pronouncements of judgment in Jeremiah are loving warnings, and the
judgment he finally metes out on his people is designed to lead them back to
Him.
We see this pattern of rebellion and judgment throughout The Bible, but it doesn't end there. It always ends in repentance and rest for everyone who finally realizes that God loves them and has their best interests at heart.
We see this pattern of rebellion and judgment throughout The Bible, but it doesn't end there. It always ends in repentance and rest for everyone who finally realizes that God loves them and has their best interests at heart.
I have come to the
conclusion that God's judgment is not self-serving, vindictive or evil. Not ever. Instead, the whole purpose of his outrage at evil is to draw us close to Him. He longs to tuck us under His wings, where we will always find peace and rest.
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