GOD’S REVENGE: confused semantics

We have seen that revenge is a destructive, damaging reaction to pain and suffering inflicted on us willingly or unwillingly. At its core, it has to do with our EGO (that false self) that needs to always win, always be in control, always on top of things. Not surprisingly, in Jesus we see revenge being discouraged. Jesus, as the manifestation of God in material form, would rather take the place of the victim, of the “looser” instead of that of the “winner”. God would rather suffer (as pain and hurt is inflicted), than defend Himself and retaliate. In Jesus we a see a God who is not interested in what is right and what is wrong so as to punish the wrong doer as a pay back.

But then, we’re faced with this “other” God, who seems to be totally for revenge, who can’t take any insult … who can’t take NO for an answer. It is predominantly described in the Old Testament, although not only there, in texts such as the ones we looked at in the last post. So what are we to do? Throughout the history there have been various attempts to resolve this. My attempt is one that seeks to keep the Scriptures intact (no Marcionian purging), tries to find value in whatever particular human expression and is in sync with the God expressed in Jesus.

After examining the passages in the Scriptures that speak of God’s revenge I have discovered that most of them portray a God who is not defending Himself, but the plight of the weak, of the looser, of those taken advantage of. The revenge described is not a pay back as a reaction to a wounded EGO (God’s; BTW, God does not have an ego), but as a PROTECTION against further abuse. When God stepped in a situation He was not intending to make the wrong doers suffer for what they did as such, but used suffering (and death when necessary) as a way of STOP-ing the injustice. This injustice didn’t have anything to do directly with Him (as if people can really alter something of God, against His will), but had everything to do with the social imbalance of people oppressing and taking advantage of others. The weak and the powerless were the easy target. God identified so deeply with this group of people that their plight became His, their honor that was disregarded became His honor, their glory (God’s image that was woven in them by the Creator) became His glory. It is this theme that we see in Jesus when He says that whatever we do to these “little ones” (read weak, powerless, marginalized, voiceless etc.) we do unto Him. Later John in his epistles writes that we cannot separate our relationship with God from that we have with out fellow men and women. It is in this sense that we need to understand Paul when he talks about God’s revenge. We should not use revenge, Paul would say, to defend our ego (that is wrong and does not produce anything good), but allow God who fully identifies with our hurt deal with it in His infinite wisdom.

Is God revengeful? This happens to be one of the many instances of what I call, confused semantics, i.e. when semantics plays its tricks on us. Words, frequently, assimilate meanings different than their initial, original use and these various meanings get used then interchangeably.

When revenge is being referred to God in Scriptures, it has “sanitized” its meaning from pay back, ego rooted reaction … to taking the side of the disadvantaged, which is as altruistic as it can get.

Yes, this attitude is highly encouraged in anyone, especially in those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus. It is as noble as it gets to fight for the cause of those taken advantage of: the poor, the widower, the immigrant, those exploited etc., etc., not in perpetuating violence, not with the purpose of making people suffer, but in order to stop the suffering and injustice and bringing reconciliation between all people. The ultimate goal is not to put a group of people above others, but to bring about true and open friendship among all people. That is after all what the Gospel of reconciliation is all about, isn’t it?

So …

Is God vengeful? – the Jesus factor

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“I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”
” I myself am against you, and I will inflict punishment on you … Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers … Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. … When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. ”

These words send shivers down my spine. I can only imagine crass cruelty and intense anger. Definitely not an attitude I would encourage in my kids. Yet, the unsettling fact is that it is God who’s described here. Yes, you heard it right; the first person singular pronouns in the above text are alleged to portray God (Deut 32:41-42; Ezekiel 5:8-13, 16-17). This evokes all kinds of mixed thoughts. How can the God I believe in and aspire to seem to act in ways beneath acceptable human behavior? (See the previous post) Does God have an ego that can be aroused? Does He really feel threatened, so much so that He needs to lash out in defending Himself, His image, honor, glory etc.? Does He need to establish Himself and His ways by sheer force, by punishment, by intimidation?

A vengeful god is nothing but a mythical Greek-type god to be feared, not a God to inspire faith in, a God who can fulfill our best aspirations and hopes.

In all honesty I have to say, if God is vengeful like this, than I don’t believe in God! He can’t win my allegiance. But

I do believe in God

and I do it strongly. It is the God Jesus revealed. I am after all a follower of Jesus and through Him of God. It is in Jesus that I come to get a peak into who God is and this God is anything but vindictive. Actually at the core of who God is, as portrayed in Jesus, is LOVE manifested in forgiveness, grace, everlasting mercy etc. It is God incarnate in Jesus who though unfairly sentenced to death did not feel the need to retaliate, to defend Himself, but accepted to be dead to those who didn’t want Him. Yes, He accepted to die in order to honor their freedom to say no to Him, all the while forgiving them, knowing they couldn’t possibly do this if they knew what they were doing. It is the God who loved us so much that when He crafted us He did not forced it upon us to love Him, He did not make us into robots, but allowed us the freedom to reject Him.

Hell is: the “space” God created out of love, where we can say no to God. Every time we say no to God we enter hell. Let’s be clear: if we feel distant from God is not because of God pushing away from us, but because and always because we push away from Him. We do this, I believe, because of our misconceptions of Him, because of the lies we believe.

Yet, the question still lingers, what about these texts? What are we to make of them? Should we purge, in a Marcion manner, the Scriptures from texts that don’t seem to fit them or better yet, – as many Christians do nowadays – overlook them and act like they are not there? Is there a way to save them and appreciate them in their own respect? Should we, as some Christians do, take them at face value and try to interpret the rest of the Scriptures in light of them? Or maybe we should re-evaluate our hermeneutic and reconsider the possibility of another way to read this. Does the Bible really present us with a vindictive, vengeful God or maybe there is a deeper meaning to all this?

In the next post we will try to deal with these issue and others as we continue to explore, “Is God vengeful?”