God is like Jesus
"God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We haven't always known this. But now we do." - Brian Zahnd
There are many important keys to reading the Bible well, but to me this is the best place to start.
Ever since Marcion, Christianity's OG heretic, we've been tempted to see a stark contrast between the God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament.
In simplest terms, it's like a good-cop/bad-cop situation. Jesus is nice, gentle, and loving. God is angry, violent, and vindictive. Jesus wants to help us, God is out to get us. Jesus rescues us from hell, God wants to put us there. God's holiness is the reason we humans are doomed, but Jesus steps in and takes the divine beating we deserve.
This completely misses the point of the incarnation.
Again, Brian Zahnd: "Jesus does not save us from God: Jesus reveals God as Savior."
Of course, John the Beloved said best of all: "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us... No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son from the Father, He has explained him." And as we also saw in the last post, Paul says Jesus is the icon of God, while the author of Hebrews calls him the "exact representation of [God's] nature."
So there can be neither dualism nor antagonism between these two.
What is true of the Son's nature is true of the Father's nature, for they have one nature, as the church's earliest creeds have always affirmed.
The problem is, the Old Testament is a difficult library of works to understand. It does not put forth one, unwavering opinion about God, but has as many nuanced points of view as there are authors represented. They are in agreement on some things, and have questions and even disagreements about other things. Later revelation clarifies earlier revelation. There is a progress of Israel's understand of who God is and what he is like that is evident as you read through the Old Testament.
Then of course you have the additional difficulty that we in our culture have in trying to understand the writings of a culture that is utterly foreign to us. On top of that, the Old Testament is just plain dense. It's complicated, multi-layered, and intertwined. Though we often treat it as no more than Sunday school fodder, it has much more in common with the works of Shakespeare than the cheap novels we pick off the shelves of our libraries and Christian bookstores. It's simply a harder read than most of us are ready for, and it simply cannot be read quickly or just taken at "face value."
The Old Testament takes a lot of work to understand and it's very easy to misunderstand. This is why the Old Testament has been so easily and convincingly (mis-)used to support genocide, racism, misogyny, religious authoritarianism, and a host of other evils.
So how to we even begin to cut through the confusion? We remember the first rule: God is like Jesus.
Whenever we think, "Why would God ______?"* Always remember, God is like Jesus.
This is usually just the first step. There is ALWAYS a lot more work to be done to REALLY understand what's going on.
But here's the thing: you can either read something shocking in the Old Testament and think something like, "I could never worship a God like that!" or "How could God do that?" or "I'm glad Jesus is so much nicer than God!"
Or, you can say: "Wait a minute. God is like Jesus. So if I can't imagine Jesus doing this, maybe what's wrong here isn't the Bible itself or the character of God. Maybe what's wrong here is my interpretation of the Bible. I've got more work to do!"
That's the first step that will begin many journeys of a thousand miles.
*Rob Bell is keen to point out that questions like "Why would God ______?" are actually the worst kind of questions to ask about the Bible. They are however, where most of us start. But beginning with the presupposition that God is like Jesus will actually help us get on to much more important questions... the one's we actually need to be asking.
There are many important keys to reading the Bible well, but to me this is the best place to start.
Ever since Marcion, Christianity's OG heretic, we've been tempted to see a stark contrast between the God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament.
In simplest terms, it's like a good-cop/bad-cop situation. Jesus is nice, gentle, and loving. God is angry, violent, and vindictive. Jesus wants to help us, God is out to get us. Jesus rescues us from hell, God wants to put us there. God's holiness is the reason we humans are doomed, but Jesus steps in and takes the divine beating we deserve.
This completely misses the point of the incarnation.
Again, Brian Zahnd: "Jesus does not save us from God: Jesus reveals God as Savior."
Of course, John the Beloved said best of all: "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us... No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son from the Father, He has explained him." And as we also saw in the last post, Paul says Jesus is the icon of God, while the author of Hebrews calls him the "exact representation of [God's] nature."
So there can be neither dualism nor antagonism between these two.
What is true of the Son's nature is true of the Father's nature, for they have one nature, as the church's earliest creeds have always affirmed.
The problem is, the Old Testament is a difficult library of works to understand. It does not put forth one, unwavering opinion about God, but has as many nuanced points of view as there are authors represented. They are in agreement on some things, and have questions and even disagreements about other things. Later revelation clarifies earlier revelation. There is a progress of Israel's understand of who God is and what he is like that is evident as you read through the Old Testament.
Then of course you have the additional difficulty that we in our culture have in trying to understand the writings of a culture that is utterly foreign to us. On top of that, the Old Testament is just plain dense. It's complicated, multi-layered, and intertwined. Though we often treat it as no more than Sunday school fodder, it has much more in common with the works of Shakespeare than the cheap novels we pick off the shelves of our libraries and Christian bookstores. It's simply a harder read than most of us are ready for, and it simply cannot be read quickly or just taken at "face value."
The Old Testament takes a lot of work to understand and it's very easy to misunderstand. This is why the Old Testament has been so easily and convincingly (mis-)used to support genocide, racism, misogyny, religious authoritarianism, and a host of other evils.
So how to we even begin to cut through the confusion? We remember the first rule: God is like Jesus.
Whenever we think, "Why would God ______?"* Always remember, God is like Jesus.
This is usually just the first step. There is ALWAYS a lot more work to be done to REALLY understand what's going on.
But here's the thing: you can either read something shocking in the Old Testament and think something like, "I could never worship a God like that!" or "How could God do that?" or "I'm glad Jesus is so much nicer than God!"
Or, you can say: "Wait a minute. God is like Jesus. So if I can't imagine Jesus doing this, maybe what's wrong here isn't the Bible itself or the character of God. Maybe what's wrong here is my interpretation of the Bible. I've got more work to do!"
That's the first step that will begin many journeys of a thousand miles.
*Rob Bell is keen to point out that questions like "Why would God ______?" are actually the worst kind of questions to ask about the Bible. They are however, where most of us start. But beginning with the presupposition that God is like Jesus will actually help us get on to much more important questions... the one's we actually need to be asking.
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