We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

angry god 560w275

Cruciform Aikido Pt 1: Jesus and the Violent God

Note: Today, we are beginning a 4-part series on the subject of divine judgement called “Cruciform Aikido.” We will be publishing this once a week alongside Greg’s introduction to ReKnew series. 


When most people think of God judging sinners, they imagine an angry God who acts violently as he vents his wrath and brings vengeance on people. Many base this understanding on various portraits of God judging people in the Old Testament (OT).  (The book of Revelation also symbolically depicts God and Christ in violent ways, but that is a topic for a later blog.) There’s no question that some portraits of God in the OT depict him acting violently as he judges people. But these violent portraits are very hard to reconcile with the embodied revelation of a non-violent, enemy-loving God that we have in Jesus. Instead of calling on legions of angels to crush his enemies, Jesus offered himself up on their behalf, allowing them to crucify him while praying for their forgiveness with his last breath (Mt 26:53; Lk. 23:34). Since Jesus is the one and only perfect revelation of God’s essence (hupostasis, Heb 1:3), our understanding of God’s character and judgments ought to be anchored solely in him.

Moreover, since all Scripture is written to bear witness to Christ (Jn 5:39-40, 46-47; Lk 24: 44-45), the OT’s violent portraits of God ought to be interpreted through the lens of ChristWhile all Scripture is divinely inspired, it was not intended to carry the same weight for all people throughout history. Hence, for example, while Jesus declared that John the Baptist was the greatest of all prophets leading up to him, Jesus declared that his own “testimony” was “weightier” (megas) than that of John (Jn 5:36). The revelation of God in Christ must therefore be given more weight than that of John and therefore be considered to carry more authority than any OT author prior to John. Though God certainly “breathed” (theopneustos; 2 Tim 3:16) through Old Testament authors, they did not know “the Word of God in fullness,” which was the “mystery” that had “been kept hidden for ages and generations” (Col. 1:25-26). This “mystery” was the truth of God’s humble, self-sacrificial, loving character–the character that was fully revealed only when God united himself to humanity in Christ and dwelt within his people by the Spirit of Christ–“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:26).

Given the supremacy of the revelation of God in Christ, we must consider the cross to be the quintessential revelation of God’s judgment. And as we will show in the next few blogs, this revelation means that the nature of God’s judgment is very different from the violent understanding that some OT authors had, and that many people today have.

 


Image by Orin Zebest. Used with Permission. Sourced via Flickr.

Related Reading

Jesus, the Word of God

“[T]he standing message of the Fathers to the Church Universal,” writes Georges Florovsky, was that “Christ Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of the Scriptures both the climax and the knot of the Bible.”[1] It was also unquestionably one of the most foundational theological assumptions of Luther and Calvin as well as other Reformers. Hence,…

Podcast: HOW Does the Death of Jesus Allow Us to Be Forgiven?

Greg discusses love bombs and explosions of light.   http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0419.mp3

God’s Way of War

As Judah was facing impending doom, the Lord told Hosea that he would save them “not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God” (Hos 1:7). So too, through the Psalmist the Lord encourages his people by saying:                  …

Benefit of the Doubt Is Here!

Benefit of the Doubt is finally here and you should definitely get yourself a copy! Frank Viola interviewed Greg about the book recently and you can read it over on Frank’s blog Beyond Evangelical. In fact, Frank is so enthusiastic about the book that he added it to his Best 100 Christian Books Ever Written list. Wow. Also,…

If the violent depictions of God in the Bible are not completely accurate, isn’t all of Scripture up for debate?

Question: I’m very intrigued by your cruciform hermeneutics and can’t wait for your book (Crucifixion of the Warrior God) to come out. But I have to say that it strikes me as dangerous. You’re basically saying that the violent portraits of God in the OT are not completely accurate. But doesn’t this place us flawed…

Podcast: How Do We Respond to Sexual Violence?

Greg discusses a Christ-like response to sexual abuse. Do we “turn the other cheek” in the face of sexual abuse? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0077.mp3

Tags: