Intro: I really enjoyed writing this paper. For a while I dreaded it because I had so many ideas floating around in my head, I didn't think I'd manage organizing it all into a nice and neat paper. While that did prove difficult, it was interesting to see how my paper changed beneath my fingertips from what I had planned on writing to what actually came out of my printer. I learned a lot from writing it, and hope that it came out intelligibly enough.
Last week, I was infected with what Dr. Killeen called a “common cold,” but I could swear I had the black plague itself. My throat was tight and constantly burning as if I swallowed flaming razor sharp toothpicks. I could not breathe to save my life. My muscles were so soar that each cough that shook my body caused me more pan than I felt I could ever have deserved. My roommate came into my room every now and then to check on me. And each time, there she found me, curled up in bed, waiting for death to take me. I wondered what I could have done to have brought such a truly terrible illness upon myself. But lying there, I started thinking of my oldest sister, who has had two cancer scares in her lifetime, and she is only 25 years old. I thought of my grandmother whose death to throat cancer took her from me before I was even old enough to remember what she looked like. I thought of my childhood friend, T.J. whose mother died when he was in the fifth grade. He would live the majority of his life motherless. Then my depression turned from myself to all those individuals who are closest to me. This mere cold was nothing compared to what they had endured. Comparatively, it would seem God has blessed me with a much more fortunate and easy-going life. But my thoughts were not doing me any good. There are others, far more important than me, who could use faithful prayer. As I lay there, contemplating darkness, sickness, and death, I felt a certain bitterness slowly grow within me. It is not fair – none of it. Why should anyone experience pain at all in life? I picked up my Bible lying on the floor beside my bed. I figured it was about time I got to work on my Foundations of Biblical Literature paper, or to at least write another blog entry or two. I was trying to find connections between Singer’s The Slave and the Bible; but the more research I did the more God’s wrath slapped me across the face. Growing up in Sunday school, I had heard all the staple Bible stories: the fall of man, the Great Flood, the ten Plagues. But something we as Christians often tend to do is look past the wrathful God evident in these stories to create a more beautiful and loving God. In this way, we can sleep better at night. But, as my head throbbed achingly from constant coughing attacks, I decided finally that I could no longer ignore God’s terrifying wrath. There must be a good reason, justification for the sin that infects the world and for God’s terrible reaction to it.
I figured that the best place to start is at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. With Adam and Eve, we had everything. God gave mankind all he could have possibly wanted and needed to be happy. The Garden was so perfect that not even the slightest knowledge of evil entered there. God laid all his cards on the table, keeping nothing from us. Speaking to his first son and daughter of creation, he told them the rules of his kingdom, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:16-17) It was as simple as that. God’s one rule. But when Eve and Adam partook of the forbidden fruit, they took God’s rules, his mercy, his grace, and threw it all back in his face. He was honest and open with us and we took it for granted. We messed up. Just as in a parent/child relationship, when the parent is disobeyed, he or she has the full right to punish that child. It is not because of a malicious heart that punishment ensues, but because of a heart brimming of love. Punishment is meant to teach the child that what they did was wrong, so that they may turn from their wrong ways. However, at the time, the child – in his immaturity and ignorance – may not completely understand the parents’ good intensions. And so it is with God. He gave us the rules and we rebelled so he is punishing us with death. He is perfectly justified to do so because mankind ate of the fruit knowing full well what consequence it would bring upon the world. But what I find most beautiful about this story is that it does not end with death. Despite mankind’s betrayal, God still loves his creation and has offered life to compensate for death. “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” (Gen 3:22) In a simplified sense, God turns a big, fat frown upside-down for our sake and nothing else. In this instance, I find God wholly justified. His actions are clear and sensible. But that line of justification begins to blur as we get further into the Old Testament.
We first see God’s wrath when he floods the world, killing nearly every soul upon it. When I heard this story I wondered how every single living being could have possibly been so corrupt that death by universal drowning was necessary. But, and may you forgive me for saying so, even if they were righteous, because of the forbidden fruit incident in the Garden of Eden, death is deserved nevertheless. No matter how it might be served, it will be fulfilled. Luckily, God is a merciful God giving us second chances to make up for our mistakes. And that is exactly what he does now. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually […] ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created’ […] But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.” (Gen 6:5-8) Noah, the most deserving of God’s grace, is given life before it could be taken away. And thus, the whole of humanity was given life. That is the misconception, with this great act God gave us back life; he did not take it away. It is the same with Sodom and Gomorrah as well. The Lord promised, “for the sake of ten [he] will not destroy it” (Gen 18:32). But not even one was worthy of life any longer. Yet, even now, as I write out the words, I feel as if I must be some heartless, blood-thirsty psycho to justify the death of hundreds of thousands of people. And three months ago I am sure I would have condemned myself as such, but as I have studied the Old Testament more thoroughly I am finding the exact opposite. Despite how it may seem, God is just.
Even ordering the ten plagues against Pharaoh and his Egyptians, God was acting within his just freedom. Though, it does seem shamelessly malicious to order Moses to plead with Pharaoh but then to “harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go” (Ex 4:21). I had a harder time finding an excuse for this behavior. But the editors of The Harper Collins Study Bible explain that “the hardening prolongs the plagues and ensures that Egypt will suffer the punishment it deserves and witness the Lord’s power” (footnote Ex 4:21). I had forgotten that Egypt had deserved punishment, enslaving the Israelites and throwing every newborn Hebrew son into the Nile. And further more, God wished the world to know his power. Well, he can check that one off the list; here we are, thousands of years later discussing in a Biblical Literature class God’s awesome power. It is not unlike the bombing of Hiroshima, after which President Truman announced, “If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth” (“Rain of Ruin”). And again in Leviticus 26 God explains what it is he asks of his people, just as he did for Adam and Eve. He demands their obedience and in return will reward them accordingly. He also warns that if they are to rebel against him, breaking his covenant, then he shall punish them until they repent. It is not that he wishes to watch his creation suffer, but because he has given us free will it is not in his way to work against that. He is simply a father attempting to hold his children safely in his arms once more.
Upon reading The Slave, I found the idea of Jacob’s slavery to his religion intriguing. The anonymous ferryman who Jacob encounters later on in the novel advises that one should never “get attached to anything. You own a cow or a horse and you’re its slave.” (The Slave 259) But then Jacob replies that man cannot be entirely free” (The Slave 260). I paused shortly after reading this statement. No man is ever completely free. We always want something, and whatever it is that we most desire we become a sort of slave to. With this in mind, it would seem to me that the only desire to have that could possibly give you freedom is desire for God. In Romans, Paul explains that before receiving Christ, we were all slaves to sin. But “having been set free from sin, [we] have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). With mankind’s history, the term “slave” does not carry a very honorable or pleasant connotation. However, being the perceptive man that Paul is, he further explains:
I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.God is incomprehensible. No matter
For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater
and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness
for sanctification. (Romans 6:19)
how much we try, mankind will never completely know him as long as we are in this life. Our human standards form a vast wall between us and the Father of creation.
For instance, in the book of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu, Job’s “friends,” arrive to counsel him in his difficult times. All four adopt the theory of retributive justice or, as many like to call it, karma. It is the idea that if one is righteous and blameless he will receive a reword accordingly. But if one receives punishment and heartache, it must be because his life is evidence of deserving such a consequence. Unfortunately, these men have let their insignificant human standards block the way for God to speak truth in their hearts. Despite everything, Job is able to see the wrong beneath their words “having heard of [God] by the hearing of the ear” and now seeing with eyes unclouded (Job 42:5). Life is constantly filled with such misinterpretations. What seems to be injustice or slavery or even karma is in reality a gift given by grace.
In Matthew 20:1-17 Jesus tells a parable of laborers in a vineyard. The story goes that a landowner agrees to pay his workers their usual daily wage, with which they are satisfied. But when he pays men who worked far less laboriously an equal amount as those who worked hard all day, there is an uproar. Many think it unfair for both sets of workers to receive the same wages. But the landowner defends himself, questioning the workers, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Mt 20:15) Just as with this worker, salvation is God’s gift to mankind. We do not deserve it by any means, but it has been an agreement between us and the divine Creator that in return for repentance of our sins he will grant us eternal life in heaven. So what right do we have to complain if others are blessed with seemingly better circumstances? We all receive our own blessings and curses in turn. But it is simply easier for us to judge our lives in comparison to others’. In doing so, over time we have adopted this sense of entitlement, as though we are worthy of God’s love at all. But what we must remember is that a gift is “something given voluntarily, bestowed or acquired without its being earned” (dictionary.com). Not one man that has ever lived, nor does live, nor ever will deserves God’s gift of salvation. Time and time again we turn away from God, but he is always there to lead us back to the light of his righteousness.
There is a verse in Romans chapter four which states, “against all hope, in hope believe.” It is God’s faithfulness that gives me hope enough to keep trekking on in life. Elihu himself admits that God “does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). But just as believers avoid the fact of God’s wrath, so do many nonbelievers focus on that very subject. If I am going to call myself a follower of God, I must be open to every part of him, especially his anger. It has been difficult, but facing this controversial topic throughout this semester has helped me tremendously. I can now see and identify with others’ point of views in a light I never before wished to attempt. I even have a better understanding of my own personal view. Previously, when I had ignored one of the grand themes of the Old Testament – God’s rage- I lacked a vital part of my faith: understanding. But now, having tackled a topic that is even still difficult for me to accept, I have gained strength in the knowledge that it is okay to question ones beliefs. In fact it is healthy to do so, because it is a good sign that knowledge is still being sought. And as long as I am yearning to know more, I am confident that I will never succumb to the pressures of the world to be anything different than I really am.
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