“For my thoughts are not your throughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher thand your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 8, 9.
Many unbelievers object to the above assertion by the God of the Bible. The arguments are varied but the main ones I have heard go like this: “If God’s way are not our ways, how can we be made in His image?” “If God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, how can we know what the Bible says is true–if His ways and thoughts are so much higher, we couldn’t write them down now could we.”
The mistake most humans have made throughout history is to bring God down to our level of thinking instead of elevating our way of thinking to His. Said another way, we attempt to make God dual in nature like us with evil motives and vengeful thoughts, but He’s saying in our passage above that His thoughts don’t match ours because He won’t do evil
I don’t claim to understand every mystery of the Bible, but I’m willing to study it until I find it out. So what I say next may sound like a complete about face from what I wrote in my last entry. This will take me a couple of entries to explain what I’m learning (I hope I’m learning it correctly) from my study, so bear with me.
Here’s the premise of the above passage: God’s methods are not earthbound methods or self-centered human thought processes, but for the good of all creation. This statement is not God claiming we cannot grasp His truths or understand His message rather He’s telling us we need a change of heart and mind to do so. Look at the rest of this chapter in Isaiah and what comes through constantly is a call to turn around, turn away from evil and do good, and gain His perspective.
So it’s possible to get a handle on the mind of the God of the Bible according to His own words.
What Is, Is What It Is
As I’ve said before, no one can prove which God or gods rule the creation as we know it. It might be as the ancient Greeks believed, the Hindus, the Romans, Jews, Islam or Christian. It might be that we have no clear picture available to us and everyone is just guessing. In fact it could be that no one has come close to an accurate picture of the true God in any religion. What might be true is that snippets and snapshots of whoever rules are found in every one of them and none of them carry the complete picture. Which would mean the truths are buried beneath human tradition and doctrine so far we wouldn’t know it without help.
Whoever this Boss is, who they are is who they are and we can’t change the truth of the “who” to suit us. If God is a kindly, benevolent and loving God with no intention of harming His/Her/Its creation in any way–even to punish, then that’s what we get. If He/She is vengeful, then that’s what we get.
This issue is sort of like trying to genetically choose who your parents are going to be once you’re already born and grown to adulthood. Since we can’t go back in time and make the necessary adjustments like Zaphod Beeblebrox (refer to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), we kind of get who we get. The god who rules holds the universe in a grip unlike anything we’ve known, for whatever this god decides to do, we can’t stop it. If this god wishes to destroy, then recreate, we can’t do anything but say “no” and let it happen. A being powerful enough to create all that is cannot be fought effectively.
I know people who have told me that if God is going to fry people in hell forever, they would rather join those in hell than serve such a God. I’ve listened as comedians and preachers alike have poopooed any such notion about God being a punisher and being fair, loving and just at the same time. I’ve heard the arguments for and against hellfire, and though I prefer the hell which lasts until things are burned up, the fact is the God I serve might be one who thinks the rebellious deserve to burn in hell forever without end.
My preference wasn’t consulted at creation nor will it be at the last Day. God is in charge and whatever He dictates is what will happen. Fight it however we want, protest it by denying Him or ignoring Him neither one will matter because we are stuck with His decision.
Yet we have some hope.
God can be negotiated with on destruction because He claims it’s a foreign act to Him (see Isaiah 28: 21). The belief in an eternal burning hell is more of a Pharisee teaching than an actual one the OT clearly spells out. For one thing we have no records of God torching anyone and forcing His people to watch them burn nor do they burn forever but are consumedn in an instant (see 2 Kings 1). Much of this doctrine came from the Middle Ages, what we call the “Dark Ages” of history, where people were burned at the stake for searching the woods for natural medicines and studying the stars to learn new things. I’d say that we can rethink this whole concept and be guiltless of blasphemy or heresy. There’s no clear instructions about anything in Scripture when it comes to Judgment Day except that God will have the last word.
Despite how much has been said about this subject by popular preachers and the like, the truth is we only have the headlines not the details and most eschatologists are guessing when they conclude what things mean. Sure their “guesses” are more educated than mine, but we must remember they bring to their study whatever bias they possess. If they were taught a certain way by a respected teacher or preacher, they will hold to that view even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I have too, so I’m pointing out the possibility of the traditonal view of punishment for the sake of making another point: No matter what we want our God to be, He could be different and we are reading it wrong.
Just because tradition taught the world was flat doesn’t mean it is. Just because the the religious elite thought that the Bible indicated the world was the center of the universe, doesn’t mean it is, for now we know the earth is a sphere and orbits around another sphere, and that we are one of the outlying solar systems on the outreach of the Milky Way Galaxy. Instead of shaking our faith in God’s interest in us, this just showed us how personal He is. For God to be interested in a bunch of rebellious beings on the outskirts of His universe, on a small insignificant planet spinning around a small sun, just tells those of us who think of these things that He’s all the greater for doing so.
My conclusion? God will be whatever He is and we will have to accept or reject it. I will say one last thing though.
Whatever or whoever God is or isn’t, to rebel against Him just because we don’t like some of His policies and methods is plain foolish. It’s like fighting a king who is for the most part benevolent and good to his people but harsh to those who cause pain to His nation. If this king is as powerful as God, rebellion won’t accomplish anything anyway so why bother? The wisest course is to affect the way He thinks about the subject by persuasion and dialogue–if that can be accomplished at all.
Am I copping because of this view? Not to my way of thinking. I believe what I believe because realize I could be dead wrong; I have been before and could be again. The good news is that no one is sent to hell for believing anything about it at all. Salvation is based on acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross not my opinion of the Judgment.
Tags: forgiveness, God, grace, hell, Jesus, judgement, mercy, salvation, who God is
