The Suffering of Job and Divine Justice - Part 2

Read Part 1: The Suffering of Job and Divine Justice

People reading the book of Job today will encounter a strange and disturbing view of God, a view that reflects a theology which affirms that God was the source of both good and evil. This theology is behind the words of Job’s four friends who came to sympathize with Job in his time of distress. The dialogue of the four friends with Job was aimed at comforting him, but in the end they concluded that Job was suffering because he had sinned against God.

The friends’ inability to understand the real cause of Job’s suffering prompted them to accuse Job of being like the wicked: he was reaping the consequences of his wickedness. Their words of accusation were based on their experience and knowledge of God. However, they accused Job because they were unaware of what was transpiring in the council of God. In their attempt at defending God, Job’s friends overstated their case by putting the blame on Job.

In their dialogue, Job’s friends presented a lofty and unyielding view of God, a view that makes God appear to be removed from the arena of human experience. According to Job’s friends’ theology, God was so removed from humans that unless a mediator served as a go between God and humans, that separation would leave human beings hopeless when confronted with unyielding justice.

The theology of Job’s friends was not all wrong, but neither was their theology right enough to explain Job’s suffering. Notwithstanding their words of wisdom, Job’s suffering continued. Thus, in the end, human wisdom could not bring the healing or the answers Job was so desperately seeking.

At the end of the dialogue between Job and his friends, God revealed himself to Job. Awed by the divine presence, Job forgot all the bitterness and complaints of his soul. The presence of God required Job’s attention. Finally, Job’s request to present his case directly to God was granted. As Job had already expressed, he knew that he could not contend with the awesome majesty of Almighty God.

Speaking to Job out of a whirlwind (Job 38:1), the Lord answered none of Job’s questions, neither did God explain the reasons he had to endure such torment. No mention was made in God’s response to Job of the events in the heavenly court as narrated in the prologue of the story. God had a more powerful way to demonstrate his justice.

The Almighty God revealed himself to Job. How simple that encounter seemed to be, and yet, how profound were the implications of that revelation. In a moment, Job’s attitude changed. His life was flooded with purpose, with hope, and with the expectation of healing. God healed Job by bringing him out of his anxiety into acceptance of his situation, an acceptance that brought peace to Job’s life.

God’s purpose was not only to heal Job, but also to instruct him. God asked Job several rhetorical questions which were beyond human capability of answering.

God wanted Job to catch a glimpse of his work in creation so that Job could realize that his suffering was insignificant when placed next to God’s work in the world. At the end of God’s questioning, Job recognized the vast gulf between God’s wisdom and power and his own ignorance of the many mysteries of life. The greatest lesson Job learned was that God was sovereign over his creation and that divine sovereignty governs all reality, including Job’s own life.

At the end of God’s encounter with Job, Job humbly repented of his presumption, that he could contend with God. He also repented of his pride in seeing only himself while failing to recognize that God’s purpose for his life was much more than he could understand. He bowed in recognition of his insignificance before his sovereign Lord.

Job confessed his unwavering faith in God’s sovereignty and his total submission to that sovereignty. Job admitted that he was unable to understand the marvelous work of God, and asked God to grant him wisdom and understanding. Job’s repentance signals the end of his intense suffering and the restoration of God’s blessings on his life.

The issue that vexes people with such an intensity, the problem of evil, is presented in the book of Job in the form of the suffering of a good and righteous man. His friends tried to console him, but they failed. Their words were not totally wrong. To the contrary, what they said made sense, but not in the case of Job. So, at the end, God himself told them they were wrong in their accusation of Job.

However, at the end of the book, the reader is still perplexed. Why did a good God allow Job’s suffering to happen? This question presupposes one very important assumption: whoever asks this question believes in a God of justice. Atheists cannot ask this question. Since they do not believe there is a God, they cannot say God allows this kind of evil to happen.

The problem of the suffering of the innocent is a problem for believers, because they believe in a caring and loving God, a God who is in control of his creation. Those who do not believe in the providence of God, find reasons for human misery by denying or diminishing the God of the Bible.

Many people explain the problem of human suffering by denying the existence of God, by limiting the power and the sovereignty of God, or by affirming that God is not good. Many people are like Job’s friends. When people are confronted with the limitations of humanity to understand or explain natural disasters, such as Katrina, Haiti, and Chile, disasters that take hundreds and thousands of human lives, they blame God for these disasters.

When people are challenged by the helplessness of one individual such as Job, a man who suffered and agonized for days and months with an incurable disease, they lose their faith in God and blame the deity for allowing violence, disease, and disasters to occur in the world.

But it is precisely because we know that the Lord is good that we insist that this goodness be shown in the world. It is because we know that the Lord is a righteous judge that we demand that justice be adjudicated in the world. But when we look at the world in which we live, we recognize that goodness and evil are not rewarded evenly. The wicked prosper and the righteous suffer. This was the problem Jeremiah had with God: Jeremiah said: “LORD, you have always been fair whenever I have complained to you. However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. Why are wicked people successful? Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?” (Jeremiah 12:1 NET).

In light of such a disparity, how can we continue to believe that God is good? The presence of evil and suffering in the world is evidence to many people that either God is not good or that God is impotent to deal with the problems of the world. But the Bible provides ways of reconciling the problem of suffering with the goodness of God.

The Bible affirms that the God of the Bible is a God of justice: “For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him” (Isaiah 30:18). Isaiah says that God’s justice will be revealed, but that the believer must wait for it. However, human beings do not have the patience to wait for divine justice to be manifested, either in the near future or at the end of time. People desire to see divine justice manifested while they are alive. Few are willing to wait for divine justice to be done in the life to come. People want justice done in the land of the living.

Human questioning and reasoning about divine justice are important for humans. Job questioned divine justice until he was confronted with the presence of the sovereign and omnipotent God. Job understood the reason for his sufferings no better after his restoration than he understood it when he sat upon the heap of ashes.

Job found wisdom and understanding when he encountered God. The book of Job demonstrates that wisdom is not found in seeking answers to life problems, but in experiencing God. God’s justice lies not in what a person perceives as fair, but in God’s willingness to justify that person. Perhaps God’s justification of Job was the deepest significance and meaning Job found for his suffering. God provides for each person a Justifier and an Advocate, the one whom Job earnestly desired.

To Job, his witness was in heaven: “my advocate is on high” (Job 16:19). Job’s words indicate that he saw God as his vindicator. But it is clear that Job saw no vindication in this life. Job believed he was going to die but he knew that he would be vindicated: “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26).

To Christians, Jesus Christ is the answer to all Job's questions and to ours. Jesus is the culmination of all that Job wanted God to do for him: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Only through Jesus can human beings be justified, and only in justification will human beings learn the true meaning of divine sovereignty and divine justice.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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Tags: Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, Book of Job, Divine Justice, Job, Satan, Suffering

The Suffering of Job and Divine Justice - Part 1

The book of Job has fascinated readers over the years because the book deals with the problem of suffering, a problem that sooner or later will touch every human being. The plight of Job has a universal appeal because it raises the question of how a just God can allow a good man to suffer so intensively.

The message of the book is focused on the issue of God’s justice: why must a good and devout man suffer undeservedly? However, although the book of Job is a study of the suffering of the righteous, the book also deals with the character of God, primarily in God’s dealings with Job. Three aspects of God’s character are dealt with in the book.

The first is the justice of God, which is the focus of Job’s argument. The second is the sovereignty of God, which is demonstrated in God’s dealings with the adversary. The third is God’s treatment of Job, an issue that is raised by those who read the book.

At the conclusion of the book, although these issues were not fully addressed and remain partially unsolved, the sovereignty of God was affirmed and divine justice was upheld and it was recognized by Job. The conclusion of the book of Job shows that, although the reader and even Job himself cannot fully comprehend what happened and why it happened, God holds and controls the events in absolute sovereignty, wisdom, and justice.

The story of Job’s suffering begins with a brief introduction of the man Job, who is presented as a righteous and devout man, one who fears God. According to the introduction of the book, Job was “a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1 HCSB). In addition to being an upright man, Job was also very rich and “greatest man among all the people of the east” (Job 1:3).

According to the text, Job was blessed with a large family of seven sons and three daughters (Job 1:2). The writer of Job stresses these moral and religious aspects of Job’s life in order to demonstrate his righteousness. Job’s wealth was evidence that he was blessed by God. Job’s righteousness was constant, essential, and stable. Job’s wealth was temporary, accidental, and not essential to his righteousness. What the writer of the book was trying to demonstrate was that without his righteousness Job was nothing; without his wealth Job remained everything.

The word tam in Job 1:1, translated “perfect integrity” (“blameless” in other translations) comes from a Hebrew word taman, a word that suggests completeness. The reason the writer used this word was to introduce a person who had integrity and who tried to please God. Thus, Job was not the kind of person that Satan, and after him Job’s three friends, insinuated Job was: one kind of man on the surface and another man in his real self. Although Job was not a sinless man, Job was a righteous man whose integrity of character showed itself in his relationship with God and in his dealings with people with whom Job came in contact.

It was important for the writer of the book to establish the upright character of Job, for had Job not been righteous and blameless, there would be no meaning to the book because Job’s suffering could have been understood by the reader as God’s judgement on Job’s iniquity. But Job was a righteous man, and the fact that Job was blameless and righteous gives rise to the puzzle of the book of Job. Since Job’s suffering was not the judgement of a righteous God on a wicked man, what then was the purpose of Job’s suffering?

In the prologue of the book, the author introduced his readers to a part of the big picture of the story which Job and his friends never saw. The story of Job begins when the sons of God appear in heaven to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came and joined the assembly of the sons of God. In the ensuing conversation between God and Satan, the Biblical writer emphasizes the subordination of Satan to God.

The text shows that the adversary was subject to God and could not act without the approval and permission of the Lord. The text also shows that it was Satan and not God who caused the disasters to Job’s life that caused his suffering. As a member of the divine assembly, Satan was the accuser of human beings before God, and it was in that role that he came to report human failures to God. To Satan’s accusations of the failure of human beings, Yahweh addressed the adversary with a pointed question: “Have you considered my servant Job?” (Job 1:8).

God’s question was important to the development of the story because it was God who drew Satan’s attention to Job’s character. So confident was God of Job’s perfect integrity that God challenged the accuser to find any flaw in Job’s blameless character. Satan knew that Job was a righteous man but contended that Job was a mercenary behind his upright behavior. Satan said: “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land” (Job 1:9-10).

Satan insisted that Job would not be so stupid as to do anything that would compromise a relationship that worked so well in his favor. The adversary believed that if Yahweh would change his treatment of Job that Job would certainly reverse his conduct toward Yahweh, that is, when piety would no longer pay, Job would become defiantly profane and would deny and even blaspheme God.

The adversary then proposed a challenge to God: “But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 1:11). This proposition of Satan was a challenge which God confidently accepted. Yahweh knew the heart of Job and demonstrated his faith in his servant by staking his honor on the way Job would respond to the loss of his children and all his possessions. The development of the story affirmed God’s confidence in Job. Job’s integrity held strong and God’s honor was upheld by Job’s righteous words: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1: 21b).

After Satan’s first attempt at forcing Job to deny God, the author returns to the scene in heaven. Satan and the sons of God came again to present themselves before the Lord. Although no time is given, it is possible that one year had passed. As the accuser again prepares to list the failures of human beings, the Lord asked Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job?” (Job 2:3).
God again expressed his confidence in Job: “He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason” (Job 2:3).

Satan, however, was not convinced. He wanted nothing less than to impute God’s honor by demonstrating that Job served God only out of selfish motives. So the accuser proposed another challenge to Job’s integrity: “Skin for skin! All that Job has he will give to save his life. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 2:4-5, slightly paraphrased). Once again the Lord agreed to Satan’s evil request. Satan immediately proceeded to inflict Job with inflamed loathsome sores all over his body, which eventually become breeding places for worms (Job 7:5), gnawing pains (Job 30:17), blackened, scaly skin (Job 30:30), intense pain, and feelings of terror that lasted many excruciating days.

As the story progresses, the writer begins to describe the different aspects of Job’s response to the sufferings and the terror he faced. Initially, Job remained steadfast in accepting his suffering: “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” (Job 2:l0). As time passed, however, two issues became the focus of his dialogue with his friends: his misery and his view of God’s justice. All that Job said in chapters 3 to 31 of the book are the result of his pain and suffering and his bewildered spirit.

At first Job desired the escape of death, even wishing that he had never lived. The life he once lived was now reduced to months of futility and nights of suffering (Job 7:3). He failed to understand the reason God considered him so important that he would not let up on his desperate situation. Job began to believe in the hopelessness of his situation. He also began to believe that he could not contend with the Almighty, although he desired to defend himself by presenting his case before the Lord. Job declared: “If it is a matter of strength, he is the strong one! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?” (Job 9:19).

As his suffering increased and his requests for an audience with God remained unanswered, Job became more and more convinced that God was against him, that God had become his enemy: “My enemy sharpens his eyes against me” (Job 19:11). In the midst of his doubts and suffering, Job clung to his integrity. In his misery Job’s consolation was that he had “not denied the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10). Confident of his innocence, Job declared: “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face” (Job 13:15).

Read: The Suffering of Job and Divine Justice - Part 2.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

If you enjoyed reading this post, subscribe to my posts here.

Tags: Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, Book of Job, Divine Justice, Job, Satan, Suffering

A God Who Suffers - Part 2

To read Part 1 of this post click here.

All these references (the ones mentioned at the end of Part 1) which indicate that God enters into the sufferings of his people are affirmed by the statement of a prophet who spoke out of the experience of exile: “In all their distress he too was distressed. . . . In his love and mercy he redeemed them” (Isaiah 63:9 NIV). An implication of the prophetic words is that Yahweh can and does participate in the suffering of the world, not only as one who causes it, but also as one who is affected by it.

The suffering of God in the Old Testament finds its finest expression in Hosea’s description of God’s heartbroken fatherly anguish over his prodigal child, Israel: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused” (Hosea 11:8 NIV).

The suffering of God is also expressed in the compassionate longing of a husband who desires reconciliation with his unfaithful wife.

Yahweh feels abandoned by Israel like a husband who is abandoned by his wife. The text reveals God as the one who was injured and offended by his unfaithful wife: “The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites’” (Hosea 3:1 NIV).

It is this picture of a suffering God who is intimately bound to his people which is the central focus of the Old Testament. This view of a God who suffers with, for, and because of his people is expressed throughout the Old Testament, especially in the messages of Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah.

The idea of a suffering God is especially true in the life and ministry of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s personal pain and his compassion for the people find their source in the love of God for Israel. Jeremiah experienced God's pain because of the rebellion of Israel and he tried to convey that reality to the people through his own grief and pain.

The God of the Old Testament is not absent from the world and is not detached from human affairs. God is intimately involved in the world and he chooses to enter into human history. God wills to be with humanity in bad as well as good times: “The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey’” (Exodus 3:7-8 NIV).

As a result of his involvement with his creation, God participates in the misery of humanity. His pain for the world is never the sympathetic view of the uninvolved onlooker, but it is the genuine pain of one who is directly affected by the suffering of those who suffer and who takes upon himself the burden of the people. As Fretheim wrote (p. 39): “God is affected in many ways by what happens on earth.”

The opening speech in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:2-9) deals not with the anger of God, but with the sorrow of God; it deals with the plight of a father who has been abandoned by his children. Isaiah 5:1-7 provides an additional example of the pain of God because of the rebellion of Israel. The “Song of the Vineyard,” reveals the wonderment of God whose care for the vineyard has been of no avail: “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” (Isaiah 5:4). Here, God himself says that he is at a loss trying to explain the rebellion of his people. God’s sorrow rather than the people's tragedy is the theme of this song. God's grief and disappointment are revealed in his being hurt at the thought of having to abandon his vineyard in which he had labored and placed so much hope for good things.

Thus, divine suffering is seen throughout the writings of the prophets and in many other passages of the Old Testament. God’s suffering is seen in his disappointment with Israel:

“What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?” (Jeremiah 2:5 RSV).

“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?” (Hosea 6:4 RSV).

“My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me” (Micah 6:3 NIV).

“Why do these people keep going along their self-destructive path, refusing to turn back, even though I have warned them?” (Jeremiah 8:5).

In trying to explain God’s questions, Fretheim wrote (p. 56): “These questions seem to imply a genuine loss on God’s part as to what might explain the faithlessness of the people.” God’s disappointment with his people gives occasion to these divine laments and expresses his pain at the rebellion of Israel.

God suffers because of his love for Israel. He experiences pain because of their unfaithfulness. God’s suffering teaches us an important lesson about God. Because God loves his people and desires their well-being, God identifies himself with their suffering. This identification of God with his people makes God vulnerable to being hurt, but it is this divine suffering that will motivate Israel to repent and turn to God.

To be continued.

Reference:

Fretheim, Terence. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

A God Who Suffers - Part 1

In my previous post on the suffering of God, I wrote that the God of the Old Testament is a God who chooses to identify himself with his people in their suffering. The view that God chooses to identify with Israel and enter their history raises an important question: does God suffer with his people? According to the Old Testament perspective, God cannot do otherwise. Yahweh is related to Israel through the covenant established at Sinai. Therefore, he is directly involved with Israel in their misfortunes and their failures.

In his book, What Are They Saying About the Theology of Suffering (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), Lucien Richard summarizes what biblical scholars and theologians have written on the biblical view of suffering. In his summary of Walter Brueggemann’s view on the theology of the pain of God, Lucien wrote: “From within the covenantal relationship with God, Israel senses that its God is not only an enforcer and a legitimator of existing structures, but is also one who embraces Israel’s pain” (p. 16).

By embracing the pain of his people, God’s own self is transformed. God takes on the pain of Israel in his own person because of his compassion for them. E. S. Gerstenberger wrote: “In the Old Testament . . . suffering can be regarded as a means of expiation. A deity has been injured through human misconduct. He becomes angry, strikes back, and brings disaster upon the culprit and his community. But because the deity in principle stands in a friendly, and even familiar, relationship to the sufferer, the suffering will soften the wrath of God. God cannot bear to see his own people in misery; his justifiable indignation is transformed into compassion” (p. 107).

The God of the Old Testament saves and blesses Israel because of this covenantal relationship that is guaranteed by God’s hesed, his faithful love for Israel. Because of this special relationship established with the nation, God is united with his people and participates in their life and their misery. This special relationship is affirmed in the Old Testament in the emotional language of human suffering. As a partner in this relationship, God assumes the function of not only Israel’s God, but also her closest friend, a friend who takes upon himself part of the burden of his suffering friends (cf. John 15:13).

The Old Testament writers describe God’s response to Israel’s sins and rebellions in words that already express within themselves an element of divine suffering. One example is the rebellion of Israel at the occasion of the building of the golden calf in Exodus 32. At Sinai, Israel rebelled against God by being unfaithful to God and by violating the demands of the covenant which required exclusive allegiance to him.

God’s response to Israel’s apostasy was one of indignation. God told Moses: “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation” (Exodus 32:10). Israel had entered into a relationship with Yahweh and now that relationship had been broken. God was affected by Israel’s disloyalty. God’s words to Moses, “Let me alone,” represents God’s desire to suffer grief in isolation.

This language of divine suffering is designed to describe a faith which views God in terms of historical involvement and relatedness with his people. To Israel, God was not an impersonal being nor was he a God that was above and beyond the world. To the contrary, he was a God who was with them (Isaiah 7:14), the Holy One who lived among the people (Hosea 11:9). “For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7). This is the reason Israel ascribed personal characteristics to God, such as love, anger, anguish, patience, jealousy, and joy.

In addition, many other characteristics attributed to God reflect the fact that when God responds to human sin and rebellion, his response also contains the element of divine suffering. When God deals with humanity, God expresses a variety of reactions:

God is jealous: “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14 NIV).

When God punishes, punishment is sometimes done out of a sense of injured honor: “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal” (Ezekiel 5:13 NIV).

God becomes angry and enraged: “How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire?” ( Psalm 79:5 NIV).

God is grieved by human sins: “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Genesis 6:6 NIV).

God changes his mind: “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (Exodus 32:14 NRSV).

God is affected by the suffering of his people: “Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them” (Judges 2:18 RSV).

God cries out like a person in pain: “The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:13-14 NRSV).

Gerstenberger wrote: “All such affirmations in the Old Testament are deeply rooted in the emotional language of human suffering. ‘Pity’ (e.g., Hos. 2:23) is a new turning toward a beloved person that is rooted in keen anxiety; ‘regret’ (e.g., Gen. 6:6) is the painful concession to have failed in one’s plan. Thus for the Israelite God’s suffering is, strange as it may sound, precisely like human suffering, a bitter experience that injures body and spirit . . . God’s suffering results from the coinciding of human and divine action . . . His pain is the consequence of human misconduct” (p. 100).

To be continued in Part 2

References:

Gerstenberger, E. S. and W. Schrage, Suffering. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977.

Richard, Lucien. What Are They Saying About the Theology of Suffering. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

The Suffering of God

Few people today truly know the God of the Old Testament. Most Christians focus their study of Scriptures almost exclusively on the New Testament. For many, the God of the Old Testament is a violent God, a God of wrath, and an evil deity. Consequently, the view of a God who suffers with and because of his people is foreign to many Christians.

One book that has changed the way I perceive the God of the Old Testament is Terence Fretheim’s book, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). Fretheim’s book shows how much Christians have been influenced by Greek philosophy, a philosophy that led the leaders of the early church to adopt the doctrine of the impassibility of God.

The doctrine of the impassibility of God teaches that the God of the Bible is a perfect being and as such he cannot suffer. Since God is a perfect being, he cannot be affected by outside events and thus cannot suffer, for suffering is a sign of imperfection. Today I begin a series of studies that will summarize some of the issues Fretheim raises in his book. Those who have read The Suffering of God will notice how much Fretheim’s views have affected my own views.

The God of the Old Testament is a God who chooses to identify himself with his people in their suffering. There are several passages in the Bible that reveal the pain of God for the sins and disobedience of his people.

The God who in the New Testament suffered in the person of Christ is the same God who in the Old Testament suffered because of the sins of his people. Several Old Testament texts give strong evidence that God experiences suffering. The suffering of God is portrayed in his words and actions. God’s suffering for his people is consistent with his nature as a God who chooses to enter into the history of Israel and establish a genuine relationship with his people.

The God of the Old Testament is known primarily by his role as creator and redeemer. In these two roles, God voluntarily limits himself to a gradual process of creation from the chaos of nothingness to the world in which we live. He is also the God who chooses to be patient with people who are arrogant, stubborn, and disobedient.

The stubbornness and rebellion of Israel are summarized in the words of the Levite prayer: “You warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances, by the observance of which a person shall live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey” (Nehemiah 9:29).

It is this voluntary limiting of God that sets the framework for the concept of God’s suffering. Since the God of the Bible reveals himself to his people in human form (Genesis 18:1-2) and communicates directly with human beings, the people of Israel assumed that God had thought and will, and that he was capable of emotions, anger, and love.

Throughout the Old Testament one can see that the moral evil of the world, the rebellion of human beings, and the disobedience of his people provoke God to anger (Deuteronomy 4:25; Judges 2:12) in the same way his love for them also moves him toward costly sacrifice (Joel 2:13; Hosea 11:1-9). The God of the Bible is a God who carries the burden of his people, who knows the failure of his purpose for them, who sorrows over them with a love that prevails over wrath, and who suffers because of their affliction.

The suffering of God in the Old Testament anticipates the pain and the agony of the Suffering Servant of the New Testament: “It is as if there were a cross unseen, standing on its undiscovered hill, far back in the ages, out of which were sounding always, just the same deep voice of suffering love and patience, that was heard by mortal ears from the sacred hill of Calvary” (H. Wheeler Robinson, Suffering: Human and Divine [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939] 145).

These words express the nature of the God believers find in the Old Testament, the very same loving, caring, hurting God who reveals himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Israel believed that God was present with the people in their suffering, that their God was a God who understood what the people were going through. Although Israel believed that God was the cause of their suffering, they also believed that God understood their suffering. Divine understanding for them presupposes suffering with them. The God who revealed himself to Israel could not be the personal God of his people without experiencing suffering. Those who do not experience suffering cannot sympathize with the pain and suffering of others (Hebrews 4:15; 5:8). God is a loving and compassionate God and it pains him to see humanity suffer.

According to Fretheim (p. 35), there are two poles for understanding God in the Old Testament. One is that God is a radically transcendent Lord who stands outside the world without acting in the world. This is what he calls the traditional view of God.

The second is the organismic view, a view in which a greater continuity, that is, a greater intimacy between God and the world is discerned. In the organismic view there is a relationship of reciprocity. In other words, the world is not only affected by God, God is also affected by the world, both positively and negatively. God has chosen to be involved in the history of the world and to be limited by it. Therefore, although God is unchangeable in his steadfast love and his salvific will for all creation, God does change in response to the interaction between himself and his creation.

For Israel to have understood God in any other light would have been incompatible with the revelation of God’s character in their history. The people of Israel could not have understood a God who had complete freedom to act in the realm of history but who refused to do so because of a lack of compassion or desire. After all, they had experienced just the opposite in the Exodus.

The belief in the genuine love of God for Israel necessitated, for them, a God who sympathized with his people, not merely superficially recognizing their condition, but actually participating with them in their sufferings. This is how Israel experienced God in Egypt: Exodus 2:24-25.

For God to have seen the affliction of his people, to have heard their cry, and to have known their suffering (Exodus 3:7) required God taking their sorrows into his very being and allowing those sorrows to arouse feelings of compassion and to affect his being in his interactions with them.

Thus, the suffering of God is basic for the proper understanding of the concept of relatedness or relationship which in the Old Testament derives from the concept of the covenant and the understanding of Israel as the chosen people of God. As Israel understood God, the idea of the suffering of God to some extent limited the concept of God’s power. For the relationship between God and Israel to have integrity required God giving up some of his own power and freedom for the sake of the relationship.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

A Mother and Her Seven Sons

Yesterday I posted a study on the mother of seven sons who became a symbol of the tragedy that came upon Jerusalem. In ancient Israel, being a mother of seven sons was considered to be a great blessing. Thus, being a mother of seven sons became a proverbial expression to describe a woman blessed by God.

There is a story in 2 Maccabees 7:1-40 about a mother and her seven sons who were martyred because of their faith in God and because of their commitment to the religious traditions of Judaism. The story reflects the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV.

The story of the mother and her seven sons is a beautiful story of faithful believers who loved their God. Since many people have never taken the time to read 2 Maccabees, I have decided to reproduce the story here. The text is taken from the New Revised Standard Version. Enjoy the story of the mother and her seven sons.

A Mother and Her Seven Sons (2 Maccabees 7:1-41)

It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. 2 One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, "What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors." 3 The king fell into a rage, and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. 4 These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. 5 When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 6 "The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song that bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, 'And he will have compassion on his servants.'"

7 After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, "Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?" 8 He replied in the language of his ancestors and said to them, "No." Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. 9 And when he was at his last breath, he said, "You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws." 10 After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, 11 and said nobly, "I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again." 12 As a result the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man's spirit, for he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

13 After he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. 14 When he was near death, he said, "One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!" 15 Next they brought forward the fifth and maltreated him. 16 But he looked at the king, and said, "Because you have authority among mortals, though you also are mortal, you do what you please. But do not think that God has forsaken our people. 17 Keep on, and see how his mighty power will torture you and your descendants!"

18 After him they brought forward the sixth. And when he was about to die, he said, "Do not deceive yourself in vain. For we are suffering these things on our own account, because of our sins against our own God. Therefore astounding things have happened. 19 But do not think that you will go unpunished for having tried to fight against God!" 20 The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. 21 She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman's reasoning with a man's courage, and said to them, 22 "I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. 23 Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws."

24 Antiochus felt that he was being treated with contempt, and he was suspicious of her reproachful tone. The youngest brother being still alive, Antiochus not only appealed to him in words, but promised with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable if he would turn from the ways of his ancestors, and that he would take him for his Friend and entrust him with public affairs. 25 Since the young man would not listen to him at all, the king called the mother to him and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. 26 After much urging on his part, she undertook to persuade her son. 27 But, leaning close to him, she spoke in their native language as follows, deriding the cruel tyrant: "My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life, and have taken care of you. 28 I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. And in the same way the human race came into being. 29 Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers."

30 While she was still speaking, the young man said, "What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king's command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses. 31 But you, who have contrived all sorts of evil against the Hebrews, will certainly not escape the hands of God. 32 For we are suffering because of our own sins. 33 And if our living Lord is angry for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants. 34 But you, unholy wretch, you most defiled of all mortals, do not be elated in vain and puffed up by uncertain hopes, when you raise your hand against the children of heaven. 35 You have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God. 36 For our brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of ever-flowing life, under God's covenant; but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance. 37 I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our ancestors, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by trials and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God, 38 and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation."

39 The king fell into a rage, and handled him worse than the others, being exasperated at his scorn. 40 So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord. 41 Last of all, the mother died, after her sons.

This story was very popular among Jews and Christians because the experience of the woman and her seven sons gave meaning to the persecution they suffered because of their faith. The belief in the resurrection from the dead (see 7:9, 11, 14 and also the mother’s words in 7:23) provided the martyrs with the hope that allowed them to remain faithful until the end.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Martyrs, Resurrection, Seven Sons, Suffering

Is God Good?

A few days ago, I was talking to a good friend who is facing a very tough time in life. This friend is facing pain and sorrow, doubts and uncertainty. My friend is one of those individuals who has experienced profound distress because of events that cannot be controlled.

During the conversation, my friend told me: “I am beginning to doubt the existence of God. If God exists, then he is not good.” Only a person who has gone through the valley of deep darkness and experienced extreme suffering could speak these words.

Is God good? The Bible affirms the goodness of God: “No one is good-- except God alone” (Luke 18:19). “God is truly good to Israel, to those whose heart is pure” (Psalm 73:1). The Bible also declares that all that God has made is good: “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

The words of my friend reminded me of an article written by Martin Buber, “The Heart Determines: Psalm 73.” In his article, Buber deals with the perplexing condition faced by the Psalmist and how God deals with the issue of injustice. The question asked by the Psalmist was “Why are these bad things happening to Israel?” The Psalmist’s question led him to the conclusion that God was not good to his people.

Only a person who does not know God intimately can even think that God is not good. Those who know God intimately also know that God is good. In the depth of his heart, the Psalmist knew that God was good to those pure in heart, but in his desperate condition, the Psalmist believed he was not experiencing God’s goodness and concluded that God was not good.

A careful reading of Psalm 73 reveals that the heart determines whether God is good. As Buber wrote: “The state of the heart determines whether a man lives in the truth, in which God’s goodness is experienced, or in the semblance of truth, where the fact that it ‘goes ill’ with him is confused with the illusion that God is not good to him” (p. 110).

The word “heart” appears six times in Psalm 73 (vv. 1, 7, 13, 21, 26 [2x]). Since the heart determines whether God is good, as Buber wrote, the word “heart” becomes the key to understanding the experience of the Psalmist and the answer he offers at the end of his ordeal.

Many issues can bring an individual to the brink of despair. In the case of the Psalmist, it was the prosperity of the wicked. Buber wrote: “Seeing the prosperity of ‘the wicked’ daily and hearing their braggart speech has brought him very near to the abyss of despairing unbelief, of the inability to believe any more in a living God active in life” (p. 111).

The Psalmist expressed his personal struggle as follows:

No doubt about it! God is good—
good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
missed seeing his goodness.
I was looking the other way,
looking up to the people
At the top,
envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
not a care in the whole wide world.
Pretentious with arrogance,
they wear the latest fashions in violence,
Pampered and overfed,
decked out in silk bows of silliness.
They jeer, using words to kill;
they bully their way with words.
They're full of hot air,
loudmouths disturbing the peace.
People actually listen to them—can you believe it?
Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.
What's going on here? Is God out to lunch?
Nobody's tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
they have it made, piling up riches
I've been stupid to play by the rules;
what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that's what—
a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.
If I'd have given in and talked like this,
I would have betrayed your dear children.
Still, when I tried to figure it out,
all I got was a splitting headache...
Until I entered the sanctuary of God.

“Until I entered the sanctuary of God.” The Psalmist learned what many other believers have discovered in their personal struggles: that prayer and worship change the way people look at the problems of life.

The Psalmist’s discovery that God was good came at the end of his struggle. He had gone through a difficult time and he almost fell victim to the doubts that weakened his faith. But he held to his faith and integrity, notwithstanding all the circumstances in his life that served to test his faith in the goodness of God.

In his distressful situation, my friend can only see evil and wrongdoing. My friend experiences pain and suffering and this situation has caused my friend to lose confidence in God as a good God, a God who is wise and just. It is in times like these that people begin to doubt that God is really active and present in one’s life.

People deal with problems in different ways. Believers find answers to their problems as they live in fellowship with God. It is in worship that believers recognize the constant presence of a loving and caring God. But life is not easy; life is tough. At times it is difficult to understand the mysteries of God’s purposes or discern the meanings of his work in human events.

I cannot explain the reasons my friend is experiencing such a difficult time. In the midst of all this perplexity I can only affirm that God is good. My friend should remember that the God who delivered and helped in the past is the same God who wants to help and save in the present.

God is good. This was the reality the Psalmist experienced as he discovered the power of faith in God. It was that faith that helped him transcend his problems so completely that he learned to survive his doubts and overcome all problems in his life.

God is good. In times of doubt and despair the struggling soul must remain confident that God is a caring and compassionate God. Anyone who draws near to God with a pure heart discovers, as the Psalmist did, that God is good.

Reference:

Martin Buber, “The Heart Determines: Psalm 73,” Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. James L. Crenshaw (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983) 109-118.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Evil, Martin Buber, Psalm 73, Suffering

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 3

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina has inflicted the kind of human suffering that is hard to express with words. Katrina produced so much suffering and misery that people feel lost and disconnected. In the midst of the tragedy in New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama, people have asked many times: where was God in all of these events? Why did God allow these things to happen?

A few days ago, I heard a commentator on National Public Radio giving his views on events that followed Katrina. He was in a restaurant when he saw a couple holding hands to give thanks for their meal. In their prayer, the couple gave thanks to God for the food they were about to eat and for the many blessings God had bestowed upon them. Then, the couple prayed for the people suffering in New Orleans. They asked that God would provide them with food, help, and comfort.

The commentator asked himself: “What kind of God is this who blesses this couple but did not bless the people of New Orleans? What kind of God would give food to a middle class couple but would deprive thousands of poor people of food? I don’t want or need this kind of God.”

These were harsh words. How can we understand what happened in New Orleans and yet believe that God is good? For us to understand the tragedy of New Orleans, first, we must understand the nature of the God of the Bible.

The Bible says: “The Lord your God, is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity” (Joel 2:13). This description of God shows him to be a God who has a deep concern for needy people, just as parents are compassionate toward their children.

The goodness of God toward human beings is affirmed throughout the Bible: “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:9). The Bible also teaches that God loves us with a special love, since we are the work of his hands. The mercy of God, as displayed in his work of salvation, is manifested to those who are in distress and to those who are afflicted and in need of help.

Another fact that we must grasp, if we desire to understand the tragedy caused by hurricanes, is the reality of sin. In our days people don’t like to talk about sin; they don’t even want to discuss the possibility that sin is present in the world. But sin exists and every human being is a sinner. Because we are sinners, we also have to acknowledge that we live in a world that has been corrupted by sin.

When God created the world, he saw all that he had made and “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). But sin affected the original creation of God, and earth came to be under a curse. The prophet Isaiah wrote: “Earth is polluted by its very own people, who have broken its laws, disrupted its order, violated the sacred and eternal covenant. Therefore a curse, like a cancer, ravages the earth. Its people pay the price of their sacrilege. They dwindle away, dying out one by one” (Isaiah 24:4-6).

The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina seems to be inconsistent with the fact that God is loving, good, and merciful. God did not create a world in a degraded condition. The reality of sin has caused the corruption of nature and all of us who live in this world groan as a result of the sinfulness of human beings.

Sin has polluted earth and has subjected the whole creation to corruption and degradation. Today evil and misery prevail and we, together with the whole creation, are witnesses of what sin can do to God’s good creation.

The whole creation is in a state of degradation. The apostle Paul speaks of the redemption of creation: “Creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:21-22).

This is why the Bible says that at the second coming of Christ there will be a new heaven and a new earth. On that day of redemption, creation will be delivered from the degradation that affects every living thing in this world. Thus, when Jesus comes, creation will be restored to that ideal condition that existed when God created all things. Creation mourns because our sins have defiled God’s good creation, but God’s grace will bring healing to his creation.

But, how about Hurricane Katrina? Jesus said that before the coming of the last days there would be signs in the skies. He said: “And there will be strange events in the skies–signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And down here on earth the nations will be in turmoil, perplexed by the roaring seas and strange tides. The courage of many people will falter because of the fearful fate they see coming upon the earth, because the stability of the very heavens will be broken up” (Luke 21:25-26).

The roaring seas caused by hurricanes create anguish because people know the devastation a hurricane produces. Jesus said that roaring seas and strange tides are signs of the last days. However, if Hurricane Katrina caused all this agony today, what will happen when the seas and winds roar with much greater force before Christ’s second coming?

Jesus spoke of coming distress here on earth. He said people will faint with fear and trembling when disaster strikes. But when disasters happen, it does not mean that God has lost control over His creation. Some people believe that these natural events demonstrate that God is not in control of his creation. But in natural disasters we learn how devastating is the consequence of evil.

When confronted with the problem of evil and the pain and suffering associated with it, our greatest comfort is to discover that in Christ we meet a God who suffers with us, for us, and because of us. God is not indifferent to the hurt of the people: “I weep for the hurt of my people. I am stunned and silent, mute with grief” (Jeremiah 8:21).

The real answer to tragedies such as Katrina is the cross of Calvary because there our pain and suffering meet divine love. There, as we look at the one who was an innocent sufferer, we hear the words that bring healing to our broken hearts: “I care.” Jesus’ loving care is expressed in the poem written by Frank E. Graeff:

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained,
Too deeply for mirth and song;
As the burdens press and the cares distress,
And the way grows weary and long?

Does Jesus care when my way is dark
With a nameless dread and fear?
As the daylight fades into deep night shades,
Does He care enough to be near?

O yes, He cares; I know He cares,
His heart is touched by my grief;
When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Savior cares.


Other Posts on Hurricane Katrina:

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 1

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 2

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 3

The Looting of New Orleans


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Evil, Flood, Judgment, Hurricane Katrina, Natural Disaster, New Orleans, Pain, Suffering

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 2

The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina has devastated thousands of lives in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Despair and hopelessness are present in the lives of those people most affected by the storm. The effort at helping the victims to deal with the emotional crisis caused by this tragedy shows the compassion of the American people. Most of us will never be fully aware of the hidden tragedies faced by the thousands of people affected by Hurricane Katrina. One question lingers: where was God in this tragedy?

The Bible says that God is good and that he has determined things that will come to pass. The Bible also teaches that in His sovereignty, God controls all things in the world He created. But if God created all things, then is God the author of evil? In other words, how can evil exist in the good world that a loving and caring God has created? How do we justify the evil, suffering, and pain caused by Hurricane Katrina? These questions are related to the issue of “theodicy.” In dealing with the problems of evil and suffering, theodicy is an attempt at justifying the goodness and righteousness of God in the face of evil in the world

Several answers have been proposed to explain tragedies such as Katrina. Some people believe that after God created the world, God established permanent laws, which we call the laws of nature, and allowed the created order to work by itself according to these laws. Under this view, God is separated from the world and exercises limited powers over the created orders and is bound by the laws He established in the beginning.

Those who accept this view believe that the world functions like a machine that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped. Thus, the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina is part of the laws of nature God set in motion in this inflexible system in which the natural laws cannot be changed. Under this view, God gave nature independence and power and placed nature under inflexible laws, and then left the world and allowed nature to function by itself, devoid of divine direction.

Another view has been developed by Gregory A. Boyd, in his book God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997). Boyd said that natural disasters are caused by the work of an evil agent whose work is to inflict evil and suffering upon the world. According to Boyd, “the earth is virtually engulfed by cosmic forces of destruction, and that evil and suffering are ultimately due to his diabolical siege” (p. 55). Boyd concludes that even though the Book of Genesis emphasizes that creation is good, there is evidence in the structural foundation of the cosmos that demonstrates open hostility against the creator. Because of spiritual rebellion against God, creation has fallen into a state of war against God and it is expressed in the Old Testament by the personification of the hostile waters (p. 85).

This cosmic struggle means that something about the environment of the earth was and still is hostile toward God and toward human beings. John Levenson, in his book Creation and the Persistence of Evil (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988), has taken a similar position. He says that although God has mastery over these forces of chaos, “creation itself offers no ground for the optimistic belief that the malign powers will not deprive the human community of its friendly and supportive environment” (pp. 47-48). For Levenson, these adversarial forces were not vanquished in primordial times, but continue to pose a challenge to the creator. Thus, as in the days of Noah when a flood destroyed the world, the destructive force of Katrina came as a defiance of God, not as a manifestation of God’s will.

A third view is that God is limited in what He can do. Harold S. Kushner, in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Schocken Books, 1981), said that we cannot ask God “to change laws of nature for our own benefit, to make fatal conditions less fatal” (p. 116).

According to Kushner, people cannot pray for the impossible or the unnatural. He also believes that pockets of the chaos present in Genesis still remain today. Events in nature follow fixed natural laws but once in a while events happen that follow outside of the natural order. A hurricane does not reflect God’s choice. Hurricanes happen at random and this is another form of chaos. Thus a hurricane is not “the will of God, but represents that aspect of reality which stands independent of His will, and which angers and saddens God even as it angers and saddens us” (p. 55).

A fourth view accepted by many people is that the hurricane was a punishment of God upon the sins of the people of New Orleans. In the same way that God punished the generation of Noah with the great flood and punished the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with an earthquake, God was punishing the people of Louisiana (or our nation) for their sins.

The Old Testament teaches that natural disasters can be understood as punishment for sins against God. In his prayer at the dedication of the temple, Solomon gave several reasons for people praying in the temple. In his prayer to God, Solomon said: “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and . . . when famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers . . . and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act. When they sin against you–for there is no one who does not sin–and you become angry with them and if they have a change of heart . . . and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly;’ and if they turn back to you . . . then from heaven . . . hear their prayer and their plea, and . . . forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you” (1 Kings 8:35-50).

Natural disasters can be understood as divine punishment. But how should we understand what happened in New Orleans and the communities in the Gulf States? The arguments presented above may be valid ways of understanding the devastation caused by Katrina, but are these views the right answer to what happened? I believe there is another way of understanding the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Next week I will present another way of understanding the work of God and the tragedy caused by Katrina.


Other Posts on Hurricane Katrina:

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 1

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 2

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 3

The Looting of New Orleans


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Evil, Flood, Judgment, Hurricane Katrina, Natural Disaster, New Orleans, Pain, Suffering

The Looting of New Orleans

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina was worse than projected. The graphic images of people struggling for survival are heart-wrenching. The destruction of the communities along the Gulf Coast is overwhelming. People everywhere have been touched by the suffering, the despair, and the depth of misery faced by the victims of Katrina.

One sad thing in this wretched situation was the inadequate preparation of local, state, and federal agencies to deal with the situation. After disaster struck, the governmental agencies were ill-prepared for the unprecedented chaos that followed. If one lesson can be discerned from this tragedy, is that the local, state, and federal governments must learn how to prepare better for emergencies, those created either by natural events such as Katrina or by man-made catastrophes caused by terrorists. We were caught unprepared on 9/11 and in New Orleans. The lessons taught by the chaos in New Orleans should be learned, discussed, and incorporated into any planning for future emergencies.

The devastation left behind by Katrina created what an editorial in The New York Times called “a total breakdown of organized society.” As a result of the lawlessness in New Orleans, the city descended into a condition that can only be classified as anarchy. Women are being raped, citizens are being attacked, people are being killed, and groups of destructive individuals are plundering stores and ransacking homes already devastated by the storm.

In the chaotic situation that followed Katrina, people were taking food, water, medicine, and clothes from stores. When men, women, and children are confronted with the pains of hunger and thirst, people will forgive those who are forced to commit larceny just to survive. But when armed marauding mobs go on a rampage and loot stores for plasma televisions, arms, jewelry, and other things that are not a necessity for survival, people cringe.

The seeds of violence and anarchy seen on the streets of New Orleans were planted long ago by people who reject the notion that moral values should be taught in school. To many people, the notion of morality has to do with poverty, homelessness, AIDS, racism, and other social evils. The truth is, none of these social evils should exist in our country. Americans are a compassionate people, willing to help the needy in our midst.

The moral values that change people come from another direction. The Bible says: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild” (Proverbs 29:18). The same Hebrew word translated “run wild” also can be translated “become ungovernable.” This verse in Proverbs expresses the truth that when people do not live by God’s Word they cast off restraint, and this is what is happening in New Orleans.

Walter Kaiser, in his book Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), commenting on this passage in Proverbs said: “Can we in our day and generation recognize that the very same results come from biblical and theological illiteracy? Surely, there is deep concern about a society that seems to have lost its moorings. Our cities and towns have become more like human jungles in which we devour each other for little or no apparent reason. Only a word from God can save us from the path of self-destruction that we seem to be on” (p. 78). Kaiser also said: “The price for allowing a famine of the word of God to fester is that an outbreak of evil appears in almost all the other areas of life” (p. 82).

What word from God can “save us from the path of self-destruction that we seem to be on?” How about some of the words found in the Ten Commandments? But some people in our society do not want our population to hear the words of the Ten Commandments. In the debate about the Ten Commandments people ask: which version should we teach: the Catholic, the Protestant, or the Jewish version?

The fact is, when it comes to “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), this commandment is in all three versions. The same is true with ”You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor (Exodus 20:17). The commandment dealing with coveting is concerned with the actions of the heart and mind, those actions that lead to the possession of that which does not belong to one’s self. The prohibition against coveting another person’s property is intended to prevent envy, greed, or lust, the kinds of behavior that lead to abuse and crime.

How unfortunate that our society has lost those principles that made our nation great. The desire to possess what belongs to another person cannot be regulated by the government or be enforced by the good will of human beings. The truth of the Commandment against coveting can only be inculcated in the hearts of people when the Commandment is taught and learned.

Terence Fretheim in his book Exodus (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991) wrote: “Only God can look upon the heart, can observe the presence or absence of obedience within the human spirit. In the commandments one has to do most basically with one’s relationship with God. Or to put it in other terms, sin against one’s neighbor is not simply an interhuman matter. It involves God, and the passion with which God can respond is soon to be noted” (p.239).

There is no other solution to the looting of New Orleans. Unless our hearts and minds are transformed by God’s Word, the looting will go on until we learn that we do “not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3).


Other Posts on Hurricane Katrina:

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 1

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 2

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 3

The Looting of New Orleans


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Evil, Flood, Judgment, Hurricane Katrina, Natural Disaster, New Orleans, Pain, Suffering

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 1

Hurricane Katrina has struck the Gulf Coast area with a destructive force never seen before in our country. Fellow citizens everywhere join in prayer and solidarity with the people of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in their hour of need. Thousands have been touched by the power of this storm. The loss of lives and property is beyond understanding. The pain and suffering caused by Katrina cannot be expressed in simple words.

The media has provided a great service by giving the people of the United States and the world graphic views of the devastation caused by Katrina. Reporters risked their own lives to bring live pictures during and after the onslaught caused by Katrina. One reporter on Fox called the aftermath of the devastation “a natural disaster of biblical proportions.” A reporter on CBS called the devastation “apocalyptic” while another reporter on CNN, with tears in her eyes, said that she had seen “Armageddon.”

It is not surprising that members of the media are using biblical terminology to describe what is happening in these three southern states, for their descriptions of what is happening is very close to the biblical events that are behind the words they use.

For instance, when the reporter spoke of “a natural disaster of biblical proportions,” his words may be a reference to the great flood that happened in the days of Noah (Genesis 7), to the destruction by fire of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), or even to the ten plagues that afflicted the people of Egypt during the Exodus (Exodus. 7-10).

When the reporter described the destruction caused by Katrina as “apocalyptic,” he was referring to the events that will happen in the last days before the second coming of Christ. These events are mentioned in the book of Revelation. The word “revelation” is a translation of the Greek word apokalypsis. The English transliteration of the Greek word is “apocalypse” and the adjective is “apocalyptic.” The apocalyptic disaster is described in detail in Revelation 15:1-16:21.

When the reporter saw the devastation caused by Katrina and said that she had seen “Armageddon,” she was referring to the battle of Armageddon, the final battle between the forces of good and evil that will happen in the last days (Revelation 16:16). In popular usage, the word Armageddon has become a reference to the catastrophes that will happen on earth near the end times. The word also refers to any great loss of life caused by natural disasters or wars.

The most amazing thing about those reporters who used biblical terminology to describe the devastation caused by Katrina is that most of them probably had no idea of the biblical context behind the biblical terminology. Here is why: what is the common theme behind “a natural disaster of biblical proportions,” “apocalyptic,” and “Armageddon”? The answer is: judgment!

The flood came as a result of the sins of the generation of Noah’s day. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of the immorality of the people who lived in those two cities. The plagues came as a judgment on Pharaoh and his people because of the oppression of the Israelites. The battle or Armageddon and the plagues of the book of Revelation will come as part of the final judgment upon the people who refuse to abandon their sins and acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

Did the reporters say that Katrina was sent by God to judge a sinful city? I doubt it. They probably were just using words they learned in their studies. I am sure they did not see Katrina as a divine judgment upon the city of New Orleans.

There is a lesson for us here. The lesson we learn from this is that people must be careful about how they use words. A word spoken at the wrong time can be as sharp as a sword. The wise man said: “Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing” (Proverbs 12:18).

So, where was God in this tragic event? Next week I will discuss how natural events such as a hurricane can exist in this world created by a loving and caring God. Until then, let us pray to God and ask for grace and strength for those who are suffering because of the devastation caused by Katrina.

Other Posts on Hurricane Katrina:

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 1

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 2

God and Hurricane Katrina - Part 3

The Looting of New Orleans


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Evil, Flood, Judgment, Hurricane Katrina, Natural Disaster, New Orleans, Pain, Suffering