Today's reading: Jeremiah 5; Matthew 10
When people talk disparagingly about God in the Old Testament seeming too harsh and ready to judge, I wonder if they really understand what people were being judged for...
This is a very common perception of God, even among professed Christians, that while God is all about love and forgiveness in the New Testament, He was just harsh and looking to judge in the Old Testament, almost as though we are not talking about the same God. But our chapter in Jeremiah today has so much to speak to that perspective.
Jeremiah 5 opens with God actively seeking to pardon Israel, wanting to withdraw His judgement from the nation. And what is He looking for in that regard? Someone who does justice and seeks truth. That's it. Just one person. He is not looking for someone who is morally perfect and has never done a single thing wrong. He is not looking for someone who has never committed some pet sin or set of sins. He is simply looking for someone who does justice and seeks truth. That's not a very high bar He is expecting just one person among His people to be able to meet!
Later in the chapter then, as God goes into more detail, His indictments are that they have forsaken Him for other gods, indulged in wanton sexual immorality, and have not judged with justice (defending the fatherless and the rights of the needy). I feel like people don't generally understand that these are the things we see God judging people for in the Old Testament. He expects Israel to stay faithful to Him because He is the one who gave them the nation and protected them, etc, but when He judges other nations, that is never part of the indictment because they were not His people, so there was no expectation that they wouldn't be worshipping other gods. He will indict them for how they are worshipping other gods, like sacrificing their children to them, but not simply for the act of worshipping them. Otherwise, when God judges Israel or the other nations, it is the rampant sexual immorality and injustice that He is concerned with.
Do we really have a problem with that? Do we really take issue with God judging peoples and nations where murder, rape, molestation, abuse, bribery, exploitation, etc. have become the norm? Can God really not draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough is enough, I won't allow you to continue to fatten yourselves at the expense of the most vulnerable among you; the poor, the orphan, and the widow"? Should Yahweh really sit back and simply allow people to slaughter countless innocent children in the name of worshipping their gods?
I have a hard time imagining very many people taking issue with this...
I feel like people tend to have a caricature of God and His judgement from the Old Testament, as though He was broadly enforcing some Puritanical version of morality, wiping out entire peoples because they drank, smoked, listened to rock 'n roll, and danced, or like He was acting out of petty jealousy, judging nations who didn't know any better for not worshipping Him, but that is all these views are, a caricature.
God is good, and His judgement is always good and righteous. We may take issue with how His judgement is meted out at times, which is a different conversation, but before we decide that we think He is in the wrong to judge the peoples and nations He does in the Old Testament, we should take the time to understand what it is He was actually judging.
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