What follows came out of what I intended to be a short note to myself on something that struck me in Psalm 83, and so it starts out rather informally and continues in long, rambling, disorganized fashion. Yet it is what I wrote as my mind roamed, so here it is:
In the Old Testament one finds such passages as this: “so pursue them with Your tempest and terrify them with Your storm. Cover their faces with shame so that men will seek your Name, O LORD” and elsewhere, in many places as well…Man, faced with the wrath of God, is expected to turn back to Him; this is found in Revelation as well. God’s destruction was, in some part, in order to turn men back to Him. This holds true for both Israel and the Gentile peoples—God’s swift justice called down in order to turn people back to Him. We find this hard to imagine now…it is God’s mercy, His unfailing love, His great forbearance, His Sacrifice for our sakes (albeit ultimately, and importantly, for His sake most of all), it is these pleasant expressions of God’s divinity that we expect will draw men to Him. Not His wrath and sharp justice. We modern men think that such harsher realities of the Divine will drive men away from God, will form barriers between them and an experience with the Holy God. I think we have watered down, or pacified, our representation of God accordingly—and harmfully. The Old Testament writers, as well as, in truth, the New Testament writers, understood aspects of God that we choose to ignore. God is a God that the warrior king David could implore to visit bloody judgment upon his enemies…for God is the original Warrior King. And, at the same time, David could entreat God to show His glory to men who did not know Him, that they might come to believe in His Name. These two desires of David’s heart (remember, he was a man after God’s own heart, after all) are not mutually exclusive, however much we moderns fail to see the complexities of reality, or choose to see opposites where complements might exist (one thinks of man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty as a key example of that). For man, when faced with the irresistible power of God, the inarguable justice of God, the immutable laws of God, and the overwhelming, transcendent Presence of God, he no longer holds any delusions that it is God who is in the Dock. Man knows—or, more broadly, is more likely to realize—when faced with God’s wrath that he needs God’s forgiveness. It is much harder to entertain delusions of grandeur or immunity when in the midst of God’s judgment.
Of course, more is going on than simply a reminder of God’s Holiness for those being confronted with God’s harsher qualities. It is—this is probably more true to David’s intent—that the lesson is for those who witness God’s judgment on others. Psalm 37 comes to mind: “I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil, but he soon passed away and was no more…Consider the blameless, observe the upright; there is a future for the man of peace. But all sinners will be destroyed; the future of the wicked will be cut off.” It is often a helpful reminder to see wickedness punished here on earth, although often such punishment is—unfortunately for the wicked—postponed until much later.
Yet I think such passages of the Old Testament, where is described or hoped for an encounter between wickedness and God’s just wrath, do offer an interesting commentary on the difference—superficial, as all such temporal differences are—between modern and ancient man. The Bible, I think, describes a more natural state, prey to less affections and accretions of layered culture, than does the world with which we are familiar. It seems strange to us that a loving God might display His wrath in order to draw unbelievers to Him, or that, having chosen to do so, such a ploy might work. I think this is an example of one of many ways that the Bible describes the human condition more accurately than we tend to see it, unless we consider things with more critical reason than is usual. We understand how God’s likability might draw men to Him…but we understand little about Holiness. We look askance at the many examples of God’s “tough love” of His creatures, and perhaps think “Why, wouldn’t it be better to just offer a few more blessings?” But, of course, when God acts in judgment, blessings and patience have already been thrown back in God’s face. Man, unless anchored in God, will drift under the impetus of happiness and unappreciated blessing according to the law of sin and death. Sometimes it takes God shaking things up a bit—whether in imprecatory psalm fashion, or like He did to the Children of Israel in the wilderness, or like He will do during the Tribulation. Man does not accept a new law—especially one which requires him to give up his rights—easily. Sometimes, encounters with justice or more general misfortune serve man well, like a pothole or blown tire stopping a car racing down the wrong road.
Another thing we often ignore is that all the peoples of the earth belong to God; they are for His pleasure, and He acts in a way that brings things more closely under the covering of His will. I think ancient man understood, at varying levels of consciousness, that he existed for the satisfaction of God. The difference between modern and ancient man in this regard ties into Lewis’s “God in the Dock” distinction, and also likely results from the synthetic/artificial world we live in, insulated by illusions of control which ancient man largely lacked. But, it was a rarity in the ancient world for a man to believe in no god at all, or to disdain the gods of his people; God’s display of power, therefore, reminded unbelievers the HE alone was the True God…such a reminder is always and ever for man’s benefit. It may, of course, be an extremely uncomfortable benefit, but encountering the existence of our Creator is perhaps a necessary step in the journey to understand His Holy love and person and entering into relationship with Him. And perhaps this is why a psalmist might implore God to “Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are Your inheritance;” he understood that God was the judge of the nations, that they existed for Him, and that God displaying His Nature was, in the long run, the best possible thing.
And yet I’ve still approached the issue from the angle of how God’s display of just power benefits man; I know, however, that the core issue is how such an action glorifies God. Yet I can’t move away from the reality, strange to my modern mind, that God’s harsh displays do draw people to Him. It does make sense, though, especially if one studies the experience of Israel in the Old Testament (or even, maybe, Israel’s experience since the Diaspora). Yet I find myself thinking of God’s harsh justice as punishment first…which it possibly is, especially in certain cases. It’s hard to wrap my mind around asking for God’s swift judgment so that men might be saved…but in that I think I am an oddity over the long tradition of the people of God; I’ve been programmed by political correctness—both within and without the Church—and an emphasis on tolerance over love, on platitudes over absolutes, on niceties over justice. We frown at the imprecatory psalms, shake our heads at Augustine’s “just war,” categorically oppose the idea of the Christian Knight, argue vehemently against those who describe natural disasters as “the judgment of God” (who, after all, really knows? There are quite a few precedents, one must remember). God knows best, and He was not always warm and friendly with a rebellious Israel—or with Israel’s pagan neighbors—and we should never apologize for this. God is a tempest and a storm, and sometimes His righteous violence forces men to face the Truth, and sometimes they respond by seeking His Name.
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