BibleProject - Does God Punish Innocent People? – Character of God E14 Q+R #2

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Sometimes the Bible seems to contradict itself––God is slow to anger, except for the times he appears to get mad quickly. The biblical authors don’t give us a systematic explanation, but they invite us to wrestle through our deepest questions and encounter a clearer, more nuanced picture of God. Learn more as Tim, Jon, and Carissa respond to your questions!View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Is God’s wrath passive? (02:00)Does God punish innocent people? (22:40)Why does Psalm 2 say God is quick to anger? (34:40)What did Jesus accomplish by his substitution? (46:22)Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TentsShow produced by Dan Gummel. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Audience questions collected by Christopher Maier.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

All right, we're here. We're going to do a question response episode of Tim. Hi. Hello. And Karissa. Hi. And I'm John and we're gonna jump in and answer some questions from the character of God. Long podcast series that we've...

Yes. Yes. You just said it was 12 episodes. So, what you said, Tim? I think that's right. 12 in the final counting. And we've gotten more listener questions sent in throughout this series than ever before.

How does it make you feel? Hundreds. Does it make you feel like I can't answer everyone's questions? You get a little... Well, it's similar to the dynamic I noticed in pastoral ministry after enough years go by. There's really just a few questions that are corded, everybody's questions. So in the same, there's probably really just about 10 to 12 questions.

Key questions. The 200 people are all asking in different ways. So as always, we can't answer all, but we tried to pick ones that represent each question represents 10 more people. And these questions will span the entire series, right? Or is it just about anger? No, these questions will span from our last Q&R. So basically, anger,

loyal love. Loyal love. Faithfulness. And faithfulness. Well, actually, faithfulness released on the last day for submitted questions. OK. So the anger loyal love.

But really, I think most of our questions are about anger. Yeah, the anger series, which was six hours of conversation, generated lots of really insightful, perceptive questions. So that's mostly what we're gonna be talking about. God's anger, the meaning of the cross, and ultimate death. Just that. Just some light topics. Easy breezy. I thought we could start with actually two questions that were two ways of asking a similar question one from Laura from Ohio and another one from Rob in California. Hi there. At first when you described Yahweh's wrath as him handing over people to their own folly I thought you met his wrath was passive. But after looking at the locust plague and Joel and some other examples in scripture and beginning

to think it's more nuanced than that. Can you help me find better words than passive to describe Yahweh's wrath? Hi, this is Rob from Santa Barbara, California. You said God demonstrates His wrath by handing His people over to the natural consequences of their own destructive decisions, which is certainly true. However, I can think of at least two specific instances where God seems to have directly inflicted punishment, which I don't think you've mentioned. In number 16, God causes the ground to split apart and swallow Kora and the other, along with their families, and then he sent fire and consumed 250 men who were offering incense. This seems like direct punishment to me, even though number is 26 as it was a warning.

Then there's the bronze serpent incident, number is 21, where the Lord sent venomous snakes, which bit them and many died, because the people had been complaining. Again, it sounds like a direct punishment. Could you please address these in any other cases where God's hand seems to be directly involved? Thanks. Okay, so these questions are about how involved God is in sending consequences or punishment. Yeah. And also about terminology. Yeah. Should we be using the words active or passive or something else? Or direct or direct. Or indirect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly that's exactly right.

I recall back, it was a long time ago that we had them. Because we were even trying to find right languages, the three of us, we're talking. Because at some point, the phrase natural consequences came up. And what that brought to my mind was, well, the word natural made me a little twitchy, because our concepts of what is natural, and then we tend to have this very disintegrated

view of the universe, that there's natural, and then there's the divine super natural. That's super natural. So, and so this is tricky, because it's not a topic in our thinking. It's actually the framework in which most modern Westerners do our thinking. So we actually have to realize we're in a fishbowl and stare at the glass, it's strange to see the glass when we are using that language of natural super natural because that's totally foreign to have the biblical authors see the world. And so they don't tell these stories within those types of categories, natural or super natural. Yeah, if it's completely passive

situation where God is just allowing the natural consequences to unfold, well, you call that passive. You could categorize it that way. One could. Yeah, it, you can use the categories. One could. Yeah, one could. But what I'm going to do is problematize the active passive. Categories. Just categories as well. I don't think saying that this narrative is god actively or directly bringing punishment, like fire or the earthquake.

What you mentioned Rob, were a couple of narratives where you could use the word god actively or directly brings an earthquake word God actively or directly, brings an earthquake or sense snakes or fire, this kind of thing. Whereas other ones could be more passive. God hands Israel over to Babylon because of a broken treaty that Zadakaya broke with Nebuchadnezzar. So, I've become increasingly unsatisfied with this passive-active distinction because the biblical authors don't think in that category either, either of those categories.

So, a great example of this is actually the Passover,. But then in Exodus 13, what God says is, he's going to allow the destroyer to pass through and strike the firstborn. And so even in that narrative, you could say there's, the biblical authors actually have a way more nuanced and sophisticated way to talk about God's agency than we typically allow for the Bible to have. So we want to press what's God directly involved or was he indirectly involved? And

the biblical authors, I don't think, would understand that question. It is significant, though, that that idea of having a mediator or some, it seems like God uses agents to bring about destruction multiple times. That's a pattern in scripture, and I don't know what that means, but that seems to be significant to the authors. Totally. Yes, that's totally right. So actually, this is something I've been working on.

And in the next year, start working on a twin pair of theme videos that we're just going to call either life and then death. Two important design patterns themes that run through the whole Bible are portraits of life and the ways to ultimate life and life with God is eternal life in the language of the Garden of Eden story and then also in the language of the Garden of Eden story is death. But as you go on, as you leave Eden in the language of the Garden of Eden's story is death. But as you leave Eden, the agents of life and death become, the stage becomes populated with lots of different agents. And so, you know, we looked in our conversations at the flood, for example. Yeah.

How the language of the flood shows that humans introduce violence and death into the land. And so God says, I'm going to bring about the ruin of the land, excuse me, going to bring about the ruin of humanity with the land. So we talk like the floods accelerating the decreation. This de-creation. So what's super important is how the design pattern of the flood keeps repeating itself in all of these narratives, like a ricochet throughout the rest of the flood keeps repeating itself in all of these narratives, like a ricochet throughout

the rest of the Hebrew Bible, and Rob and Laura, all of the moments you mentioned, the story in the earthquake of the Suns of Korah, or the story of the snakes, Laura, the story of the plagues. If you pay close attention to these texts, they're all built on an echoing the language of the flood narrative. They're further developments of this theme of the flood. So for example, the Earth splitting, the language of the Earth splitting and swallowing up people, it's directly echoing the language of the splitting of the skies and the water.

The heavens, in the flood story, the heavens are split, so that the water comes down in the Korah narrative, the Earth splits. And so, even to call the Korah narrative, God directly bringing justice, if you were standing there, you wouldn't see God like what you would see as an earthquake. So the Earth is the agent of divine justice in that narrative in Korra and his rebellion, which is also true of the flood narrative. Are you with me? I'm with you, but I think the distinction that people maybe trying to tease out is that God directly caused the earth's display, or is the earth splitting a natural consequence

of some other person's decision that God allowed. Well, exactly. And I don't think the biblical authors would, they would say that doesn't make any sense. But it does make sense. Why does it make sense? Is the question kind of more about God's character and his disposition toward people like does is he involved in bringing punishment because he's just super angry with people or is he just turning away and allowing people to experience their own consequences and for some people that's a significant difference. Is that the question?

Well, I think what's happening is Tim you're saying there's a more nuanced way to think about this than a, either or. But something about our conversation has led a number of people to kind of something clicked in their brain, they're like, oh yeah, okay. So God isn't just out trying to zap me. He is patient and he's letting things unfold. And the things that I'm doing is creating the chaos that's destroying me, that makes sense. And so then that leads you to think, okay, so God isn't actively trying to be angry and

wrathful at me. It's almost like this cosmic karma kind of thing, which is like, you know, I'm getting what I deserve. And so God feels very passive in that situation. And then I think what Laura and Rob are saying is that doesn't seem to really fully explain the portrait of God in the Bible. Because then you get to these narratives where God seems a lot more involved than that. Yeah.

And so, you're saying, yes, he is. The problem is in our dichotomy here. Not in, yeah, it's not an either or. That's right. But the way you're putting it, the way that you said biblical authors wouldn't understand what you mean by, was this an earthquake? Or was this God? I guess I can understand that as like an ancient thinker. Yeah. But even as a modern thinker. Really? I think so. I'm not trying to get weird prophecy type here. I'm just saying like, it's a sophisticated way of thinking about cause-effect sequences. And there are many different ways of talking about levels of cause

and agency. So there's ultimate causes. There's necessary... Oh, this is like Aristotle. I don't know. There's sufficient causes, proximate causes, immediate causes, right? So we just assume this in our minds. So in Psalm 104, for example, which is a creation poem praising God for all of these different things happening in the different tiers of the cosmos. And there's this part in the middle of the poem where it says praise God, you know, for his works. It says for his works. And it starts naming creatures in the sea. And then it says the ships of humans that go on the sea. You know what? But humans made those ships.

And for the poet, that would be approximate or immediate cause. But the whole poem is celebrating God's ultimate agency, causality as the originator of all that exists. And so in the same way, even though humans ruin the land with their violence, God is the ultimate one who is either going to allow it to go on or allow creation to collapse in on itself. But ultimately, it's God allows it.

It's as much direct as it is passive, and that's why I just don't think active or passive in terms that help us understand these narratives. Yeah, okay. So I think at core, if we're letting Genesis 1 through 11 set the melody for the rest of the Hebrew Bible, it's that God's posture in the story is to generously create a safe, ordered, stable place, the dry land, and then within the dry land,

a sacred hub of space in the middle of it all. That's the source of life, flowing out from the river and so on, going out to it. And so the moment that humans do something to threaten sacred space or threaten stability, God will allow the cosmos to collapse back in on itself. And that's what's happening with the flood, but that's what that's their view of earthquakes, too. Yeah, yeah. That's the earthquake.

Yeah. Is God no longer sustaining the pillars of the earth, allowing the pillars of the earth to crumble? And there is a sense that God can will speed that up, totally, which it feels more active as well. Yeah, totally. But it's the same as the same as Locust plague, it's animals, dangerous animals.

Yeah. So in the garden, it's cultivated, right? So God keeps the dangerous animals out. Let's talk about locus. And so, yeah, there's the apple locus. Yeah. If there was a big plague of locus because of some environmental conditions,

there was a, you know, the right conditions. There was enough food for them. They laid enough eggs, and they're born and they need a lot of food. That's like the natural explanation of why there's always locusts. And let's say that God sees that coming and he's like, that's great, that's a fitting consequence for Egypt. I'm going to let those locusts come.

That feels kind of... Oh, and they're talking about the plagues on Egypt. In the plagues on Egypt. Yeah, gonna let those locusts come. That feels kind of... Oh, and they're talking about the plagues on Egypt. Yeah, okay, yeah, got it. Feels kind of passive, but still and some way active because he could have stopped the locust from coming. Or there's no situation where God's like, you know, Egypt need some locusts. And so I'm gonna like plant some locust seed over here,

and I'm gonna like set up the perfect conditions so that the locus could come. And then I'm gonna like direct them over to Egypt, and that feels even way more direct. Sure. And so I think in every situation you can do a thought experiment of sorts of like, how actively involved was God in that moment of wrath.

Yeah. What I hear you saying is you don't even want me to try to think in those dimensions. No, because notice what you had to do is make up a little story and insert that and read the biblical narrative in light of your little hidden divine figure who plants eggs or something. So the narrative isn't trying actually to create a systematic, comprehensive, philosophical account of God's agency in the world. What the biblical authors want us to know is that God is the one who provides the relative stability of the cosmos that keeps us safe, and it's real.

But that stability is sometimes compromised, and whenever that stability is compromised and chaos breaks in, it's a moment of, well, there's two accounts of it. One is that it's because of human, human evil, flood story, the chorus story, the locusts and Joel. It's all because of Israel breaking the covenant and it distorts the moral order and therefore it distorts the cosmic order. But then you get the book of Job who comes along and cleanses the Astes who come along and say, but not always. Sometimes there's just a Leviathan hanging out there and he bites your hand off because he's a Leviathan and it's not because God hates you. It's wrapped up in the mystery of the cosmos. So that's to make sure that that readers or the audience doesn't

attribute every act to God as the cause. Yeah, that's right. Or they don't want us to assume this argument of Job, just because something just as chaos breaks out in someone's life and the stability of their order, right, is shattered to pieces. It doesn't mean that they were a covenant violator, like the generation of the flood or like the, it might mean that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. Again, all I'm trying to do is, for years, and I'll be doing this to the dead eye, is trying to reorient my worldview

to at least read sympathetically and try and understand what the biblical authors, how they see the world and how they depict these things as a God is the one who has carved out a little snow globe of stability, but that stability is always under threat of the waters above and the waters below and of the dry land cracking apart and of wild dangerous animals from the wilderness invading their way into the cultivated order of the sacred garden. Those are the two, so you have dangers above and below, and you have dangers outside. And what we can say is that when this order is fractured, God will do a number of different things.

Sometimes you'll just be patient. Sometimes you'll actually speed it up, and sometimes he will fix it. Yeah, and I think we kind of want this systematic Explanation for why God does what yeah in what situation? Yeah, that's right and what I'm hearing is that's not the questions Yeah, well, yeah, or it's just if the Bible was designed to give us that kind of comprehensive explanation Christians wouldn't have been arguing to give us that kind of comprehensive explanation. Christians wouldn't have been arguing vehemently about this for 2,000 years. So it's as if the Bible stakes out in arena

of core convictions within which we can then wrestle with these complex issues. And what the biblical law is wanting us to know is that God's character is just and that it's generous and good. Yeah. And I think that's ultimately what people want to know is God good. Yeah. Yeah. That's where the question's coming from. Yeah.

Totally. That's right. His disposition. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you read the, you read the, the severe stories of God's judgment. Like in the Pentateuch, you know, Rob, you mentioned the story of Kora, with the earthquake and the lightning and so on. But again, part of it is also, each narrative is also just one little tile of the bigger mosaic that's the whole Hebrew Bible. And so, for example, in that, that story is set in the middle of seven rebellion stories

in numbers 11 to 21. And you have to read them all together and they're all developing one bigger picture and that helps make sense of each individual one anyhow. The terminology is not passive or active. It's the terminology used by the biblical authors is more this terminology of handing over, but it doesn't, it's not getting into the active passive debate, but it's more emphasizing the consistency of maybe what happens with how the people acted, just consistency there. And even in Korra's rebellion in

number 16, the people are complaining about the land that they're in and then the landswalls them up. And the people are offering incense and then fire consumes them. It's like there's still a consistency in how the story plays out, even though it feels very destructive. Yeah, two, number 16. It's actually really amazing because they're rebelling against Moses

and the high priest who is the anointed one. It's a story about the rebellion of God's people against their own anointed one. Come now. It's a rebellion against their own Messiah and it results in their own anointed one. Come now. It's a rebellion against their own Messiah, and it results in their self-destruction. They reject their Messiah, Aaron, anointed the anointed high priest,

and it results in their ruin. So there's always more going on in these stories than just what's happening on maybe your first reading. There's a lot, and that's true of the whole Bible. You know, when I thought you were making that really good point, Chris, then maybe you realized, too, these conversations about the anger of God were not meant to be a comprehensive study of the theme of divine judgment. I was isolating the phrase and there was hot anger to God. And what you notice is when you study that phrase, one of the most consistent companion

phrases is, and he handed them over. So that's why I drew our attention to that, handing them over to the theme. So there is this important leak between God's anger and handing people over. But there are many narratives about God hiding his face, the cosmos collapses, somebody's life collapses, where God's anger is not mentioned. And if we were going to do a full theme study on that. Like Saddam and Gomorrah. Yes.

His anger is not mentioned there. Correct. Which we would think it is because that's such a strong, correct. There's such a strong connection with judgment in that passage. Correct. And that itself is another, it's like the flood. God promised, but that he wouldn't reign.

But what he does in the flood story promises no more flood of rain but the next time the word rain is used in book of Genesis is the raining of the fire seems like a little loophole I thought I thought about that too but it's another instance of the cause moss Moske collapsing. Yeah. In this time, it turns lightning. You know, raining fire is a standard Hebrew phrase for lightning. Yeah. It's lightning.

And you were told in Genesis 14 that the land is full of these pits that have all of this flammable sulfur in it, and are pitch and tar. So you may go lightning bolt on one of those. It's going to go out, man. Anyway. Yeah. Chris, it did a great summary.

I keep problematizing things. And John, you're sitting there looking unsatisfied. There are problems. Especially of Korra's rebellion. Even when we try to understand what the authors are doing with that story and how it fits in the overall storyline, it's still Korra and all of the family members that are associated with Kora, including

their little ones. I remember reading that specifically. The authors included that it was also little ones who were standing at the tents and they're all swallowed in the earth. I think that we have a question about that too. Community judgment or? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, from Isaac in Germany.

Hi, I'm Isaac from Ahn, Germany. First of all, thank you for all the work You've put into the Bible project. I've learned so much from all the resources you provide. I struggle with the notion that God Handing over frequently targets a whole group of people often based on the actions of a few I realize that I've viewed this in the context of my individualistic culture. However, that sometimes feels unfair to me. How can I better understand God's love, wrath, and justice in this context? Excellent question. Yeah. Yeah. I think you are expressing very articulately something that many, many, many people, including the three of us, I'm certain that's felt. And it's true that sin affects the whole community, even people who don't deserve it, you know?

You know, our parents' problems affect us and so on and so on. So maybe there's something that's true about that in the stories of Scripture 2 where it feels unjust, but it's also kind of the way that the world works. You're saying that even within a hyper individualized Western culture, if you really think about it, it's not hard, doesn't take too much time to get the fact that my decisions affect people around me. Yeah, the negatives is. The consequences of my actions will unjustly fall on the people around me.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And whether that's generational or my neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a helpful, that's one helpful way to go with this. Isaac, you put your thumb on another part, which is I think there is a cultural difference of cultural worldview and a different way of viewing the human individual and their relationship to the community. You're right. Every significant philosophical, political, and economic movement in the west over the last 400 years has been about creating this new thing called the individual who is

autonomous. If they have enough privilege and status, they can be mobile and right, create a whole life. Yeah. Even independence from their like tribe and family. You can go move away. Get a job. Never need anything from your parents. I mean, it's just what a novel.

Yeah. I think unhealthy. What way to be a human being. But, but it's our cultural setting. So I think you're right. We read these narratives with an extra layer of like, strangeness feels extra foreign to us. How may understand the tension though is not whether or not

I believe other people's actions will affect me. Because even in a hyper individualistic society, I might completely tie myself off from family and maybe my friend group moves somewhere and try to be as individualistic and rustic as possible. Heck, I'll move to Alaska. But I can't escape the fact that I still live in civilization, or even if I move out into the woods like

Like I'm gonna be dealing with consequences of bears and moose and stuff like There's no like situation. Yeah, yeah, where I'm purely only affected by my decisions right So I don't think the conflict here is Realizing that other people's decisions affect me. It's that is it fair to be held accountable for other people's decisions. Like if there's some sort of final judgment or if God's going to intervene and start giving consequences out, shouldn't he be able to tease out the difference between the people in the community that caused it and the people who were just along for the ride. Correct. Yeah, here, I actually need to do more work on this theme, but I'm convinced it's there.

I think this theme of one person acting and their evil, bearing consequences on the many, or the many acting, and then it creates an unfair circumstance for the one. And this is a major theme that gets inverted and turned over in all these narratives in the Hebrew Bible. It's really interesting. So, one significant time it comes up is when God says, should I tell Abraham that I'm going to bring ruin on Sodom and Gomorrah? Because he says, the outcry against the cities has risen up to me, then that's the blood of Abel, a design pattern. So the outcry of the porn oppressed.

The cry of rising up, yeah. And so God says, should I hide from Abraham? And he says it while Abraham standing right there. You know, it's like, Krish, should I tell you that? It's like a parent talking to their partner in front of their child. So Abraham gets in God's face and says, what? My nephew's there.

And he's not perfect, but he's like, you know, he's he's he counted among the righteous. But he also isn't the reason the Abraham appeals to God because surely that the just judge wouldn't do that. Correct. So in other words, Abraham's afraid that God's about to violate his own character by doing one of these cosmos, by sapping Sodom and Gomorrah while there's a righteous person there. Which is interesting because, okay, in this communal society, non-individualistic culture, Abraham's still in the story is discerning between the individual and the community.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's right. And notice God doesn't, God's the one to get Abraham talking in the first place by speaking in his presence. No, they start negotiating. And then they start, what you think is an negotiation, but then you realize that every turn, God just says yes. God never like bargains.

Abraham says like 45. And God's like yes. I never like bargains. Abraham says like, 45. God's like, yes. I will forgive the city on account of five. The worst bargainer ever. Totally. 40, yes. 30, yes. 20, yes.

I mean, the repetition is driving home that God will allow the righteousness of the one to cover for the sins of the many. Or at least the righteousness in that story of the one to cover for the sins of the many, or at least the righteousness in that story of the few. In that case, lots of righteousness is not sufficient to cover for the many. Well, it's more complex. But the point is that narrative is raising this theme that you're saying, Isaac, it's

problematizing it. And Abraham is saying it wouldn't be just for you to let the whole cosmos of Sodom and Gomorrah, there are a little mini-cosmos collapse on that account. So I think the core narrative that we mentioned earlier is inverting that. What God says to Moses when the leaders of core with core rebel is, I'm done with all these people, which has happened like four or five times now. And Moses says, will you, here, I'm going to quote it. So what Moses says to God is, Oh, God, God of the, the ruach of all flesh. When one person sins,

will you be angry with all of them? So Moses raises the issue again, just like Abraham did, but this time it's the inverse. It's when one person Sins and leads the rest into rebellion will you punish everybody? Another inversion of this is Daniel. Where Daniel sitting in Babylon through no fault of his own He's like legit, but yet he will take personal This is in Danieline. He'll take personal responsibility for the entire history of his ancestors rebellion against God Yeah, so in that case he doesn't differentiate his individual self from his tribe. And even though he's righteous, he will count himself among the many sinful people. So there's something happening here. The biblical narrative is exploring explicitly this theme about the God's fairness

and about how individuals and their communities sins and consequences relate to each other. And it's nuanced, I think. And it's all leading up forward to the suffering servant who will be the one in Isaiah who bears the sins of the many. And then Jesus takes that mantle up onto himself. Yeah. That's the one who dies for the sins of the many. Paul summarizes this in Romans. That came through one. That's right.

So through that one all have died. And in the same way life comes through one. So many can live. Yeah. So Isaac, you stand with Abraham and be in concern about God's character and God's justice. And we're back to that meta motif of the Hebrew Bible as the mosaic. I mean, it's hard to do, but it's like all these stories on their own

are working together towards this bigger depiction or exploration of these themes, and you have to take each of these individual narratives on the round, but then let this mosaic emerge. That's pretty more nuanced than I usually give credit to. I don't know if that makes any sense. Yeah, when I read this question, I was trying to or think about the question behind the question, and I think he states it at the end that this sometimes feels unfair. So it's a question of God's fairness or justice, how God views people in those moments when the community is suffering for us in that,

or maybe not even for us in, but just because of wicked systems, because of whatever reason people are suffering, Where is God in that and where is His fairness in that? And I don't know the answer to that. But I think as I was reflecting on this, some of the things that came to mind are just, well, this first God doesn't delight in people's suffering. Well, actually, this whole chapter, Ezekiel 18 starts off with that parable that the children's the children's teeth are set on edge because of the parents sin and the people are complaining that or they're actually saying we're an exile because of our parents we didn't deserve this

and God's answer to them is no I don't really work like that you're an exile because of your own like that, you're an exile because of your own stuff. So he's addressing that same question. But at the end of that passage, God's saying that, hey, I don't delight in the suffering of the wicked. Anything, any suffering that comes upon people, my hope is that they would turn from their sin and turn to me. It's like, again, that picture of God as compassionate as always wanting people to turn back to him. For me, that's, that's what I want to remember in those moments of like, man, there's so much suffering going on in the world and it is unfair. That's the only thing maybe that gives me comfort is God's compassion toward that. And that makes sense.

It does make sense. Something that's emerging out of all these questions we've talked about so far, which is only three. But they're whoppers. Something that's sinking in with me more, I feel like it's taken me a long time, when we come to these huge topics in the Bible, the Christians and Jews have been arguing about, for millennia, when I see all of these different camps staking out different viewpoints on these issues, to me that becomes like a little flag saying, maybe the function of the Bible isn't to give us clarity, but it's trying to create the venue

within which we go to wrestle with God, with our deepest questions. And what we discover is not a systematic answer, what we discover is a portrait of God's character that emerges throughout the story that we are to take with us as we go into the complexities of reality and justice and suffering and death and pain and joy. And that kind of becomes like a North Star guiding us through a complex world. Yeah, God's character is the North Star and also the function of each of these stories in the broader narrative. Yeah. Maybe the two main questions that can give us more solid answers than a category or a system.

Yeah. Alright, let's take on a question from Kaylee Lewis. Hey guys, this is Kaley from South Africa. My question is about the description of God in Psalm 2. It seems strange that the Psalm speaks of God's wrath being quickly kindled or flaring up in a moment, which sounds like the opposite of being slow to anger. I'm pretty sure the Psalmist was familiar with a passage from Exodus 34, but why does they seem to be a contradiction? Thanks and keep up the great work. So good, so perceptive. Psalm 2. Thanks, Kaylee.

Yeah. Well, so, so, so, quick, let's just, um, what you notice is there's a phrase in Psalm 2 that describes someone's anger, whether it's gods or someone else's or we'll talk about that. But it says, quick to anger. And so obviously you just, you notice that in contrast to the phrase slow to anger. So first of all, gold star for just noticing this inversion of anger language. But I think this is actually a good example

of maybe applying what we were just talking about, about this away of engaging the Bible that thinks both in terms of the little tree I'm looking at, but this, a wave engaging the Bible that thinks both in terms of the little tree I'm looking at, but always keep an eye on the forest. What's the verse in question here? Two, 12, Psalm two, 12. Yeah.

It says, this is the NIV, kiss the sun, or he will be angry, and your way will lead to your destruction. For his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Or in Hebrew, his nose, it takes little for his nose to burn. Is that the literal instinct? Yes. So one important distinction here is that this is the anger of the Messianic King. And his anger king. And his anger is directed towards the tyrants and corrupt rulers of this world who are introduced in the opening paragraph of the poem. So the bad guys are in the opening and closing paragraphs. So you know, they're thinking of your nebicanesers and your synachyribs and your

ashrabana pals and all the other bad guys. The Bible. All the kings. All the kings. All the bad kings, the baddie kings. Yeah, yeah. Imperial tyrants. Yeah.

So, first of all, if you have never lived under one of those or in a nation enslaved by one of those, you know, it's always good to try to be empathetic. Empathetic. All the people who wrote the Bible lived under those kinds of tyrants. And so the hope is in Psalm 2 is for a Mashiach, an anointed one, that Yahweh will raise up who will confront those nations. And in verse 9, break them with a rod of iron. And shatter them like earth and wire. Welcome to the Psalms.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, so this is an example of God's anger being good in the eyes of the psalmist that it's just, it's bringing justice for those who are oppressed. Yeah, yep. And specifically, that God employs an agent, namely the Messianic Sun, and with evil tyrants, he's quick to get angry, and we'll bring them what they have coming to them.

So that's the portrait of the Messianic King in Psalm 2. So two steps to go here would be, this is Psalm 2, there's that 148 more. So this is just the first little tile, so to speak, in the mosaic of the Messianic King in the Book of Psalms. So as you go on through the Book of Psalms, what you discover about the identity of this, looked for Messianic King, I mean, he's breaking heads here in Psalm 2. But then when you move forward, that portrait gets made a little more complex. Totally. Even just the next Psalm, Psalm 3, the Psalm of David, the King, when he fled from his son, Absalom.

Exactly. Like not just other kings, but his family member. Yes. David is one of the main portraits or figures of this anointed king. And the first collection of Psalms in 3 to 14 shows him on the run, hiding, powerless, weak, and crying out to God for help. You're like, oh, so that's what it looks like when God sends a Messianic king. He's powerless and he cries out for God to vindicate him.

And so, Chris, you've worked extensively in the next section of Psalms, 1524, and it's very much the same. Yeah. Like, Psalm 22, for example. Totally. Yeah, it's, I mean, I think you were going here, but the portrait of the Messianic King is the afflicted one. Yeah. He's the poor, he's the afflicted.

Yeah. This is a good example where the biblical authors will often begin a book with one statement, and then they'll go on to explore it as the book goes on and in-promptuizing that and showing, like, but then look at this, and then look at this, and then think from this angle, and think from this story, and then from this poem, and then you walk away with a much richer picture of how that Messianic King is going to bring his authority over the evil nations. What's interesting is that's a much different type of hermeneutic than I think most people were taught

in the church from maybe a specific tradition, which is, if you find a verse like that and Psalm 2 that says, don't make them a sigh, angry, he gets a... Or also break your head. Yeah. Or specifically, his wrath is quickly kindled. Yeah.

You can then take that, attach that verse to an idea, which is the Messiah is going to throw down fast. And then that's your proof text. Yeah. And that's one type of hermeneutic where I hear you saying that there's this other hermeneutic that there's all these portraits and it creates a mosaic. And if you really want to figure out how the biblical authors think of it, you can't just

pull out anyone verse. You have to look at them all together. I think that's what Kayleigh's bringing up too is that, okay, so there's a portrait of God being slow to anger. And then there's a portrait of the anointed one being quick to anger. So it is a complex portrait. Yeah. It's a portrait of the anointed one being quick to anger. So it is a complex portrait. Yeah, it's a surface tension. Yeah, it's a surface tension.

And this is great. Kaley used the word, there seems to be a contradiction. And so I guess the question is, what constitutes a contradiction within a book? It actually has a lot to do with my assumptions about how the book works. Is it a contradiction that in a cookbook, there's like a recipe with carrots and a recipe without carrots? Well no, because I don't expect a recipe book to be all the same. But somehow we do expect the Bible to work together with a kind of systematized coherence that I think is foreign to how it was actually designed to work. And this explains a lot of, I think, a lot of modern

Westerners frustration with the Bible, or that when we create too much order out of the Bible, and then you let somebody just go read it from page one, why are their faith a scandalized? Because it doesn't read as smoothly as the systematized version of the Bible that my tradition gave me. And so I think what we're trying to explore in this project is getting into the ancient Israelite authors' way of understanding these texts by how they were put together. So to say that God is slow to anger, doesn't mean that God's Messiah, well, God's Messiah, you would imagine, especially from a Christian theology, which is that Jesus is God incarnate,

then the Messiah would be slow to anger. But if the Messiah is slow to anger, that doesn't mean that the Messiah can't get angry quickly. In general, since characteristic, you would say, I could say of someone that's a patient person. But that doesn't mean that there's not going to be a situation where you find that person. Yeah, sure. Yep. OK, the parent analogy helps me so much, I think, with anger.

It's like, I could imagine a parent being patient and slow to anger as a general character quality. And then someone bullies their kid right in front of them and they're like, oh, I'm pissed. You know, you know, it's interesting is that the context of Psalm 2 are these, these rulers who have been getting away with what they're doing for a long time. Yeah. And so, in a sense, God's been letting it happen. And the Messiah is coming and now he's saying, okay, enough is enough.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's a good way of putting it. So you guys want one more little tidbit, super nerdy, but I looked this up after Katie's question, because I remember this from a long time ago. In the book of Revelation, Psalm 2 gets quoted and alluded to multiple times.

And there's a passage in Revelation 12 that's all developing design patterns from the seed of the woman and the snake in Revelation 12, that's all developing design patterns from the seed of the woman and the snake in Revelation 12 about this woman who gives birth to a male son and then there's a dragon that tries to eat the male son that's on. But what happens is that, where is it? Verse 5. Yes. So in Revelation 12 verse 5, she gives birth to a son, a male son, who is going to, and John uses the Greek word poemino, which means to shepherd. He's going to shepherd the nations with a rod of iron, and he's quoting from Psalm 2 verse 9, which is right before when the messianic son gets angry.

So instead of having shatter the nations, John has shepherd the nations. What's happening here? So the letters of the Hebrew word shatter, or a-a, the letters of the Hebrew word to shepherd are a-a. Oh, same. Yep. And in fact, the Greek Septuagint translated, or aah, not as shatter, but as shepherd. And so what John's doing here, is he's actually picking up the image of Psalm 2

from the Septuagint, but he's reading that shattering of heads in light of the whole book of Psalms development of the Messianic King, which is the king is going to become the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. That's how he delivers and confronts the evil of the nations. Yeah, talk about a complex portrait. Totally.

So this is so important. So this shows us how John reads Psalm 2. He didn't take Psalm 2, verse 9 out of context. He's reading that line in light of where the whole trajectory of the Hebrew Bible is going with this portrait of the anointed one. And that guides him to an interpretation of Psalm 2, verse 9, that reads shattering, it inverts shattering to shepherding. Anyway, I've always thought that-

And then translated in an IV as rule. It gets translated in NIV. Yes, we even. Yes, we as rule. Oh, because shepherd is a common image of king in Hebrew Bible. The king is a shepherd. And so to shepherd is to rule. Okay.

But their translation of ruling the nations maybe hides the- Disgrace. You're the different use. Yeah, the different use. Because the shepherd who is struck on behalf of the sheep The discrepancy, you're the different use. Yeah, the different use. Because the shepherd who is struck on behalf of the sheep is a core image in Isaiah and in the book of Zechariah.

The Messiah in the Revelation does shatter some stuff. What's that? Oh, well, yes, that's technically true. But you get into these texts and they're all doing things that are a little more sophisticated than maybe our prophecy charts allowed them to. But okay, we're not going to get through as many questions as we probably at Hope, but that's typical. But let's do one more that will likely be a doozy and it's from Sarah Allen in Wisconsin. Hi, Tim, John and Karissa. My name is Sarah Allen and I'm from Madison, Wisconsin.

In relation to the storyline of Jesus taking the place of rebellious Israel by being handed over to the Roman oppressors, what did he accomplish by that substitution if Israel was still destroyed by Rome anyway? Thanks for all you do. I was asking this question. Yeah, I remember that. And I reflected on it a bit more. And I felt like I settled in on the question a little bit, but I wonder what you have to say. Yeah, I've been thinking about that conversation.

Three of us had a lot too. Yeah, I've had two things come to mind as I process that more. One is, you know, Jesus is introduced in the gospels as beginning his public mission within a renewal movement started by John the Baptist. And that renewal movement was saying that acts as at the root of the tree. Yeah. Don't think that you are a part of Abraham's family just by bloodline alone, to truly be a part of the New Covenant Israel that the prophets anticipated is to come out of Israel and be a part of the

New Covenant Israel that God's creating right here right now. And then Jesus sees Himself as creating sees himself as creating the new covenant Israel within the national state or whatever larger group and so on and this is classic faithful remnant themes from the Hebrew Bible. There's always been just Paul says not all Israel is Israel correct correct, so for what Israel is Jesus dying? You could say well for all Israel. Yeah, but for whom is it effective, or for whom does it actually do something? Well, there's a whole bunch of people that rejected Jesus and they didn't follow the sermon on the Mount and it resulted in a revolt against Rome

and Rome came and clavoured the place. But there were a whole bunch of Israelites, as Jesus defined them, which is those who follow his teachings. And they become a remnant. And they, yeah, totally. And so for them, Jesus's death and his resurrection became this gateway to a whole new humanity. And that's how they started to talk about it, was that Jesus was the start of a new humanity. And so, that's one layer, is that the city, being conquered by Rome, doesn't negate Jesus' vision of kick-starting

the kingdom of God, New Covenant humanity. Because Rome didn't take that out. Rome didn't take that out, and they tried. And they tried. For hundreds of years. Yeah. And they never just grew. And it just grew.

And the reason it grew was because they believed in the resurrection, and they gave their lives, like Jesus, as an act of total faith and surrender in the God of life. And so over that is real. And then all the Gentiles who got in on that Israel, grafted in. Grafted in, as Paul says, they are in Israel. And again, I'm just trying to develop the portrait of the apostles over whom death has no power in theory. And what kind of death? Well, Jesus said, people can kill you, but that's all they can do.

They can affect your participation in the resurrection and the new creation, which is ultimate life. So that's one level. I don't know if you ever thought about that. I have one other. Well, that's where I kind of was landing. And I think what's uncomfortable with that is, what do you do with Israel then that wasn't the remnant because there are all these promises to Israel. And I think people want to be faithful to saying, well, these promises, maybe there's some of these promises that still remain for Israel proper. And so as soon as you start getting very clearly decisive about, well yeah, but not like Rome came out and took out Israel, but not the true Israel because Israel is now this remnant, which is now the church, I can see some Christians getting really

torrenty to borrow. That's what phrase. And I would never say it that way. Okay. That's not how the apostles talk about it. The apostles talk about how Jesus is the image of God, the truly human one, and he is the faithful Israelite. He's the seed of Abraham, and he's Israel. In the language of Isaiah 49, you, the servant, are Israel. The individual servant gets the title of faithful Israelite in book of Isaiah. And then who are included in the Messianic Israel,

those put their faith in him, at least in this argument of acts and of the apostles. And so into that new covenant Israel are invited people of all nations. And first as Paul says, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. But the thing is about the whole family, a new family, the family of God. Yeah. So that gets to the second aspect that I've thought about is that for Jesus to die for the sins of Israel is how he dies for the sins of humanity.

Those are not different things. Because the narrative logic is that this family of Abraham are the people through whom he's going to deal with the sin of all of the nations. But then the problem is that they're just as corrupt as all of the nations. And so for Jesus to die of this. Solving Israel's problem solves humanity's problem. There you go. Yeah, that's it. And so by saying that Jesus was dying for the sins of Israel, by dying at the hands of

pagan oppressors, is how he dies for the sins of all the nations. And I think all of this is what Paul has in mind when he says in 1 Corinthians 15, that the Messiah died for our sins according to the scriptures, and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. So Paul has in his mind this idea that you only understand the death of Jesus in light of the resurrection and you only understand both of those according to the scriptures, according to the biblical narrative. And then the question is, oh, well, what is that narrative?

And that's what we're trying to go after here. So those are some of my thoughts after that conversation. I love John and Chris then. A lot of the questions that we received like this is that the question underneath a question is what did Jesus accomplish in his death? Especially if he was this substitute for Barabbas for Israel.

What was it that he actually accomplished? Yeah, there's so many ways. Like humanity, we repeat this in of Adam and Eve. We do what is good in our eyes, and we create death and not life in the world, individually and corporately. I wish somebody would find a way to defeat death and die for my sins.

That would be amazing. That would be great news. In fact, I mean, I'm being overly simplistic, but I think that's how the narrative works. And then you can fill in that portrait with a whole bunch of other more clarifying themes, but I think that's what it means. So I just want to ask one more question, the piggybacks on the very first question. Oh, sweet. But it's active passage thing. It's kind of close a loop on that. Because he brought up two stories, Sodom and Gomorrah. Rob's question.

Rob's question, he brought up Korra, and then he brought up the Venomah snakes. Totally. Okay, so let's talk about the Venomah snakes, because the Korra story, more in the flood story, I can kind of get there, which is it's de-creation. It's like God sustains creation, and he can let us take his hands off the steering wheel

and let us drive into a ditch. And you kind of get this sense of like, okay, earth splitting in half. In one perspective that's gnarly and vindictive, and like, whoa, what kind of Zeus-like God is gonna pull that off? But when you think of it in the terms of sustaining creation, it's easier. Venomous snakes.

I mean, it seemed like God was just like, you know what sounds fun? I'm gonna send some Venomous snakes. You know, like... Sure. What would really freak these guys out? Venomous snakes, that sounds like a great way to do it. It feels like something like a

Bond villain would come up with. That is certainly how the story read by itself, apart from the mosaic, in English, appears to you. This is the seventh rebellion story in the collection of seven rebellion stories, and they're all mutually hyperlinked together and really Importantly seem to be out ways. That's one thing The second the they're out in the wilderness and what they say is what they repeat is their rebellion from the first one is You brought us out of Egypt. Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us in the wilderness? No bread no water Well, you know, maybe accept the water you provided from the rock and accept the bread that you gave us in the wilderness, no bread, no water. Well, maybe accept the water you provided from the rock

and accept the bread that you gave us in the manna. We detest this miserable food. So snakes come now. Yeah. Snakes. Yeah, snakes. So they're in the opposite of the garden. Right.

And they are in the opposite of the state of innocence, the Adam and Eve were in. OK. And so the snake comes not to test them, but rather, here the snake comes as a form of divine justice. And this is where Moses has the bronze snake that he holds out. Totally.

But then Moses makes this snake. And so the agent of God's judgment is transformed into the agent of salvation. God handles, God takes what the snakes do and then he transforms it into an object of faith which becomes salvation for the people. So God can take what he sends to judge them and turn it into salvation for his people. Jesus tracked with this story in John 3. He brings it up withodemus, and he sees in this story, God's love. This is in John 3. God so loved the world that it gave us only son, and just a paragraph later he brings up the

gold, the story right here about the Brunsire. So Jesus sees this story in a big mosaic about... Even though we've found ourselves in the opposite of the garden, in the opposite of innocence. Yes. God will find a way to reverse the curse of the snake. Yeah, totally. So I think in terms of your, the question out of the question, these are the people that God has chosen to represent him to the nations. This is their seventh act of rebellion in the wilderness.

And it's almost like poetic justice that it becomes an Eden-like snake to come and take them out. But even that, because of Moses' intercession, the people came to Moses, Moses' intercedes, and then because of the intercession of the righteous one, judgment is transformed in salvation. That's the arc of this little story. And it sounds like the story of the whole Bible. All of a sudden. And I think that's on purpose. Do we need any more closure? Any parting words? Hmm. Chrisah.

No. It was a pleasure to talk with you guys, have this conversation. Thank you everybody for sending in your questions. Really thought provoking. I always love hearing what people are thinking. Thanks for wrestling through these ideas with us and keep it up. And what I'm learning is that this is just inviting us deeper, which is a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bob Project Podcast. We make the Bible crystal clear. Oh. Pronsnakes. Yeah. The Bible is so hard to understand. Bob Project is a non-profit.

We're in Portland, Oregon. We want you all and us to together experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. So that's why this podcast exists and the videos that are made from these discussions and the other resources that you can find on our website BibleProject.com. It's all free because people already paid for it and continue to do so which is amazing. So thank you so much for being a part of this with us. This has been Odin and I'm from Tanzania. First heard about Bible project I think around early 2016 and my favorite thing about the Bible project is how they really go to the words, to the culture, the context. I really love how deep they go and I love how accessible the content is. I love how engaging it is. I love how fun it is.

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