Peter Espeut | God is not like humanity

Many of us Jamaicans are Old Testament people – which is fine if we follow the Jewish faith tradition. But if we are children of the New Covenant – the New Testament – then we follow a different “Way, Truth, and Life” than the Old Law.

Let me explain what I am getting at.

One strand of Old Testament thinking goes like this: God punishes the wicked IN THIS LIFE, and rewards the good IN THIS LIFE (sometimes called “The Prosperity Gospel”). Jamaica is a wicked place, with one of the highest murder rates in the world, with corrupt politicians, and with Obeah and necromancy galore! Therefore, what else did we expect? God is trying to send us a message! Hurricane Melissa is God’s punishment upon us for our sins. And we deserve it! Just like Haiti deserves it for being a Voodoo country. And Cuba for its Communism, which is against God. It is a wake up call! Listen people!

That is NOT the message of the New Testament, the Book of the New Covenant. The Messiah Christians believe in teaches that His loving Father causes the rain to fall on the good and bad alike; and so the good will sometimes suffer, and the wicked will sometimes prosper. Isn’t that your experience?

Followers of Christ are told that their destiny is to carry a big cross. You cannot have Christianity without the cross. False prophets preach “The Prosperity Gospel” – Christianity without the cross. Their auditoriums are full; as are their collection bags.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods are not “Acts of God” to punish evil people, but “Acts of Nature”, explainable purely by the natural sciences.

CORRECT MYSELF

Let me correct myself: the theology that “God rewards the good and punishes the wicked in this life” is found in the EARLY Old Testament – before the Book of Job; Job was written to challenge this very theology. Job – the righteous man – suffers for no apparent reason, and his three “friends” – Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar – try to get him to admit his sin and therefore legitimize the theology of retribution; but nothing doing!

The obsolete Theology of Retribution is absent from the later Old Testament, and is replaced with Christian theology in the New Testament – the God who dies for us while we are still in our sins.

But then: why do so many people who call themselves “Christians” follow obsolete Old Testament theology? Because their biblical fundamentalism leads then to believe that – for Christians – every part of the Bible – Old and New Testaments – from Genesis to Revelation – has the same doctrinal value.

Now don’t misunderstand me: all the Bible is indeed the revealed Word of God; but God did not reveal all truth at the same time in all its fullness; his listeners could not absorb it all. The Bible demonstrates “development of doctrine”; fundamentalists do not accept that. Every part of the Bible is just like any other. The Bible has no texture.

A good chapter that shows the real Old Testament Theology of Retribution is Leviticus 26. “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

“I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you”.

And so on.

CONVERSE

And the converse:

“But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

“If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit”.

And so on. Deuteronomy 28 is in similar vein. And many others.

The God of the New Testament is not like a vindictive human.

Jesus says “You have heard it said … BUT I say to you …”. Jesus’ law is different. The Old Covenant is qualitatively different to the new one. We must be sensitive to the profound fundamental changes.

And so in the aftermath of the most powerful and destructive storm in Jamaica’s history let us not blame God for global warming and extra high sea temperatures. This only distracts from the real culprits.

Calling for repentance is always good; but what we must do in the recovery process is ensure that the response is efficient, and without corruption or favouritism.

Learning some New Testament theology will lead to progress!

Pardon the preaching this week, but God is getting a bad name, and I have to defend.

Peter Espeut is an environmentalist and is Dean of Studies at St. Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com