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God Commanding People to Kill

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Darth Executor View Post
    That wasn't the scenario.
    It is the closest scenario possible under the Covenant to which I am party.
    Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

    Beige Federalist.

    Nationalist Christian.

    "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

    Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

    Proud member of the this space left blank community.

    Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

    Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

    Justice for Matthew Perna!

    Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

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    • #17
      Originally posted by Hornet View Post
      The Israelites were murdering people because they were executing God's judgment. Is that correct?
      No, the ten commandments say "do not murder", the point is that a different word is used there in contrast to us being told the Israelites did not kill the Gibeonites.

      Blessings,
      Lee
      "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

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      • #18
        Divine command theory teaches that whatever God teaches is just, no matter what. I believe that was the point of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
        "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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        • #19
          Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
          Divine command theory teaches that whatever God teaches is just, no matter what.
          But the OP was not about whether it would be "just." It was whether we would do it. The NT explicitly says that *at least* as far as beliefs are concerned, our the weapons we are to use are not those that apply to "flesh and blood."

          As far as "sin" and "judgment" are concerned, it also tells us the remedy we are to apply: The preaching of the Gospel.


          I believe that was the point of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
          Maybe. But Hebrews at least suggests that Abraham obeyed because he expected I AM to raise the dead and return his son after the sacrifice.
          Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

          Beige Federalist.

          Nationalist Christian.

          "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

          Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

          Proud member of the this space left blank community.

          Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

          Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

          Justice for Matthew Perna!

          Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
            Divine command theory teaches that whatever God teaches is just, no matter what. I believe that was the point of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
            God does not arbitrarily decide what is right or wrong. God's law is a reflection of His nature. What He commands is a reflection of His nature. God would not command anyone to sin.

            I think God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in order to test his faith. God had the right to take Isaac's life and God had the right to command Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Is this correct?

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            • #21
              Originally posted by Hornet View Post
              I was talking with one of my non-Christian friends and he asked me these questions and I would like to know how you would answer them.

              God commanded the Israelites to make war against and kill the Canaanites. Suppose that God speaks to people today. If God were to tell you to kill someone or group of people in order to execute judgment for their sin, would you do it?

              When God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites, was He commanding them to commit murder?
              When other ancient texts contain statements that deity X commanded person Y to do Z, such texts are not understood as factual assertions that a deity actually told a person to do something. Instead, they are understood as - for example - oracle-texts, understood by a person as a divine communication, that command or prohibit a stated action.

              I think this is how several OT passages should be understood.

              Or there is another theory: The Assyrian kings, when making war, claim that their gods encouraged or helped them to do so. When modern scholars read these texts, and treat them seriously, they do not treat them as stating that deity X or Y personally told king Z to go and make war. Instead, such passages are seen as theological justifications for military action by the ruler in question. Assyrian expansionism is given a justification based on Assyrian theology of kingship, with all that this implies for the notion that the king is the deputy of the national god Asshur.

              A third possibility: the troublesome passages may not be historically accurate - they may be composed hundreds of years after the events they tell of, not in order to deceive or anything like that, but in order to fill in the gaps in Israel’s history. So the violent events that are made so much of, may be as fictional as the exact details of the Trojan War.

              Whatever theory may be correct, the theological question of the inspiration of the OT is untouched. Historical, history-like, non-historical or whatever they may be, they are God-breathed Scripture. The OT documents were composed with their own ideas in mind. Not with the ideas of later ages in mind. What later Jewish or Christian theological tradition thought they “must” mean, does not matter. What does matter, is that the texts should as far as possible be understood from their own POV.

              2. No. That is not “the spirit [we] are of”. God has spoken to us by His Son, and this Son shows what God is truly like, and what He requires of us, and in what Spirit. Whether an action of man is also a Divine judgement, cannot be told from the action, and it cannot be presumed. So such action, for Christians, is excluded.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by Hornet View Post
                God does not arbitrarily decide what is right or wrong. God's law is a reflection of His nature. What He commands is a reflection of His nature. God would not command anyone to sin.
                Agreed.
                I think God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in order to test his faith. God had the right to take Isaac's life and God had the right to command Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Is this correct?
                I don’t believe God would do that. IMO, the story is made of a tradition about Abraham and Isaac, perhaps influenced by Greek mythology. There is no attention to the moral implications of the matter, but only to the action of Abraham, considered as evidence of his readiness to obey God. The emphasis is on that, because Isaac is the promised heir to Abraham, and by having Isaac no longer available to him Abraham would be as he was when he set out from Ur. So God tests him, to see if he is prepared to go without the heir he was waiting for. Abraham is being tested to see if his love of God is unreserved, as per Deut. 6 - and it is. Since he is the founder-figure of the Chosen People, that is rather important.

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
                  Agreed.
                  I don’t believe God would do that. IMO, the story is made of a tradition about Abraham and Isaac, perhaps influenced by Greek mythology. There is no attention to the moral implications of the matter, but only to the action of Abraham, considered as evidence of his readiness to obey God.
                  But the author of Hebrews treats the account as historical:

                  "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type." (Heb. 11:17-19)

                  As does James:

                  "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God." (James 2:21-23)

                  And both these accounts give a moral implication of Abraham's action, as indeed, you point out:

                  Abraham is being tested to see if his love of God is unreserved, as per Deut. 6 - and it is.
                  Blessings,
                  Lee
                  "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

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                  • #24
                    A
                    As we live under Christ and He is God's Judge (Acts 10:42) humans have no right to take today.

                    B
                    "Murder" is the take life 'against the Law' (in this instance, God's Laws) thus as the Israelites were ordered by God to eradicate them as they broke Gods Laws and lived in a land not theirs the answer is No.
                    BU

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