According to Genesis, Adam and Eve deeply offended God's authority. Because of that one act of disobedience, the entire human race must be punished into perpetuity. The Lord Jealous put the "fear of God" into his children by kicking them out of the house. He damned all of us. "Actions have consequences," the strict parent lectures his unruly children.
We sometimes hear that God is a forgiving parent, but the scriptures don't support that claim. The forgiveness that is sometimes mentioned in the Old Testament is almost always contingent on paying a price to appease the wrath of the Lord Jealous. Forgiveness is not something he freely gives: it has to be bought, usually with the blood ransom of animal sacrifice.
He shall remove all its fat, as the fat is removed from the offering of well-being, and the priest shall turn it into smoke on the altar for a pleasing odor to the Lord. Thus the priest shall make atonement on your behalf, and you shall be forgiven. (Leviticus 4:31)
When God's anger is soothed by the "pleasing odor" of a burning animal, only then will he pardon your crimes.
If a father said to his child, "You angered me by opening your Christmas present early, but I will forgive you when I smell the smoke of your pet burning," we would howl with condemnation at such abusive parenting. As Richard Dawkins notes in the Forward, Christians have inherited this blood-penalty mentality from the Old Testament: "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission [of sin]."
(Hebrews 9:22) God simply cannot forgive unless something dies.
---Dan Barker, in God The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction---
No comments:
Post a Comment