When God Seems to Step Out of Character
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Rom 9:13)
God tells us that His ways are different from our ways (Isa 55:8). Our sense of justice and punishment is often so different from God's (Eze 18:29). There are several scripture passages that seem to show God stepping out of character. At times He seems to be different from the God that we think we know. One is in the verse above where God says that He hates Esau. God hates someone? How strange. Not only does God love everybody, it is more than that. God is love (I John 4:8,16).
I heard a preacher one time say, “'Well, You don't really hate him. You strongly dislike him.' God screams back, 'I hate his guts!'”
This is truly the God we do not know. He really has stepped out of character. There is more going on here. There is more than seems to lie on the surface. Whenever God acts in a way that we do not understand, it is always because of something important. And that “something” is almost always the same thing.
Judah, the son of Jacob, had three sons. Er was the firstborn.
And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. (Gen 38:7)
Does God go around killing people? Was Er the first wicked person on the earth? We do not know why, but it was serious enough to kill him. Strange. According to the legal code of the day, Jacob's second son Onan was required to marry his brother's widow. Their firstborn son was to go to Er's line. Other children would pertain to Onan and his late brother's wife Tamar (Gen 38). Onan was soon killed directly by God, like his brother. We will look at why in a moment.
Several hundred years later, Jacob's family in Egypt was a large nation (600,000+). Moses was sent to free the people from Pharaoh's control. After a series of plagues upon Egypt, the nation of Israel was driven out of the land. The final plague was the death of the firstborn, except for the Israelites who were protected from this.
And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. (Ex 12:30)
Every firstborn, man or animal, was dead in the night. The Israelites and those who feared God were spared by the Passover angel. It was the wholesale slaughter of a good part of a nation. Doesn't this seem unlike the God who is love? There are quite a number of cases where there is the death of people. There are too many to deal with all of them in this short article.
If the people wanted to escape the death of the firstborn plague, they were required to place the blood of a lamb upon the lintel and doorposts of their houses. Those who obeyed were spared. Those who thought it was a joke saw the firstborn of the family die. This was pointing to the blood of Christ, saving the obedient from death. Today, those who think it is unimportant will die facing the wrath of the God Who takes His Son's work on the cross as supremely important.
The account of the flood of Noah's day is the ultimate example of the death of an entire civilization, except for 8 people. A more in-depth study would reveal that
the entire population of the planet was already at or on their way to genetic corruption. This would ruin the human population to the point of eliminating any possibility of God sending a savior to save the human race. The main conflict on earth, both in ancient times as well as modern times, is a seed war.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen 3:15)
This, also, is a huge topic. Too large for this article. Let's look at just a few examples of why God dealt with certain people so severely.
One day Esau came in from the field. He was famished. His brother Jacob was cooking a stew. Esau wanted something to eat. Jacob made him sell his birthright (as the oldest son) for some food.
32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright. (Gen 25:32-34)
This does not even seem like an incident, much less a crime. The birthright included being in the direct ancestral line of the Savior Messiah. Esau thought less about that than he did about beans. Thus, Esau despised his birthright. He thought that being in the line of the Savior, who was to come, was a worthless thing. Therefore God hated him.
This may seem like a very small thing. The things that man esteems as valuable are often an abomination to the Lord. The things that the Lord values are often worthless to man. God values nothing as much as His Son. To consider anything associated with The Son as unimportant is the greatest transgression possible. This brings the wrath of God as nothing else.
A prophet, Balaam, predicted that Jacob's line would produce the coming King (Jesus). Judah, son of Jacob, was predicted to be an ancestor of the coming Savior. His father Jacob, when he was dying, prophesied that Judah would be the son whose line through which the King would be born. Judah, then, was the one out of Jacob's 12 sons that would produce the Savior of the world. Apparently, that is quite an important thing. And apparently, so is taking it lightly.
Judah married a Canaanite woman. That probably was a bad idea, though we do not know of any prohibition against it. They had three sons. Er was the firstborn. He married a woman named Tamar. Er was somehow evil in the sight of the Lord, so He killed him. Does God kill every evil person? Quite obviously not. Being in the direct genetic line of the Savior, however, is not a frivolous thing.
The code of the day required a brother of the deceased to marry the widow. Their firstborn son would carry on name of the dead man. Onan was Judah's second son and so he married Tamar. She was no doubt a young and beautiful woman. Onan would have sex with her but he refused to give her a child. Onan must have hated his brother. He did not want the major part of his estate to go toward his brother Er's name instead going to any subsequent children of his own. Since Tamar was married to Onan, she would never have a child by any other man, either. God killed Onan also as well as his brother. Judah thought that this woman must be cursed. Two of Judah's sons are now dead. He had a third son Shelah, but Judah was afraid to give him to Tamar lest he die also, like his brothers. It looks like the line of Judah was going to end here.
Through trickery, Tamar disguised herself and had sex with Judah, her father-in-law. He thought she was a prostitute. She had twins and the line of Messiah (through Judah) continued. Most people would think that what Tamar did and what Judah did were immoral. They were, but God sees things differently than man does. God can deal with some immorality and drunkenness. He can deal with some violence and evil. Those are sins. They are serious and they have a consequence. God can deal with those things. He has a remedy for them but He cannot and will not deal with people slighting His Son. (JW's: Pay attention.)
Men see things differently than God does. God is the one making the rules. There is no higher code to which God must abide. His word is the final word. It does not matter what man's opinion is.
There is another picture that the Scriptures gives us that shows Jesus not as we would expect Him.
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. (Rev 19:13)
His clothing is dripping with blood. And it's not His. The Lord is brutal with His enemies.
The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. (Ex 15:3)
We sometimes do not realize Who this is that we are dealing with. With those who submit unto Him, He is kind and so generous. We were all His enemies in the past but He died for His enemies who would trust in Him to forgive them (Rom 5:8).
God is kind and good to His children. To those who refuse and mock His salvation He is equally as severe. The same adjectives that are used to describe heaven are used in the reverse to describe hell. Just as the kindness of God to the believer is beyond description or imagination, so the horrors of the lost are also beyond our ability to comprehend. Jesus came to save people from a fate which is so horrific, human language fails. Similarly, the riches of the grace of God toward those who trust Him cannot be imagined.
As in every case where God seems to step out of character, the Christ-rejector is facing a wrath that seems almost unreasonable. We do not realize that we are dealing with the Absolute One. He is absolute in justice and, at the same time, He is absolute in love. His kindness and His grace toward those who trust in His name seem too good to be true. Trust in Him today.
Aug. 15, 2023