busterdog -- I'll have to read that post a few times to try to figure out what you're saying (not that you've put it badly but it's pretty deep). However, I do have a couple questions. You said that God's creation in Gen 1-3 is perfect. What would give you that idea? Also, you cite a verse that talks about the Israelites stoning prophets sent as messengers from God and conclude that because God is pained by the occurance, God must abhor ALL physical death. I suggest that this leap of logic is utterly unfounded and your interpretation of the passage as evidence for physical death being evil is simply a case of you reading your assumption that death is bad into an unrelated passage. This verse in no way talks about death in general but the murder of God's messengers and cannot be used as evidence that the God of the Bible views all death as a corruption of his good (or perfect?) creation.
If you have a look in the amplified Bible regarding the fruit of the tree of good and evil, we are talking about the knowledge of blessing and calamity -- death being generally rather calamitous.
Genesis 2:9 (Amplified Bible) 9And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight or to be desired--good (suitable, pleasant) for food; the tree of life also in the center of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of [the difference between] good and evil and blessing and calamity.(
Let's of course not rest the whole thesis on that one translation.
Of course, we have been round and round on Paul's statement that "By one man, death entered." Let's not rest it all on that either.
I would suggest that we first have a look at two different ways by which God acts.
1. Speaking to the sea - be still; Speaking to the demons - come out of him; And to to Lazarus -- Lazarus come forth. All examples are direct, generally immediate with no mediating process, agency or force - -much like the reference in my signature below.
2. Another way to act is to act through the corrupt processes of human agency. Sennecherib is sent packing, where he is murdered by his children. 2 Chron. 32 (And, Paul states generally, "God does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he should repent and live.")
By contrast, the angel that slays 185,000 seems to kill without human agency and without delay -- apparently a "type 1" intervention.
In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews are told not to resist him, but to let him "clean house" (including lots of killing), with the promise that those who trust would be protected by Nebuchadnezzar. ... A Type 2 intervention. Nebuchadnezzar is only later converted, but he is none the less overt in his sin, yet he fulfills the purposes of God.
The verse I quoted was Jesus' lament over Jerusalem. More precisely I had in view the lament that Jerusalem was about 40 years from Titus Vespasian, who did not leave "one stone upon another" when the Temple was destroyed.
The example of Jerusalem and Jesus is about how the purposes of God are put into motion, sometimes slowly, but ineluctably, yet through corruption and sin . I think this is less "ex nihilo" than theother way of action.
On one hand, God will in fact "use" satan himself , or perhaps rather to be more precise, the purposes of God are advanced even by satan, despite satan's intentions, as in Job. (Eg, that God did not ache for Job is not denied in the text. That it is not stated is not really of concern. If the Holy Spirit wrote that book, no doubt that which inspired the writer was feeling for Job for sure.)
My proposition is that there are two types of activity: In one type, God is sovereign in all aspects of an event. He speaks things that are not as if they were (sight to the blind, life to the dead, freedom to the possessed/). In the second type, His results will also be acomplished, but only eventually, through the agency of sinful, fallen creatures, and even through their sovereignty (or free will). Is it not fair to say that the latter means is heartbreaking even for God?
One basis for distinguishing these two types of action as to do with the sovereignty of man. Where man will cede his sovereignty, God can act to restore sight. (Did Lazarus consent? Doesn't matter a great deal to me.)
Returning the example of Jerusalem, and as for the final acceptance of King Jesus in national Israel, note the following:
Hsa 5:15 I will go [and] return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
God will apparently return and act through his own agency, of which the resurrection was a type and example.
Isa 63:5 And I looked, and [there was] none to help; and I wondered that [there was] none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
There would appear to be a division between the fall an the post-fall world, and between the fallen world and the restored paradise of the future. That is my proposition, though much of it is by inference. As I said to Shernren, it is not easy, but I think it holds up. And what Paul made very easy, I made long-winded and complicated.
Does God abhor all physical death? I am not sure why that needs to be debated. Not even a sparrow falls without God noticing, as the Gospel says. Does God feel for the sparrow? (
Luke 12:6
Are not five
sparrows sold for two pennies ? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.) Let's not worry too much about that, but go the the question of Jerusalem.
Would God prefer to save Israel through the agency of Titus Vespasian (not to mention the coming holocaust, already begun) or through their immediate repentence? Isn't that answer obvious?
So, again we get the point of death. Victory over death is the final victory. I don't understand why that should not be near the center of our theology? Creation was good before teh fall and the ground was cursed after. Is it is said as directly as we would like outside of Paul? Maybe no. But, why are we in such a rush to make death a part of the pre-fall paradise? Would God prefer death for his creatures? I think the case is pretty clearly, no.
