April 26

To say that 2 Samuel 24 is perplexing would be an understatement! How do we reconcile this with our unrelenting belief that God is only and always good? The text clearly states that God caused David to do something that was wrong, after which a punishment ensued, inflicted on people who had no part in the transgression.

We must remember that the Bible is always the best means of interpreting itself. James 1:13-15, with equal clarity, states that God never tempts. Temptation is an act to seduce someone to transgress with the hope that they will in fact fail. Testing is creating an environment where a transgression is possible, but with the hope the person will pass the test by resisting evil. We also have 1 Corinthians 10:13, with equal clarity, states that we never face any sort of temptation that is beyond what we are able to resist. These two texts help us to see that God's anger with David is because He sees the pride in David's heart and out of love, will not allow that pride to remain hidden and unchallenged. Thus, God tests David with a idea. In the end, David will either deal with this pride by either overcoming it by resisting what he knows to be wrong or he will deal with his pride through repentance and forgiveness after the transgression is committed. What at first appears to be a sadistic act of an uncaring Deity is now revealed as the loving, caring act of a perfect Father.

But what of the innocent who are killed in consequence to David's transgression? Ezekiel 18:20, with equal clarity, states that God only punishes the guilty for their sin and does not visit judgment on one for the sin of another. There are only two alternatives for the population of 70,000 people who died in the plague, people who were guilty of their own unrepentant transgressions whose sin finally culminated in judgment and those who were in right standing with God. For the guilty, their death is not then the result of David's sin. God is using one plague to deal with scores of people for their own individual transgressions. Why isn't that clarification given to us...because God knows He has given us all of Scripture and expects us to be well versed in the breadth of revelation that is present in the entirety of our Sacred Texts. So what of the people who died in right standing with God? Since when is being promoted to heaven ever a punishment?

May we be careful to not let an over-identification with this temporal world be a filter of bias that causes us to hold a God who is only and always good in a negative light!

Pastor Fred