Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

GC:Your view of God's ideal will is not consistent with the truth.

GC:If there is such a thing as "ideal will" versus "will," then I propose to you that this "ideal will" is described in the following verse:

Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

6Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

7Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6)

In other words, Tom, forgiveness is not God's "ideal will." Obedience is.

In the case of the Lord's message expressed in the verse above, that obedience involved killing those whom God had commanded to be killed, including the king and the cattle which Saul disobediently saved.

In the case of the laws of capital punishment and avengement, to obey meant compliance with said laws.

God would rather that we obey, than that we come asking forgiveness for our disobedience. Of course God stands ready to forgive when we sincerely ask, but that is not His "ideal will."

GC, don't you think God's ideal will was revealed in Jesus Christ? What do you think God would prefer? That we forgive those who have done us wrong, or seek to kill them according to some rule? Don't you think God was meeting the Israelites where they were, and giving them rules to make their situation more tolerable?

Consider the rule "an eye for an eye." This was certainly better than "a life for an eye." But God's ideal will was revealed by Jesus Christ. Not "eye for eye" and "tooth for tooth," but if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn your cheek.

The answer to your first question is in post #123326.

Thank you, kland, for helping to bring us back into the more central focus of this topic.

As you have correctly stated, the Bible says "Thou shalt not murder." This command is stated twice--once in Exodus, and once in Deuteronomy--as an express command of God.

The Bible also has the following express commands from God:

And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20:16)

Deuteronomy
13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
13:4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
13:5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. (Deuteronomy 13:9)

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Several points can be noted from these scriptures.

1. There is a time to kill (or, at least there was).
2. God commanded capital punishment as a means of keeping the people pure, lest they be led astray by the wicked among them.
3. The Hebrew word here is different from the word used in "Thou shalt not murder."

Thus, a distinction is made between improper and proper. Murder is never acceptable, but always sinful. Killing was acceptable as an act of war and as a means of maintaining the purity of the people by removing the wicked (capital punishment--but the focus was more on the preservation of the righteous). Killing in either of these senses was a duty, not a liberty. Soldiers had a duty to protect and serve their country. Citizens had a duty to uphold the laws of their theocracy. These ordinances were given by God in order to weed out the bad apples before they could spoil the barrel.

We do the same today. We put our worst criminals to death. If we did not, they would but be a menace to others and to themselves. Society is better off without them. Those who are especially recalcitrant, particularly to God's authority, are better off meeting an early demise than to have the greater opportunity to bring guilt upon themselves which must be met in the Judgment. Jesus also spoke along these lines when referring to some which would be better off having a millstone hung around their necks and being cast into the sea.

Murder is always killing. But killing is not always murder. Just like swans are always birds, but birds are not always swans. In this latter example, note that swans are unclean, but quail, chickens, and doves are clean. It behooves us, therefore, to keep a careful distinction between even similar things--for God also distinguishes them and puts great importance into the distinction (sacred versus common fire, as another example).

As for your rumination on the distinction between thoughts and acts, did not Jesus tell us that sinful thoughts carry a similar guilt to bodily acts? Jesus gave two separate examples of this: hatred -> murder; and lust -> adultery.

However, acts of faith are physical acts. Abraham put his son upon the altar, as opposed to merely consenting in his mind to such an act. This act on his part put him in the "hall of faith," and was counted unto him for righteousness.

It's what I've been saying. I think God's counsel regarding capital punishment is of the same character as His counsel regarding polygamy and divorce. I think God's idea will in this matter is reveled in Christ. In particular, we see this in how Christ treated the woman caught in adultery.

I'll also repeat that I've suggested many times that if we wish to understand God's character, the way to do so is to build a foundation based on what we see in Christ first, and then come back to the OT. You've steadfastly rejected this idea. I don't think focusing on the OT first works. I think focusing on the revelation of Christ first works.

Is it your idea that Jesus Christ had no light not in the OT? That He was a sort of lesser light? If I'm understand you correctly here, I think you've got this upside down. The OT was written to testify of Christ. *He* is the light.

The OT was a dim reflection of the bright sun which is Christ.





I think Jesus was pleading for something which He was feeling, and that in doing so He was revealing the heart of God. I didn't say anything about Christ's "acknowledging" anything, but "revealing" something. I'd encourage you not to switch the words I'm using for other words which mean something different.

For example, I spoke of Christ's praying, and you changed this to Christ's "telling" God what to do. I spoke of Christ's "revealing" the heart of God, and you changed this to Christ's "merely acknowledging" something. I hope you can see the difference between what I said and your re-phrasing.



It represents God's attitude in that God is agape, and loves them, in spite of what they do, or have done. "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked." "Why will you die?" "Oh Absalom, my son, Absalom. Would to God that I had died instead of thee. Oh my son, Absalom, my son." are others that express the heart of God.



I don't know what "this" is. I think Jesus' prayer was heart-felt, and reveals the heart of God.



It's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Understanding God's feelings helps leads us to repentance, which makes it more likely that actual pardon will occur.



There's an SOP statement that comes to mind. I remember the gist of it, but not specifically enough to find it. She speaks of how the prayer of Christ took in the entire world, which is guilty of the death of Christ, but unless we individually repent, we will perish. It's the same idea I shared earlier about the two aspects of forgiveness. From God's side, He forgives us. But we need to acknowledge our wrong-doing and repent in order to appropriate that forgiveness as our own.



I addressed this above.



??? Where do you get this from? I didn't say anything like this.



I think you're completely confused here, in regards to what I said. I'll repeat my point. My point was simply that God's ideal will was revealed in Christ, and we see His attitude towards capital punishment in how He treated the woman caught in adultery. One other point I made was in response to your point that the sabbath-breakers were not repentant while the woman caught in adultery was. I pointed out that this was incorrect.

That's all I said. Your conclusions don't seem to bear any correspondence to with what I said.



Because Jesus doesn't treat us according to our goodness, but according to His. Nobody before being converted is on their way to heaven. God's goodness leads us to repentance. Either a person responds or he doesn't. God's goodness has to come first, before a person responds.



These questions seem highly speculative to me. What I'm suggesting is that we focus on Christ's revelation of the Father. The more I suggest this, the more questions come in regards to the OT.