A precis of chapter 6.

A missionary couple are assigned to an area where female genital mutilation is performed.  They realise that the practice is so deeply ingrained that it would be futile to confront it immediately.  So, for the time being, they seek to ameliorate its worst effects by providing anaesthesia and better surgical knives.  Only gradually are they able to convince the people to end the practice.

Is it unreasonable to suggest that God sometimes act like that?  Does he not sometimes accommodate offensive practices because it would have been futile to try to stop them by force?  Given the realities of the divine and human nature, God must work by loving influence rather than by coercion.

Now we know the true character of God as revealed in the cross we can look back and discern the ways in which he accommodated the sinful practices of his people and also tolerated the many ways in which they misunderstood his nature and character.

Let’s look at some of God’s accommodations in the OT.

(a) Accommodations to God’s marriage ideal.  Right from the start, God’s ideal was for a life-long union between one man and one woman.  But even distinguished leaders such as Samuel, David and Solomon were polygamous, and  yet God did not speak out against it (cf. 2 Sam 12:8).  We can understand that God was stooping down in love to accommodate the mores of the day (and to afford more protection to women, in an age when singleness was, for a woman, a vulnerable state).  The divorce clause was itself a concession, ‘because of the hardness of your hearts’ (Mt 19:8).

(b) Accommodating a human king.  God’s original plan was for he himself to be Israel’s King.  But the people clamoured for a human king (1 Sam 8).  So God, having given numerous warnings about the consequences of this, let them have their way.  Thereafter, having yielded to their demand, God approved and blessed many of Israel’s kings.  In this way, God was allowing himself to be viewed as if he was like the other gods of the ANE.  The Israelites were correct in thinking that it was God who gave them victory (or caused their defeat).  But they were mistaken in thinking that God never needed to engage in violence when he did so.

(c) Accommodating animal sacrifices.  These were rather gory affairs (Lev 1:14-17).  And yet these sacrifices gave up ‘an aroma pleasing to the Lord’!  Are we really to believe that the Lord sanctioned animal cruelty and and enjoyed the smell of burning carcasses?  In the ANE, animals were sacrificed to gods long before the Hebrews came along.  His story with his people was to wean them away from pagan sacrifices and insist on sacrifice to him alone.  Moreover, their sacrifices conveyed important truths about repentance and covenant-keeping.  The later writings of the OT confirm that God did not require animal sacrifices at all (Hos 6:6; 10:8; Isa 1:11,13).  It was, in fact, painful for God to bear these ‘meaningless offerings’.  Indeed, he even includes animals in his covenants (Hos 2:18).  And if the commands to slaughter animals were accommodations, how much more the commands to slaughter humans?  Jesus makes it clear that it is God’s will for us to love, not kill, our enemies (Mt 5:44f).

(d) Accommodating the law.  The entire legal system of the OT is an accommodation.  Even the 10 Commandments show signs of accommodation.  For example, they assume, with the rest of the ANE, that the wife is the property of the husband (Ex 20:17).  Hebrews 10:8 makes it clear that God did not desire animal sacrifices, even though these were offered in accordance with the law.  Jesus affirmed that the law allowed for divorce and remarriage, even though this was not God’s will.  Even more importantly, Paul teaches that Gentiles, along with Jews, are justified by faith, apart from the law (Gal 3:8).  The law was not God’s final of definitive word.  It was a ‘guardian’, to lead us to Christ (Gal 3:23).  The law, though good in itself, cannot put us right with God.  Hebrews teaches that there was something ‘wrong’ with the first covenant (Heb 8:7), and that it is now ‘obsolete’ (Heb 8:13).  But of this there are the merest hints in the OT.  But the overall impression is that people are put right with God by keeping the law.  It becomes clear, then, that the fundamental purpose of the law was to show that people cannot be put right with God on the basis of law-keeping.  And it was only at a certain time (the ‘right time’, Rom 5:6) that God was revealed as the kind of God to whom anyone can become rightly related.  There is, accordingly, a clear contrast between the law that was given through Moses, and the grace and truth revealed in Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17).  If the OT laws (many of which are associated with violence) were provisional accommodations, then it follows that the portrait of God they represent is a provisional accommodation too.

Assessing these accommodations

Insofar as these accommodations represent a moral improvement on the prevalent practices of the ANE, we may ascribe them to the direct action of God.  But insofar as they fall short of God’s revelation in the cross of Christ, they represent the fallen and culturally conditioned state of his people.  To be specific:

‘Insofar as any law or any activity that is ascribed to God involves violence against humans or animals, it must to this degree be considered an accommodating, sin-mirroring portrait that indirectly bears witness to the sin-bearing God revealed on Calvary. It may yet reflect God’s positive influence inasmuch as it improves over similar but even more violent laws found among Israel’s neighbors. But insofar as it is sub-Christlike, it must be assessed to be a divine accommodation.’