Category Archives: Judge

Cross Vision 12 – Creation Undone

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Summarising chapter 13.

Not all the violence in the OT can be attributed to human agents.

Take the flood, for example.  A cross-centred hermeneutic prompts us to discern Satanic powers using their God-given authority to brng this about.

Scripture assumes as certain solidarity between the human, animal and inanimate kingdoms.  In Gen 6:12f the same word (sāhat) is used to describe human sin, the effect of this on the earth, and the punishment.  This indicates that the flood ‘was an organic, not a judicial, divine judgment’.…

God the Judge

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J.I. Packer writes:

Do you believe in divine judgment? By which I mean, do you believe in a God who acts as our Judge?

Many, it seems, do not. Speak to them of God as a Father, a friend, a helper, one who loves us despite all our weakness and folly and sin, and their faces light up; you are on their wavelength at once. But speak to them of God as Judge and they frown and shake their heads.…

Divine retribution in the New Testament

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It is often asserted that divine judgement is restorative, and not retributive.  But this is a false dichotomy, and one that flies in the face of the testimony of Scripture.

Andrew Atherstone notes that the concept of divine retribution (punishment administered by God in return for wrong that has been committed) is not frequently encountered in the New Testament, but that it is present nonetheless:-

‘For example, after Jesus healed an invalid at the Pool of Bethesda he warned the man, ‘Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you’ (John 5:14).…