The corruption of God’s relationship with us, and our relationship with Him and others.
This is a spin-off from a previous post titled “The Corruption of Humankind,” and results from a bible study I have been attending at a local church. My purpose is to show how corruption of God’s relationship with humanity, especially Christianity, is being co-opted by teaching that relationship as the basis for accepting reprobate behavior, sexual deviance, and rebellion against God under the banner of love.
There are those who make claims and even write books to pull people away from God. They probably do this is an attempt to diminish any relationship one has with God and God’s elect.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. 1 Dawkins, R. (2006). The God delusion. London Black Swan.
According to the open view, things can happen in our lives that God didn’t plan or even foreknow with certainty (though he always foreknew they were possible). This means that in the open view, things can happen to us that have no overarching divine purpose. In this view, “trusting in God” provides no assurance that everything that happens to us will reflect his divine purposes.2 Boyd, G. A. (2000). God of the possible a biblical introduction to the open view of God. Baker Books.
God’s Love
2 Chron. 9:8, Blessed be Adonai your God, who took pleasure in you to put you on his throne, so that you could be king for Adonai your God. Because of your God’s love for Israel, to establish them forever, he has made you king over them, to administer law and judgment.”
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Acts 20:24, But I consider my own life of no importance to me whatsoever, as long as I can finish the course ahead of me, the task I received from the Lord Yeshua, to declare in depth the Good News of God’s love and kindness.
Rom. 5:5, and this hope does not let us down, because God’s love for us has already been poured out in our hearts through the Ruach HaKodesh who has been given to us.
1 Cor. 1:4, I thank my God always for you because of God’s love and kindness given to you through the Messiah Yeshua,
2 Thess. 3:5, May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and the perseverance which the Messiah gives.
Jude 21, Thus keep yourselves in God’s love, as you wait for our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to give you the mercy that leads to eternal life.
1 John 4:8, Those who do not love, do not know God; because God is love.
1 John 4:16, Also, we have come to know and trust the love that God has for us. God is love; and those who remain in this love remain united with God, and God remains united with them.
God’s love is unquestionable. God created us, and loves us so much that He gave up Jesus as a sacrifice for all the sins that all of creation committed. Then God raised Jesus from the dead as a testimony for those who believe in Him of a future after we leave our corporeal existence. With that said, our relationship with God through Jesus is one of service to Him and others. However, what has been happening for many centuries, if not millenniums, is the adversary’s determination to weaken and destroy any relationship we have with Jesus and other believers. This, to me, has taken the form of Jesus becoming a footnote while the focus is on the founders of a particular sect. Jesus is mentioned, but it is the commentary of the founder or other commentators that takes center stage in sermons across the nation. Many people say they love Jesus and I ponder how can you love someone you cannot see, touch, or smell? In that statement, there lies the foundation to disrupt relationships because the love of God and our love for God and others is not taught, but used as a footnote. We can love Jesus even though we cannot see Him because of the Holy Spirit within us. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can know Jesus and understand what He expects of us. It is because God first loved us we can love others and it is because of the Holy Spirit in us we can love just like Jesus loved us.
As mentioned, the adversary is out to destroy that love and turn relationships upside down. Asking believers to accept sinners using a love different that what the Bible teaches causes many denominations to split. For example, we are supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We know we are sinners and have an advocate, Jesus Christ, to have our sins forgiven. We know that regardless of what a person does or has done, we can accept so long as that individual has made a u-turn and returned to God. If a person continues in sin, willful sinning that is, we are still to love them, but not have anything to do with them.
Even during Paul’s time, he had to contend with relationship issues and he addressed them in several ways. Below, I summarize how Paul targeted those who saw differently.
| Main Detractors | The Truth Paul counters with |
| God is universal energy. He is in all things; therefore, all is God. | The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. … He himself gives all men life and breath and everything elese. In Him we live and move and have our being. |
| By seeking God human beings can find Him. They seek Him by raising their own consciousness of Him through reason. | God wants people to seek Him, and He is not far away. But He personally cannot be known unless His messengers proclaim Him. |
| Human beings are ultimately accountable to themselves alone. They determine fulfillment and destiny through their own personal choices. | God has appointed a day when He will judge the world through Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead. All human beings are accountable to Him and are called to repentance. God determines human destiny. |
| The quest for fulfillment in this life and its pleasures is the basis for happiness. | Hope lies only in the merciful God who is patient with human ignorance and wants people to believe in the One who is risen from the dead. |
As you can see, the left column can be seen as normal, and it would be for philosophers and pagans where there is no relationship with God. The right column shows that there is someone (God) who is in control of everything, and by Him, everything is accountable. There is a relationship with God and it is personal. God is love, and He shows that by being merciful and by His grace.
I am not suggesting that any relationship one has with philosophers should be abandoned. Some philosophers and scientist may speak of the emptiness of theology, but we Christians need not speak of the emptiness of philosophy. Philosophers and scientist can teach us how to think clearly and logically. We should never abandon relationships because of differences in ideology. We can learn from one another.
So, how are relationships corrupted? They are corrupted in the Christian world when teachers abandon the Biblical Worldview and adopt the Secular Worldview. This is done by merging secular ideals with Christian faith: When that is accomplished, we are given a different gospel than the one we received from the apostles. It becomes more a doctrine of doing as the government demands and less of what the Scriptures communicate. When this actually takes place, the relationship with God and believers is corrupted. The adversary goes about killing and destroying, and in today’s cultural and social climate, the relationship with God and God’s people has been corrupted.
Isaiah also shows us how the Israelite’s of his day went their own way in Isaiah 29:13, “Then the Lord said, Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, as they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote (memory).” In other words, they corrupted their relationship with God by adopting traditions they memorized as required.
Isaiah 53:6 (NET) and the translators notes “All of us had wandered off like sheep; each of us had strayed off on his own path, but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him.”
Notes:
Isaiah 53:6 tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (pagaʿ) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object; the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.
To conclude, it is important to observe the attack and the fact that the sheep wandered away on their own. The act of corrupting relationships is tantamount to an attack, causing numerous individuals to stray from the Lord and pursue their own course. This is a deliberate move by Satan, and it’s yielding results. It is crucial for all believers to prevent the deliberate act of sin from entering their congregations. Naturally, we all make mistakes and fail to live up to God’s expectations, but we have the ability to repent and seek forgiveness. Permitting behavior contradictory to God’s word, the end result is straying from the truth and going our own way.
Shalom
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