Jesus vs. Jehovah?

The last time I referenced Greg Boyd around here...I got a bit of flak and he got tussled around fairly underhandedly in my opinion. Most Pastor's that link to anything from Boyd usually add this little evangelical distancing tool, the "I dont agree with everything" comment, that allows the poster to link or reference but attempts to avoid any negative backlash from heresy hunters or ultra conservative modern Pharisees. I get all that...but my general proclivity to get in the same hot water as Boyd...prevents me from uttering that "butt saving" post prologue. If anyone reading this thinks that to quote something or someone is an endorsement of all that person believes or has written...needs to get a brain, grow up and engage the world of ideas with a maturity above the level of 15.

That said :)

Greg has some really good blog posts centered around the issue of reconciling the violent God of the Old Testament with the image of God found in Jesus in the New Testament. You can find the beginning post here...and then you have to play forward to next post, hunt through a few other posts, until the next one that continues the discussion. It's a bit taxing to have to do that..I wish he would just put them all in one place. But the hassle is worth it. There is some really good stuff in these posts.

Greg also has an upcoming book about all of this Jesus Vs. Jehovah stuff, that should be here in 2010 sometime.

I feel these "principles" are some of the best navigational tools that I can find that help with this particular issue. I love his reduction of the issues down to these points. I find them extremely helpful in my own wrestling and articulation of the subject matter. I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

Below is a summarization of the guiding principles that will be part of the book.

Greg Boyd: "The core of the book is structured around six “principles.” Just to provide a little “heads up” as to the direction I’m going, here’s a short definition of each principle:"

The Christocentric Principle:
All of our thinking about God must be rooted in Christ. Jesus reveals what God has always been like. We thus need to read the Old Testament “through the lens” of Christ.

The Principle of Incarnational Flexibility.
If Jesus reveals what God has always been like, then God didn’t start being “incarnational” with the Incarnation. Rather, God has always been willing to humbly “embody” himself within our fallen humanity and has always “borne our sin.” The portrait of Yahweh as a nationalistic, law-oriented, violent-tending warrior god is the result of God condescending to “embody” himself within our barbaric and deceived views of him in order to work toward freeing us from them. (The reference to “god” rather than “God” in this previous sentence is intentional, since I argue God takes on the semblance of a sub-Christ-like “god” when he condescends to work within our fallen framework). Like Nanny McPhee, God is willing to appear as ugly as he needs to in order to free us from our ugliness and eventually reveal himself as he truly is to us (which is what takes place in Christ).

The Principle of Contrastive Pedagogy.
Though you’d never get this reading the Old Testament itself, Paul tells us that the most fundamental reason God gave the Law was to increase our sin and, by way of negative example, drive us to Christ. I argue that when we read the Old Testament through the lens of Christ, we can say the same thing about the nationalism and violence of God’s program in the Old Testament. It tells us more about what God is not like and how not to build his Kingdom than it tells us what God islike and how we are to build the kingdom. When Jesus shows up, he reveals a God and a Kingdom that invalidates nationalism, is rooted in empowering grace (not law) and is utterly free of violence, for it is centered on loving and serving enemies.

The Principle of Punitive Withdrawal.
When Jesus was crucified, God delivered Jesus up to wicked humans and “the powers.” Moreover, by entering into solidarity with us in our spiritually oppressed and fallen condition, Jesus experienced God-forsakenness. Since all of our understanding about God must be centered on Christ, Jesus’ abandonment and God-forsakenness should form the center of our understanding of how God punishes sin. He does so by withdrawing his protective presence and turning people over to experience the consequences of their decisions — a truth that is confirmed throughout the Old Testament. God’s “wrath” is his withdrawal.

The Principle of Cosmic Conflict.
Jesus’ ministry as well as the whole of the Old and New Testaments reveal that the world is engulfed by cosmic forces of destruction. Like a dam being opened, when God withdraws his protective hand to bring judgment, the powers are allowed to carry out their evil intentions and chaos ensues. Yet, whenever God “pours out his wrath” by withdrawing himself, he does so with a grieving heart and for the ultimate purpose of bringing healing and redemption.

The Principle of Responsible Identification.
Though he was in fact all-holy, on Calvary the Son of God identified with our sin to the point of bearing our guilt. So too, the Father is said to have afflicted his Son (Isa. 53) though in fact he merely allowed wicked powers using wicked people to crucify Jesus. When we read the Old Testament through this lens, we find God frequently identifying himself as the agent of violence, though the context makes it clear that he is merely allowing violent agents to do what they want to do. God is portrayed as doing what he actually merely allows. There are historical and exegetic reasons for this, but the theological reason, I argue, is that God has always been a God who takes responsibility for all that he allows — even though he detests much of what he allows. This is how God bears our sin and why he takes on the semblance of a nationalistic, law-oriented warrior god.

I argue that each of these six principles are rooted in Christ and confirmed throughout Scripture, and they take us a long way in reconciling the crucified God with the violent portrait of God found in the violent strands of the Old Testament.