A LONG TIME MISREPRESENTED GOD (Part 1)

(Exodus 6:3, Acts 17:21-31).

Recently, I had a conversation with a certain lady (F. Wambui) and I thought it would make sense if I publicized it here for all of us.

QUESTION: Hi. Hope you’re doing well. Kindly help me to know who between God and Satan kills since you are a theologian. Who killed people in the Old Testament?

F. Wambui

RESPONSE: Satan did. Not God. But old testament people considered God as the source of both Good and Evil (Isaiah 45:7). However, the truth of the matter is that through Jesus (who is God himself = John 1:14, Titus 2:13) we are told Satan is the killer from the beginning (John 8:40-44), but as for the Christian God, he came that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

What we see in the Old Testament is a primitive understanding of Who God is and they attribute all evil and all good to him. These primitive views of God have continued to to-date. I am sure you have heard people mourning their dead by saying, GOD HAS WILLED IT THAT WAY… which is not the case.

Briefly, this is what I can say for now.

QUESTION: Thanks a lot for your input. It has opened up my mind. When I understood the concept of freedom of choice and I realized that God can’t punish you for not choosing him as that act nullifies the freedom He has given us.

I also started doubting how we can condemn Pharaoh for killing children during Moses birth and yet applaud God for killing the Egyptian firstborns during the Passover.

If God is omniscient, why would he require the Israelites to smear blood on their doorposts? If God commands us not to kill, how can He be the serial Killer? These are some of the questions crossing my mind and will appreciate your help in explaining how Satan was involved in the following deaths:

The flood

Sodom and Gomorrah

Lot’s wife

The Passover

The crossing of the Red sea

The many Battles that the Israelites were engaged in and killed many people

Ananias and Saphira.

You see the list is endless but let me start with those.

I don’t know why but am doubting whether God will kill people (as in burn people) with fire on the last day.

I have tried to share these sentiments with some church members but am astonished that instead of them seeing the sense and letting us discuss, they have concluded that I have become an offshoot.

Please feel free to respond as the Spirit will move you.

F. Wambui

RESPONSE: Thank you for your follow up questions and I thank you again for your earnest search of scriptures. I will start with the issue of God and human freedom of choice.

The Concept of Free-Will and Who God is

God created humanity as free will beings and they were free to choose even against their creator. And yes they did. For that is what constitutes freedom of choice.

They could not be free-will beings in a mono-environment. GOOD is the original aspect of being and EVIL as an alternative is ignited by the existence of a Free Will being known as man.
You cannot have a ‘choosing being’ without alternatives. Therefore, evil is the default alternative to the existence of a pre- evil experience ‘choosing being’.

We must understand, however, that a God/creator who licenses a ‘freedom of choice’ to his creatures

1- An omnipotent and omniscient God is limited by human choice he cannot interrupt practically and determine the choices of a free-will being like man. He can communicate (Genesis 2:16-17, John 16:7-13) both good and evil but the power of choice lies entirely in a free-will being known as man.

The knowledge of God (His omniscience) of what you will choose or not has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you choose it or not. His omniscience is like a Hi-tech Camera that covers all-time (past, present and future) of the action in its lenses. It would be madness to blame the camera for what is done and not done.

If God’s power and knowledge interrupt the human free-will then a compromise in his nature occurs and he ceases to be who he says he is (a Just God).

2- For God to create a free-will being like man, it strips himself of the right to punish, for he cannot permit choice and punish choice at the same time. While he wishes that we choose right and good, it is our right (not punishable) to choose otherwise. If he punished anyone for not choosing his side, that would be an identity Crisis, Conflict and Contradiction (who he is) of himself.

So a free will being (man) is a beneficiary of his right choices (Temporal and eternal) and a victim of the consequences (Temporal and eternal) of his wrong choices.

Heaven and Hell, therefore, are not rewards and punishment destinies but fixed eternal destinies on eternal choices the free will beings make. God, therefore, will not send anyone to Hell or in his dictation take anyone to heaven regardless of their will.

Heaven and Hell will be a choice made by an interrupted free-will being (man).
God won’t punish anyone
God, therefore, won’t reward (due to participation) believers with heaven and neither will he punish any (due to participation) nonbelievers. For God cannot be the source of Life and the source of death as well (1John 1:5).

Heaven and Hell are choices for us to make based on our 1-knowledge (Psalm 82:5, Acts 17:30) of each and 2- preferences (Deuteronomy 30:15-19, Ezekiel 18: 5, 9, 20, 23, 31-32, Luke 6:45, Romans 2:14, Galatians 5:17-23).
You being a free-will being demonstrated the nature of God and the nature of Satan at the same time.

Here is how: when we were still in the full custody of GOOD (Genesis 1-2), we were free to opt-out and yes we did (Genesis 3-to to-date) but when the new boss (EVIL) came into play, our free will was enslaved, the volitional propensity was manipulated and it now takes revelation, education and inspiration to tell right from wrong and good from evil (Isaiah 5:20).

While God in charge made sure the environment is not exclusive to good but evil as well existed (Genesis 2:16-18) when man chose Evil, it worked against the existence of good and the entire environment and nature was bent to Evil (Genesis 3). This is the nature of king Satan in relation to King God, you are to choose again today.

Next, I will address the perceptions around divine revelation in the early stages.

God bless you, I invoke Truth, Wisdom and Faith
Priest M.I.T White
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
Questioning to Believe, Believing to Live