What if Jesus were to kill someone?

[CivisRomanusSum]

Hello!

When asked why God “kills” people in the Bible or otherwise takes people’s lives, apologists often answer that since God is the Lord of life, it is His prerogative to take it away. God can never be unjust in the taking of life because none of us are “innocent” before Him. Thus, it would seem, the prohibition on the taking of life applies only to us and not to Him. Hence, God is perfectly justified, though in ways often unknown to us, when He allows innocent life to be taken, or when He wipes out entire populations in the Bible.

However, I’ve been thinking, would this same line of thought be applicable to God Incarnate? Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Was Jesus, being man, bound by the Mosaic law? Or was Jesus, being God, free to repeal, modify, or break it as He pleases?

Take again, for example, the prohibition on killing. In the Old Testament, God sends plagues to kill people. What if Jesus were to take a dagger and drive it through someone’s heart? Is He perfectly justified, being God? Or did He break the Father’s law?

Or what about the prohibition on theft. Technically, we own nothing and everything belongs to God. So if Jesus were to take someone else’s money without their permission, is it correct that this does not qualify as “stealing” because Jesus, being God, truly owns the money?

I’m trying to understand the relationship between God and the moral law. Is something good because God says it is? If so, it seems that God is, by definition, is precluded from breaking the moral law. But the idea of Jesus stabbing someone to death or stealing someone else’s money seems too absurd for me to think that Jesus, by definition, cannot sin. Is Jesus exempt when He does these things simply because He’s God? (Of course Jesus is sinless, but this is all hypothetical).

 

[Ad_Orientem]

Let’s simplify your question, which is really two-fold:

1. Are acts good because God wills them, or does God will them because they’re good?
2. Did/does Jesus have all of the divine prerogatives, including the prerogative to take life?

The first question is a very old one, and goes back at least to Plato (look up “Euthyphro dilemma”). My answer won’t be a philosophically rigorous one, just my own opinion. God is goodness itself; he is incapable of willing evil (this “inability” is not a limitation of power but a question of nature). So acts are good because God wills them: not in the sense that he could make something evil good by willing it, but in the sense that whatever he wills is going to be good, because that’s the kind of will he has.

The second question is interesting. I’d say that Christ had, and has, all the divine prerogatives, including the prerogative to take a life or to take someone’s posessions; but he chose not exercise these prerogatives because it would have been contrary to his mission, part of which was to serve us in humility and to set an example. Those who did not recognize him as God would not have understood that he had the right to do those things, therefore it would have caused scandal and set a bad example.

Let me be clear: I do *not *say that Christ had the prerogative to “break the Ten Commandments,” but he did say he was Lord of the sabbath.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

God didn’t in practice put us on a pink and fluffy planet.

Stuff about Him wiping people out is just the way some things are sometimes written, that’s all (merely a fashionable way to write).

It was the germs, or a war (people just will have those, like in my parents’ time and my mum as a girl was separated from her little brother because of it on racial grounds and she never plucked up courage to tell us about our uncle).

 

[WJeffrey]

Since Jesus didn’t kill anyone, does it make a difference?

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Since Jesus didn’t kill anyone, does it make a difference?

Agreed. What is the point of this question?

 

[pianistclare]

Hello!

When asked why God “kills” people in the Bible or otherwise takes people’s lives, apologists often answer that since God is the Lord of life, it is His prerogative to take it away. God can never be unjust in the taking of life because none of us are “innocent” before Him. Thus, it would seem, the prohibition on the taking of life applies only to us and not to Him. Hence, God is perfectly justified, though in ways often unknown to us, when He allows innocent life to be taken, or when He wipes out entire populations in the Bible.

However, I’ve been thinking, would this same line of thought be applicable to God Incarnate? Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Was Jesus, being man, bound by the Mosaic law? Or was Jesus, being God, free to repeal, modify, or break it as He pleases?

Take again, for example, the prohibition on killing. In the Old Testament, God sends plagues to kill people. What if Jesus were to take a dagger and drive it through someone’s heart? Is He perfectly justified, being God? Or did He break the Father’s law?

Or what about the prohibition on theft. Technically, we own nothing and everything belongs to God. So if Jesus were to take someone else’s money without their permission, is it correct that this does not qualify as “stealing” because Jesus, being God, truly owns the money?

I’m trying to understand the relationship between God and the moral law. Is something good because God says it is? If so, it seems that God is, by definition, is precluded from breaking the moral law. But the idea of Jesus stabbing someone to death or stealing someone else’s money seems too absurd for me to think that Jesus, by definition, cannot sin. Is Jesus exempt when He does these things simply because He’s God? (Of course Jesus is sinless, but this is all hypothetical).

Christ, being God has no reason to harm anyone or steal from them. Everything comes from Him.
Pointless argument.

 

[Mintaka]

When Jesus needs money in the Bible, He doesn’t steal. First He explains that the Temple tithe doesn’t apply to Him or to any of His disciples. Then He says He will voluntarily participate, so he has Peter go fishing, and has him catch a fish who ate a dropped coin, and which will pay the tithe for both Peter and Himself. (Matthew 17:26)

“But so that we may not scandalize them, go to the sea, and cast in a hook: and that fish which shall first come up, take. And when you have opened its mouth, you shall find a stater: take that, and give it to them for Me and for you.”

Actually, in the Bible we do see Jesus kill quite a few someones. Admittedly, it happens in the future (Rev. 19:11-21)

"And behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and with justice does He judge and fight… And His name is called, THE WORD OF GOD.

"And the armies that are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses… And He has written on his garment, and on his thigh: KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

"And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that did fly through the midst of heaven, “Come, gather yourselves together to the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of tribunes, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those that sit on them, and the flesh of all freemen and bondmen, and of little and of great.”

"…And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth and their armies, gathered together to make war with Him Who sat upon the horse, and with His army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, who wrought signs before him wherewith he seduced those who received the character of the beast, and who adored his image. These two were cast alive into the pool of fire, burning with brimstone.

“And the rest were slain by the sword of Him Who sits upon the horse… and all the birds were filled with their flesh.”

He also showed His power to judge and destroy in the Gospel, when He cursed the fig tree as a sign of what could happen to equally unproductive humans who claimed to serve Him (Matthew 21:18-22):

"And in the morning, returning into the city, He was hungry. And seeing a certain fig tree by the side of the road, He came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only. And He says to it, “May no fruit grow on you henceforward for ever.”

“And immediately the fig tree withered away.”

Jesus is King, and sometimes a king does have to go to war to protect His people. A king is also a judge, and Jesus has the right and duty to judge and destroy evil people, as well as having the generosity to help the helpless and the mercy to redeem and save the penitent.

 

[dmar198]

Hello!

When asked why God “kills” people in the Bible or otherwise takes people’s lives, apologists often answer that since God is the Lord of life, it is His prerogative to take it away. God can never be unjust in the taking of life because none of us are “innocent” before Him. Thus, it would seem, the prohibition on the taking of life applies only to us and not to Him. Hence, God is perfectly justified, though in ways often unknown to us, when He allows innocent life to be taken, or when He wipes out entire populations in the Bible.

However, I’ve been thinking, would this same line of thought be applicable to God Incarnate? Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Was Jesus, being man, bound by the Mosaic law? Or was Jesus, being God, free to repeal, modify, or break it as He pleases?

Take again, for example, the prohibition on killing. In the Old Testament, God sends plagues to kill people. What if Jesus were to take a dagger and drive it through someone’s heart? Is He perfectly justified, being God? Or did He break the Father’s law?

Or what about the prohibition on theft. Technically, we own nothing and everything belongs to God. So if Jesus were to take someone else’s money without their permission, is it correct that this does not qualify as “stealing” because Jesus, being God, truly owns the money?

I’m trying to understand the relationship between God and the moral law. Is something good because God says it is? If so, it seems that God is, by definition, is precluded from breaking the moral law. But the idea of Jesus stabbing someone to death or stealing someone else’s money seems too absurd for me to think that Jesus, by definition, cannot sin. Is Jesus exempt when He does these things simply because He’s God? (Of course Jesus is sinless, but this is all hypothetical).

This question brings to mind Acts 5. Two people died in that chapter under New Testament law in a kind of Old Testament-y way.

 

[Polyphony]

Since Jesus didn’t kill anyone, does it make a difference?

I love the frankness! A lot of the time, we can be so theoretical, and our knowledge doesn’t really make any practical difference in our lives. Touche!

OP, I have heard the argument you raise in your first paragraph. God doesn’t really owe anyone a fixed amount of time on earth, the argument may go. But then you raise the interesting point that “God is perfectly justified, though in ways often unknown to us, when He allows innocent life to be taken, or when He wipes out entire populations in the Bible.”

I just wanted to say that I’m not so sure what we don’t know about God permitting ancient cultures to be destroyed. Holy Scripture seems fairly clear that they were wiped out because of their great wickedness and their incredibly high level of sin. In other words, those societies were judged, and it was the will of God that they stop existing on the earth.

I’m not a philosopher or a theologian, and so I don’t know all the effects of such an answer, but that answer seems good enough to me.

 

[Crusaderbear]

As stated above, Jesus chose to live by the Mosaic laws. Somehow, I don’t think Jesus would ever have felt the need to kill anyone.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Once Jesus takes on flesh and becomes like one of us he becomes our example to follow. Thus, he would follow the Ten Commandments including not to murder. He must as Scripture says fulfill all righteousness.

Nonetheless, the Ten Commandments were written for our benefit. They are not written as merely rules, but are eternal truths. God does not take pleasure in punishing or in anyone’s death as Scripture indicates. God’s sense of morality is much greater than our own. He after all wrote the rules of our morality.

Since God created us according to his purposes He ultimately has our lives in his hands. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about our lives. Rather, he cared enough to die for us. Jesus didn’t come to condemn or kill, but to save us. John 3:17.