Okay. Then, you are making a case for my further confusion.
I would say then, that the God of the OT was not the same God of the NT.
But, that’s me.
Perhaps the way Ron stated it confuses you?
I mean, well – let’s see: if God were able to die, then it is possible that nothing in the universe would have ever been created – and so nothing might have ever existed at all. – If that were the case, then, God would be like us – rather than we a lesser form (likeness) of him.
But then, didn’t God come as close to following the rules as is possible when he sent his only Son to suffer crucifixion and death? In fact, his son was murdered by thieves. How can anyone claim a double standard in the 10 commandments – when God has suffered murder himself? It is as if the commandment is really saying – do not try to kill ME – or you kill yourself. And in doing this, he is speaking the whole truth and meaning of the commandment. We are only alive when we have him in union with us – whenecver God is intimately present in his creation murder is forbidden because it tries to wipe God out of existance.
Animals may clearly be slaughtered, even though they have no soul which goes on after death.
So, How is it that one can really claim a double standard with the ten commandments, anyway?
Let me give a single example. God promised the messiah from the very beginning of Genesis. In the so called proto-evangelum, Eve is told she will be saved through her children (although Eve died) and that kngly Lord/Ruler would come through the tribe of Judah:
Genes 37:26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? …
Judah saw, thouigh crookedly, the meaning of the commandment not to kill.
Genes 38: And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him…
The wickedness being most likely the pagan practices of his mother, and since Onan does likewise – one can understand that it had to do with the avoidance of having children with one’s wife – which is the only reason one can explain that Judah himself is not killed by God for the same reason.
Genes 46:12 And the sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharez, and Zarah: but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul7
Of this Geneology which is here, the three sons born to Judah by the Caananite/pagan wife he had – all three of them died without a line of children after them.
Genes 49:10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Even in the earliest prophecies concerning Judah – at a time when only God was to be
king of Israel, before the sin of asking for King Saul to be in the likeness of other nations rather than the likeness of God – at this very time God already showed that the kingship was to be in Judah, his favored. This is the tribe which Jesus would come from.
Here’s the point: If Er, and Onan, had succeeded in preventing Judah from having children – the messiah would have not been able to come through that tribe. Since God had already planned it, the Sin of Onan and Er tried to prevent the salvation of all of us – if Jesus were not born, we would all be dead in our sins – murdered by the devil.
There are some things which God can’t do – such as lie. Since this is so, understand that even the principle of double effect can be used in the defense of God. The bible does not say How God slew these people, in fact the usual way (permitting angels / devils to do so) is not the direct killing by God – and since the devil is a murder from the beginning, one can hardly fault God allowing Er and Onan to be killed since their death would pave the way for the Messiah coming.
This is what I think is the key to biblical accounts of the OT. Often, God is spoken of as “doing” something when in fact that can at most be taken to mean God allowed the event to happen. The way it is stated, by a people with blood on their hands, is to show that God was soverign and ruled history – not to state that God destroyed his own image (man) whom he loved directly, himself.
In the NT, God is no different, to allow us all life – he too, in the second person of the Trinity, suffered death as an incarnate man – the only way God could be subject to the law of death.
