8 "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord.And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 (New Living Translation) We closed our last lesson and saw that God's ways are not the same as man's. God modus operandi is unlike and altogether different from that of ours.
Since this is so, an enormous question confronts the honest seeker guided by the Spirit of God. How do I reconcile this thought with that of the many statements that seem to suggest that God personally and undoubtedly inflicts acts of physical, coercive and unbridled force to eliminate dissenters to His ways?
There are basic interpretative principles that the Word of God defines that enable us to identify Principles and Statements.
Principles are absolute declarations of truth, that is, they do not change. Statements, on the other hand, are brief declarations of truth that are based on principles. What does this mean? There are statements in the bible that suggest God destroys, kills and floods His creation into submission, but what is the underlying principle of these statements? Are these actions consistent with a God of love? In our sinful way of love definitely! We love when things are good, when they are bad we hate.
Remember that the Infinite God is not like finite man, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19, NIV) We learned too in our last lesson that God is changeless, infinitely righteous, self-existant (eternal), all knowing and all wise. If God is all wise and infintely righteous (always doing good) then would putting a creature to death be good? The bible says "Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:16-17, NIV)
Therefore, Principles in the word of God must guide our understanding of the word rather than statements or popular tradition.
