Removing Scales From Eyes

Properly Re-Setting the Chess Board

The doctrine of divine judgement occupies most of the revelation of Holy Scripture.  Measured by volume of content, the major subject concerns God's wrath upon sin and sinners.  One imagines the reason for this is that God is holy and righteous: evil must be punished.  His purity and holiness demand it.

From the time that Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, God's judgement upon sin looms large in the Bible's unfolding story.  Yet it is a truth which many Christians, particularly modern evangelical Christians, would struggle to acknowledge, let alone reverently accommodate in their doctrinal house.

Just to reinforce the point, we would remind ourselves of the Deluge upon the entire human race, apart from Noah and his family; of the plagues upon Egypt; of the judgement upon Israel in the desert where a whole generation perished because of their unbelief and loyalty to idols.  We would go on to refer to Sodom and Gomorrah--which became an abiding symbol for God's holy wrath upon extreme evil, including sin associated with homosexual lust and rape.  We would recite God's judgement upon the Canaanites, the Amalekites, the Edomites, the Moabites.  We would refer to the prophets from Elijah onwards whose primary obligation was to warn Israel and the surrounding nations of the judgements of God about to fall.  We would meditate upon the fortunes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the ten lost tribes.  We would think of the Imprecatory Psalms (rarely read by Christians today).  We would think of the recorded writings of the major and minor prophets which are primarily focused upon the judgements of God upon Israel and the surrounding nations.  The accounts and the warnings go on for pages and pages, chapter after chapter.

Ah, but the New Testament-well, yes, that's different. We live in "Gospel days".

Nothing New Here . . .

Unintended Irony

ISIS has attracted much loathing over recent days.  Its wanton destruction of historical artefacts has outraged many.  The heading in The Telegraph said it all:

Islamic State's thugs are trying to wipe an entire civilisation from the face of the earth

Just as the Nazis destroyed synagogues as well as those who worshipped in them, so Isil aspires to erase all traces of those it condemns as kuffar

Columnist Tom Holland went on to write:

Last week, a video was released showing the destruction of antiquities in Mosul’s museums. Since the antiquities themselves were probably smashed months ago, the dust in the display-rooms will long since have settled. Meanwhile, in the world beyond, the brutal and deliberate attack on treasures spanning millennia is already yesterday’s news.

The Islamic State, whose goons perpetrated the vandalism, appreciate more cynically than anyone that the world’s media feeds on a rapid turnover of atrocities. One succeeds another in a murderous churn. Why, then, should the destruction of statues matter more than the loss of human life? It is a question that troubles me: for I must acknowledge, if I am honest, that no images from the hell that is the Islamic State have upset me more than those which showed a winged bull more than two-and-a-half thousand years old being deliberately and methodically power-drilled.

His conclusion: