A lot of people today view God as egotistical. Such thoughts would never occur to people of generations prior to us. But in an age where the concept of authority is destroyed, where we can impeach a president just because we don't like him, we do not like any authority over our lives.
When people today read the Old Testament, they would call the God of the Bible egotistical and cruel. When you read passages like the ones in Isaiah, where God says things like I will not let anybody elsetake my glory, and I will destroy my enemies, people revolt against those kinds of phrases.
The reality of the matter though is how you view those phrases depends strictly on your perspective. If you view those phrases from an egotistical point of view, they will sound egotistical. But here's why phrases like that from God are actually good news for all of us.
Imagine if God did give His glory to somebody else, or if it was possible to overthrow Him. What implications would that have on the universe and the tiny people on this tiny planet?
One thing that happens with every change of leadership anywhere, is that the rules change. That is an unavoidable consequence of change of leadership, because every person is different, and comes with different beliefs, personality, and experinces, which would make them rule differently from anybody else. Now imagine if the top role in the universe could change hands. If at some point a different person could take the role of God.
Well, one job of God is to establish rules of nature. Imagine this new God decided they wanted to turn off the law of gravity. And then all the people who complained about the rules of the previous God but were held tight to this planet, would float into space. Or imagine this new God decided to change how atoms work. And then all the people who were complaining about the rules of the previous God would simply disintegrate for a change.
So when God says He will not let anybody else take His glory and that He will make all His enemies kneel before Him, that is actually very good news.
That is part of one of the core attributes of God, the fact that He never changes. Thanks to this stability in leadership, you have somebody to turn to for help when you get old, just like you could when you were a kid. People who appreciate the Sun coming up from the same side every morning or the same type of trees growing from millenium to millenium and plants having the same nutritional value from generation to generation, have no right to complain about the kind of God in charge of our universe.
And yes you could rely on this God as you get older thanks to His ability to maintain power in His hands. This speaks of a God who never gets tired, and never quits on His creation. I mean when you look at the thousands of years of history of the nation of Israel, when no matter what they did, God did not give up on them, that is the kind of God you want running this place.
And think of this. This allpowerful God of the universe is actually willing to share His glory with people. Speaking of the nation of Israel.. for thousands of times in the Old Testament, God told them He would share His glory with them if only they could be nice to each other. He is willing to give credit to any person who is nice to other persons, even though He could've taken care of everything Himself. He takes counsel with the angels before doing something on Earth, even though He could've figured out how to do everything Himself. That is not egotistical at all.
Last Edit on: 2019-10-09 16:29:21 by ak2 | Hits: 3561