Main news for 5 July 2024

In the biblical books (particularly in the prophetic sermons and in the hymnographies) often appears the image of God, Who turns away, forgets, leaves. Sometimes we understand it literally, as a form of punishment imposed on man by God (such view is usually proper to believers and religious people), sometimes as a simple allegory, as for example the anthropomorphisms so frequently met in the Bible. But is it only an allegory here? And in what sense can one speak about punishment, if God simply leaves in peace those who want in particular only it? Moreover, by looking at it closer not everything is so simple.

Of course, the commandments, for example, turn out rather often a burden even to those who consider themselves believers. And here there is not only hypocrisy, here there is the desire to see God and even to receive support from Him, but without encumbrance of any conditions. The ideal God for such people would be the God, Who gives all that we ask, and ask for nothing in return. They are not at all against relationships with God, if these relationships will be easy and without responsibilities. And they are not generally conscious that, if they [relationships] were really like that, those who ask would have become very fast victims of their own desires, the immediate execution of which would transform their life into hell much more early than they think.

It is not surprising that in such situation God steps aside. But how is it possible? Is not God omniscient and almighty? Yes, but there is also in the anthropomorphism of the biblical image of God its spiritual truth. And the problem is not that God is similar to man, but that man was created by God in His image. And if it is not at all difficult to us to remember and to know something important about the person, with whom we do not wish to communicate, then it will be even more easier to God.

And on the other hand, as for us, to know about person and to know a person are different things, and also for God to know our existence and to know us personally is not the same thing. The first one can be considered as an objective reality connected with God's omniscience, the second - as the consequence of His decision, and which may not be. Well then it turns out that God, knowing everything about us, will not want to know us personally. Until we began to put Him conditions, which are ready to let Him in our houses and in our lives.

Hos 5:15

NOTES

Today's reading is wholly devoted to rebuking God's people and warning of the judgment awaiting them. It would seem that there is nothing here to distinguish God's judgment from human judgment: the people are guilty, the evidence of their guilt is plain, and the day comes when...

Today's reading is wholly devoted to rebuking God's people and warning of the judgment awaiting them (v. 1). It would seem that there is nothing here to distinguish God's judgment from human judgment: the people are guilty, the evidence of their guilt is plain, and the day comes when God, as the supreme Judge, will pronounce His sentence. And yet in this divine judgment there is something completely incomprehensible and unthinkable from the point of view of human ideas about justice.

It turns out that God's judgment cannot take place until the people acknowledge their guilt. The Lord leaves them and withdraws in order to wait for this acknowledgment (v. 15). It is expected that it will be accompanied by turning to God, with a request both for judgment and for help. From a human point of view, such an approach looks rather strange: earthly courts exist above all to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. Here, however, it turns out that God sees His task as Judge only in determining the measure of punishment for those who themselves acknowledge their guilt, and also in helping the guilty person so that he can be freed from the sin that led to the crime.

As for determining guilt, no court as such is needed here. The disasters that befall the people bear eloquent witness to it (vv. 9-12), and it is precisely in them that the prophet sees God's punishment. However, these troubles do not have the proper effect on the consciousness of those being punished: the people do not perceive them as punishment from God and, trying to escape them, turn to everyone except the One who could truly help (vv. 13-14).

The result is a paradox: one can be delivered from God's punishment only by turning to God and asking Him for judgment! At first glance this turn of events seems completely incomprehensible. But if judgment is nothing other than the moment of meeting God face to face, as was already revealed to Amos, much here falls into place. For then it becomes obvious that the true punishment is not God's action but, on the contrary, His inaction, which leaves a person alone with his sins and their consequences.

Of course, God's nonintervention in events can also be called punishment in a certain sense, but only in a certain sense: God does not intervene in the situation, and therefore nothing that happens to a person in that case can be considered a consequence of His will. Theologians call this "permission": a state in which God neither wants nor does evil, but also does not prevent it from happening, leaving the person free to act. And then the person can only reap the fruits of the evil he has sown. Only God, by intervening in the situation again, can deliver a person from this fate.

Wrath is poured out on all who have fallen into sin, but especially on those placed at the head of the people: kings and priests...

How painful it is for the prophet to see that the darkness of paganism has entered even his own people...

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