Prophetic Critique: Idolatry, Immorality, and Injustice

Over the summer of 2020, with the issues of “social justice” roiling in our culture, I wanted to go to the Bible to get some perspective.  I remembered that the book of Amos had things to say about God’s concern for justice.   A classic passage is Amos 5.24: “But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  Now the danger with this approach is to go searching for a few texts that speak of “justice” and denounce economic exploitation (5.10-15; 8.4-6) and then import our modern understandings of what contemporary social justice should look like.  As Pierre Berthoud aptly notes:

 

“But we have to be careful to read these comments not through twenty-first century eyes heavily influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by contemporary materialist perspectives.

 

“In order to apply properly the prophetic insights of Amos, it is essential to understand his message in light of the historical situation of Amos, of the central theological theme of the Old Testament—namely, God’s eternal covenant with man.”[1]

 

With that danger in mind I choose, rather, to read and study the whole book of Amos to understand its context and flow of argumentation.  This allowed me to see a larger prophetic critique that encompasses the concern for injustice but also a larger vision of integrated sins. 

 

Utilizing John Frame’s tri-perspectivalism I came up with the following diagram which represents an attempt to capture something of the full “prophetic critique.”

 

Idolatry

(Normative)

                                      Injustice                              Immorality

                                   (Situational)                            (Existential)

 

All three of the aspects are elements that Amos (and others) critique.  These three aspects can also be re-named as three potent areas of life: Religion, Sex, and Power.  

 

Within the prophetic critique the fundamental sin from which all others flow is that of idolatry.  Thaddeus Williams, in his book Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth, begins with this crucial point:

 

“Today almost everything is considered a matter of injustice, everything of course, except the main thing.  There is talk of economic injustice, reproductive injustice, racial injustice, and, even, according to yesterday’s headlines, facial injustice (based on a recent university policy that threatens expulsion for ‘mean’ facial expressions). What no one sems to be talking about—though it is at the bedrock of all other injustice—is worship.  Theistic justice—bowing down to something that is worth bowing down to—is not a justice issue; it the the justice issue from all other justice blooms.”[2]

 

Flowing from the primal sin of idolatry, there issues forth all sorts of others violations of God’s character.  Injustice with its attendant economic exploitation and judicial compromise as well as immoralities—usually of a sexual nature—come riding in the wake of idolatry.  The prophetic critique in Amos and elsewhere takes into account all these aspects.  

 

Prophetic Critique in Amos

Idolatry: 

 

·     1.2: “The Lord roars from Zion and from Jerusalem he utters his voice.” This is an implicit critique of the Northern kingdoms’s shrines.[3]

·     2.4: “They have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his statutes; their lies also have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.”

·     2.11-12: Violation of Nazrite vows and refusal to listen to God’s prophets.

·     3.14: “I will punish the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and they will fall to the ground.”[4]  

·     4.4-5: Self-made religion only brings more sin.

·     5.21-27: God rejects their religious festivals and rebukes them for carrying along with them idols.

·     7.9: Mentions the “high places of Issac.” These are places of idolarty and fornication.[5]

·     7.10-13: Attempt to stop the word of the Lord through Amos.

·     8.10-14: “Swear by the guilt of Samaria.”[6]

 

Immorality: 

 

·     2.7: “And a man and his father resort to the same girl.”[7]

 

Injustice: 

 

·     1.2-2.3: Oracles against the nations.  J. A. Moyter summarizes the transgressions of this section:

 

“The spotlight falls not on what they may or may not have done or held in relation to God, but on what they have done man to man: barbarity (1:3) in the course of Hazael’s military campaigns half a century earlier; pitiless slave-trading involving total populations (verse 6b), promise breaking (verse 9), unnatural and persistent hatred (verse 11), and finally sickening atrocities against the helpless (verse 13) and the dead (2:1).” [8]

 

·     2.6-8: “They sell the righteous for money and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

·     3.9-15: Winter houses, summer houses, and great houses.[9]

·     5.12: Accept bribes in the court system.

·     6.4-7, 11: Great houses and excessive luxury.

·     8.4-6: “Cheat with dishonest scales, so as to buy the helpless for money and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

 

Thomas John Finley summarizes the social injustices contained in the book of Amos:

 

“The particular instances of sins against the poor that Amos describes are the selling into slavery of either an innocent victim or of a person whose indebtedness is so paltry that it should be forgiven anyway (2:6; 8:6), bribery of judges (5.12), failure to return a garment taken in pledge at the end of the day (2:8), denial of due process of law (2:7; 5.12), extortion and defrauding (4:1), exacting of heavy rent through an unfair grain tax (5:11), tampering with weights and standards (8:5), and selling a low quality of merchandise (8:6).  The pattern is clear: Rich and powerful people are becoming richer and more powerful at the expense of the poor and powerless.”[10]

 

There is further mention of the phrase “justice and righteousness” in three different Amos passages: 5.7, 24; 6.12.  These are key terms harkening back to the call of Abraham.  Abrahm who was to “command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18.19).  Robert Ellis helpfully articulates the nature of this “justice and righteousness”:

 

“Bruce Birch defines the Old Testament notion of justice as ‘the claim of all persons to full and equitable participation in the structures and dealings of the community, and especially to equity in the legal system.’  Consequently, justice often involves an effort to ‘put things right’ when something has gone wrong, either through informal personal action or formal judicial proceedings. Birch says of righteousness that it ‘is not the fulfillment of some list of rules or adherence to a set of standards.  Righteousness is a relational term.  It refers to the expectation in relationships that persons will, in their intentions and actions, seek the wholeness of the partner in that relationship.’  The economic ethic of Amos rests firmly in the expectation of righteousness: that in each relational dimension individuals and societies must do what those relationships demand in order to ensure shalom.  Similarly, Amos’ economics insist that persons are entitled to the justice of adequate and fair engagement in the resources and privileges of the community and then should that fair participation be breached, have the recourse to regain a position of shalom.”[11]

 

Amos is not only the person in Scripture to engage in this comprehensive prophetic critique. The following portraits are drawn from both the Old and New Testament (although the detail of exegesis and commentary work will not be as full as was done with Amos).

 

Prophetic Critique in Ezekiel 22.1-13

Idolatry: 

 

·     3-4: idols

·     8: “despised my holy things and profaned my sabbaths”

·     9: mountain shrines

·     12: forgotten God

 

Immorality:

 

·     7: treated father and mother lightly

·     9: slander

·     9: acts of lewdness

·     10: uncovered father’s nakedness

·     10: sex with menustruating women

·     11: adultry and incest

 

Injustice:

 

·     3-4, 6, 9, 12, 13: shedding blood

·     7: oppressed the alien

·     7: wronged the fatherless and widow

·     12: economic oppression

·     12-13: bribery; take interest and profits

 

Within this passage in Ezekiel there are not only all the various aspects but even, at times, in a single verse all the components come together.  Consider Ezekiel 22.9:

 

Slanderous men have been in you for the purpose of shedding blood (injustice), and in you they have eaten at the mountain shrines (idolatry).  In your midst they have committed acts of lewdness (immorality).

 

The New Testament also contains this prophetic critique as seen in the ministry of John the Baptist.

 

Prophetic Critique in John Baptist (Luke 3)

Idolatry: 

 

·     Luke 3.3: “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

 

Immorality: 

 

·     Luke 3.19: John reprimands Herod the tetrarch “because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done.”

 

Injustice: 

 

·     Luke 3.10-14: John gives specific exhortations which revolve around economic issues to those who are repentant and want to know how to live—“what shall we do?”.

 

o   Crowds: share food and clothes with those who have none.

o   Tax collectors: “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.”

o   Soldiers: “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”

 

Prophetic Critique in Romans 1.18-32

Idolatry: 

 

·     21-23: Refusal to give honor and thanks to the true and living God and, instead, creating idols.

·     25: “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

 

Immorality: 

 

·     24: “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.”

·     26-27: Degarding passions and homosexuality

·     28: “God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”

·     29-31: Litany of various sins.

 

Injustice:

 

·     32: “… and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

 

Although this passage does not have the same level of specifity in detailing particular forms of injustice as does Amos and others, Jeffery Ventrella brings out the implications and applications to the civil realm.

 

“This pattern culminates in the approval of unrighteousness practices.  This is why the culture’s law is implicated and must be a concern of any Bible-believing Christian.  According to Paul, paganism presses its practices seeking approval, and in doing so brings into play the cultural icons that grant approval, including the law. The question, therefore, is not whether the law will be involved; the question is whether the extant law will approve righteousness or unrighteousness.  The law and the public square are inherently a Christian concern.”[12]

 

Ventrella adds:

 

“An unredeemed judiciary will ultimately seek to approve practices contrary to the law of the Lord.  Its very nature tends toward codifying radical autonomy, that is, ‘approving’ man’s becoming ‘like God, knowing [determining autonomously] good and evil.”[13]

 

Thus, the civil realm and its judiciary will be open to implementing all sorts of injustices.

 

Conclusion and Contemporary Application

The tri-perspectival “prophetic critique” articulated above can help keep the church from a reductionistic understandings of the full complement of sin.  At times the church has failed to integrate the concern for justice into its calls for purity of worship and purity of life. A focus on the full prophetic critique will help the church avoid this reductionism.  However, today the challenge may be for the church to avoid a simplistic concern for social justice which overlooks or actively ignores the concerns of idolatry and immorality.

 

Theologian Peter Jones insightfully recognizes what is happening among some segments of the church—particularly among the younger generation.  Jones writes:

 

“Love for the poor and hurting is essential to the gospel, but shorn of biblical cosmology and wiped clean of the distinctives of biblical ethical living, this approach is false advertising, at best.  In the name of the ‘common good,’ it may suck the life-blood from the next generation of Christians, escorting them into the waiting arms of gospel-denying ‘progressive’ liberals and evangelicals.”[14]

 

Note that what Jones refers to as (1) love for the poor and hurting, (2) biblical cosmology, and (3) biblical ethical living can be correlated with injustice, idolatry, and immorality as found in the “prophetic critique” triangle. Jones goes on to note that “Perhaps the two hottest issues are Christian uniqueness and homosexuality.”[15]  “Christian uniqueness” has to do with the unique worship offered to God through Jesus Christ alone.  When Jones speaks of “homosexuality” it might be better to talk about the exclusivity of Christian sexual ethics which stands opposed to not only homosexuality but also challenges transgender ideology.  Whatever the terms used, the concepts are clear and Jones cogently argues:

 

“According to the ‘progressives,’ these two [Christian uniqueness and homosexuality] are the tiresome, secondary issues constantly raised by uptight, unloving, obnoxious, right-wing fanatics, who obstruct a kinder, more loving Christianity.

 

“These two issues are not secondary, however.  They are fundamental because each evokes a theme of profound moral and spiritual import—the nature of God and the nature of humanity—basic theology and basic anthropology.  ‘Theology,’ because interfaith allows so many different kinds of gods that the true God is eliminated; ‘anthropology,’ because when the Bible describes the image of God in human beings it includes the male/female distinction.”[16]

 

A proper focus on the balance of the prophetic critique with its alignment of proper worship, purity of life, and concern for public justice, will keep the church balanced and pursuing the full panoply of what is imporant for her mission.

---

     [1]Pierre Berthoud, “The Covenant and the Social Message of Amos” European Journal of Theology14.2 (2005), 99.

     [2]Thaddeus J. Williams, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth: Twelve Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 13.

     [3]“Zion and Jerusalem are mentioned as rebukes to the northern shrines whose false worship Amos so roundly denounces.” David Allan Hubbard, Joel and Amos: An Introduction and Commentary(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1989), 126.  “The voice of God comes from the Southern Kingdom and its national sanctuary.  The roar does not originate from the North and its shrines.  In other words, from the opening line the religious world of Israel is exposed as illegitimate.” M. Daniel Carroll R. “Can the Prophets Shed Light on Our Worship Wars? How Amos Evaluates Religious Ritual” Stone-Campbell Journal8 (2005), 220.

     [4]“He turns (3:13-15) to review the religion which they so assiduously practice and finds that they have departed from divinely-given ordinances and norms into theological and religious compromise.” J. A. Moyter, The Message of Amos(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1974), 85.

     [5]J. A. Moyter, The Message of Amos(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1974), 165-166.

     [6]“What seems clear in all this is that Israel was playing false with Yahweh by taking oaths and making promises in the name of alien deities.”  David Allan Hubbard, Joel and Amos: An Introduction and Commentary(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1989), 225.

     [7]“Third, fathers, taking advantage of filial obedience and the inability of young women to stand up for their rights, asserted patriarchal authority to have intercourse with their daughter-in-law, despite the laws of Israel which clearly forbade such confusion of sexual relations (cf. Lv. 18:15; 20:12; Dt. 22:28-29, 23-27).”  David Allan Hubbard, Joel and Amos: An Introduction and Commentary(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1989), 142.

     [8]J. A. Moyter, The Message of Amos(Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity Press, 1972), 37-38.

     [9]“The phrase frequently translated ‘great houses’ (RSV; NASB: NEB) is probably better rendered ‘many houses’, in keeping with the context that attacks the excessive luxury of owning more than one house in a society where poor people were regularly being dispossessed of their staple goods.” David Allan Hubbard, Joel and Amos: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1989), 153-154.

     [10]Thomas John Finley, “An Evangelical Response to the Preaching of Amos” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society28.4 (1985), 415-416.

     [11]Robert R. Ellis, “Amos Economics” Review and Expositor107 (2010), 466.

     [12]Jeffery J. Ventrella, “Passionately Demonstrating Truth: Triangulating Cultural Restoration” in Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frameedited by John J. Hughes (Phillipsburg, Penn.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2009), 858.

     [13]Jeffery J. Ventrella, “Passionately Demonstrating Truth: Triangulating Cultural Restoration” in Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame edited by John J. Hughes (Phillipsburg, Penn.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2009), 861.

     [14]Peter Jones, One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference—Romans 1 for the Twenty-first Century(Escondido, Calif.: Main Entry Editions, 2010), 57.

     [15]Peter Jones, One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference—Romans 1 for the Twenty-first Century(Escondido, Calif.: Main Entry Editions, 2010), 58.

     [16]Peter Jones, One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference—Romans 1 for the Twenty-first Century(Escondido, Calif.: Main Entry Editions, 2010), 58.

Isaiah 19 and God's Judgment on Nations

What I want to do here is to look at one aspect of the biblical material about God's judgments in history.  Unless we first understand the biblical perspective we will not be able to properly apply God's word to our time.  Of course, we always need to be on the watch because we might accurately understand the biblical message but then inappropriately apply it to contemporary issues.  My concern in this post, though, is in reference to the first aspect--understanding what the Bible says about God's judgments.

 

A good entry point into this discussion comes from Francis Schaeffer.  Over forty years ago Francis Schaeffer wrote these words:

 

“The hand of God is down into our culture in judgment, and men are hungry.  Unlike Zeus, whom men imagined hurling down great thunderbolts, God has turned away in judgment as our generation turned away from Him, and He is allowing cause and effect to take its course in history.

 

“God can bring His judgment in one of two ways: either by direct intervention in history or by the turning of the wheels of history.  Often it is the peripheral blessings flowing from the gospel which when freed from the Christian base then become the things of judgment in the next generation.  Consider freedom, for example.  It is the result of the Reformation in the northern European world which have given us a balance of form and freedom in the area of the state and society, freedom for women, freedom for children, freedom in the area of the state under law.  And yet, when once we are away from the Christian base, it is this very freedom, now freedom without form, that brings a judgment upon us in the turning wheels of history.” Death in the City in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (vol. 4), p.216.

 

God's judgment by direct intervention is paradigmatically seen in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This kind of judgment is dramatic and event-oriented--the judgment is an event itself.  The other kind of judgment that God brings is described by Schaeffer as "the turning of the wheels of history."  This is a kind of judgment that takes place over time as a culture is judged.  An example of this judgment is described in Isaiah chapter nineteen.  Understanding this passage will allow us to see what are the dynamics of cultural judgment.  In particular, the focus here will be on Isaiah 19.1-17.

 

         1   The oracle concerning Egypt. 

Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt; 

The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence, 

And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

  

                  2      “So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians; 

And they will each fight against his brother and each against his neighbor, 

City against city and kingdom against kingdom.  

 

                  3      “Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them; 

And I will confound their strategy, 

So that they will resort to idols and ghosts of the dead 

And to mediums and spiritists.  

 

                  4      “Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master, 

And a mighty king will rule over them,” declares the Lord God of hosts. 

 

                  5      The waters from the sea will dry up, 

And the river will be parched and dry.  

 

                  6      The canals will emit a stench, 

The streams of Egypt will thin out and dry up; 

The reeds and rushes will rot away.  

 

                  7      The bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile 

And all the sown fields by the Nile 

Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more. 

 

                  8      And the fishermen will lament, 

And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn, 

And those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.  

 

                  9      Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax 

And the weavers of white cloth will be utterly dejected.  

 

                  10      And the pillars of Egypt will be crushed; 

All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul. 

 

                  11      The princes of Zoan are mere fools; 

The advice of Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become stupid. 

How can you men say to Pharaoh, 

“I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”?  

 

                  12      Well then, where are your wise men? 

Please let them tell you, 

And let them understand what the Lord of hosts 

Has purposed against Egypt.  

 

                  13      The princes of Zoan have acted foolishly, 

The princes of Memphis are deluded; 

Those who are the cornerstone of her tribes 

Have led Egypt astray.  

 

                  14      The Lord has mixed within her a spirit of distortion; 

They have led Egypt astray in all that it does, 

As a drunken man staggers in his vomit.  

 

                  15      There will be no work for Egypt 

Which its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.  

 

         16   In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He is going to wave over them. 

 

         17   The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the purpose of the Lord of hosts which He is purposing against them. 

 

This appears in a section of Isaiah that is focused on God's judgments on nations around Israel of which Egypt is one.  The significance of this is that this message of judgment is upon a non-covenanted nation unlike much of the judgments mentioned in Scripture which focus on God's covenanted people Israel or Judah.  

 

The first verse describes the coming of the Lord as riding a swift cloud which is a familiar way of describing a judgment motif.   Both the Egyptians as a people and their gods are described as fearful.  The next two verses (vv. 2-3) describe both external and internal cultural confusion.  There is a lack of social unity and a profound religious confusion.  E. J. Young comments:

 

“True unity, we may learn from this passage, comes from the Lord; and when He sets a nation against itself, there can be no unity.  Only when a nation repents and turns to Him can true unity be found.  The Lord, therefore, is the source of unity.”

 

And...

 

“The failure of the spirit of Egypt appears in that Egypt no longer has any counsel.  The counsel which it would devise for its own deliverance is one which cannot stand.  No strong voice of wisdom can be raised, for God Himself will bring to mishap any advice or counsel proposed.  This is a vigorous way of stating that Egypt's counsel is to be completely destroyed.  Whatever advice is proposed comes to distress by God and so exists no more; it is completely gone.

The tragic result is that, inasmuch as there is no sound voice, the people engage in that most foolish of all follies, the turning to spiritualistic media.  When man acts thus unwisely, surely true counsel has disappeared!  The prophet lists the objects of the people's inquiry, and at the head of all stand the idols.  A wise nation seeks the source of wisdom, namely God; a foolish people whom wisdom has forsaken looks for advice and help from those who have no counsel or wisdom.  When God abandon us, we are left to search for wisdom where it cannot be found.”  The Book of Isaiah, vol. 2, pp. 15, 17-18.

 

 This internal and external cultural confusion leads to political upheaval with the outcome of being placed under a "cruel taskmaster."   

 

Economic distress is articulated in verses 5-10 under a number of historically situated metaphors and images.  The Nile River is the center and source of the Egyptian economy.  As goes the Nile so goes the economy.  

 

“The drought affects farmers, fishermen, and the secondary enterprises that depend upon them, in this case the textile workers.  The speech is a remarkable description of economic distress that follows the failure of the annual Nile floods.  The context draws upon the picture of Yahweh's reign over the weather and over nature (19:1) to account for the conditions.  Egypt's troubles are cumulative and interrelated.  The external political pressures (19:4) combine with internal ones (19:2-3) and natural economic disasters (19:5-10) to bring Egypt to its knees.”  John D. W. Watts Isaiah (WBC), p. 254.

 

In verses 11-15 a general foolishness in the intellectual arena is mentioned.  Those who are supposed to have wisdom for the nation are seen to be without insight--"the advice of Pharaoh's wisest advisors has become stupid."  The statesmen and established intellectuals fail to understand "what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt."  Verse 14 is very clear to show that it is the Lord himself who is behind this judgment.  E. J. Young writes:

 

“Isaiah now goes back to ultimate causes.  He does not begin this sentence with a verb but with a noun, the Lord.  The word is placed first for emphasis, and immediately brings us to the cause of all that has been described.  It is the Lord and no other; He whom the wise of the world despise... The folly therefore which characterized Egypt did not come about in the "natural course of events," nor was it accidental, but resulted from a direct supernatural judicial action pronounced against the nation.  As a result of this spirit Egypt will be led astray in all its work, namely, its economic procedure, daily business, and occupation.”  The Book of Isaiah, vol. 2, p. 30.

 

This picture in Isaiah 19 of judgment upon Egypt encompasses the entirety of culture: religious, political, economic, social, and intellectual.  This is a judgment that is clearly predicated as coming from the Lord.  He is active in bringing this state of affairs into being so that Egypt is judged.  

 

Is there something from this description that is of relevance for contemporary application?  Might it not be that this same kind of judgment happens today--that God judges non-covenanted nations in similar ways with similar results?  Alec Moyter, in his commentary on Isaiah, helpfully comments:

 

“The abiding message of a passage such as this lies not in its details, which are peculiar to its situation and date, but in its insistence that the problems of society, economics and politics, have a spiritual causation.  They are the outworking of divine purposes and are directly traceable to the hand of God, not the outworking of sociological laws, market forces or political fortunes.  And it is only by recourse to the Lord that they can be solved.”  The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, p. 164.

 

Rather than looking to specific events as tokens of God's judgment perhaps Isaiah 19 might help us to analyze trends in a given culture that are indicative of God's judgment.  In Isaiah 19 we are given a description of what historical judgments can look like and we can watch for these same types of indicators in our culture and society.  There is always the danger of incorrect application or misdiagnosis.  There are also other biblical truths that need to be factored into the discussion as well.  A quick list of these other factors would include: God's common grace on cultures, God's inscrutable sovereignty in which sometimes the righteous suffer (Job), the fact that sometimes the righteous suffer but the wicked seem at ease (Psalm 73), God sometimes uses wicked nations to judge other wicked nations (Habakkuk), and the fact that sometimes judgment begins with the household of God (1 Peter 4.17).

 

Schaeffer spoke of God "allowing cause and effect to take its course in history."  This is not to deny the active, provident hand of God behind history.  Schaeffer was contrasting this to God's "direct intervention" like is seen in the judgment on Sodom.  Schaeffer recognized that God's judgment on American culture was not to be seen in direct "fire from heaven" but, rather, in the cultural and societal moves away from God and the effects such an apostasy produced.  The apostle Paul uses the phrase "God gave them over" in Romans chapter one and the passage from Isaiah gives us a glimpse of what such a "giving over" can look like in a culture.  

 

Consider, in closing, these words from Francis Schaeffer which were written in his last book before his death in 1984:

 

“Finally, we must not forget that the world is on fire.  We are not only losing the church, but our entire culture as well.  We live in the post-Christian world which is under the judgment of God.  I believe today that we must speak as Jeremiah did.  Some people think that just because the United States of America is the United States of America, because Britain is Britain, they will not come under the judgment of God.  This is not so.  I believe that we of Northern Europe since the Reformation have had such light as few other have ever possessed.  We have stamped upon that light in our culture.  Our cinemas, our novels, our art museums, our schools scream out as they stamp upon that light.  And worst of all, modern theology screams out as it stamps upon that light.  Do you think God will not judge our countries simply because they are our countries?  Do you think that the holy God will not judge?” The Great Evangelical Disaster in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (vol. 4), p. 363. 

Perspectivalism and Postmodern Views of the Human Person

In reading Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay’s Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody, they make the following statements regarding postmodern understandings of the human person:

 

“Consequently, to postmodern Theorists, the notion of the autonomous individual is largely a myth.  The individual, like everything else, is a product of powerful discourses and culturally constructed knowledge.  Equally, the concept of the universal—whether a biological universal about human nature; or an ethical universal, such as equal rights, freedoms, and opportunities for all individuals regardless of class, race, gender, or sexuality—is, at best, naïve.  At worst, it is merely another exercise in power-knowledge, an attempt to enforce dominant discourses on everybody.  The postmodern view largely rejects both the smallest unit of society—the individual—and the largest—humanity—and instead focuses on small, local groups as the producers of knowledge, values, and discourses.  Therefore, postmodernism focuses on sets of people who are understood to be positioned in the same way—by race, sex, or class, for example—and have the same experiences and perceptions due to this positioning.”[1]

 

“The intense focus on identity categories and identity politics means that the individual and the universal are largely devalued.  While mainstream liberalism focuses on achieving universal human rights and access to opportunities, to allow each individual to fulfill her potential, applied postmodern scholarship and activism is deeply skeptical of these values and even openly hostile to them.  Applied postmodern Theory tends to regard mainstream liberalism as complacent, naïve, or indifferent about the deeply ingrained prejudices, assumptions, and biases that limit and constrain people with marginalized identities.  The ‘individual’ in applied postmodernism is something like the sum total of the identity groups to which the person in question simultaneously belongs.”[2]

 

The specification of three aspects—the universal, the individual, and the group—reminded me of John Frame’s perspectivialism.  The following would illustrate a Framean perspective:

 

 

Universal (Humanity)

                                     Class/group                                Individual

 

 

These three perspectives correlate with Frame’s categories:

 

            Normative: Universal humanity

 

            Situational: Class/group

 

            Existential: Individual

 

Within a biblical worldview all three perspectives are important for full understanding of the truth.  To isolate one perspective, to the exclusion of the others, will be to fail to fully understand the nature of the subject at hand.  As Vern Poythress notes, “Monoperspectival reductions of the truth frequently make some one perspective into a god-like origin for everything else.”[3]

 

Under the sovereignty of God, every individual is created in the image of God (universal) and is situated in a number of particular overlapping groups.  Postmodern views, as noted by Pluckrose and Lindsay, are thus reductionist choosing to privilege the group to the exclusion of other perspectives.

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     [1]Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody(Durham, North Carolina: Pitchstone Publishing, 2020), 42—bold-face added.

     [2]Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody(Durham, North Carolina: Pitchstone Publishing, 2020), 60-61—bold-face added.

     [3]Vern Poythress, “Multiperspectivalism and the Reformed Faith” in Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame(Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2009), 195.

Amos 1.3-2.3: God's Judgment on Nations

Amos 1.3-2.3: God’s Judgment on Nations

 

In Amos 1.3-2.3 there is a list of judgment oracles against six different nations: Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab.  It is instructive to examine this sequence of judgment oracles for its theology of God’s judgment.  

 

Who, What, and Why of Judgment

 

Who is this judge of the nations?  Yahweh is the sovereign Lord over all nations. He is not a tribal deity but, rather, the world’s universal Lord.  This speaks to the issue that there is one truth which contravenes the modern tendency to relativism.  Also, this great God is the supreme moral agent and authority.  He holds nations to a moral standard. We can gain insight into what concerns the Lord by seeing what these nations are judged for in this text.

 

What is the judgment?  This judgment in on all nations; even non-covenantal nations.  God deals with nation-states as corporate entities. The judgment is brought after periods of patience.  Each of the judgment oracles contains the following refrain: “For three transgressions of __________ and for for four…”

 

“What the device seems to be saying is that each neighbour has rebelled enough and more than enough to warrant the Lord’s drastic intervention in its history; therefore, he is entirely justified in bringing calamity upon them.”[1]

 

Why are the nations judged?  Here are some of the details:

 

            Damascus: “because they threshed Gilead with implements of sharp iron”

 

            Gaza: “because they deported an entire population  to deliver it up to Edom”

 

Tyre: “because they delivered up an entire population to Edom and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood”

 

Edom: “because he pursued his brother with sword, while he stifled his compassion; his anger also tore continually, and he maintained his fury forever”

 

Ammon: “because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge

                 their borders”

 

Moab: “because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime”

 

M. Daniel Carroll R. summarizes the transgressions as an “irrational blood lust in war.”[2]  J. A. Moyter more fully describes the national transgressions:

 

“The spotlight falls not on what they may or may not have done or held in relation to God, but on what they have done man to man: barbarity (1:3) in the course of Hazael’s military campaigns half a century earlier; pitiless slave-trading involving total populations (verse 6b), promise breaking (verse 9), unnatural and persistent hatred (verse 11), and finally sickening atrocities against the helpless (verse 13) and the dead (2:1).” [3]

 

 

These national sins bring forth the judgment of God who rules over the nations with a sovereign moral authority.  Of particular interest is the fact that some of the nations listed here in Amos are threatened with judgment, not because of their behavior toward God’s people, but, rather, for how they treat other non-covenanted nations. Walter Brueggemann insightfully brings out this point:

 

“What astonishes us and warrants our attention is that on occasion the affront against Yahweh is not a direct mocking of Yahweh or an abuse of Israel, but abuse of a third people that has nothing to do with Israel but, as it turns out, has everything to do with Yahweh.

 

For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they ripped open pregnant women in Gilead in order to enlarge their territory…

For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom.  (Amos 1:13, 2:1)

 

“This rhetoric permits Israel to enunciate the claim that under the aegis of Yahweh’s sovereignty, there is a kind of international law or code of human standards that seems to anticipate the Helsinki Accords of 1975 in a rough way, a code that requires every nation to act in civility and humaneness toward others.  Any affront of this standard is taken to be an act of autonomy, arrogance, and self-sufficiency, which flies in the face of Yahweh’s governance.  Thus Yahweh is the guarantor, not only of Israel, but of the nations in their treatment of each other.”[4]

 

 

Contemporary Significance

 

The living God is still sovereign over nations.  He still renders judgments in history over peoples who transgress with impunity.  This message needs to be broadcast to the nations.  For those who continue to in their destructive forms of injustice there will be a reckoning.  

 

Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns; indeed

the world is firmly established, it will not be moved;

he will judge the peoples with equity… for he is coming,

for he is coming to judge the earth.  He will judge the world

in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.

Psalm 96.10, 13

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     [1]D. A. Hubbard, Joel and Amos (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1989), 129.

      [2]M. Daniel Carroll R. “Visions of Horror, Visions of Hope: An Orientation for Urban Ministry from the Book of Amos” Ex Auditu29 (2013), 7.

     [3]J. A. Moyter, The Message of Amos(Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity Press, 1972), 37-38.

     [4]Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy(Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1997), 503.