Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: isusehj%pyr@gatech.edu (Hillary R. Jordan) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Question for Net.theologians Message-ID: Date: 29 May 90 07:06:51 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 55 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [This is a response to a question about the ethics of Jesus' attack on the money-changers' tables. The question is what if a child had accidentally gotten injured in the process. Were Jesus' violent actions, and his loss of temper excusable? Is his anger sinful? --clh] To answer the question, first remember that while Jesus was on earth and without sin, He led a life in total submission to the will of God, the Father. Now, when He entered the church and saw the moneychangers doing business on the chruch grounds, He got angry. However, the anger didn't come from a fleshly bias that He had against them because He thought that what they were doing wasn't right. This anger was a Godly anger spawned up from within because God was angry at those men for making a mockery of the place where the people were suppose to come and worship Him. Remember, God is a jealous God. He doesn't like you to consider anything or anyone more important or holy than Him and He doesn't like for you to treat that which He has ordained as holy and sacred with disrespect. If you do, then you are subject to his wrath, which in our eyes, isn't always the nicest thing to experience. Since it was Jesus who walked in on the moneychangers, God used Jesus as His tool for exercising His judgement upon these people. That judgement was to forcefully drive them from the church. From a bystander point of view, this would have been a very violent thing to observe. Imagine, some guy who says He's a prophet grabbing a whip and driving these moneychangers out of the church, kicking down tables of money and other acts of "violence". However, in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 it states that in the kingdom of God there comes a time for all types of actions violent or otherwise. The important thing with whatever action is carried out is that it is the will of God being done in the situation. As for the child, first of all, God is all knowing. He would have known that the child was there amoungst the moneychangers, and could have either a) continued doing what He was doing, just go around the child. b) killed the child because you don't know who or what spirits might be influencing the child at that time. Or, Jesus could have just called on the power of God to destroy the entire church because after all sin was active there with the moneychangers and they couldn't legally get in there and do business without the approval of someone(s) in authority in that church, a Pharasee or High Priest for example. And God deals with sin as He sees fit. eg. Sodom and Gomorrah God's judgement upon the sinful people of Amalek (I Samuel 15:1-3) -- destroy all men, women and children, wiping out of 14,700 of His chosen people because they came in rebellion against Moses (Numbers 16:41-50). So, if the child were to die, it was for a reason, not the innocent slaughter of an individual, because God is soverign, He is all knowing, He is just and Jesus Christ, His instrument in the situation, was completely submitted to His will. To God Be The Glory, Hill -- hill@hermes.gatech.edu