rongsheng wrote:I understand the context in Noah's myth. The men at the time were evil, did bad things etc. I am not saying anything about killing bad people, I am talking about children. Are they evil, too?
Your question needs to answered with Biblical verses and thus the following. Please note, I quote only from the KJV (King James Version).
Isaiah 1:2 "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have
nourished and
brought up children, and they have
rebelled against me."
Isaiah 1:4 "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward."
I once heard a sermon from a pastor who said that all babies (including the ones that are aborted) go to heaven. If that is the case, then we ought to open up abortion clinics and start aborting all the pregnant women. We can send all the unborn children to heaven directly. In fact, we will be doing them a favour!
The other question that arises, is that what is the cut off age for living children? Is it 5 years? 6 years? 3 years? At what point does God determine when a child is come of age to reason for himself/herself about their sin and their relation to God? Man cannot answer that question, as he does not have the foreknowledge of who is going to be saved and who is not saved. So we really cannot claim that all babies go heaven (or for that matter, that all babies go to hell).
Thus, were there babies & children that were killed in the flood, during the time of Noah? Absolutely. For that I quote Romans 5, verses 12 and 19.
Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
Romans 5:19 "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
In the Christian faith, all mankind has the sin of Adam (i.e. the sin of disobedience) upon them and thus it is not
the acts of sin that make you a sinner, it is the very fact that you are
born a sinner is what makes you sin. Children and babies are
also sinners in that context.
Now the next question to be asked is were'nt Noah and his family also sinners? And yes they were. But why did God single them out? Isn't God going against His own word? To answer that question, we go back to the Bible.
Genesis 6:5-9 "And God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it
repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said,
I will destroy man whom
I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it
repenteth me that I have made them.
But Noah found
grace in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a
just man and
perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."
The question that arises is how can Noah be just and perfect? I thought Christians believed that only God was just and perfect? For that we go to John Gill - a great theologian of his time. I quote from him and I cannot add anything more to what he says about Noah and Genesis 6:8
"This man and his family were the only exception to the general apostasy; God always reserves some, in the worst of times, for himself; there is a remnant, according to the election of grace; it was but a small one, and that now appeared; and this was owing to the grace of God, and his choice upon that, and not to the merits of the creature. This grace, which Noah found and shared in, was the favour and good will of God; Noah was grateful and acceptable to him; he was well pleased with him in Christ; his person, services, and sacrifices, were acceptable to him through the Beloved; though he might not be acceptable in the eyes of men, who derided him for his piety and devotion, and especially for his prediction of the flood, and making an ark to save him and his family from it; yet he was very acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, and grateful in his sight, and was favoured with grace from him, who is the God of all grace, and with all the supplies of it: the Jerusalem Targum is, he
"found grace and mercy;''
the grace he found was not on account of his own merit, but on account of the mercy of God: and this shows that he was not without sin, or he would have stood in no need of the mercy and grace of God to save him; and as he found grace and favour in things spiritual, so in things temporal; he found favour with God, and therefore he and his family were spared, when the whole world of the ungodly were destroyed; he found favour with God, and therefore was directed by him to build an ark, for the saving of himself and his; he found favour with him, and therefore he had the honour of being the preserver of mankind, and the father of a new world.
But Jesus Christ also said the following in the Bible.
Mark 10:13-16 "And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them."
Luke 18:15-17 "And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child shall in no wise enter therein."
So in the OT, God states that children are curropters and in the NT, Jesus Christ (who is also God but manifested in the flesh) states that you cannot receive the kingdom of God, if you are not a little child. So the question that arises is if children are curropters and have provoked God to anger, how can Jesus Christ ask you to recieve the kingdom of God as a child? Does'nt that make the God of the Bible a liar?
To answer that question, we go back to John Gill.
John Gill says the following about Mark 10:15
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God; the Gospel, and the mysteries of it: as a little child; laying aside all pride and prejudice, attending thereunto with humility and meekness
John Gill says the following about Luke 18:17
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God; the King Messiah, the doctrines of the Gospel, and the ordinances of it, even the whole Gospel dispensation; as a little child; without prejudice, pride, ambition, and vanity, with meekness, and humility
Thus when Jesus is asking you to be like a child, when receiving the kingdom of God, He is asking you to receive it as a gift of grace from Him and not as if it is your right. That by no means qualifies that you are not a sinner. You still are and will continue to be one, just as Noah and his family were. Even believers in Christ sin. But believers in Christ know that He intercedes to the Father, on our behalf. I might have to explain TULIP now with what I just said in this entire post. Evanjehadis would crucify me and say I am possessed of the Devil, if I explained TULIP.
Rongsheng...that was a long answer and I touched base (albeit very lightly) on a number of topics, but does that answer your question? Please advise.
rongsheng wrote:Why does Christian god tolerate and promote slavery? Why does Christian god allow rape of virgin women by his followers?
On slavery, you are talking about a society which a man (being the head of a family) owned slaves. That was the custom back then. We can argue back and forth on this topic and we would be just wasting our breath.
But the issue of God allowing the rape of virgin women, requires a bit more clarification. I think you are referring to the book of Numbers, chapter 31. Please advise.
rongsheng wrote:If you didn't know this before, the story of flood is a rehash of older middle eastern stories of flood. Try Atrahasis, or Gilgamesh or Ziusudra to see the real story.
For every verse in the Bible, there are scores of books & people out there to discount it. Such is the depravity of man. But that is a-okay with me, for I too discounted the Bible at one point and wanted nothing to do with God.