Children say the cruelest things. I remember seeing my sister smack my nephew’s behind for a moment of his angry defiance, only to have him raise the stakes by crying, pouting, and spitting out the words “I hate you!” Though I generally despise watching parents discipline their children (especially in public), here it was most gratifying. It was upsetting to see him defy his dear mother (my sister) who is endlessly good to him. She knows what goodness is; he does not—at least not yet. All parents struggle to instill an appropriate vision of goodness into their children, but children initially  know only their own pain or pleasure. They do not know—and cannot yet perceive—the truly good things their parents desire for them, so they react and say things that can be cruel and stupid. 

Enter Israel. Walking with the Children of God through the wilderness, into the promised land, into exile, and back to Jerusalem, we see a lot of God’s disciplining them and hear defiant and stupid things in return, usually just as pouty and tearful as my little nephew. Even today, we view Israel only from the point of view of siblings, not parents. We see Israel disciplined and shaped by God who is good, and yet may fail to see the goodness in it. Villages are slaughtered and wiped off the map, women and children killed to the last one, and kings beg for mercy only to be impaled until sundown—all in alignment with the orders of the Lord God.  How are we to make sense of this? 

Why on earth does a good God require such carnage? If you’ve never asked the question, there may be something wonky with your empathy mechanisms. We, not unlike the unbelievers of the  world, see these events compromising God’s goodness. Some believers are quick to dismiss such texts as “not the God of the New Testament,” or “not my God!” Others feel we owe the world some kind of an apology for such texts. But these thoughts come from our childishness.

We have the point of view of my nephew. Man can only see the pleasure and pain that is his own good, so there is no vision—and I mean absolutely none—for what constitutes the goodness of our perfect Lord. We are like my nephew’s friends looking on in false sympathy saying, “Yeah, you’re right—your Mom is mean-spirited and cruel!” But we—humankind—are the stupid and cruel ones. Rather, we should consider the alternative; namely, that God is so good we cannot begin to imagine what goodness is.  Instead of pouting along with our worldly siblings over God’s perceived “injustices,” we should wake up to the fact that the goodness of God exists on His terms, not ours.  We do not lack eyes, but we have not seen God’s glory—nor his surpassing goodness—either of which would shrivel us. 

It’s not wrong to ask these hard questions, but it is better that we should take our medicine like grown-ups and trust in the goodness of God rather than the pitiably-poor moral hindsight of our pouty siblings. God is good. He is only good. All the time. That we can trust. †