It might seem strange to some to pose questions about Father God. It seems as if the religious side of man wants to pretend to have all the answers but dismiss any questions as a lack of faith. BUT, what if the real lack of faith is man’s attempt to contain God who is not containable? What if even the best-intended notions of the personality of our Father were just extensions of our own personalities. What if man re-created an image of God the way he perceived Him to be, and then worshipped the false idol he had created?
This is to pose some of these questions, somewhat forbidden by those who have built a box for a God that they think they can contain God in. What if we have preconceived ideas about our wonderful Father that are completely or partially incorrect?
DISCLAIMER: This writing is not for the religious. IF you think you know everything about God you will be offended by the What-if questions…here is the warning. If you read further don’t say you haven’t been warned.
What-If number 1:
What if the Old Testament was actually composed by religious men and women who were writing from their personal perspectives of the times in which they were living? Is it not most likely that the spiritual and world environment that they were raised in and living in greatly influenced their perception of God. Is the Old Testament the word of God, or the word of man about God, written from the perspective of the era in which they were living? Is it beyond imagination to realize that any pre-Christ perspective of God was one of total speculation? Before the incarnation of Christ as Jesus, where was the standard representing the Father?
So, to answer that question we must pose another: what was the spiritual and political environment of the pre-Christ Israelites? It doesn’t take a literary genius to recognize the idolatry present in the world of the pre-Christ Israelites. The idolatry was rampant, planets were worshipped, mythological gods and goddesses were worshipped…. precious children were burned alive to please these cruel religious idols. There seemed to be an idol for every weather challenge, fertility, food, everything we can imagine religious man had created his own series of gods for. Drought, too much rain, there was a created idol to sacrifice to. So, we see that the human composers had grown up when idolatry was the expected and accepted form of religious worship. Idol worship was the norm. Children were fed to the spewing volcanoes to please the angry imaginary gods, it was the accepted religious practice of the day.
NOW STEPS IN THE REAL GOD: a real study of Old Testament scripture makes it clear to the student that Our Father had no desire to be the recipient of bleeding dying animals and certainly not bleeding dying babies. OT scripture makes it clear that Father hated the idolatry that had taken over the mindsets of the people He loved. I could go into a long list of scripture to prove myself correct, but I won’t. I will challenge the disagreeing reader to find OT scripture to prove me incorrect.
So, we find the OT being written by people who had been raised in religious idolatry and lived in a time when it had been considered acceptable. We Must keep the idolatry of the Pre-Christ Israelites in mind to make sense of the What-if questions.
What if being accustomed to pleasing the angry mythological gods of their day influenced the OT writer’s perception of the Father? Is it not imaginable that God was prejudged by the religions of that day based on their fear of the unknown God? What examples did they have to base their perspectives on? Remember Christ had not yet appeared in physical form. Truthfully without the physical presence of Jesus, and no collected scripture…. how could God be perceived by the Pre-Christ people of that time? Is it not true that the only possible ideas they could have of the Father were those of the angry religious deities that they were from their mindsets forced to sacrifice to?
So, we see the beginning of religious deception, judging the real God from the historical record of the false gods. I hope you are understanding the stage that had been set to establish a false identity of our precious Father. We would see the ongoing OT struggles of people trying to please the Father with sacrifices when He wanted their hearts, not their grain, or meat, and certainly not their blood.
So, we come to the what-if questions based on the thought of the possible misconceptions of the OT writers. These are not intended to be presented as revelations or even facts…. but just simple what-if questions.
The Flood: What if the OT perspective of the flood of Noah’s time was written from the perspective of Noah, who had been raised in the atmosphere of the angry gods of idolatry that required sacrifice and caused disasters when the sacrifices didn’t please them for whatever purpose? What if Noah’s preconception of our Father was based on his background of having dealt with the angry false gods of the idolatry of his day?
What if Noah interpreted the actions of our Father from his lifelong perspective of fear and he pre-judged the Father as angry as his childhood false gods had been? What if the flood was not the result of anger from a destructive hateful god, but the grief of a tender loving Father? What if the floodwaters were not really rain but tears from the crying Father for His children because of their having abandoned Him? It might be interesting to note that previous to the flood it had never rained on the earth. It is also interesting that the first rainbow appeared from the Father as a symbol of ongoing love, hardly seems like a God that actually delighted in destroying His own children. Is this a stretch of my imagination? Remember it’s just a what-if.