By Works and by Grace? - is the Bible contradictory About Salvation?

QUESTION:  A friend of mine has said that the Bible is contradictory about salvation – saying in one passage it’s by works and in another it’s by grace.  He pits Jesus and James against Paul and points out these specific passages:  Matthew 19:17, Luke 10:26-28, Romans 3:28, Galatians 2:16, and James 2:24.

RESPONSE: This is not a contradiction when you look into it – as the overarching message of Scripture is that people are saved not by good works, but by grace through faith.  The passages your friend lists as affirming salvation by works (Matthew 19, Luke10) are curious because in both cases, no one actually gets salvation by this means.  In fact, the rich young ruler in Luke 10 specifically loses out on salvation as we are to understand by him leaving Jesus in tears!

So before we’re into it even two steps, we have good reasons to pause and not interpret this in a simplistic binary way.  First, Jesus did not come to "abolish the law" (Matt 5:17) so it’s not altogether unexpected that He would say in Matthew 19 “if you want to enter life, obey the commandment” or to the Rich man in Luke 10, “do this and you will live”.  This is consistent with everything in the O.T. law:  “obey me and live”, being the repeated refrain of mosaic law (Lev 18:5 etc).  In one sense we might say, OF COURSE there is salvation by works – provided you do ALL the works!  This is what Paul affirmed in Galatians 5:3:  If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey all of the regulations in the whole law of Moses. NLT  Paul even seems to think God will honor with eternal life those who don’t even have the law of Moses, when he says: Rom 2:6-9:  “He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality… and also to the Greek.”  Of course in context of his whole argument, this offer is provided with a massive caveat.

A great big IF.  If one can obey all God’s commandments.  Then by definition, you are morally perfect like God.  That means you have earned your salvation, and God owes you heaven as a simple matter of fairness.  There would be no grace needed.  

Because of this, I will sometimes coyly tell people, the bible says there’s only TWO ways to heaven.  (People, used to Christians talking about one way to heaven, always perk up at that!)  And then I mention that the first way, the most obvious way, and the plan everyone seems to be working on is, the DO plan.  That is, ‘do enough’ to earn God’s acceptance.  Then, before I outline the OTHER way, I quote Dr Phil:  “how’s that working for you?”  The problem is not in the law, it’s in us – as Jesus points out in the "works" passage in Matthew:  “NO ONE is good, expect God alone.”  That is, no one obeys perfectly.

This is the entire point Jesus is making with the rich young ruler – he’s NOT perfect, though he thinks he is.  “One thing you lack”, Jesus tells him.  Also, in the Luke passage notice in 10:29 the interesting comment:  the lawyer is eager to “justify himself”.  So in both cases neither of our star moral performers is anywhere near as good as they think they are.  Jesus is actually using the law to point out the flaw in both men.  Or perhaps more accurately we should say Jesus is using his own instruction (“sell your possessions”; “love your neighbor”) to show how both men are not obeying the law as they think they are.

Let me paraphrase the conversations to underscore what Jesus is doing: 

The Matt 19 Passage:

Man: Hi Jesus, I’d like to get to heaven.

Jesus: Well, you have to be perfect, what is the standard of perfection?

Man: The law.

Jesus: Right!  So how are you doing on that?

Man: Really, really good, I think – I’ve been a faithful rule follower my whole life!

Jesus: Really?  Actually you’re not quite there yet.  If you’re so great with the commandments, then you won’t mind selling all your possessions to follow me.

Man: What!!  I’m good, but I’m not THAT good! (walks away)

The Luke 10 Passage:

Man: Hi Jesus I want to get to heaven.

Jesus: Well, what’s in the law, what’s God expect from you?

Man: Only two things:  love God, and love my neighbor.

Jesus: Alright, good answer!  So do it.

Man: Umm, uh, well, I have a question about that: Exactly WHO is my neighbor?  Because there’s lots of people I don’t love, but I’m guessing (hoping) they’re not my neighbor.

Jesus: Well, let me tell you a story (the Good Samaritan) that will define neighbor for you, in a way that will show, you do NOT, in fact, love your neighbor as God demands.

To miss how Jesus is using the law is to miss the entire point of BOTH stories.  He is not using the law to outline a way of salvation.  He is using it to expose these “good” men as law breakers.  For the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, Jesus is exposing something very specific.  The man claims to have obeyed all the law, “since his youth”.  Really?  The arrogance is astounding.  He's never lied? So Jesus tells him to sell everything.  Why?  To give ANOTHER law by which he can be sure he’s earned salvation?  No, to expose him.  To expose the fact that he is a lawbreaker like everyone else. 

How so?  Well, this demand (and his unwillingness to receive it) exposed the fact that he was consistently breaking the very 1st commandment, “no other gods before me”, with his addiction to wealth and power.  To apply Jesus demand would have broken him, and brought him to a faith-filled dependence on God’s mercy alone.  If he applies the call of Jesus, he will have to die – to pride and self sufficiency – and only THEN will he live.  That death to self Jesus is calling him to undergo (which he refuses) for the sake of the Kingdom is synonymous with salvation by grace alone through faith alone.  How is it different?

You see, faith is not merely ‘belief’, it’s a full-hearted turning to God, in repentance and trust in his mercy alone to save. 

In fact, defining the word ‘faith’ shows how the James passage ALSO affirms salvation by grace and not by works, even though James does say, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.”  James is defining faith simplistically – as mere belief:  Mental assent to truth.  We know he’s working on a different definition than Paul because he says, this “faith” is what demons have (2:19)!  Well clearly this kind of “faith” (which amounts to doctrinal accuracy) doesn’t save anyone.

So when James says we’re not saved by “faith”, he is not contradicting Paul or Jesus, because he’s not talking about the same kind of faith!  To posit a true contradiction we have to be working with the same definitions.  The faith that simply “believes in certain dogmas” is not the kind of faith Paul promotes in his letters.  Read Romans 6:1-5 and see Paul calling the commitment of faith a kind of dying to sin as we invite the newness of the Christlife in.  James and Paul are here in perfect agreement.  Real faith is a whole person brokenness, it always includes repentance, and always produces good fruit.  Thus, without the fruit of repentance, we can presume there is no faith, thus no salvation.

Whenever I want to talk about salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, ironically, the Gospel passages I come back to most are the very passages that your friend says contradict salvation by grace alone!!  They affirm so clearly the central view of scripture, of Jesus, and of ALL his apostles, that we are “saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus,” Acts 15:11.

A final note about the Luke passage in particular:  If you think Luke 10:28 is teaching salvation by works, one should remember a couple chapters later, the same Jesus, recorded by the same author, is very clearly hammering the message of salvation by grace (Luke 15).  The problem with saying that Jesus affirmed salvation by works is not that this makes him contradict Paul, but that this makes Him contradict Himself!!  Clearly, unless Jesus is completely confused, he is up to something.  And I think his strategy is clear.  It goes something like this:  grace to the humble, law to the proud.

Jesus ALWAYS threw the law in the faces of proud people (again in Luke 11:42).  When he does so, it may APPEAR he is setting up a system of salvation by works, but what you see is always that the law winds up being used as a lever of conviction.  It starts as the “way to life”, but winds up becoming the crushing weight of perfection that opens eyes and shows how far we fall short.

So, when you see Jesus’ OVERALL strategy in this way (law to the proud, grace to the humble), you see how perfectly consistent Paul is with his Master when he declares: 

Romans 3:20 “for no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what his law commands.  For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it.” NLT

The only way out of this predicament, is to abandon the law (good works) as a means to be saved, and instead to repent, throw ourselves on the mercy of God and receive by faith God’s forgiving love.  And this is Jesus message of grace, consistently seen all over Luke’s gospel.  (Study Luke 5:20; Luke 7:47; Luke 15; Luke 18:13-14)

Are O.T. Food Laws Binding on Christians?

QUESTION:  Does God want us, even today, to obey his laws about which food we may and may not eat?  Deuteronomy 14:3-21 (NLT) states clearly what those are.  Please direct me to verses in the New Testament that acknowledges that law and/or what He says about that for these times.

ANSWER: Thanks for the question.  The short answer is no.  We can say so with authority because Jesus himself gave us clear direction on this very issue.   Jesus said in Mk 7:18-19 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." [Then, Mark adds this editorial comment so we don't miss the implication of Jesus' words:]  (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") NIV

The early church took a while to follow the implication of Jesus words, because it's first members were all Jewish.  But it became an issue when the gospel needed to go to the Gentiles.  Would the church make all new believers follow Mosaic law, including Jewish dietary codes, or would they just be required simply to believe in Christ and follow him?  The answer from God himself was the latter.  Here’s how it happened:

Jesus’ lead disciple Peter, who had a really hard time accepting Gentiles as Christian brothers (Gal. 2:11-12), got a vision from God.  In that one vision, God taught him two things:  one, that all foods were clean, that the old Jewish dietary code was now obsolete, and two, that God was freely accepting “unclean” Gentiles into the Kingdom of Christ - WITHOUT requiring them to become Jews first.  This vision was of unclean foods which God tells Peter to kill and eat!  and "do not declare unclean, what God has made clean."  This is a key moment in church history, where the first Gentiles are welcomed into the Church - Acts 10.

Now, the implications of that vision vision for ceremonial law observance in the Church was confirmed by Peter at the Council of Jerusalem a few years later.  In Acts 15:10-11 we read him standing up to say to his Jewish brothers, "Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke [the Mosaic law] that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No!  We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." NIV

So they did not require Gentiles coming into the church to observe Jewish ceremonial law, specifically circumcision, but all Mosaic law including the food laws.

Now, at the end of that discussion, the Gentile churches were asked to not eat meat with blood left in it, which is a ceremonial food law (15:29).  But most scholars agree this was not about making those laws binding again on Christians.  Rather, they retained just those few (out of the hundreds!) in order to facilitate fellowship between the Jewish and Gentile believers.  They could hardly eat together if the Gentiles were violating a key food law in front of their Jewish brothers.  And eating together was necessary to express Church unity, in their many shared meals, and especially the love feast.

So Romans 14:14 states the principle again very clearly - "no food is unclean" for a believer.  But again, the principle that follows is that we should not seek to put a stumbling block in anyone's path.  If certain foods violate a person's scruples and he feels he cannot eat them, then we should abstain in front of that person to not upset them or violate their conscience.

So in Christ, in the New Covenant period, all ceremonial laws of the O.T. are non-binding on Christians, including the dietary code of Deut 14:3ff.  They were shadows highlighting the holiness of God, the sinfulness (uncleanness) of men, and our need for grace and purity.  But Jesus is the reality toward which these shadows pointed.

Now, we can ask, was there ANY value in those food laws other than a spiritual principle teaching the Jews to value what is clean over what is unclean?  Actually yes there was, especially for an ancient, pre-scientific, agrarian tribe.  

If you look at the forbidden foods, the unclean animals are usually omnivores, and scavengers.  Pigs, shellfish, vultures etc.  These animals eat most anything, often the decaying flesh of animals or other material, and therefore, could often transmit illness if not cooked properly.  Pork and shellfish still carry this risk today, but modern cooking minimizes it.  God is always concerned with his people in the law - even the ceremonial parts of it.

The same could be said of the hundreds of times God calls for regular ceremonial washing, 3500 years before the discovery of bacteria!

Are Homosexual Sins the Worst Sins?

QUESTION:  I have heard in today's talk (6/29/08) that homosexual attraction and acts can be treated by Christians as among the long list of going outside God's plan for human sexuality in creation. Yet, I see in scripture as having a particular focus on homosexual acts and desires as especially offensive to God. Please explain the meaning of being image-bearers as male and female, scripture's naming of homosexuality as the sin of pride, and explain if there really is a particular condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible as more than just sinful sexual behavior like heterosexual pre-marital sex and heterosexual adultery.

ANSWER: Thanks for the question, and I’m glad you followed up because it gives me a chance to elaborate on an important point.  I can’t agree with your last statement as I must maintain as I did in my sermon that Scripture does not put homosexual behavior at the front of a graded list of sins.  Homosexual behavior is sinful.  But I disagree with you that it is “especially offensive” to God.  

Let me make my case in hopes that I can change your mind about what Scripture teaches on this subject.  First, when the Bible gives us lists of behaviors that are offensive to God, (as it does on numerous occasions), it usually doesn’t even include homosexual acts.  Jesus listed off sins when he said:

Mark 7:20-23  "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" NIV

We would think that if your assumption is true about homosexual acts being especially abhorrent to God, that Jesus would have used this moment to clarify that point.   But he doesn’t single out homosexual acts at all.  In fact, we should assume that he would have at least mentioned it in the list of unclean behaviors which he cites here, but he doesn’t even do that.  That doesn’t mean that homosexual behavior isn’t sinful (Jesus will be very clear that God's sexual design is complementary and heterosexual - Matt 19:1-9), the list here, is not exhaustive by any means.  But if we’re to accept your idea that God encourages special repugnance for homosexual acts, then we should expect Jesus to make that clear when he talks about sin here or elsewhere.  But he never does.

Neither does Paul.  Here again another listing of sins:

Gal 5:19-21  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. NIV

 This list mentions several sexual sins but doesn’t mention homosexual sins once.  If they’re worse why aren’t they listed here?  Again this doesn’t mean that it’s not sinful (see below) but it clearly devastates any case that could be mounted to make homosexuality a cause for special revulsion.

So let’s look at another list of sins where homosexual behavior IS mentioned:

1 Cor 6:9-10 Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. NIV

Here, homosexual behavior IS mentioned in a list of sins which the Corinthians used to engage in.  The two words Paul uses in reference to homosexuality are Greek words that literally mean, “the soft” and “lying with a male”.  This is clearly a reference to male homosexual behavior, the former gives himself to be used by the latter.  This is sinful behavior, clearly.  It's a misuse of sex, along with sexual immorality and adultery, also listed here.

But you will notice that if Paul wanted to elevate our repugnance of homosexuality he would have put it at the front or the back of the list, or made a case about it’s special dangers.  No such case is made.  How are we to understand any “particular condemnation” from this passage?

Paul refers to homosexual acting out in another list of sins:

1 Tim 1:9-11  They are for people who are disobedient and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who murder their father or mother or other people. These laws are for people who are sexually immoral, for homosexuals and slave traders, for liars and oath breakers, and for those who do anything else that contradicts the right teaching… NLT

Again we have the word “to bed a male” listed here, (Greek: “arsenokoitai”) and again it is found in the middle of the list.  No special place is given, no special qualifiers are made, no elaboration on this sin – none whatsoever. 

You and I can agree that the creation sexual design is a narrow design:  One man, one woman, for life.  Where we can also agree, is that God’s Word makes the case against homosexual behavior less by calling it out as sin, and more often by describing and celebrating heterosexual marriage.  I agree, this heterosexual, monogamous model defines the boundaries of moral sexual behavior specifically because we are made to reflect God himself, a unity in diversity, Father Son and Holy Spirit.  So two genders are required to have this diversity that comes together into a shared oneness of marriage.

This narrow model then, has all sorts of perversions.  I can get parts of that design right and completely miss other parts.  While I may suffer less if I get only parts of it wrong, I don't avoid guilt.  For example, a homosexual couple may get the monogamous part of that design right, and miss out on the heterosexual part.  A polygamous family may get the heterosexual part right and miss the monogamous part.  The sin and heartache in just David’s household alone because he multiplied his wives in contradiction to the creation design (and God’s laws for kings, Deut. 17:17) shows the deep scars that come from ANY expression of sexuality (homo or hetero) not in keeping with the creation design.

Romans 1 shows us a downward moral spiral that begins with an idolatrous suppression of truth of God and seems at first glance to lead directly to homosexuality as the bottom of the spiral (Rom 1:26, 27).  But only if we stop there to make the “special condemnation” argument and ignore the context.

Keep reading:

“Furthermore,” Paul says in Rom 1:28-31, “he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” 

So if we want to make the case that homosexuality is not like other sexual sins but is in fact worse, this passage is no help to us.  By what logic is this passage elevating homosexual behavior over other sin?  By the fact that it comes directly after the rejection of truth about God? (Rom 1:24)  But shouldn’t that logically be the least offensive sin since, if we’re describing a scale, it’s the first foray into rebellion?  Shouldn’t the chronological order of depravity be that every step after the initial rejection of truth about God is a step down the ladder of evil?  

But if that’s the case, then the LEAST offensive sin to God is idolatry, because it comes first (Rom 1:23), homosexuality is second LEAST offensive because it comes second (Rom 1:26, 27) and (by this logic) the WORST sin in God’s moral order – worse than either of those – is ruthlessness because it comes last.  Reverse the order and it’s just as ridiculous.  If we reject this ranking of sins as arbitrary, then this passage cannot be said to elevate homosexual sin as the worst of sins.

When we turn to the Old Testament, the story is the same.  It’s probably true that Lot considered the heterosexual rape of his daughters to be less offensive than the homosexual rape of his angelic guests (Gen 19:8) but there is no commentary on the righteousness of this action.  It’s simply stated that he did it.  If we go to the sexual laws of Moses we read that homosexual acts are an abomination (Lev 18:22).  So yes, that’s very bad.  But here is a short list of other sins that are said to be abominable:

• offering a rotting carcass to God, Lev 7:18;  
• eating unclean animals, like pork Lev 11:10ff; 
• incest, Lev 20:12-13; 
• offering an idol to God, Deut 7:25; 
• offering your son or daughter in sacrifice to God, Deut 12:31.  

There is simply no special place given to homosexual behavior in the Bible.  It is clearly called sin, but it is never singled out as a special sin.  I’m not sure what Bible verse you may be referring to which calls it “the sin of pride”.  If you’d like to point that verse out, I’d be open to feedback.

So I think your case for “particular condemnation” is not supported by the Bible’s teaching.  My concern with our disagreement is that if you carry this idea into friendships with practicing homosexuals, you might project that ‘special condemnation’ onto them.  And that will only encourage a negative stereotype that Christians consider homosexuals as 'less than'.  Frankly, when the question was asked Sunday, I sensed it came from someone who has been told exactly that.  Which is why they sounded skeptical that such sinners could ever experience forgiveness and power of God.  

I wanted to assure them they can.  This is the message Paul sent to homosexuals in 1 Cor 6:11: “And that is what some of you were.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”  [Emphasis added]

(We have a white paper dealing with this and other passages on the subject if you’d like me to send it to you.)

Is Sexual Orientation A Choice?

All the secular literature on this will say ‘no’.  But it is a somewhat defensive ‘no’ when we look behind it.  There are certainly parts of our sexual make up we don't choose.  But to say there is no choices we can or should make regarding the outworking of our sexual desires, is to make the situation far too simple.

Recently the celebrity Cynthia Nixon talked about her migration from heterosexual marriage to gay marriage.  She raged against those who said that because she ‘went gay’ that meant that she had been gay all along.  She found this offensive to her former male lovers and to her former self.  “Why can’t it be a choice?” She said.

She was instantly besieged by criticism from the homosexual lobby.  Why?  Because she had dared to question the sacred orthodoxy of “orientation”.  The orthodoxy simply states: sexual desires are hardwired, genetically, from birth and unchangeable and most definitely have NOTHING to do with choice.  To suggest they is any choice in the matter is to suggest they could be changed,  and this is the really offensive thing.  Because it would suggest that if there were a sexual ideal, that one could choose to conform to it.  This flies in the face of the highest value in our culture:  unrestricted sexual self expression.

She quickly was forced to clarify that in fact she DID have an orientation – bisexuality.  Ironically, this admission completely negated her earlier point.  Her point was about sexual freedom and choice.  She was claiming her right to have sex with anyone she felt attracted to.  By being forced to regurgitate the orthodoxy about orientation, she meekly confessed her earlier heresy and denied that people really do have choice in the area of sexual attraction.  Of course, she tried to retain her position as a person of “choice” by hiding behind her bi-sexuality.  She (a bi-sexual) could choose to have sex with anyone, man or woman. She can choose the gender of her lovers, but other poor souls less broadly wired, of course cannot.

But by labeling this bi-sexual lifestyle an ORIENTATION she meekly joined the ranks of all those completely predetermined by their sexual hard wiring who have no real choice in sexual behavior.  To expose how far she backtracked, one has only to imagine that if a tri-gendered race of aliens came to earth, she COULD NOT choose to have sex with them, because of course, she’s a bi-sexual, not a TRI-sexual.  The Nixon who made her first comment, would have proudly said she could have sex with the hypothetical aliens if she CHOSE.  The repentant Nixon denied she could ever take this freedom because we should only have sex with the people we are ORIENTED to have sex with.

Such a conversation, played out in the media, is leading some to question the very notion of hard and fast “orientation”.  A new phrase coined by some to describe the reality of complex human sexual attraction is “sexual fluidity”.  In a work entitled, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, one researcher suggests that women are much more open to sex with people irrespective of their gender.  The research shows that sexual attraction is fluid, changing, depending on a host of factors and conditions, both internal and external and does not stay static throughout one’s life.

As with Nixon, this work threatens the “orientation” orthodoxy, so the book begins with a series of disclaimers to keep the high priests from shouting ‘heresy!’ in the Temple of Kinsey:

Does fluidity mean that all women are bisexual? No…Does fluidity mean that there is no such thing as sexual orientation? No… Does sexual fluidity mean that sexual orientation can be changed? No… Does fluidity mean that sexual orientation is a matter of choice? No... Does fluidity mean that sexual orientation is due to “nurture” instead of “nature”? No…’

Methinks thou doth protest too much!  The disclaimers of the author, Lisa Diamond, are, of course, her clear statement that she is still one of the true believers in orientation orthodoxy.  (That, or she just doesn’t want a ration of crap from the media like Nixon got).  Yet she should be lauded for doing such controversial work and seeking the true state of the evidence when it comes to sexual attraction, even if it risks, from her worldview perspective, “misunderstanding” and “misuse” of that evidence.  

I will prove her a prophet since here I am “misunderstanding” and “misusing” her research – her strenuous disclaimers notwithstanding.  Because what I care about more are her facts, rather than her interpretation of her own facts, based on her worldview which I do not share.

Nixon and Diamond show that while most research in this area is done in the name of proving the normalcy and innateness of homosexual feelings, it winds up backfiring, showing that the orientation dogma is too simple, at worst a myth, or at best a deeply misleading term.

This conclusion about sexual fluidity is deeply upsetting to the orientation dogma, but it may also be upsetting for heterosexuals with a biblical view of sexuality!  There are those who assert their own heterosexual orientation, as dogmatically as any homosexual would.  But if sexuality truly is fluid, the heterosexual should acknowledge that if conditions were different in their sexual development, this proud heterosexual may, in fact, NOT be one!  If that deflates the pride of their sexual “purity”, so be it.  But Diamond's work (and human history) confirms that ALL humans are fully capable of a wide, wide variety of sexual expression – they are not “locked in” – and thus social and moral conditions and choices are as key to how one’s very fluid sexuality is allowed to develop and express itself as is our innate ‘wiring’.

Christians can acknowledge that heterosexual monogamy is God’s ideal, and further that most are predisposed by natural design to lean in that direction.  But they should also acknowledge that no one’s natural sexuality is “pure”.  In nature, sex has proven to have patterns, yes, but also to be almost infinitely morphable.  Clearly sex has an indisputable natural function, and Christians might make an argument for heterosexual sex being preferred simply for that reason.  But our view of sex is higher than merely as means of reproduction – it is lodged finally in the character of God who made us in his image, male and female.

Yet a person is no more born with a perfect reflection of this Image in their sexuality than they are born with an unmarred reflection of this Image in any other aspect of their being.  Thus the journey of a Christian’s life in the area of their sexuality is a journey of conforming our raw, fluid sexual nature toward the Image of God, as is the case in every other area.  This stands opposed to the naïve Christian view that thinks most people have a “pure” sexuality hardwired and perfectly acceptable to God as is, while a few other “pervs” have a life long struggle in front of them.

No.  We ALL have a raw, natural, seething sexuality that is fully capable of going in a myriad of directions, and through modeling, beliefs, habits - finally choices, we as free moral agents, are the final determiners of what that direction will be.

This is not to deny that inside the Kinseyan spectrum of sexual attraction, that people do not naturally, by a myriad of conditions in their person, come to life with sexual preferences.  They do.  But, despite this fact (or the causes of those preferences), the most common definition of orientation as inbuilt, absolute, unchangeable wiring is obviously, demonstrably mythical.  Orientation dogma implies that a homosexual could never or should never physically complete the act of sex with someone of the opposite gender – or visa versa.  This is clearly false.  

Homo-sexually oriented men and women have had spouses, and babies and then turned their sexuality on their own gender years later – claiming they were “hard wired” homosexuals the whole time.  Be that as it may, these homosexuals were clearly capable of having full arousal, and successful, consensual, heterosexual copulation and relationship.  The opposite is also true, men and women have considered themselves only attracted to the same sex for years until some later period where they undergo a profound change in sexual proclivity.  This, despite the raging claims of the priests of orientation that “reparative therapy” never works.  And while we scoff at “pray the gay away” programs, pointing to the many homosexuals who have undertaken failed attempts to change their orientation, it only takes ONE successful convert to prove that the orientation orthodoxy is a myth.  Just one.  I personally know of several.

History and experience have shown that, left without moral parameters on this raw, fluid sex drive, the human animal is capable of having sex, not just with the same gender, but with almost ANYTHING – inanimate objects, small children or even animals.  Is bestiality an ‘orientation’?  Is pedophilia an orientation? (At least one tenured psychologist says yes; so does this Dutch psychologist and Criminologist). 

These comparisons are always shouted down, but the shouters seem to have little scientific interest in the subject of sexual attraction, and more interest in protecting a belief or an ideology.  If we define orientation as, “one's natural preference in sexual partners,” orientations are myriad and must include things like pedophilia.  To not so argue, is special pleading based on societal revulsion - which is the very thing the homosexual lobby says is passé!

So orientation orthodoxy reduces down to this: when the kind of sex I am predisposed to have is (currently) socially unacceptable, it’s a mental disorder and needs treatment to change, but when the desire becomes more socially acceptable, it’s hard wired, it cannot be changed and to try is the height of intolerance and ‘ignorance’.  How very arbitrary.  Does not phenomena like bestiality or pederasty or bisexuality, or polygamy or polyandry show that human sexuality is raw and fluid and capable of INFINITE permutations?  And don’t we reason in these situations that just because it CAN flow in almost any direction, doesn’t mean it SHOULD?  On what basis then, is the homosexual urge exempt from a belief that complex sexual urges can and at times should be changed/directed?  On the basis of dogma, not science.

Sexual preference might be a much better word to use, and orientation scrapped in light of real world experience.  People prefer to have sex with the same gender or opposite gender or prefer both genders (or children, or animals, or many partners or just one etc).  The reasons for these preferences are very complex and certainly include biological factors.  But even within a single lifetime, an individual may migrate or change preferences based on a host of factors.  It happens all the time - and every time it does, it explodes the orientation orthodoxy.

In fact, in the small sample size of my counseling work, all those currently self-identifying as homosexuals have experienced sexual abuse of some kind that deeply affected their sexual choices in later life.  Most also spent an earlier season of life before coming out of the closet having heterosexual sex.  This is easy to explain for the priests of orientation orthodoxy – these people were under societal pressure and came out of the closet to embrace their “true nature” only when released by therapy or societal approval.

Perhaps, but this passes over the fact that they were able, despite their “true nature,” to direct their sexuality by their own choice!  “But they lived a life of tortured inauthenticity!”, is the autoreply.  Yes, perhaps there was great pain as they wrestled with complex and unbidden sexual desires, but what are we saying when we describe every instance of denying a sexual urge as “torture”?  Isn’t self-control a key marker of all good social behavior and emotional maturity?  The question then comes back to what SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be denied?  Here, we are in the territory of morality, not sexuality (or science!).  The most honest science is telling us sexuality is a fluid mass of often competing desires built on complex causes.  Over this we ALL impose morality.  I admit, Christian sexual morality is stricter than secular morality these days, but let us not suppose that our morality is obsolete because it denies the science!

The orientation dogma will likely one day be exposed for what it was:  a useful tool of doctrinal conditioning to encourage a sexual orthodoxy designed to foster the acceptance of homosexuality on par with heterosexual monogamy.  Once this happens (and we’re almost there), there will be no more need to keep up the pretense that sexual attraction is some kind of sacrosanct, inbuilt, untouchable, unmovable predisposition that science discovered.  On that day we will simply have sex with whomever or whatever we want (Nixon’s first position), as an expression of total sexual liberation – the silly notion that we HAD to do it this way or that way, because “God/Nature made us this way” will be left in the dust.

While this dogma enjoyed preeminence, it was useful to crush dissent, shaming people for their ‘ignorance’ and ‘intolerance’ by imposing the authority of “science”. Someday, the science behind this argument will simply be left behind because everyone will see that whatever was important to know about the natural development of sexual urges, is basically secondary to the sexual choices I make with those raw urges.  

All men and women find some piece of their sexual desires to be something they do not find expedient and therefore they do not choose to act them out.  Is this hopeless repression?  Is this inauthentic religious coercion?  In some cases it has been, but not inherently so.  We all eschew sexual desires we find inexpedient, because they would bring negative side effects, or because we think them morally wrong.  And not just one-time desires either, but lasting, persistent dark desires we must consistently reject.  This is healthy!  The noble thing to do in such a case is not to allow ourselves to be told we are denying our “orientation” and are suffering from sexual repression.  No, the noble thing to do is to condition ourselves to bring our changeable sexual desires in line with our morals – through further choosing our psychological inputs, our spiritual inputs, and our relational inputs.

So, like Cynthia Nixon A, I’m inclined to dump orientation as a constricting, dogmatic formula that limits choice, limits freedom and liberty, and curtails our belief in the power of the human will to transcend materialistic processes.  At best, orientation science exposes the fact that people have different sexual preferences and these have complex causes some of which seem to come pre-wired.  We mostly already knew that.  But at worst, orientation science locks us into a sense of sexual destiny with our desires, whether we like them or not, whether we believe they are moral or not, or whether they are helpful or productive to our future and human flourishing, or not.

Why Shouldn`t Couples Live Together Before They Are Married?

RESPONSE: The most obvious reason to not live together from a Christian perspective, is that you can't live together without sleeping together and God reserves sexual intimacy for the committed oneness of marriage. I address the specific issue of why and where in the bible God reserves sex for marriage here.

Regarding the specific reasons for not living together, the case is a strong (if the goal is lasting marriages) even putting the "fornication" issue aside. Cohabitation is a big deal these days - the national rate is literally sky rocketing. In fact, some family experts were getting excited to see that the divorce rate seemed to be dropping quickly a few years ago. Then they found out that the reason the divorce rate was dropping was not because people were more committed to their unions. The reason was that people were simply delaying marriage, and opting to live together instead.

But contrary to popular myth, this does not help a couple prepare for a life of marriage. Instead, these cohabiting couples break up MORE frequently than married couples, yet they often share assets, homes and even children. Thus their breaks up are every bit as heart wrenching and damaging to themselves, others and society as a divorce, but it just doesn’t show up in the divorcee stats, because technically they weren’t married.

Let's look at the common wisdom which says, “you wouldn’t buy a car without first taking it for a test drive, right?” This has a ring of truth, but the facts don’t bear it out. The reason, is simply because you cannot “practice” commitment.  Marriage is not a car, it's not a product you can "test" because at the heart is not services you consume, it is a promise you fulfill.  In fact, a consumerist view of marriage is very much at the root of marriage breakdown, since it puts the emphasis in marriage on what I get out of it.  The Biblical picture is the opposite: the emphasis is on what you put into it.

Think about the ironic contradiction of a trial marriage where you are specifically and intentionally NOT committed, and yet you are trying to practice commitment.  Like all married couples, a cohabiting couple does not call off the "trial" when they reach a problem.  They try to work these through.  Despite not being legally 'committed' to each other, they practice 'commitment' by sticking it out despite the flaws that are uncovered.  So they are truly pretending to be married in every way, EXCEPT for the ACTUAL commitment part. They always have the escape hatch.

And that "hand on the door" nature of the relationship may explain in part why in a majority of cohabiting relationships, after a few years, the trial marriage turns out to be a trial divorce.  These are break ups every bit as awful as a real divorce emotionally, financially and relationally. Turns out, this wasn’t a test drive at all. Test drives don’t hurt like hell!  Cohabitation often does because it throws much greater insecurity into the normal ebbs and flows and conflicts of marriage. Christian courtship without cohabitation can end without soul rocking, life long consequences. Couples might think this potential cost worth paying if the 'test drive' increases the chance of an eventual marriage lasting and being happy. But it does not, as several studies have graphically shown.

What these stats prove, is that there is nothing to be discovered or proven during living together that magically increases the soundness or longevity of marriages. In fact, ironically, no matter how long a couple lives together, marriage often alters a relational dynamic in a way that cannot be tested in advance.

Testing sexual compatibility is seen as a critical reason for premarital sex and cohabitation. But this is an idea borne of an age were people expect to have a dozen or more sex partners in their lifetimes. In that kind of a world, comparisons about sex are terribly important to a relationship. But if a person has a monogamy mind set, then the only really important thing about sexual compatibility that needs to be known before marriage is fundamental attraction. If the attraction is there (and this can be known easily without sex) then everything else necessary to great sex is simply mechanics and selfless attitude. These can be LEARNED. 

In fact, these are best learned not by firing through sex partners, but in an stable, exclusive environment where I’m not comparing my partner to 5 past lovers to see if I can be compatible with that person for a lifetime. And let's be honest: one could be a great and selfless lover, but their partner's past with multiple sex partners sets them up to be dissatisfied with the one great lover, simply because it’s ONE lover and not a variety of lovers!  Couples who cite sexual incompatibility as reason for their break up may often mean, "incompatibility with monogamy."

This exposes the contradictory expectations that most cohabiting couples are not willing to admit to each other.  Rather than a "test drive", what cohabitation is really offering to the woman and the man is something quite different and may be mutually exclusive.  The man is promised more regular sex without having to bother with altering his long term plans.  The woman is promised a step towards a real marriage which she may never get.

What we're finding is simply this:  real commitment again is the key to long term happiness and fulfillment, not a “trial run”. Whatever needs to be “test driven” before you “buy” can be tested easily and best without cohabitation and even without premarital sex.

If the goal is a marriage that lasts, not only God’s Word, but also the best data shows that cohabitation is not the way to go.  You might have heard new studies said this was not the case, but after analysis by Jessica Cohen, the latest reports again indicate: "premarital cohabitation was not linked to marital stability for women or men"

Is There Evidence For Long Life Spans in the Bible?

First, some Christian scholars will try to step around this problem by insisting that the long life-spans of the antediluvians (Pre-Flood greats like Seth, Enosh, Methuselah etc) is metaphorical.  Perhaps, it is suggested, these recorded ages were an indication of their importance culturally/ religiously, or analogous to something else, like the generations that revered them, or the amount of their learning, OR some numerological significance now lost to us.  For an interesting look at this view, see BioLogos give it a whirl: here.

But as you will see, they don’t offer sound reasons WHY the ancients would mark ages in this way (# of years = something other than years), or why they would then switch to marking age in a normal way (# of years = 365 day periods of life).  And the numerological math they do in this article is dizzying and frankly too convoluted to be convincing.  It feels too “ad hoc” – that is, contrived specifically to accommodate a uniformitarian view of the past.

Of course rejecting that hypothesis, we’re left with only two options:  One is ditching the bible as a truth source.  But if you, like I, are inclined to trust the Bible for other reasons, both historical and uncanny, then we have to take these ages seriously, as a statement of actual age, and then see if we can find some harmonization with science and observation which currently says, of course, that people simply cannot live that long.

The hope of finding archaeological evidence for really old humans is going to be difficult.  In any world where humans actually live to be 900 years old, the aging process must be entirely different.  

Modern CSInvestigators can determine the age of human remains by certain skeletal markers, and they might presume the exact same physical/chemical body processes would be at work to find the same markers in the remains of a 900 year old man.  But can we reasonably assume this?  The remains of a 900 year old man, if he aged under the same physical and chemical burdens we observe today carried out over 9 centuries, would look like a shriveled shell, a totally c-shaped, decrepit, living fossil, whose bones would be so brittle, so small, and so malformed, it would be practically unrecognizable as human remains.  If this is the evidence we’re looking for, it seems predestined to never be found. 

More reasonably, we have to assume that to live that long, something about the way we currently age (and therefore the way we assess age in human remains) would HAVE to be different than it is now.  So this would change our task in finding corroborating evidence for the bible’s claim that ancient people lived very long lives.  Instead of finding people who display the same aging processes/makers, only sustained artificially over centuries, we should look for some evidence that aging itself as we know it, is plausibly changeable, and could be different under different conditions.  This sort of evidence is more reasonable to come by.

So at Reasons To Believe, Hugh Ross and company go into the details of what we currently know causes aging.  In some ways, I was surprised to learn that the human can (and maybe was designed to) live much longer than the current outer limit of 120 years (which BTW, matches God’s judgment in the Bible in Genesis 6:3).  In other words, rather than early death being “natural” and 900 year life spans being “unnatural”, when you consider what look like governors on aging, the truth may be the reverse.

In studying fruit fly aging, it looks as though a genetic mutation in the current population ensures shorter life spans - and when that gene is altered, the flies can live literally 100% longer.  Other factors are considered, including large scale radiation from a specific supernova event which we now know coincided with early human development (and perhaps the time just before the flood, 40,000 years ago).  We know radiation plays a role in cellular breakdown and thus faster aging.  The increase in radiation from a celestial event like that also explains the gradual decrease in recorded ages in the Bible (from pre to post flood) rather than an immediate reduction right after God’s decree.  See all their lines of evidence in the article posted here: Reasons to Believe

Finally, there is a bit of circumstantial evidence that is corroborative while not convincing all on its own.  That is, the fact that the Bible is not alone in attributing long ages to people who lived in the ancient past.  The Egyptians and the Sumerians also have lists of ancient kings who lived very long indeed.  In fact, by comparison the ages of the Bible’s antediluvians is sober and positively conservative!  One Sumerian king was said to rule for 28,000 years!  What’s interesting is that these extra-biblical sources not only show long ages for those who lived before a great flood, but also that the ages quickly reduced directly after the flood.  To get a feel for what those Sumerian sources reveal, look here: Old Sumerian Kings 

In any event, the existence of long-lived predecessors presents us with an opposing view of humanity.  The current one is that people are continually upgrading through micro mutations into something better and better, but the antediluvians suggest that the human genome was in a purer (more fit) state in the past, and that people are continually degrading through mirco mutations – devolving rather than evolving.  John Sanford wrote a book called Genetic Entropy that makes the claim that devolution in terms of the human genome is a well-established fact.  Check out this video of him, beginning at 13:08: John Sanford - Human 

What Bible Passages Actually Describe Satan’s Origin and Fall?

You're right that the biblical material on Satan's origin and fall is fairly scant.  The only explicit reference to Satan's Fall is found in Jesus teaching and in Revelation. Here they are:

Luke 10:18 He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." NIV

Rev 12:7-9  And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. NIV

Jesus obviously doesn't give us a whole lot of information, but the basic idea is still important: if Satan "fell" that means his origin was once "on high".  John agrees, the Dragon's starting place was heaven.  Some debate whether this war takes place before human history, or during the end times drama that John is describing, or around the time of Jesus birth.  It does follow a reference to Christ's birth (Rev 12:1-6), nevertheless, we know that Satan was ALREADY cast down to earth as the Creation Narrative (Gen 3) showed.  

The serpent figure was long associated with Satan therefore his fall must predate not only the arrival of Christ, but also the creation of man.  Thus we can infer a lot from just these two passages: that Satan must have been one of God's creations, one of his angels and his rebellion happened in prehistory and he was not alone in his rebellion, taking many angels with him.  This agrees with what's revealed in Jesus ministry who refers to "the Devil and his angels" (Matt 25:41) and with Job where the Accuser comes to the heavenly court with the "Sons of God" and thus must have also himself been an angel.

The Old Testament has other controversial passages that came to be associated with the origin and fall of Satan even though their overt reference was to specific human kings. For example, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 which I'll comment on later.  They refer to the King of Babylon and Tyre respectively, but came to be seen as descriptors of Satan's origin and fall. 

Why did the Jewish mind make this inference?  The Jewish mind was trained on Scripture and the most fundamental idea about God in the Bible is that God is Good and God is Self Existent. God is not contingent on anyone or anything else for his being. This is summarized in His covenant name, "Yahweh" - literally "I AM". The Jews began to draw inferences from this one bit of revelation. For instance... If the self existent God is good, then goodness must be primary; badness must be secondary. 

They parted from Pantheistic thought that tended to see good and bad in balance. Jews said they were at war!  Pantheists said they were both eternal.  The Jews said one is eternal, the other doomed to fade away.  And they said that God is the hero in the war who we should be cheering for - "the LORD is a warrior!" and "the God of gods".  Badness they realized, has no intrinsic value. Everything a bad man does, he does for some good end, to increase his power or pleasure or wealth (which were inherently good things). Badness therefore was a parasite. Goodness was the real thing.

So the spiritual powers in the world that drove evil (and all Bible writers agreed that there were spiritual powers in the world) must have been, at one point, good since everything came from a good God. Badness was, therefore, only "corrupted goodness", there is nothing that is bad for it's own sake. In this way, without explicit revelation, the Jews (and the later Christians) accepted the idea that all evil powers started good and the greatest evil power started as the greatest thing God ever made.

This 'spiritual intuition' of the Jews agrees with and is built on what is explicitly known about Satan elsewhere, that he was a creation of God, that he was an angel originally good, that he rebelled against God in prehistory (as mentioned).  But it also explains perhaps why the Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 passages came to be associated with Satan even though they are not explicitly about him.  Here they are:

Isa 14:12-15
How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
13 You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.  
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
15 But you are brought down to the grave,
to the depths of the pit. NIV

Though this is about the King of Babylon, the reference to a "star" brings to mind Job 38:7 which calls angels "morning stars" celebrating God's work at creation.  The Hebrew word for morning star is a reference to Venus so early Christian translations of Isaiah substituted the Latin term for that star, Lucifer.  This is where Satan got that name.  But originally all Isaiah meant was "morning star" – he was not giving us Satan’s name.

A lot of criticism is cast on Christians who use this passage to flesh out our understanding of Satan's origin and fall.  It is not explicitly about that, they say.  True enough.  However, given what WAS explicitly known about Satan from Genesis, and Job, the Jews already in the inter-testamental period began to associate this passage with Satan.  Those early interpreters (and later the church fathers) had much less of a problem than post Reformation scholars in seeing "layers" to Scripture.

Without denying that this passage was first about Babylon's king, it's eternal scope and cosmic language ("fallen from heaven", "enthroned on the sacred mountain", "make myself like the Most high") brought to mind spiritual forces beyond an earthly king.  "Mountain", "Brightness", "Stars", "sons of God" are all standard O.T. language for the unseen realm, and spiritual forces, used ubiquitously (Job 38, Psalm 82, Gen 6).  And no doubt as God's people began to see more and more clearly the workings of spiritual forces of evil, the idea that a human king was merely a mimic or reflection of a true spiritual master, was entirely plausible.

The same inference was made by Jews and later by Christians for

Ezek 28:12-17
'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. 16 Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. 17 Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. NIV

Again this is FIRST about a human king of Tyre, no question.  But after a long taunt against him, Ezekiel's language in verse 17 suddenly swings toward an eternal, cosmic scope and brings an observant reader to think about the heavenly realm.  

The language as it refers to the King of Tyre therefore must be clear hyperbole, yet could it be literal if referring to the a spiritual King of Darkness?  Note the terms used: "model of perfection", "you were in Eden", "you were... a guardian cherub (a name for an angel)", "you were blameless", "mount of God".  It's not impossible to see this as flowery descriptions of the King of Tyre's wealth and power and reputation... but the references strongly suggest another layer, as other prophetic literature has multiple layers of meaning.  Was this king really "perfect or blameless"?  No.  In what way was he a cherub?  It's a stretch.  But, as it reflects a spiritual puppet master BEHIND such a proud and shiny king, it's no stretch at all.

So I don't dismiss the Isaiah or Ezekiel passages as clues to Satan's origin and fall as easily as some scholars do.  Some, so fearful of reading into scripture something the author never intended, may diminish the richness of God's Word as a source of revelation with layers of meaning.  I grant that if we go outside the author's stated intent we are in speculative territory and we must be reserved. However, the application of these passage for clues to Satan's origin and fall have long precedent in Jewish thought before Christ and in the church, and they are perfectly consistent with what we ALREADY know from other explicit scriptural teaching. 

In fact, do we really rely on these passages as sources of Satan information that we can't get anywhere else in the Bible?  I think the answer is no.  So why use them as such?   Because their language is prophetic and profound, and because here more than anywhere else do we get the sense of what Satan as "angel" really means:  that he was PERFECT; that he was GOOD.  Even this creature could turn against God.  They also underline that he and God are not coequal combatants in a dualistic struggle.  No, Satan’s counterpart is Michael, not God – who has no counterpart.  And God will have the last say, good will eventually win.  

Finally, these passages prophetically and eloquently flesh out knowledge given to us in 1 Tim 3:6 - that whenever it happened, pride was Satan’s downfall and could be ours as well.

Is the God of the Old Testament different than the God of the New?

QUESTION: How do you reconcile the Old Testament to the New Testament picture of God? Specifically I'm reading Deuteronomy 28 and the God of this book just does not seem anything like Jesus. In verse 63 it even says he will get pleasure from it... It just seems so different than Jesus and everything he was about.

RESPONSE: This is a very common issue when reading the Bible.  There’s this seeming difference in God's character between the two covenantal periods.  Specifically, the Old Covenant God of Moses is full of wrath, the New Covenant God revealed in Jesus is full of grace.

There are two main things to say about this apparent discrepancy.

1. When we look more deeply, the differences are not as glaring as they first appear.  In other words, when we look inside, everything that is revealed about God's character in the Old Testament is still seen in the New, (and vice versa) even if there's a different emphasis.
2. The different emphasis in God's attributes fits with a well-established pattern of "progressive revelation".  Which is to say that God does not reveal all of himself or his plans at the earliest stages of his interactions with the chosen people.  God's revelations progress in content and depth over time, so we should never, from our position here in the "last days," consider the earliest revelations to be complete or interpret them in isolation from the later stuff.

In dealing with Deut. 28 specifically and this list of blessings and curses, we are getting insight into God that consistently runs across both Old and New testaments.  The holiness of God is revealed inside this moral order: obey and be blessed, disobey and be cursed.  As in physics, so in ethics:  for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  The message is simple:  attune your life to moral reality, just as you do to physical reality.

You might think that outlining (repeatedly) the specific consequences reveals a harshness in God, but would we think a parachuting instructor was harsh if he detailed the graphic results of failure to obey his instructions?  Would we think his lengthy, redundant, legal waiver meant that he was being mean?  No, once we understand the stakes involved, the graphic warnings are actually seen as a kind of mercy.

This teaches us that not only is God a merciful parent (laying out consequences up front), but also God is just, and holy for he follows through with discipline (every curse mentioned here ACTUALLY HAPPENED!).  Also, the stark warnings reveal that God is fair, because God is treating them the same as the nations they would be displacing in the Land.

The point is, what the Jews are learning about God here is not diminished by the arrival of Jesus Christ.  This is Jesus' Father:

• no respecter of persons or nations, impartial and fair (Deut. 10:17).  
• whose rules are not arbitrary but based in his good, fair, and loving character.  So his law is built on love, forbidding unfettered self-interest, protecting the weak, foreigners, children, orphans, widows (10:18-11:1).  
• who chooses his children not based on their pedigree but because of His love! (7:13).  
• How is this inconsistent with the God revealed in Jesus' gospel which teaches us that God adopted us out of no goodness in us, but purely by unmerited favor (Eph 1:3-6)?

Christians did not stop believing in this Lawfulness, and Holiness of God just because Jesus revealed God's grace in a supreme way.  Look at Galatians 6:9 - "do not be fooled, God is not mocked, a man reaps what he sows."  In fact, the Cross makes no sense apart from these characteristics of justice and holiness revealed in the Law.  As much as the Cross shows off God's grace, the pain of it also reflected the terrible, ultimate punishment for sin.   No, the cross is God's grace AND justice together (Rom 3:26).

So to my first point:  there is justifiable wrath in the New Testament (Romans 1:18, 2:5, 5:9) and in the teaching and actions of Jesus (Matt 3:7, Luke 21:23, John 2:15), which is consistent with the picture of God we get from Moses.  Also there is amazing tenderness and grace in the God of the Old Testament which is consistent with Jesus (Hosea 2:14).

The consistent picture of God is simply that God is completely "other" - holy and perfect and hating sin.  Also there is one consistent picture of sin separating people from people and people from God and ultimately diminishing human life and leading to terrible outcomes; in the Old and New Testament.

To underline this, remember that the picture Jesus paints of the sinner apart from his Grace, is probably worse than the picture Moses paints of his People who are disobedient!  The Old Testament warned of people being pillaged and suffering greatly for disobedience, and yes death for many... but for Jesus, the disobedient will suffer eternal death (Luke 12:5)!

And look at the curses of Deut. 28, and how it paints the disobedient as groping, blind, oppressed, robbed, hungry, and powerless.  This isn't a contradiction of the New Testament, rather, it sets it up beautifully!  For how can we see the sacrifice of Jesus as a Rescue unless we can see in our own disobedience, the same kinds of helplessness God predicts for disobedient Israel?  We too were disobedient and wrecked and helpless when Christ came into our lives.  This is painting one consistent picture of human nature, and God's nature.

But perhaps you still struggle with the language Moses uses - in the language of Deuteronomy, it looks like God is sort of deliberately inflicting suffering on them (and gleefully!).  Yet who is the one who ACTUALLY decides to invoke the consequences God warned about?  The people do!  See, Moses didn't care to separate the primary cause from the secondary cause in his language, which makes it seem to us like God is more callous than he actually is.

Imagine primary and secondary causes like this:  I set up a booby trap in my home for robbers.  I say to you, don't go in there, you'll get smashed by my trap, it's for robbers.  Then you go in anyhow.  And guess what?  You get smashed!  Who smashed you?  Well, in a sense, I did, I set up a trap to smash - it was MY trap after all, so clearly I caused it.  But truth is, YOU caused yourself to be smashed, because I warned you away, and you went in anyway!

It's just like that here in Deut. 28.  It feels really rough because God says, I'M doing curse X, Y, or Z.  But God's actually simply allowing natural consequences to flow, rather than deliberately inflicting arbitrary terror.  In fact, God is only a secondary cause of the curse, we ourselves are the primary cause of the cursing.  In the New Testament Paul will put it like this, "God hands the disobedient over..." (Romans 1:28) so He releases them to do what ought not to be done, and then they suffer according to their choices.

So God's holiness, and his judgment on sin is consistent throughout the Bible.

Ok, now my second point.  There is progressive revelation here.  Yes, we can see judgment and wrath in the New Testament and even at the heart of Jesus very mission to save because it borrows the same language of God cursing the disobedient sinner to separation... (See John 3:36).  HOWEVER, in Jesus we get no sense of God “delighting” in the judgment which you pointed out (Deut. 28:63).  So do we have reason to think this may be not the whole story on God's attitude?  Yes, because of what ELSE is said about God LATER in revelation history.

For example:

Ezek. 18:23-24: Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives?

Because of progressive revelations, we can see Deut 28:63 as hyperbole.  We can see this in the context of the sarcastic, dramatic way that the ancient Middle Eastern mind would think and talk, not as proof of God's callousness.

If we take all Scripture as one, we rest assured, God is not happily cursing his people.  We don't interpret one verse in isolation or in violation of another.  So we learn from LATER revelation that God must have been speaking in Deut. 28 like an exasperated parents speaks.

In fact, I have said something similar to my kids - "If you don't put your bike away, I am going to run over it someday and I won't even be sad, I will not shed a single tear, I will just happily take that thing down to the dump!!"  Saying such a thing, doesn't mean I wouldn’t have empathy for my kids or wouldn’t feel their pain at loss - even if it was all due to their choices.  I would have empathy still, and so does God.  We KNOW this, because Deut. 28 isn't the only thing God ever said to us.

Also, when it comes to progressive revelation, how did this all play out AFTER he laid down the law?  In fact subsequent history shows, God laid out these curses, but then rather than invoke them at the first sign of disobedience, tolerated the worse kind of violations of his law for centuries before they finally reaped the harvest they had sown.  And in this demonstration of God’s patience we see yet another consistent insight into God's character which spans from Old to New Testament.  For the God revealed in Jesus also said:

2 Peter 3:9:  The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

So if you look deeper you will see not only the consistency in the Bible’s picture of God’s character, but also how all Scripture must be interpreted as a whole.