Who said God is vengeful?

When we actually read the Bible for ourselves, it is full of "Divine" wrath and punishment. It says that "God" held a grudge over humanity from the time of Adam and Eve and sent "His" son to be put to death as a blood sacrifice to appease "Himself".   (a recent posting on Facebook)


This is one of the saddest interpretations mankind has ever devised for Biblical teaching.  When you read the Bible for yourself, with an open mind, one that has not been polluted with interpretations such as this one, you will see just the opposite.  You will see a God mourning the loss of His children, repeatedly calling them back to fellowship with Himself, but they would not, for the most part.  Because they would not, they continually suffered the loss of His wisdom, love, and guidance, often ending up in the hogpens of the Prodigal Son, suffering because of their stubbornness of heart.
Jesus, reflecting the heart of His Father, was 'grieved at their stubbornness of heart" and their refusal to come to His welcoming arms.  The Father of his parable was still on the roof of the house, searching the horizon daily for the return of His beloved son.

Just this morning, before I read this, I was wondering to myself how God ever got such a bad reputation.  It seems to me that mean-spirited people will grab passages out of the Bible without ever seeing their context and use those passages as proof of their own mean spirits, attributing vengeance to God, just as the slave-owners who certainly never read the Bible, or heard it, used one passage to justify their own willfulness and vengeance.

The whole teaching on "Divine Justice" having to be appeased by a perfect sacrifice is one of the most unspiritual teachings I have ever heard, devised by people who clearly have never experienced the love of God.  If we want to know the heart of God, it is revealed in the Bible to those who are open to it, but closed to those who have no respect or love for Him.

If we want to know what the Bible really says, we need to ask for wisdom and understanding.  Jesus always explained His words to those who asked; to those who walked away, understanding was never given.  Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."  Later, He revealed that He Himself is the Truth that sets men free.  Until we come to Him, we are forever imprisoned by ideas such as the one above, ideas taught by men and not by God.

I have been toying with the idea of commenting on the Book of Isaiah, but have been intimidated by its length and depth. (The Book of Isaiah is a kind of microcosm of Jewish history.) However, reading this comment this morning may be the impetus that pushes me beyond my hesitancy.  After experiencing the lovingkindess and faithfulness of God for most of my life, hearing someone say that God is vengeful grieves my soul even more than if someone were to say the same about my husband and children.

To base our understanding of God on someone else's interpretation of the Bible is to close our hearts to Yahweh;  I am Who I am; I will be Who I will be.  It reminds me on a very tiny scale of my mother, who, as a teacher of the 7th grade at St. Catherine of Sienna, was known as "Wildcat Kuehne" by the boys she taught.  She would often have a classroom of 50 or more children, and because of her reputation, the nuns would put the worst boys in her class, the ones who in previous years had been known to get rid of several teachers in a year's time.  All the 6th graders "feared" to enter my mother's classroom because they knew she was not going to put up with their smart-alec, sassy, and out-of-control behavior.  By the end of the year, those same trouble-makers adored my mother; they would tell her how they got rid of former teachers and had planned to get rid of her too.  But, instead, they would gather around her on the playground, carry her books, and help her out after school.  Many of them came back after entering Jesuit in the 8th grade and tell her how grateful they were to her for preparing them for what lay ahead.  She loved them too much to allow them to run wild.

Was my mother mean?  Was she vengeful?  Did she carry a grudge?  None of the above.  But I tell you one thing:  no child under her care was ever bullied by another child or another teacher.  She would not stand for it.  It seems to me that if we indeed "read the Bible for ourselves" as the FB writer states, we would find out for ourselves the same kind of truth that my mother's class discovered from being under her care.