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Divine Vengeance Against Those Who Hurt You Christian Revenge and the Wrath of God Turn the other cheek? Teach him a lesson he will never forget! Love your enemy? Avenge yourself and get even with those who hate you? Divine justice. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” says the Lord (Romans 12:19, NKJV) God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you (2 Thessalonians 1:6) If you imagine God to be the slightest impersonal or disinterested, you have yet to have life’s most thrilling experience – a genuine encounter with the Living God. As we are a higher life form and more personal than plants, so God is higher and more personal than us. With passion, powers of attention, and concern for every detail that makes a nuclear explosion seem like a popgun, the Almighty is so intensely personal that alongside him we are colorless and superficial. And this magnificent God of perfection is in love with you. As a consequence, Almighty God is furious with those who have hurt you. So extreme is God’s passion to execute justice on your behalf that no human could generate such intense yearning. And yet the God who longs for us to be like him, urges us not to take vengeance into our own hands. The Bible insists that even in this life, justice is important, and yet it speaks of turning the other cheek. We will explore these mysteries, plunging deep into the heart of God and gaining new insight into the breathtaking perfection of God’s ways, and in the process discover the path to inner peace. Because it is from God, Bible truth on virtually any subject is so vast that to our puny human minds it seems almost contradictory. In a desperate attempt to cope with the mind-boggling complexity, we are constantly tempted to push from our consciousness those parts of divine revelation that don’t fit our simplistic understanding. To do so, however, not only gives us a twisted view of the breathtakingly beautiful, perfect and lovable Lord, but it robs us of comfort and help God longs for us to enjoy. So a goal of this webpage is to embrace as much of the full truth as we can, while keeping it easy to understand. Before discussing God’s vengeance on those who mistreat you, let’s examine the significant reasons why he pleads with us not to avenge ourselves. If someone attacks us and we attack him back, we have just become as bad as that person. “But he started it!” we retort like children. Yes, and by that we admit that we have exalted that person to being our leader and moral teacher. We have taken the very person we acknowledge as behaving badly and made him the one who teaches us how to behave. How dumb is that! If someone hates us so much that we end up hating him, not only have we, by our hate, become like that person, we have highly esteemed his actions. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” Yes, he started it, but rather than that justifying us acting like him, our longing for revenge justifies his actions. We have declared him so right that we have made him our role models, inspiring us to acts of unkindness. And, even more terrifying, by letting someone get under our skin, we usually become so blinded with self-righteous anger that we have no idea that we have become like the person we despise. We fool ourselves into thinking we are better than that person, and yet even if he didn’t specifically want us to suffer and it was more a side effect of his actions, we, with premeditated deliberation, want him to suffer. If someone hurts us, we want to “teach him a lesson,” but if we tried to retaliate, not only would we fail to teach him how to be godly, we would end up letting that person teach us how to be ungodly. If being hit does not teach us not to hit but only inflames our desire to hit back, why do we suppose that us hitting him would do anything other than intensify his desire to hit back? Instead of teaching him not to lash out, we have merely increased his passion for it and taught him that even those who think themselves morally superior end up concluding that unkind behavior is the best way to act. If our only reason for not hitting back is because we are not strong enough to fight the person or because we fear the consequences, we have still let our heart become as black as that person’s and in addition we have greater fear or weakness than the person we despise. Spiritually, that person has succeeded in making us his clone. Not only has evil not been reduced, it has been multiplied – and multiplied in the worst possible way – by us becoming like the person we despise. If, however, it is with godly motives that we restrain ourselves, wondrous possibilities emerge. So how do you teach an evil person a lesson? Certainly not by becoming a role model in showing him how to be ungodly. He’s already mastered that art. You teach him a lesson by letting him know first hand how good it is to be on the receiving end of loving kindness. You stop evil in its tracks by refusing to duplicate their behavior or attitude in your own life. Then you use loving kindness to cause evil to retreat in the lives of those who are in its grip. “Overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21) is one of the most profound statements ever uttered. Not surprisingly with something so profound, it distills into a few words a fundamental aspect of Jesus’ teaching. Like so much of Jesus’ teaching, something deep within us finds it peculiarly attractive and yet we are constantly tempted to dismiss it as too otherworldly to actually work. This foundational truth is also taught in more of the rest of Scripture than we sometimes recall. For example, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat,” seems like the honey that repeatedly dripped from Jesus’ lips, and yet it is actually not from Jesus but from Proverbs 25:21. Again we read, “ Do not say, ‘I’ll do to him as he has done to me; I’ll pay that man back for what he did.’” (Proverbs 24:29). Even the Old Testament Law says such things as, “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him,” (Exodus 23:4) and, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). This intimate connection between Jesus’ words, and the Old Testament is to be expected. If Jesus’ teaching had no precedence in the written word of God revealed prior to Christ’s coming, we would have reason to question whether Jesus truly is the Word of God made flesh. And, of course, this eternal truth is reaffirmed by later revelation. For instance, Paul says such things as, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. . . . Do not take revenge . .  (Romans 12:14,19) and Peter said, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). Like Jesus, the first Christian martyr prayed God’s forgiveness upon his murderers. He achieved this, not by finally yielding after years of reluctant wrestling with the issue, but while being pounded by the stones that killed him (Acts 7:59-60). That we should return good for evil is clearly divine revelation, not just because it appears in so many diverse Scriptures, but because it is so contrary to human thinking. “Love your enemies,” sounds off the planet. It is! It’s from another world. It’s from heaven itself – a world so holy and superior that it is the opposite of the way this world thinks and acts. “Overcome evil with good,” sounds impractical but in reality there is simply no alternative. The only way to kill evil is to smother it with love. To fight bitterness with bitterness or in any other way return evil for evil is to fight a wildfire with gasoline. Any way other that love not only fails to overcome evil, it causes evil to spread and therefore to triumph. More frightening still is where it causes the evil to spread – into one’s own heart. The loving Lord passionately longs to save you from the terrifying fact that we end up like the person we hate. We either imitate Christ who died to forgive his haters or we imitate those who touch us with their evil. You don’t fight corruption by becoming corrupt; you don’t end anger by getting angry. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1). Only light can eliminate darkness. To suppose you can fight darkness with more darkness is stupidity. Spiritual darkness retreats, not by us copying the works of darkness, but only by letting our light so shine that people see our good works. To counteract bitterness you need much sweetness. Lose your sweetness and you lose your usefulness. Become bitter and you become part of the problem. Nothing increases evil like trying to fight evil with evil. To use unrighteous methods in the hope of stopping unrighteousness is like thinking you can eliminate rape by becoming a rapist. It is hypocrisy at its worst. Just suppose your pipe dream came true and you succeeded in using unchristlike methods to stop someone from spreading evil. How could you claim the slightest victory in fighting evil when by choosing ungodly methods you have let evil win in your very own life? To get even with an evildoer who mistreats us is to be brought to the level of an evildoer. To forgive is to be raised to the level of the godly. But how can anyone become so Christlike as to turn the other cheek and do good to those who seek our harm? Only by inviting Christ himself into our very life and – by letting him take over – release him to love others through us with the superhuman love that is God’s alone. Lift Up Your Head In a wide range of Scriptures, God pleads with us to fix our minds on Christ. John 6:40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son . . . 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory . . . (KJV) Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things above . . . Philippians 4:8  . . . whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure . . . think about such things. Philippians 3:13  . . . Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead (14) I press on toward the goal . . . Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith . . . Nothing other than fixing our attention on Christ will elevate us. Of everything God wants from us, the objects of his love, Jesus said that the most critical is that we love God with all our heart, soul and mind. In practice, “mind” could almost be omitted from the supreme commandment. If we just loved the Lord with all our hearts, it would be reflected in how often our minds drifted to him. It is wisely said that our real God is whatever our minds habitually drift to when we have nothing in particular to think about. And whatever regularly captivates our thoughts determines the person we are destined to become. We know how critical it is when driving to fix our eyes on where we want to go. If we keep looking at objects on the side, we will find ourselves veering dangerously in whatever direction we gaze. Likewise, if we travel through life with our hearts filled with disgust or resentment toward someone, then, like a moth drawn to deadly flames, our minds will keep drifting toward that person. Our gaze will keep slipping from whatever is true, noble, right, pure and worthy of praise – which in the ultimate is Christ himself – and, instead of Christ, our lives will resolve around the person we despise. If our minds keep drifting to that person, rather than Christ, it shows we have become more passionate about the one who hates us than we are about the One who loves us. That person will fill our minds as much as if we were hopelessly in love with him/her. In effect, our fixation upon the behavior of the person we despise causes that person, not Christ, to become our role model, and even – in a disturbingly real sense- our god. We will actually become increasingly like the person we hate. This is no idle theory. What moved me begin this webpage is my distress over continually seeing this truth displayed as tragic reality in the lives of many people who e-mail me, sharing their traumatic past and their current problems. And this is confirmed by research around the world into the backgrounds and attitudes of people. Unless we forgive, we will be so tied to that person that we will end up wherever he/she ends up – or worse. The Surprise Twist to this Tale Whenever our finite minds think we have the infinite Lord figured out, we are heading for a shock. Just when we expect Scripture to emphasize love as being the reason for being kind to one’s enemies, it stuns us by speaking of this being the door to vengeance and releasing God’s wrath upon the enemies. To explore this mystery, see Love your Enemy and Heap Burning Coals on his Head For a moving webpage about importance of love, see Turn the Other Cheek Another significant page: Why God’s Anger is Comforting

Christian CompassionAnd the Wrath of God Love your Enemy And Heap Burning Coals on his Head! Justice: So Important to the God of Love Several Scriptures telling us not to retaliate, emphasize that this is not to let the offender get off scot-free, but to release the Almighty to execute judgment. Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (20) On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Proverbs 24: 17 Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, (18) or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him. This shocks us, even though it blends in with other Scriptures that seem to speak of vengeance with peculiar relish: 2 Thessalonians 1:4 . . . we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. (5) All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. (6) God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you (7) and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. (8) He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (9) They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power Revelation 6:9 . . . I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. (10) They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (11) Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. Deuteronomy 32:43 Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people. We discovered in the previous page, significant reasons for God urging us not to take vengeance into our own hands. For even more insight into this perplexing issue and an examination of how loving our enemies fits into divine vengeance, let’s explore a powerful passage of Scripture, commenting as we go. Romans 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, Absorb those words: “at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself.” Over and over, Scripture emphasizes that no matter what happens in the short term, eternity will reveal that only people who humble themselves end up exalted. In contrast to humble people, whoever judges someone considers himself morally superior to the person he judges. By judging, he proves himself to be so far from the spirit of humility as to be in grave spiritual danger. Jesus emphasized this when he said, “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God’ ” (Luke 18:10-14). The man overwhelmed by the immensity of his own sin was forgiven, whereas the man who looked down on certain people remained tragically unaware that he was condemned. Most of us delight in finding people whose sins we can despise. We rarely analyze why we do this, but it is actually our pathetic way of getting our minds off our own sins and drowning out the screams of our consciences. There are “those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth” ( Proverbs 30:12). The only way to be pure is to admit to ourselves and to God our desperate need of cleansing. Living in denial of the gravity of our own sins is eternally more dangerous than a person with a deadly cancer living in denial of the need to seek medical help. Better than being cured of cancer, facing head-on the truth about one’s filth, and coming to Christ to be pronounced spotlessly pure, is the most liberating experience in the universe. Salvation from eternal judgment depends on you believing that Jesus was nailed to the cross to pardon your sin. How can anyone possibly imagine a more horrific sin than one that required the Innocent One – the only Son of Almighty God – being tortured to death? How, then, could anyone accepting salvation through Christ’s sacrifice possibly believe there could be a worse sin than his own? And yet isn’t this exactly the deluded, self-righteous belief of anyone who judges another? Doesn’t judging involve thinking someone’s sin is worse than one’s own sin? Anyone claiming to be a Christian who judges someone, thinks to himself, “Because that person’s behavior offends me, he is a more serious offender than little ol’ me. I’m almost perfect. After all, my sin merely tortured to death God’s only Son.” Who in their right mind could claim to be a Christian and think like that? To judge anyone – considering yourself morally superior to someone – is to so minimize your own sin as to virtually live in denial of the fact that it was because of your sin that the Savior died. Such a denial would involve either rejecting your one hope of salvation – the fact that Christ died for your sin – or at least edging precariously close to that point. Is it any wonder that someone judging another stands in danger of eternal condemnation? We saw from Romans 2:1 that merely thinking ourselves morally superior to anyone exposes us to divine condemnation. What, then, will be the consequences of having such an inflated view of our self-righteousness that we suppose ourselves justified not only in condemning someone but in wanting to take the law of God into our hands and see our self-centered, hypocritical wrath executed on that person?Dare we have the audacity to think we know better than the Judge of all humanity and accuse the holy Lord – the one who at any instant would be fully justified in sending us to eternal torment – of being too soft? If thinking ourselves better than other people exposes us to judgment, what does thinking ourselves better than God do? Other Scriptures are even more emphatic that our very salvation hangs in the balance when we daydream of “getting even.” Jesus repeatedly said such things as, “ . . . if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14). Now to continue with Romans 2: because you who pass judgment do the same things “No I don’t!” we protest in chorus. Our response shows just how deeply a judgmental spirit blinds us to our own sins. We all have our particular version of hypocrisy in which we manage to see our own sins through the wrong end of the binoculars but see more clearly the sins of those who have hurt us. In God’s eyes, our hypocritically biased view is as pathetic as the following exchange. “How dare he steal yellow jellybeans! I want a law passed that anyone stealing yellow jellybeans be jailed for life!” “But you’ve stolen jellybeans. You’ll be sentencing yourself to jail.” “Of course not! I only steal red jellybeans!” The Lord graciously – it certainly was not my doing – blessed me with wonderful Christian parents and through Christ he spiritually joined me to himself at a young age and I’ve never drifted from him. Consequently, I could produce a long list of common sins I have never indulged in. I would sooner publicly display my bodily filth than present any of that as a suggestion that I’m the slightest less worthy of hell than the most sadistic mass murderer on the planet. If anything, my spiritually privileged background fills me with shame. It means I’ve never overcome the huge obstacles to faith that so many have had to overcome to believe in Jesus. Of course, salvation is always undeserved but someone who becomes a Christian despite being born to non-Christians is rather like someone who becomes a millionaire by starting a business with nothing, whereas I’m more like a millionaire who simply inherited his money from his parents. My sheltered background also means there are many powerful addictions – even smoking – that I have never broken in my own life, since I have never had the slightest exposure to them. For all these reasons, my supposedly less sinful life is simply an illusion – and a dangerously seductive illusion that I must not fall for, lest the resulting hypocrisy expose me to the wrath of God. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded,” warned Jesus (Luke 12:48). I dare not point the finger at anyone. Had I lived my highly sheltered life until I was born again as a child and then lived sinlessly for the rest of my life, no one that ever existed would be more worthy of hell than me. Even if, like Adam, I had merely had a piece of fruit that I shouldn’t, I’d be worthy of hell, let alone all the horrific sins I’ve committed. In a flash of anger I once wished my little sister were dead. That makes me a murderer in the view of the One whose piercing eye bores through one’s hypocrisy into one’s heart. Like a rapist, I have lusted. Like a con artist, I have deceived. To try to throw up as an excuse the fact that almost everyone else has acted similarly, would not only fail to reduce the magnitude of my sin, it would expose myself to eternal judgment because, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). For years I considered my sins minor. Not even now has my calloused conscience fully softened to the gravity of the offenses each of us try to excuse. How dare I have the audacity to want God to be merciful to me if I – being guilty of the atrocious sins I mentioned – cannot be gracious toward the sins of others! If there is one thing that riled Jesus, it is hypocrisy. Anyone not wholeheartedly agreeing that you and I are equal to the vilest of sinners, has no conception of the holiness of God. Tragically, most people have spent so long looking down on others that they cannot even imagine what it would be like to look up and behold the Holy One. They have so closed their eyes to spiritual reality that they live in a world of make believe – a world that, to their eternal horror, will one day shatter. No matter how horrifically someone has treated you, his offense against you is not as grave as what you have done to God. Your sins were so atrocious that nothing short of Jesus’ death could atone for them. In effect, your sins tortured and murdered the Holy Son of God, the Lord of the universe. In the terrifying words of Peter, “You killed the author of life” (Acts 3:15). Oops! That has to be biggest conceivable blunders. Imagine ignorantly destroying the very One who upholds the fabric of the entire universe; the One keeping our very atoms from disintegrating, along with every atom in all creation. That is the magnitude of our sin. We are so self-centered that we are acutely aware of our pain when others hurt us, but barely conscious of God’s pain when we hurt him. In our hypocrisy we are usually full of excuses for our own sins, grossly downplaying their gravity, but rarely are we as generous in excusing anyone else’s sin. We seem hell-bent on pointing to the speck of dust in someone’s eye, utterly oblivious to the sandpit in our own eye. We suppose it is the other person who is annoying us, but it is primarily the yet-to-be-discovered sand in our own eye that is the real source of our irritation. When we start accusing others as if we are better than them, the problem isn’t their sin, but our blindness to our own sins. Let’s proceed to the next verse in Romans: (2) Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. God’s judgment is based on truth, not only because he alone sees everything and knows every heart, but in stark contrast to even the most unbiased of us, he alone does not view people through a hypocritical, self-centered haze. (3) So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Suddenly, the issue is no longer, Why hasn’t God’s judgment fallen on that person? but, How speedily will divine judgment fall on me for my self-righteous hypocrisy? Note the words, “you, a mere man.” Did we create ourselves? Did we design the molecules of the person we want punished? What makes that person answerable to us? Do we have a perfect, unbiased grasp of the intricacies of morality? Do we know everyone’s secret thoughts, pressures and motives? Just who do we think we are in usurping God’s right to be Judge? (4) Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? The driving force behind God’s kindness toward his enemies is the hope that they would repent. His longing is that those who continually hurt him – and we ourselves once fell into that terrifying category – will have a genuine and complete change of heart so that they can become his treasured friends, totally new people and fully trustworthy. This, too, is a major reason why he wants us to show this same kindness to those who don’t deserve it. If they respond to our kindness by repenting, we have truly succeeded in “teaching them a lesson.” Instead of simply doing what it takes to avoid unpleasantness, someone changed by kindness, not force, genuinely wants to do right. The person’s sincerity invites God into his life. He becomes a new person. (5) But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. We might think those we despise are beyond change, but if the Almighty can change you and me, he can change anyone. Nevertheless, any who refuse to repent are “storing up wrath.” God’s restraint in kindly giving people more time to come to their senses is a window of opportunity that if not seized by the guilty, will end in a full outpouring of divine wrath. The Lord told Ezekiel, “When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself (Ezekiel 33:8-9). The same principle applies to us being kind to those who mistreat us. If we don’t show kindness to offenders, we will be held responsible. If we do the right thing and they refuse to repent, however, they will be held accountable, but we will be innocent. “You are storing up wrath” is in the present tense, implying an on-going process. It is my conviction that Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not merely saying that wrath has been delayed, but that wrath is constantly being added to the store during the time of kindness, thus continuously increasing the final outpouring of wrath if there is no repentance. For confirmation from Bible scholars, see “Storing up Wrath.” Likewise, our kindness to our enemies makes us godlike and increases the stakes for them. It gives our enemies a greater opportunity to come to their senses by seeing first hand that there is a better alternative to their own lifestyle. Love is perhaps the most powerful way of proving to people the spiritual reality of Christianity. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Again, Scripture reveals to wives that loving gentleness is the best way to bring unbelieving husbands to salvation (1 Peter 3:1-4) Likewise, there is nothing more powerful in transforming this planet for the glory of God than you displaying the character of God with supernatural patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness, goodness, love, joy and peace. And the best opportunity you will ever have – in this life or the next – to portray the beauty of the Lord is when people mistreat you. Under normal conditions, to try to demonstrate the reality of God is like trying to show a movie in a Drive-In during daylight. When the deeds of darkness touch us is like when darkness falls at a Drive-In. It is then that people can appreciate what is being displayed. Jesus referred to his enemies tormenting him to death as his “hour” – the pinnacle of his ministry, his glory (John 12:23,27; 13:30-31). Likewise, the time when we are cruelly treated is our moment of glory. It is our finest hour; our stupendous opportunity to show forth the reality of the Lord who indwells and empowers us. A greater demonstration of the reality of Christ and a greater opportunity to repent, however, increases the accountability of those receiving our kindness, so that if they don’t repent they will face even greater severity on Judgment Day. Paul urges us to consider both the kindness and severity of God (Romans 11:22) – kindness to those who respond to his love by a genuine change of heart, and severity to those who abuse his grace. Of course there is heaven and hell, but if there is just one eternal reward given equally to all Christians, and just one uniform punishment, talk of increased accountability and accumulating wrath would be almost meaningless. Throughout the world there is an enormous range of accountability, from babies to intelligent adults who have not heard of Jesus through to those who have witnessed mind-boggling miracles and proofs of God’s power and yet have stubbornly refused Jesus’ salvation. There are also vast differences in degrees of faithfulness and in the varying abilities and opportunities assigned to different Christians. If the Judge of all humanity could access just one reward and one punishment to assign to each of such diverse people, it would seem hard for him to adequately respond to all this variability. The options available to the Judge, however, are up to the task. Scripture refers to a whole range of rewards and punishments. Punishment varying according to accountability is hinted at in many Scriptures. For example: Luke 12:47 That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. (48) But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. For more Scriptures and explanations, see Degrees of Punishment. There are also varying rewards. Consider Jesus’ parable in which servants were each given an equal sum of money known as a mina. Because of their varying faithfulness, one servant ended up with eleven minas and control of ten cities, another had five minas and control of five cities, another had nothing but his life, and the enemies of the returning king lost even their lives (Luke 19:12-27). For explanations and other Scriptures, see Heavenly Rewards. Parables A man is in court, convicted of driving a car while intoxicated. The law says he should lose his driver’s license. The man pleads with the judge that his job depends on him having a driver’s license. The judge is in a dilemma; he wants to be merciful but if this man re-offends someone could be killed. Finally, the judge agrees to let him keep his license but pronounces that if this man again appears in court convinced of this offense he will not just lose his license, and hence his job, but he will be jailed. God’s kindness is like that. It raises the stakes because it unavoidably raises our accountability. A woman wearing her finest clothes is attacked by a man who grabs her by her dress. As much as she loves that dress she has no option but to tug at it with all her might. The dress will either tear and be ruined or she will retrieve it undamaged. Either way, however, that evil man will not win. Likewise, when the Evil One attacks God by holding on to someone important to God – and that’s every human – the Lord pours out his mercy on that person, engaging the Evil One in a supernatural tug-of-war for the person’s soul. That person will either respond to God’s kindness and be saved or refuse and be ruined. Either way, when the battle is over, the Evil one will end up with nothing. So it is when you show kindness to the undeserving. Your action invites God to apply supernatural force to that person. By the time God has finished, the person will end up either restored or ruined, but you, like that woman, will be free. Whatever the outcome for that person, you will triumph, be vindicated and eternally exalted. You acting in a loving, non-judgmental way causes everything to slot together with divine precision. It releases God to execute perfect justice, while allowing the Judge to be merciful to you and also stopping evil in its tracks by preventing the offender from contaminating your own heart. When you and I were God’s enemies he loved us so much that he went to the extreme of the cross to make us his friends. And beyond that, he had to tolerate much evil until we finally accepted his forgiveness, and even then we try his patience. If God didn’t treat kindly those who hurt him, we’d all be in hell right now. How dare anyone forgiven so very much not forgive others! From the moment all is revealed, the redeemed with spend the whole of eternity marveling at God’s judgments. Revelation 16:7 And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” Psalms 145:17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. Psalms 96:11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; (12) let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; (13) they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth. Burning Coals? Let’s see if we now have deeper insight into that mysterious Scripture with which we commenced this webpage. Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (20) On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” In biblical thought, burning coals are most commonly associated with divine wrath. For example, we read in Scripture, referring to God: Psalms 120:4 He will punish you with a warrior’s sharp arrows, with burning coals . . . Psalms 11:6 On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur . . . 2 Samuel 22:8 “The earth trembled . . . because he was angry. (9) Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. Psalms 140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise. In fact, the connection between burning coals and divine wrath is so strong that Bible readers can hardly get it out of their mind. Nevertheless, despite the reference to divine vengeance just a few words earlier, it seems so out of place to bring wrath or vengeance into an exhortation to love that Bible scholars struggle with this interpretation. They typically opt for the reference to burning coals to mean that our kindness will fill our enemy with “burning shame.” Renowned theologian, Charles Hodge wrote, “To heap fires of coal on anyone is a punishment which no one can bear; he must yield to it. Kindness is no less effectual; the most malignant enemy cannot always withstand it.” (Source). This is true. It would seem almost impossible not to eventually win an enemy over by continued kindness. Here’s a fascinating reference to burning coals: Isaiah 6:5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (6) Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. (7) With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” A burning coal to the lips would normally have tortured a person. Instead, Isaiah being cut to the core over his sinfulness allowed that coal to sanctify and transform him. Likewise, if your enemies repent, the coals your kindness heaps on their head will burn off their defilement, transforming them into godly people filled with “burning shame” over what they did to you. Nevertheless, as a last resort, divine vengeance hovers over the head of the offender so that one way or the other – heartfelt remorse or eternal judgment – your enemy will indeed be overwhelmed with regret over his past misdeeds. Regret – One Way or Another Even God’s judgmental, wrath-filled pronouncements of doom are usually our loving Lord’s last-ditch effort to avert judgment. An obvious example is Jonah’s prophecy that in forty days’ time Nineveh would be destroyed. There seemed not a glimmer of hope in his entire message. It had the effect God longed for and that Jonah dreaded. The evil city repented and God relented. As I have shown elsewhere (see the link at the end of this series of webpages) forgiveness and restoration is more often the goal of harsh prophecies than most of us realize. We don’t know a lot about the next life. We know that divine forgiveness means we will go to heaven, but Scripture shows us that forgiveness does not mean an end to our remorse over past sin. For example, God forgave David over his sin with Bathsheba but David kept suffering the consequences for decades to come. 2 Samuel 12:11 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. (12) You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” (13) Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. (14) But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” Suppose David had eluded punishment and repented only on his deathbed. If suffering regret and loss after forgiveness is an insight into divine judgment, I can’t see David’s last-minute repentance saving him from suffering regret and loss over his sin. Forgiveness means that a genuine deathbed repentance would allow David to go to heaven, but he would still suffer loss because of his sin. I also believe that in heaven he would receive a divine revelation of the sinfulness of sin and of God’s holiness beyond anything we are likely to experience this side of eternity. I can only assume that this would flood him with heart-wrenching regret over how he had wronged Bathsheba’s husband. Whoever has sinned against you will either end up with his eyes opened to the gravity of his offence and reeling with remorse over what he did to you, or he will be eternally punished for his sins. Either way, it is certain that the person who has wronged you will forever regret his actions. There is no question about that. The only question mark dangles over our neck is whether we will be filled with shame over crashing to the level of the someone who has wronged us by trying to “get even,” or will we be eternally pleased with the victorious, Christlike way we responded to the challenge? Understanding Divine Wrath There is nothing more fundamental to God than love and justice. Before we can claim even a superficial understanding of the heart and mind of God, we must come to terms with the fact that “An eye for an eye” is instruction from the same unchanging Lord who said “Turn the other cheek.” Ultimately, it is not a choice between love or justice. This world is hurtling toward both. Both are God’s passion and must be our passion. That’s why you must read An Eye For An Eye: Christian Justice or Love Your Enemy? Related Page Turn the Other Cheek

The Quest for Music Miracles APPENDIX (PART B) NOTE 1.8: The Jewish Preference For The Shophar The ram’s horn might have been the first instrument played on earth. The ‘father of all those who play the lyre and pipe’ was Jubal, a name related to the Hebrew word for ram (Genesis 31:27). It is such a primitive instrument as to raise the question of why its use continued throughout the Old Testament era. There were pipes, end-blown flutes, double clarinets, double oboes, and – in the Greco-Roman period – ‘terra-cotta rhyton-shaped wind instruments’. In fact, unlike the metal trumpets used in the Bible times, the ram’s horn is still used today! Part of the answer for its continued use is probably that despite musical limitations, rams’ horns were effective noise-makers. Perhaps the other half of the answer lies in the fact that they were literally horns from rams. To the Hebrew mind, horns were potent symbols. Not only did they symbolize physical power, (e.g. Deuteronomy 33:17) but the holy altars designed by God – both the sacrificial altar and the altar of incense – had horns (Exodus 27:1-2; 30:1 ,f) and the Lord Himself is the ‘horn of our salvation’ (2 Samuel 22:3; Psalm 18:2). Furthermore, each shophar came from an animal suitable for God-ordained sacrifice and the animal had, presumably, actually died. In addition, horns ( shophars ) carried the divine anointing oil (1 Samuel 16:1). Then there’s the fact that, relative to most other instruments, an animal horn is divinely made. Finally – and perhaps least significantly – horn-blowing was a way of involving nature in praise to the Creator. In their choice of instrument, ancient Jews were not beyond considering its tone (Mishna, Arakhin 2:3 – a reed-pipe was preferred to a pipe of bronze because its sound was sweeter). At least in the post-Old-Testament era, however, factors other than sound assumed great significance. For instance, cow horns were forbidden for ritual blowing, (Mishna, Rosh Ha-Shanah 3:2) apparently because cows were not sacrificial animals (the Jewish Talmud). According to the Jewish Mishnah , the voice of a sacrificial victim is multiplied seven times when it dies because its horns become shophar s, its two leg-bones become flutes, its hide becomes a drum, its entrails are used for lyres, and its chitterlings for harps (Mishna, Kinnim 3:6) According to a Jewish legend, David’s harp strings were made from the gut of the ram Abraham slew on Mount Moriah. In the synagogues ram’s horns were used as a reminder of that ram sacrificed in Isaac’s stead. NOTE 1.9: Identifying The Bible’s Songs The exact number of songs in the Bible is difficult to determine. There are many songs in Scripture, clearly identified as such, outside of the Psalter ( Exodus 15:1-18 , 21 ; Numbers 21:17-18 ; Deuteronomy 31:22-32:44 ; Judges 5:1-31 ; 1 Samuel 18:7 ; 2 Samuel 3:33-34 ; 22:2-51 ; 1 Chronicles 16:7-36 ; Song of Solomon; Isaiah 5:1 ff; 23:16; 26:1 ff; Habakkuk 3:2-19 ; Revelation 5:9-10 , 13 ; 15:3-4 ). With poetry being so common in Scripture, it would have been fairly easy to set large portions of it to music. Many passages appear to be songs although Scripture does not specifically call them songs or indicate that they were intended to be set to music (e.g. 1 Samuel 2:1-10 ; the entire book of Lamentations; Isaiah 6:3 ; 23:15-16 ; Ezekiel 19:1-14 ; 22:2 ff; 32:2,16; Jonah 2:2-9 ; Daniel 2:20-23 ; 4:34 b-35; Amos 5:1-2 ; Luke 1:46-55 , 68-79 ; 2:14 , 29-32 ). Some of these read so much like psalms it is hard to read them without imagining them being set to music (see for yourself: 2 Samuel 1:17-27 ; 1 Chronicles 29:10-13 ; Isaiah 12:1-6 ; 38:9-20 ; Jonah 2:2-9 ; and verses around Isaiah 42:10 ; 44:23 ; 49:13 ; Jeremiah 20:13 ; Zephaniah 3:14 , 17 ). If some were not originally set to music they seem to cry out for music so loudly that it is hard to conceive of them being bereft of music for long. Some Bibles, by printing poetry in lines of uneven length, make it immediately obvious which parts of Scripture are poetry. Consulting such a Bible opens a new dimension to Scripture, not just making possible songs easier to identify or adding interest for the musician and beauty for the lover of literature, but also aiding interpretation. Possible songs pop up in the most unlikely places. In the search for fragments of Christian hymns, scholars have been drawn to many Scriptures, including John 1:1-18 ; Romans 3:13-18 , 23-25 ; 8:31-39 ; 9:33 ; 11:33-35 ; 1 Corinthians 13:1 ff; Ephesians 1:3-14 ; 2:4-7 , 10 , 19-22 ; 5:14 ; Philippians 2:6-11 ; Colossians 1:15-20 ; 2:9-15 ; 1 Timothy 1:17 ; 3:16 ; 6:15-16 ; 2 Timothy 2:11-13 ; Titus 3:4-7 ; Hebrews 1:1-3 ; 1 Peter 2:6-7 , 21-25 ; 3:18-22 ; Revelation 4:8 , 11 ; 5:9 , 12-13 ; 7:10 , 12 ; 11:15 , 17-18 ; 12:10 ff: 14:7; 15:3-4; 19:1-2, 6-8. Unfortunately, most of this remains highly speculative. Such an examination of the Old Testament would produce a huge list. The first Biblical song is said to be Genesis 4:23 . Some Bible versions specifically call Numbers 21:27-30 a song (AMP, RSV and GNB, but not KJV, NKJV, NEB, LB or NASB). There is another factor: Scriptures have been sung which were apparently not originally intended to be songs. The practice of reciting even the prose parts of Scripture in a singing voice may have extended back centuries before Christ. Psalm 119:54 could be relevant to this practice: ‘Your statutes have been my songs . . .’ Harold Best (Best, 4:316) believes that by Jesus’ time this practice may have been so established as to make it likely that Jesus employed it when delivering Scripture in the synagogue ( Luke 4:16-20 ). Eventually, it came to be questioned whether it was acceptable to ever read Scripture without melody (The Talmud, Megillah 32a). So, whether they were aware of it or not, contributors to the Old Testament ended up writing lyrics to songs. Who can authoritatively declare that this result was not in God’s mind when He originally inspired the writers? NOTE 1.10: Hebrews 2:12 – The Son of God Singing The highly esteemed Greek lexicon by Arndt and Gingrich, along with eleven of the thirteen translations I consulted, see in Hebrews 2:12 a reference to singing. This certainly seems to be the usual meaning of the key word. However, to be strictly unbiased, I should point out that this word is sometimes applied to spoken, rather than sung, praise. Singing seems to be hinted at, rather than emphatically stated. NOTE 1.11: Divine Singing, Trumpeting And Whistling Does Zephaniah 3:17 indicate that God sings? God’s trumpet-playing is hinted at in Zechariah 9:14 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 . The problem, of course, is to know how literally this should be interpreted. Literal trumpet blasts from heaven are mentioned in the Bible but they might be unmusical signals ( Exodus 19:6 ; 20:18 ; Psalms 47:5 ; Isaiah 27:13 ; Matthew 24:31 ). Isaiah 5:26 ; 7:18 and Zechariah 10:8 refer to God ‘whistling’. But since these are references to signaling, it is unlikely that a tune would be involved. Chapter 2 Notes – Celestial Choirs NOTE 2.1: Drugs, Hallucinations and After Death Experiences Dr. Karlis Osis and his associates analyzed the reports of over one thousand medical personnel who regularly worked with dying patients. They found that patients taking drugs or sedatives known to produce hallucinations were less likely to report an afterlife experience than those who took no medication. Likewise, those illnesses that produce hallucinations were associated with less afterlife reports than other illnesses. The patients’ experiences did not usually conform to what they expected and they appeared as frequently to people who fully expected to recover as to those who knew they were dying. Dr. Charles Garfield, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California Medical Centre, states that life-after-death experiences are entirely different from drug-induced hallucinations or the sensations sometimes associated with severe pain. Dr. Maurice Rawlings agrees. ‘Drug effects, alcoholic delirium tremens, carbon dioxide narcosis, and psychotic reactions deal more with objects in the present world and not with situations in the next world. NOTE 2.2: Errors In Non-Christian Analyses of ‘After Death’ Experiences When researching anything related to spiritual matters, non-Christians inevitably get things hopelessly confused. In two excellent books, Dr. Maurice Rawlings does much to sort out the chaos. He points out that only about twenty percent of resuscitated patients volunteer information about their experience. We are thus dealing with a very biased sample. He rightly asks, who would boast about being such a moral failure that one is sent to hell? Many people joke about it, but it’s a very different thing to be faced with the reality of hell. Dr. Rawlings was desperately trying to save a postman’s life. In between times of clinical death, his patient kept screaming that he had been in hell. He pleaded with the reluctant doctor to lead him in prayer. His certainty that he was entering hell was so convincing that it removed the doctor’s personal skepticism. The patient survived the ordeal and became a Christian. He could recall the prayer and viewing his body from a distance, and yet he could remember nothing of his hellish experience. Apparently, it was so horrific that his mind had suppressed it. Previous researchers had not personally resuscitated patients. They were content to interview people who had sufficient time to repress unpleasant experiences. The doctor records another man’s description of his experiences after his heart stopped beating. It ended up being so horrendous that the patient was certain he had been to hell. It brought about his conversion. Yet the first part of his experience was blissful – floating above his body, feeling happy, at peace and free from pain. Had he been resuscitated at that point, his impression of life after death would have been vastly different. Eighty-five percent of people resuscitated after suicide attempts reported being glad to be alive. Every account Dr. Rawlings has collected from such people has been ‘hellish’. Overall, he found that interviewing people immediately after resuscitation produced as many reports of bad experiences as good ones. In line with Scripture’s affirmation that multitudes will have an unpleasant after-life, a number of people have reported hearing unpleasant sound, rather than beautiful music. Mention is made of ‘the awfullest, eerie sounds,’ ‘a roaring noise,’ and an unforgettable, ‘really bad buzzing noise’. The bias that many people have is illustrated by the fact that Dr. Rawlings himself has been misquoted in a way that suggested all after-death experiences are pleasant. We are justifiably dubious of experiences which cause some non-Christians to give glowing reports of ‘life after death’. However, it seems theoretically possible that even some of these could be in accordance with reality, though misinterpreted. Certainly, most non-Christians have some pleasant earthly experiences which are neither Satanic deception, nor indicative of where they will spend eternity. I confess ignorance, but it seems theoretically possible that on the other side of the grave they could also have a few moments in pleasant surrounds before being ushered into a strikingly different abode. The Bible seems to hint at this possibility. Before being hurled into the lake of fire, (Revelation 20:15) non-Christians will be brought before the great white throne (Revelation 20:11). Presumably, this is situated in a very beautiful, heavenly place. Hence, for at least this brief moment, it seems that non-Christians could be in lovely surrounds before being cast into hell. Conclusion Reports from resuscitated patients are usually consistent with the reality of hell. When correctly interpreted, even non-Christian data is more creditable than we might have imagined. So we are certainly justified in examining Christian reports with an open mind. The Deceiver always tries to pervert the most beautiful, loving and holy acts of God into opportunities to amplify his evil. He bent the miraculous provision of manna into an occasion for the Israelites to murmur against their Lord (Numbers 11.5-6). He twisted God’s infallible Word into a weapon of deception against the holy Son of God (Matthew 4:5-6). He used Jesus’ power over demons to blaspheme Him as the prince of demons (Matthew 12:24). He turned divine judgment into an opportunity to curse God instead of repent (Revelation 16:10-11). Rather than list a hundred more examples, let’s focus on the point: if we failed to differentiate between an act of God and the evil interpretation with which Satan tries to tar it, we could end up labelling as satanic virtually everything God has ever done. NOTE 2.3: More Information About Dr. Eby I shudder at Dr. Eby’s apparently uncritical account of how his mother, as a girl, came under the influence of an American Indian medicine man. Nevertheless, I believe a careful reading of the whole book restores one’s faith in the genuineness of Dr. Eby’s Christian experience. As biblical support for the reality of his celestial journey, Dr. Eby equates Paul (2 Corinthians 12:1-4) with the time the apostle was stoned and left for dead (Acts 14:19). Though I disagree, this in no way detracts from the genuineness of the doctor’s experience. The weakness in his argument is that even after ‘being caught up into paradise’, Paul did not know whether he had been in or out of the body, (2 Corinthians 12:2-3) in the stoning incident his body seems to have clearly been on earth. The doctor’s theory is based on the assumption that Paul actually died when stoned, something Scripture does not specifically state (Contrast Acts 14:19 with Acts 20:9). Finally, there is a chronological problem: the stoning does not appear to have occurred in the year referred to in 2 Corinthians 12:2 (i.e. not fourteen years prior to the penning of 2 Corinthians). NOTE 2.4: More Reports Of Celestial Music In the following instances, reports were too brief to add to our understanding of celestial music. Their mere existence, however, tend to confirm the reliability of the accounts recorded in the body of the book. Obviously, the larger the number of independent witnesses, the harder it is to escape the conclusion that heavenly strains have touched earthly ears. Moreover, some bear striking resemblances to incidents already cited. August Hermann Francke (3-1727), a German clergyman and educator, is renowned for his important role in a spiritual movement intended to revive the Lutheran church at a time when it was becoming increasingly formal and lifeless. According to Basilea Schlink, he heard heavenly music as he was dying. It is said that even his family heard it. Prompted by the Lord, Rev. W. B. McKay’s wife closed the door, drew the curtains and commenced praying. Suddenly, the room was filled with a brilliant light. The Lord Jesus appeared, saying He had come to show her the splendors of heaven. Together with Jesus and a host of angels, she spiraled up to heaven, leaving her body behind. As they ascended, Mrs. McKay heard angelic music and singing which she says was indescribable. In the city of God, she witnessed many things, including the redeemed, some of whom she had known on earth, singing. The Lord declared that she and her husband would be given a healing ministry. He urged her to remain humble so that He could work through her. The entire experience may have lasted seven hours. Her spirit then returned to earth. Over her body were three highly concerned men: her husband, a doctor, and the Bible college president. Until that moment, the doctor had been unable to detect any pulse. Mrs. McKay later testified that this heavenly encounter radically changed her life. Both she and her husband received the prophesied healing ministry. This incident dovetails nicely with several of the accounts I have cited. Numerous people have reported hearing ethereal music during, or on the verge of, clinical death. Perhaps all of these were born-again believers. The information given is sometimes too scanty to be sure. Only six of the hundred cases in Osis’ study heard ‘sacred music or heavenly choruses’. His sample was taken from the general population. Had he weeded out non-Christians, I suspect the percentage would have been much higher. Unfortunately, the nature of the music heard rarely receives any attention from researchers. One lady described the music as ‘majestic’. Another called what she heard ‘organ music’. (You may recall that Mrs. Grace Murphy also mentioned organ music in her attempt to describe the sounds she heard.) Other accounts were even less descriptive, merely using such words as ‘beautiful’ and ‘wonderful’. So common is this phenomenon that when I saw a compilation about dying Christians I bought it, confident that I would find reference to celestial music. I was not disappointed. In five separate reports, dying Christians heard music with such vividness that they expected others in the room to be able to hear it and of such quality that with obvious pleasure, even excitement, they summoned strength to speak of it. ‘Hear that music!’ exclaimed Rev. Hiram Case, ‘they don’t have such music as that on earth.’ There were other reports beside these five, but of particular interest was about an African youth, not long converted from heathenism, who had been gored by an elephant. Though ‘not preconditioned to descriptions of heaven,’ in his last moments he described angels to missionary Paul Landrus ‘and spoke of music like Landrus knew he had never heard in his lifetime.’ Chapter 3: Notes – The Culmination of Music NOTE 3.1: Ezekiel’s Temple and the Future of Music In its description of the temple Ezekiel saw in his vision, the King James Version refers to ‘the chambers of the singers in the inner court’ ( Ezekiel 40:44, KJV , supported by RV, NKJV, NASB, RSV marg only, NRSV, NIV, marg only, but not AMP, LB, Moffatt, NEB). Several English versions omit reference to singers here, preferring to follow the ancient Greek version, rather than the Hebrew. Depending upon your interpretation of this vision and whether you accept the reliability of the Hebrew (Masoretic) text at this point, you might see this as provision for the music ministry in the age to come. NOTE 3.2: ‘Harps of God’ Theologian, Leon Morris points out that the term harps of God in the book of Revelation is ‘unusual’. King James Bible readers would be excused for not recognizing this. In their version, 1 Chronicles 16:42 uses a similar expression ( instruments of God ) to refer to earthly Levitical musical instruments. The apparent similarity of terms, however, is a quirk of the King James Version. It is not found in the ancient translations of 1 Chronicles 16:42 , (Septuagint, Targum, Syriac, Arabic, Vulgate) nor in most modern versions. Not even Young’s literal, nor Jay Green’s Literal Translation, which both follow the King James text, nor the old Revised Version, has this expression. A more accepted translation is instruments of the songs of God . We find a similar expression to this elsewhere in even the King James Version – instruments of the music of the Lord ( 2 Chronicles 7:6 ). As a further complication, however, the NIV employs the expression the Lord’s musical instruments and the Lord’s instruments of praise in 2 Chronicles ( 2 Chronicles 7:6 ; 30:21 ). This rendition is not followed by other versions consulted (i.e. not used in the RSV, NASB, LB, GNB, NEB, NKJV or KJV) Old Testament musical instruments are otherwise referred to as the instruments of David ( 2 Chronicles 29:26-27 ; Nehemiah 12:36 ; cf 1 Chronicles 23:5 ; 2 Chronicles 7:6 ; Amos 6:5 ). So although translation problems abound – further intensified by the fact that the New and Old Testaments were written in different languages – it seems that rather than reflecting Old Testament terminology, harps of God contrasts with the Old Testament term instruments of David . In fact, the closest biblical parallel is trumpet of God ( 1 Thessalonians 4:16 ). Obviously, this ‘trumpet’ is of non-human origin.