God could have been really kind to us. He could have thought, “there is no way these little, pea brain creatures will ever be able to figure this out, so I will just leave out the free will stories.” Alas, He did not do this. He left some real fun ones for those of us who believe in God’s sovereignty, to have complete meltdowns over.
Two of these “favorite” stories of my students have been:
-Moses’ intercession after the Golden calf in which “God changes His mind” (Ex. 32); what if Moses hadn’t have interceded? Would God have really started all over again, destroyed the Israelites, and began anew from Moses’ family?
-the repentance of Nineveh bringing the “change in God’s mind” over destroying the city (Jonah 3-4); Would God have destroyed the city if they hadn’t have repented?
Some people teach that these passages/stories are here to show us that God does interact with our free will, and changes His actions based on what we pray and do. Moses interceded and God did something. Nineveh repented, and God did something. Of course, He knew that was going to happen, and He caused things which affected the outcome, yet the people involved were allowed to make a choice and God’s plan intertwine with that. Is that right? Let’s take a closer look at these two stories.
Most of us are very familiar with the story of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32. I have heard lots of sermons about Aaron and his lack of leadership, the dangers of idolatry, or how quickly the Israelites turned away from God. The real page turner is when Moses intercedes for the people after their sin in 32:11-14. God tells Moses that He is going to destroy the people and start over with Moses (being a new Abraham of sorts). The depth of Moses’ love for his people comes out when he tries to convince God not to destroy Israel. Moses reminds God of His promises and worries about the witness to pagan nations if God destroys the people (like God needed to be reminded…).
The next thing we know, the Bible tells us that “God changed His mind”. Depending on your translation, this also might read, “God relented” or even more troublesome “God repented”. The Hebrew word “nachum” (5162) can be translated as “to sigh or breathe strongly; to be sorry; to have pity; to rue; to repent” depending on the context of the sentence. This same word is used in Exodus 13:17 when God directs them away from the way of the Philistines lest Israel “nachum” and go back to Egypt (change the direction from heading to the promise land and turn around toward Egypt). This Hebrew word is different from the typical word used for “repent” which is “shuwb” (7725), and has the connotation of men turning from their own evil ways.
If we believe that God is unchangeable (Hebrews 13:8, Malachi 3:6, Psalm 104 and 110), and that He is sovereign, how do we explain this passage? Strong Calvinists find ways through talking about God’s foreknowledge or through anthropomorphism (now that is a Scrabble triple word score if I have ever seen one). God foreknew that Moses would intercede, already planned not to destroy Israel, but was testing Moses as a leader. God allowed Moses to see his real love for the people that he would need to guide them in the wilderness, and wanted the Israelites to know that they deserved to be destroyed, but God gave grace instead. Moses didn’t change God’s course of action in reality, because God is sovereign. The better translation would be “God relented from the disaster He could have brought”.
Anthropomorphism is when we used human characteristics to describe God. These figures of speech can only go so far, because God isn’t a man. For example, in Exodus 6, it says that God will rescue Israel from Egypt with His “outstretched hand”. The last time I checked, God doesn’t really have a hand. In the same way then, Moses is describing his interaction with God through his humanist view. To Moses, the closest expression he can find in Hebrew (human language) to describe it is to say that “God changed His mind”. In a human, this implies changeability and often an admission of a mistake being made. Just like God doesn’t have hands, He also doesn’t have a “mind” in our sense that would “change” like ours does. Of course, He has a mind, but His doesn’t function like ours because He is perfect.
Now in the midst of these explanations, I can logically think, “Oh, that makes sense”, and there is no doubt that anthropomorphism is being used and that God foreknew what was going to happen. But, would it also make sense to just read the story plainly and say that God is teaching Moses and Israel the power of intercession and prayer? Isn’t He showing them that He isn’t an angry or vindictive God, but rather one who values relationship and interaction with His people? It would seem misleading to me for God to behave this way with Moses, include this story in Scripture, and it has nothing to do with free will at all.
That would be nice if there was just this one story, and we could write it off as a “hard passage”. Unfortunately, there are many others, and other ones that specifically state that “God changed His mind/relented”. Again, we all know and love the story of Jonah and the Big Fish (or whale for those whom the Bible isn’t specific enough to fit a good children’s book). The part of Jonah we all may not be as familiar with is the wording used when Nineveh repents. God tells Jonah to announce that Nineveh will be destroyed in 40 days. There is nothing conditional stated AT ALL. The king and the people repent anyway, even making the cows repent (that seems a bit extreme to me). In Jonah 3:10, God sees their repentance and “changes His mind” or “relents”.
Would God have destroyed them if they had not repented? Was this just another lesson for the people, and God was always going to do this based on His foreknowledge? Does this story have nothing to do with how God responds to man choosing to repent? We don’t have enough time to deal with 1 Samuel 15:35, but I think you get the picture.
I believe we are not dealing with God “changing”, but rather we are dealing with two characteristics of God that never change: His justice and mercy. God is 100 % just and 100 % merciful. However, in a given situation, He can’t act upon both at the same time. He either carries out justice, or offers mercy. That is what we are seeing in these stories. None of this means that God doesn’t or can’t know the future. It does have implications on how He interacts with us though, and in the next post, we will have to deal with this interaction. That’s enough for now though, so take a break and go check out that cool link someone posted about Tebow.
The Bible Nerd 
I am struggling with the Jonah issue. My bible says, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. That sounds like prophecy, which coming from God I would view as a promise. So for God to be going back on that and not destroying Nineveh could even be viewed as God not knowing the future, or all God’s promises being conditional (Yet 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown, if I feel like it), whether he explicitly states it or not. I know God knows the future and can’t lie. So can we view this as God may say things that he knows won’t be true just to test us? I am tired and have a headache so maybe I am overlooking something very simple, but I am a little puzzled!
Something else that has been getting me is God giving the 10 commandments, thou shalt not kill, and then sending Israel out to kill?! Just as a side point, what’s all that about?? Why does God give a specific commandment to make his people holy, and then lead them to disobey it??
Great questions! The Jonah question has to do with an aspect of predictive prophecy that I didn’t cover in that last post. I ran out of space, sorry! With most predictive prophecies, they work much like you described in that God foretells an event and it happens exactly as God predicted. However, it is clear from the Bible, that God also issues conditional predictions. In this case, there is usually a condition given that if the people repent, then God will relent from the judgment that was predicted. A good example of this is Jeremiah 17:19-27. The blessings and curses of Deut. 28 and Lev. 26 are another example of these conditional promises of God. The tricky thing is that sometimes God doesn’t explicitly state that the prediction is conditional, but the Scriptures later make it clear that it was implied. Jonah is an example of conditional prophecy, because as you said, when the people repent, God doesn’t bring judgment. Another example would be with the good king Josiah. God has already predicted that judgment for Judah has been sealed during the reign of Manasseh. However, through a prophetess, God tells Josiah that because of his righteous reign, the judgment will be put off until the next generations. That was never stated in the original prediction. We only have Scripture to tell us of these implied conditional prophecies, and we aren’t free to take one and say it is conditional without Scriptural proof.
On your question on the 10 commandments, the difference is between what we call in English “murder” and “killing”. “Murder” carries the connotation of wrong doing, meaning that you kill someone without just cause or due trial. “Killing” is merely the act of ending a life without statement as to justification or not. When we kill someone out of our own decision, it is murder and is not sanctioned by God. When we kill someone because God orders us to, it is “killing” and sanctioned by God. In the Old Testament, that killing took two forms. The first was the death penalty that could only be carried out after a fair trial with 2 – 3 witnesses. Then the High Priest would give a decision based on casting the Urim and Thumim. The other type of killing God ordered was holy war. This is recorded in Deut. 7 and carried out in Joshua and other places. Both of these were sanctioned because it is God who is the judge, determining who lives or dies. As He is fully just, everyone put to death was fully deserving of that death.
What do we do with killing in the New Testament? Well, in some ways, that question is moot. Why? Because Jesus doesn’t command His followers to begin a physical kingdom (or to reinstitute one). Jesus’ kingdom is clearly a spiritual kingdom, and as such has no place for a government and laws that govern a physical nation like Israel in the Old Testament. America doesn’t count!!! We can’t discuss the death penalty for America or Britain, for example, based on Biblical law, because neither the US nor Britain is a theocracy (a government under the direct rule of God like OT Israel). That doesn’t make everyone’s issues go away usually because they still struggle with God commanding people to kill at all. But that is a whole other question.
Thank you, made things sound so simple as usual! I do have another question related to what you said about Urim and Thurmim being casted. What exactly were they and how did they work? I have heard a few different theories but it seems that nobody is totally sure…
Unfortunately, we just don’t know that much about the Urim and the Thummim. If there was a knowledge of them, it passed after the time of the 1st temple before the exile. Our best guess is that they worked like lots do, except they only give a Yes or No answer. As in, is this person guilty? Other than that, we can’t speculate too much, other than that they probably weren’t that big as the High Priest was carrying them around somehow stuck into his breastplate (Exodus). Extra Biblical literature don’t agree on what they were or how they were used. Rabbinic and Talmudic texts do mostly agree that they were lost sometime before the Babylonian exile (586 BC).
On a side note, Mormon founder Joseph Smith claimed to have had and used the Urim and Thummim, so I guess that is what happened to them 🙂