Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

Shalom folks.

Something Talkactive mentioned in a few places got me thinking about blood-guilt and what it is.

It reminded me of a month I spent in Germany about ten years ago. I was speaking at various churches across the country, and in every single church I visited, at least half a dozen people came up to me privately afterwards to appologise for the treatment of the Jewish people during WWII. These were the children and grandchildren and great-grand-children of people who, for the most part, had nothing to do with Hitler's persecution of my people, but there was so much pain in the German churches I visited, so much guilt. One man asked whether God would ever forgive the german people. I wept for these people and prayed with them. I don't know if I helped them feel less guilty for a thing that had nothing to do with them as individuals. The burden on them felt so powerful.

I left each church in tears, reassuring them as much as I could. You see, they couldn't stop being german people, but they felt they had blood-guilt. It was actually heartbraking.


So where does blood-guilt end.

There have been times in history when the Jewish people have been persecuted and murdered by gentiles, do all gentiles therefore bear the guilt - I don't believe so. Mavos (I think it was Mavos) brought up God's promise not to punish the children for the sins of their fathers.

Do people who serve the church share in any guilt some other pretend-Christians bear for their actions centuries ago?

I have an uncle who thinks, because the people who have persecuted us over the years were all believers in Jesus, believing in Jesus itself is evil. This reminded me of Talkactive's insistence that trinitarian Christians share in the blood-guilt of evil people who, in the past, have used their beliefs as a way of persecuting others.

I'm just asking peoples' opinions here.

I believe God forgives.

I don't believe people have to stop being gentiles because of the behaviour of evil gentiles any more than I believe Jews have to stop being Jews because of the behaviour of those who sought to kill Jesus.
Nor do I believe Christians have to leave the denominations or fellowships because, at some point in history, some evil people might have used the same beliefs to persecute others.

Jesus has been building his church for two thousand years and He promises the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

Hi Malkah

Re: "...got me thinking about blood-guilt and what it is."

It seems "blood-guilt" as mentioned in Hebrew scripture, is definable according to the old law. Since the human families redemption from sin (mercy has been extended to the extent one wishes to accept it, imo)...does "blood-guilt" exist or defined in the same way as it was under the old law?

(clear as mud, as usual, oh well...grin)

Christian love and appreciation,

gogh

Thanks for that!

I agree with what you're saying absolutely.

Also, I think there is something to remember here. In a very real sense, we are all blood guilty before God. Here are some verses that come to my mind.....

"Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." (Romans 3:19 NKJV)

"For there is no difference: for all have sinned, and are deprived of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23 Geneva)

"What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
(Romans 3:9-18 ESV)

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Romans 5:12 ESV)

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23 ESV)

"In which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (Ephesians 2:2-3 ESV)

Also, it seems that there possibly may be a smug attitude of superiority involved in those who condemn others as blood guilty because they are part of the so called "institutional church". I am reminded of the following two verses in that regard...

"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?" (Romans 2:1-3 ESV)

"For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (1 Corinthians 4:7 ESV)

Romans14:7...

" For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.
For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.
For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God.
For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, And every tongue shall confess to God.
So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling..... "


:coffeeread:

Malcah,

This is one of those things I thought about often as a young man looking for the truth.

Remember going to churches where banners and flags were paraded up the aisles to memorialize those who died in the world wars.

As a young man I grew up in Scotland and England so the Union Jack was very prevalent.

Always made me wonder if other churches of the same denominations in other countries including Germany might be doing the same thing.


Wonder if they still do it?


Conscientious objection was one of the things that attracted me to the Jehovah's Witnesses.


and the fact they suffered the same kind of fate as the Jews in Germany.


In Christ

abe

Absolutely. We are not judged for others sins but our own. We must all stand before God. We will all have our day in court so to speak and unless we are united to Christ by faith, we are "condemned already". (By saying that we will pay for our own sins and not that of others, I in no means deny what has been called Original Sin, the inherited guilt of Adam. See Romans 5.)

Interestingly enough, conscientious objection is not original or unique to the Witnesses. The Anabaptists and the so called "radical reformation" generally held to a view very similar to if not identical to the Witnesses. You may want to check out some of their works on the subject. The best mordern work on the subject for conscientious objection and neutrality and all that is "The Politics of Jesus" by John Howard Yoder (a Mennonite I believe).

Malkah, my sister. thank you for your words of wisdom.
We cannot even comprehend the level of forgiveness of God.
Even perpetrators are forgiven, it puts me on my knees.

The one thing he requires is that we forgive others at a minute version of how much he forgives us.

Hi Abe,

Well, I know churches that have every flag of every nation on the walls to symbolise us all being one in Jesus, and the hope that, one day, all the nations will be united, but I've never seen flags used in any other way.

A lot of churches make a big thing of Israel's flag though - and its given pride of place everywhere back in Israel.


(Just to be totally pedantic, the union flag is only called the union jack at sea.:funnyface:)

And that is a very, very sad thing. Its one of the reasons why, despite my disagreement with them, I have a personal spot for the JW's in my heart.:crybaby:


PS - in English I spell my name with a "K" not a "C" I know in english the two can sound the same but my brain doesn't sound it that way, so it looks wrong. XXX

Accepting mercy, by means of our Lord and Shepherd, is an important step in more accurately viewing ourselves and others...imo.

Forgiveness I think, is something Jesus helps us with.


(For those who know the situation I have been in recently, I was forced to come face-to-face with the elder Mahmud two weeks ago. It was not good, but it was cathartic, and it proved to me that the forgiveness I have towards him is real and solid. I always feared it was not so. Now the work Jesus has done in my heart has been tried and proved not to be as superficial as I feared.)

Unfortunately, I know that many of my Jewish brethren still harbour much unforgiveness towards the goyim, but, fortunately, there are also many who have let it go.:cry: Letting go of anger that you feel fully justified in holding on to is a hard thing to do, Jesus makes such a thing possible since we were forgiven first. Bless him.

That is what i admire most about the Amish. They are completely nuetral and no part of the world, unlike the Watchtower.

Interesting. The Jews still harbor resentment towards the goyim. Witnesses and many former witnesses harbor resentment towards the Church. In either case, harboring resentment is wrong, and praise God that some have let it go.

Matt

Matt,
Do you not think it is rather glib to say we are all blood guilty?

And yet Jesus, dying in agony, simply cried out for His father to forgive those who were torturing him.

To forgive even in the midst of pain....maybe later, when the pain is old and our anger has cooled, but bless our Lord and Saviour that he forgave us even as we murdered him.


Would that we could all do likewise.