Reconciling the requests for revenge from the Old Testament with Jesus' commandments

[Lucian Hodoboc]

How do you reconcile the frequent requests made by King David and some of the other writers of the Psalms (as well as other chapters in the Old Testment) in regards to their enemies (namely, that God should destroy them and avenge the petitioner for the wrongdoing that he had been subjected to) with the commandments of Jesus and Paul (to love and help our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to not complain when we are wronged etc.)? If David was a prophet and the Psalms he wrote were under divine inspiration, why do they contain a perspective that seems to contradict the attitude that Jesus taught that God wants us to have?

 

[Wilhemena]

King David expected the Lord God to be good and just and God had chosen the Israelites as His people, so in a sense any enemy of those said people were an enemy of God. Our Father was setting aside a lineage through the Israelites wherein the Savior would descend and corruption from those who did wrong needed a cleansing and that also meant destruction or killing.

 

[MennoSota]

God loves His chosen people (the body of Christ) who receive an inheritance. God does not love those who are under the curse. God will deal with the cursed ones who mistreat His children. God's children live as foreigners here on earth. David called upon the Father for His intervention. All God's adopted children may ask the Father to avenge them. We see it clearly in Revelation with the voices of the martyrs.

 

[Arsenios]

How do you reconcile the frequent requests made by King David and some of the other writers of the Psalms (as well as other chapters in the Old Testment) in regards to their enemies (namely, that God should destroy them and avenge the petitioner for the wrongdoing that he had been subjected to) with the commandments of Jesus and Paul (to love and help our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to not complain when we are wronged etc.)? If David was a prophet and the Psalms he wrote were under divine inspiration, why do they contain a perspective that seems to contradict the attitude that Jesus taught that God wants us to have?

I think the underlying basis for reconciliation will be found in the difference between the OT and NT approach to obedience to God...
The OT culminated in the Law, which is an externally observable obedience to God that is enforceable by others...
The NT turns from that merely external obedience to that which is internal, between God and man...
So we have the Law and its fulfillment in Christ...
We have the foreshadowing of the OT finding Reality in the New...
We find Israel conquering Baal, then Christ conquering death in hell...
We find the adulteress stoned in the OT, and admonished by Christ...

Revenge in the OT can then be seen a foreshadowing of reconciliation...
The enemies of God will then become the footstool of our feet...
And the Martyrs at the Throne will also reconcile in triumph...
"For God so Loved the Kosmos..."

Nice cross...

There's something good about a three-bar!


Arsenios

 

[TurtleHare]

How do you reconcile the frequent requests made by King David and some of the other writers of the Psalms (as well as other chapters in the Old Testment) in regards to their enemies (namely, that God should destroy them and avenge the petitioner for the wrongdoing that he had been subjected to) with the commandments of Jesus and Paul (to love and help our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to not complain when we are wronged etc.)? If David was a prophet and the Psalms he wrote were under divine inspiration, why do they contain a perspective that seems to contradict the attitude that Jesus taught that God wants us to have?

Might you be suggesting that the God of OT is a different one from the one in the NT then or are ya thinking that God tolerated a more aggressive attitude from his peeps back then?