Shincheonji Perspective
A Shincheonji person would point to 2 Kings 10:18-19, pointing out how Jehu lied to infiltrate the worshippers of Baal, gathered them together in one place, and killed them all.
God then said the following in 2 Kings 10:30:
“30 The Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”
An Idolator an example for how to carry out our moral lives?
We can already see that in the next verse, God was wary of Jehu’s character:
Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit.
What are the sins of Jeroboam in reference?
According to
So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
Further, we can even see that in Hosea 1:4, the LORD said the following to the prophet Hosea pertaining the same very massacre that happened in 2 Kings 10:
Hosea 1:4:
4 Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 On that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”
Was God happy about the worship of Baal no longer happening? Yes.
Was God happy about the way that Jehu performed the action of killing the Priests, including the sin of lying? No. Otherwise, he would not have used it as a curse, as seen in Hosea 1:4.
To further drive the point home that Jehu’s deception was not right in the eyes of the Lord, we can also see another man who also was used to punish Baal worshippers, and yet wasn’t later punished for his actions. The Prophet Elijah.
Comparing Elijah with Jehu, Elijah was open, honest, and bravely confronted the Baal worshippers; while Jehu used deception and lying in an attempt to carry out a massacre that his descendants were later punished for.
Lastly, there are times where God uses evil characters and nations to carry out his will of punishment against other entities. The best example being the Babylonians, another group also used a reference to a curse in prophetic books like Jehu, to punish the rebellious house of Israel. Using the logic of Shincheonji, does this also mean that we should follow the example of the Babylonians?
It is questionable, at best, for a Shincheonji person to use the above passage to justify deception by using Jehu as an example, especially since in the same chapter of 2 Kings 10 the same man Jehu was used as an example to be punished. Especially when Jehu was committing idolatry.
While an SCJ member will point to Jehu as an example to follow and justify their deceptive practices, a Christian would point to Jesus as their standard on how to live a righteous life.