Christ's Conception of God: Fair Laws, Justice, and Civilization

As a young boy, I was dragged to church by my mother to the regular Sunday Sessions at the Catholic Church. While living in a suburb of Cleveland, I regularly attended CCD, a religious education class. In 1976, I trasferred to a Catholic Grade School where I took religious classes. The transfer spurned in me an interest in Jesus and the teachings in the Bible. One day I broke out the Bible and read the entire New Testatment. After reading it, I was impressed with the wisdom of Jesus and Christ's defense of Mosaic Law. Jesus argued that all of the 10 Commandments could be summarized in the statement "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
At this point I began to wonder what's Jesus' conception of good and God was and how it applied to civilization and the world. Jesus had rejected Satan's offer of power and glory in the world. The answer seemed to lie in the statement that "God is Good." The question was, how did Jesus define it.
Since the time of Moses, the Jews of the ancient world followed the 10 Commandments given to Moses by God in the Sinai. They go like this: 1) I am the Lord your God, have no other gods before me, 2) You shall not make for yourself an idol, 3) You shall not make wrongful use of the name of God, 4) Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, 5) Honor you father and mother, 6) You shall not murder, 7)You shall not committ adultery, 8) You shall not steal, 9)You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, 10) You shall not covet your neighbor's wife nor anything that your neighbor possesses. According to the New Testament, Jesus believed that these laws were fair and rational. His dispute was with the "teachers of the Law," Sadducces and Pharisees who he saw as hypocrites.
Now mind you, as I grew older these ideas stuck in my head, but at some point I realized that the world is very complex. I started to read other thinkers on the subject of law and civilization. Sigmund Freud, despite claiming to be agnostic, had many ideas that were similar to Jesus. Freud argued that freedom in a state of nature was greater than in civilization because people did want to covet, steal, and even kill. The advantage of nature was that you could do as you pleased, but then again another person could covet your mate, steal from you, or kill you. Thus nature was very free but very dangerous. In civilization there were prohibitions, if you stole, cheated, or killed you could get in trouble. But when the rules of civilization were working, people and their property were safer. Civilization was less free, but there were the advantages of legal protections.
The question for me, after reading Freud, was how did this relate to Christ and his conception of civilization and God. The answer was clear, Christ's God accepted both the advantages and disadvantages of civilization. There were restrictions placed on doing evil, or benefiting from evil acts. To Christ, God was good; he was an honest cop. When God punished people it was for disobeying fair laws--that was justice. The devil on the other hand wanted all the advantages of nature and the jungle--breaking all the rules--and all the advantages of civilization--protection of life and property, and the right to make unfair rules. Thus the devil to Jesus was a reflection of arbitrary power and arbitrary rule. It is for this reason that he rejected Satan's offer of power and glory because he felt that the Devil was dishonest tyrant.
In light of the evil times in which Jesus lived--Roman occupation of Judea--we can understand his feelings. He lived under Roman tyranny and occupation. Rome at the time was ruled by an dictorial Emperor who wanted to be worshipped as a god. Christ may have even regarded the Emperor as Satan himself, but most probably an agent of arbitrary power. Christ, however, knew the truth, that if people voluntarily followed such prohibitions as "though shall not murder" that it would bring an end to war. Thus he was known as the "Prince of Peace." Now Christ knew that most people were not as perfect as God when it came to obeying the rules and most were not as criminal as the devil, thus he also advocated for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus rejected Satan's offer of power and glory because he did not want to become an agent of arbitrary power and rule, and an employee of a dishonest tyrant.