Mass Slaughter of Children in the Bible.

[Guest]

Since God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, according to the prophet Ezekiel, we can be assured our sentiments are closely aligned with those of God himself. Could it be that sometimes God must do things that he hates in order to save humanity? This would be akin to a surgeon removing a person's arms to save their body. I'm sure the surgeon is quite grieved over the operation but must do what he hates in order to save the whole person.

If God sees humanity as a unit or a single person (a concept not foriegn to scripture), then the conquests in the OT were that painful surgery that saved the whole body. If God could've saved humanity without causing pain and grief, we should assume that he would have done so.

The OT conquests SHOULD be unsettling to us and our modern sentiments because God had no pleasure in those things, if we are to trust the prophet Ezekiel and the aposlte John, who said there is no darkness in Him. Steve quoted some seemingly harsh words about Jesus recorded in the NT, but those must be qualified as well. If God is love and there is no darkness in him and he doesn't enjoy the death of the wicked, then we have painted a God that allowed HIMSELF to be subjected to a torturous death on a Roman cross. The picture I have of God is the powerful master and creator of the universe dying for a rebellious people, because he loved them. We must interpret all of scripture through that lens or we miss the one thing we were supposed to get right: God allowing himself to be tortured and killed to save a people who don't deserve Him.

[Guest]

Excellent post JC. I especially think your 2nd paragraph is key to this conversation. I do believe God views mankind more as a unit. And I believe our extreme individualism in western thought is one of the factors that makes some old testament passages, like these, so appalling to us.

[_Paidion]

You wrote:
Wouldn't this be analagous to quoting from a writing by Andrea Yates whom you mentioned, in order to prove that God actually told her to drown her children?

As I said before, if, in your estimation, the reliability of Andrea Yates and Moses are approximately equal, as witnesses of what God has said, our conversation has definitely come to a stalemate.

I do not in the least imply that the testimony of the two are “approximately equal”. I used the argument simply to indicate that the use of a testimony to prove that the same testimony is true, is circular reasoning, and therefore logically inadmissible.

It was Moses that recorded God's condemnation of his striking the rock—but hardly the kind of story that Moses would have fabricated, since He begged God repeatedly to change the decree.

As you know, I have nowhere indicated or implied that anything Moses recorded was “fabricated”. I said that Moses sometimes misunderstood the revelation of God or thought that God had given him certain instructions when, in fact, these instructions proceeded from his own mind. Your alteration of my statements truly have the effect of making them appear objectionable, but seems uncharacteristic of your usual approach.

You wrote:

I affirm once more, that my belief about the character of God is determined, not by my sentiments, but by the revelation of His character as revealed through His beloved Son, the living Expression of the Father.

Would that be the same beloved Son who so terrifies the wicked, in the day of reckoning, that they call upon mountains to fall upon them to cover them from His wrath (Rev.6:16)?

Yes, it would be. There is no doubt a terrible judgment on the wicked. What could be worse than the suffering in Gehenna for many ages? But if that is what it takes to bring the wicked to repentance, then God will execute it. But God doesn’t punish out of a sense of giving sinners what they “deserve”, but for the purpose of bringing them to repentance or to correct them. All of God’s judgments are remedial.

It is also the same beloved Son who said,

… I tell you you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Matthew 5:44,45

Jesus revealed His Father’s loving character in this instruction. We are to show ourselves to be true sons of the Father by loving, praying for, and doing good to those who despitefully use us just as the Father does good --- sends sunshine and rain upon the evil as well as the righteous. The implication is that if we strike back at our persecutors, get vengeance upon them, hurt them or kill them we will be unlike the heavenly Father and thus will demonstrate that we are not His sons.

Love is not just “one side” of God’s character, while justice (interpreted as “judgment”) is the other. God is not schizophrenic in character. There is only one side to His character --- love. He IS love! I John 4:8,16

John also wrote:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

Is it the same Jesus who will say at His coming, "Those who would not have me reign over them, bring here and slay before me"(Luke 19:27)? Is it the living Expression of the Father who will cut His unfaithful servants in two, and give them their portion with the hypocrites (Matt.24:51)—and who will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel [2 Thess.1:8]?

“Cut his unfaithful servants in two”. Hmmmm…. Also in Matthew 24:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Vs 29-31

Interesting that you understand the above quoted passage as figurative, perhaps as examples of hyperbole, and yet seem to take “cut his unfaithful servants in two” literally. In any case, there is no doubt that God’s beloved Son is coming in judgment. The time will come when all will be judged according to their works. It will be a very severe judgment for the wicked and all who reject Him. All of your references above (some of which may be figurative) are warnings of the severity of the judgment to come. Yet, it’s a judgment of love. God sees its severity as necessary in order to bring the wicked to repentance.

But how is it going to help a person to repent by killing him? Will it help by diminishing his future judgment? Will it help babies to kill them now so that they can go to heaven and not have to grow up in rebellion and go to hell? If so, perhaps the whole world should be destroyed by nuclear bombs and thus prevent it from going deeper into sin and rebellion.

Is this the one you believe to be too squeamish to cancel the tickets of a whole race whose demonic practices (including the murdering of their own babies) he had endured for centuries without their repenting?

He is not squeamish, but what good and Godly purpose would it serve? Would it’s purpose be to prevent the spread of their evil practices? To prevent the Hebrews from being contaminated by their evil? A similar reason was given by the Catholics and Protestants in the middle ages who burnt at stake the “heretics” of their day.

God could have waited until these evil people died a natural death, even as He does today. As I see it, the Hebrews took it in their own hands to destroy those they hated, and Moses then justified it by writing that God told him to do so.

I have mentioned to you before (you have denied it, but I still am convinced of it), that the God of your theological paradigm is too one-dimensional.

Yes, God truly is one-dimensional. And that dimension is LOVE. It is the one dimension which the apostle John affirms. I John 4:8, 4:16. His one-dimensionality is not what I denied. I denied your presumption that my belief has its origins in my sentiments or preferences.

The God of the scripture, like all real persons, has multiple (appropriate) emotions and (legitimate) purposes and can often be full of surprises.

That’s true. Yet there are no contradictions in God’s character as there are in the “real persons” of the earth. With Him it’s LOVE all the way, though it is a severe love at times. But it’s all for the good of man, to lead him to repentance and submission to Him. God will take whatever steps are necessary to lead man to repentance. On the other hand, with many human beings it’s altruism one moment, and hate and vengeance the next.

Jesus said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me...But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:46-47).

How indeed! Since Jesus believed the writings of Moses were the words of God, how can one accept Jesus as a trustworthy witness, if He was mistaken about a matter of such fundamental importance?

These words of our Lord coupled with my belief about Moses misinterpreting the revelation of God do not imply that Jesus was mistaken about anything. For these words of our Lord do not affirm that everything that Moses wrote or said had its origin in God.

The words which you omitted and replaced by three dots, are significant in understanding the real meaning:

Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; it is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" vs 45-46

The Lord Jesus was simply making the point that Moses wrote prophetically about Him, and asking the Jews who wanted to kill Him for working on the Sabbath, that if they did not believe Moses’ prophecy concerning Himself, how would they be willing to believe His words?

I will always believe that God is LOVE as John affirmed. Anything written which states that God commanded people to do the unloving thing, I disbelieve.

[Guest]

If God could've saved humanity without causing pain and grief, we should assume that he would have done so.

[Guest]

I am a little confused by your comment as well, JC. can you clarify what you mean?

TK

[Guest]

While I will allow JC to answer for himself, I do not see anything in is comment that I would find difficult to accept.

[Guest]

I am a little confused by your comment as well, JC. can you clarify what you mean?

Sure, I'd be glad to. This relates to God viewing humanity as a single unit or person that is sick and needs to get well. An unknowing person might see a field medic saw a man's gangreneous arm off and think of it as an evil, unloving act. He would not be aware that the medic was, in fact, saving this man's life. If the medic (who is analogous to God) could have healed the man without sawing his arm off, we presume he would have done so.

[Guest]

Thanks JC-

dont mean to give you a hard time here (this issue is difficult enough!) but the problem is that the medic does NOT have the power to do so. I.e., a civil war medic either sawed the arm off or allowed the soldier to die of infection. He could not heal the infection. God DOES have this power(or would seem to). That's where the difficulty lies.

In the case of the canaanites, it would seem (to us) that God could have been rid of them via other means (than having the israelites slaughter them). You name it- bubonic plague, cholera, fire from heaven, etc.

The answer, perhaps, is that since God chose to do something a certain way, then presumably that was the only way it COULD be done, because God chooses the best way, always. If we try to jusify other courses of action-- actions that might seem more reasonable to us-- we are impugning God's character, because He has already considered all contingencies and outcomes.

I think this is a great discussion, and one that needs discussed. I certainly intend to follow greg boyd's blog regarding this.

TK

[Guest]

Hi Paidion,

If you have a moment, could you answer some questions for me about what you wrote? Thank you in advance if you have the time and do answer.

It was Moses that recorded God's condemnation of his striking the rock—but hardly the kind of story that Moses would have fabricated, since He begged God repeatedly to change the decree.

As you know, I have nowhere indicated or implied that anything Moses recorded was “fabricated”. I said that Moses sometimes misunderstood the revelation of God or thought that God had given him certain instructions when, in fact, these instructions proceeded from his own mind. Your alteration of my statements truly have the effect of making them appear objectionable, but seems uncharacteristic of your usual approach.

This seems to say that you would reject the notion that Moses might willfully create any of the instructions that he wrote down and then announced were actually from God when they weren't, and that you are dismayed to see your argument portrayed as such. Yet you don't seem to have a problem with the notion that Moses was deluded and that his mind was playing tricks on him. Is that a fair summary of what you are saying?

But God doesn’t punish out of a sense of giving sinners what they “deserve”, but for the purpose of bringing them to repentance or to correct them. All of God’s judgments are remedial.

Why is it impossible for you to believe that this judgment on the Amalekites came from God and was remedial as well?

But how is it going to help a person to repent by killing him? Will it help by diminishing his future judgment? Will it help babies to kill them now so that they can go to heaven and not have to grow up in rebellion and go to hell? If so, perhaps the whole world should be destroyed by nuclear bombs and thus prevent it from going deeper into sin and rebellion.

Aren't you kind of generalizing here that if an action is remedial in one instance, it should be used on everyone?

God could have waited until these evil people died a natural death, even as He does today.

Not everyone dies a natural death.

As I see it, the Hebrews took it in their own hands to destroy those they hated, and Moses then justified it by writing that God told him to do so.

But he was deluded, not making it up, right?

I will always believe that God is LOVE as John affirmed. Anything written which states that God commanded people to do the unloving thing, I disbelieve.

So...what about the condemnation of homosexuality? Is that loving or unloving? Do you believe God commanded it, or was it a delusion?

[_Paidion]

For the information of all, I have now replied to Steve --- a few posts up.

I think the idea that He has changed His modus operandi simply because Jesus appeared on earth, doesn't cut it.

Why not?

Two words: "Why not?" which demand an answer.
When I wrote the statement above, I wrote it from a gut feeling. I didn't have a ready explanation. Since then I've been thinking about it. I just wanted you to know, Michelle, that I hadn't dismissed your question, but have been considering it.

Let's consider a historical figure under whose direction little Jewish children suffered and were killed, millions subjected to gas chambers and worse. Now just suppose that Hitler hadn't died when the Alllies took over Germany. And suppose that after the war, Germany wanted Hitler as their leader once more. If other nations objected, they would have a ready answer:

"We know that our leader once took over several countires, and committed unspeakable atrocities against the Jews. But now, he has a different way of operating. He no longer wishes to take over countries or kill Jews. There's no longer any reason for the nations to distrust him."

Do you think the nations would be convinced? Even after they observed that Hitler had changed his mode of operating?

On the other hand, consider a leader who was unjustly accused of having committed atrocities. In reality, this man had an unchanging righteous character. He loved his subjects, as well as people in general, and always did what was best for them. If the nations should discover the true character of this man, do you think they would accept him as a leader? I think they would.

Which of the two do you think most resembles the Heavenly Father? The man who gave instructions to kill people and babies, but changed his way of operating? Or the man who had good, unchanging character from the beginning, and who always did what was best for his subjects.