What Does the Bible Say About Violence in the Old Testament? The Lord is zealous to protect His people.

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1 What Does the Bible Say About Violence in the Old Testament? The Lord is zealous to protect His people. Today s question Why is there so much violence in the Old Testament? opens up many other questions we have about the character of God. I think the question we really want to ask is, How can God, if He is indeed a loving God, allow so much violence? Some of the violence in the Bible is done through human will. It didn t take long after God had created the first humans that things turned violent. Adam and Eve s oldest son Cain was intensely jealous of his brother Abel. When his anger reached the boiling point, Cain killed Abel. (Genesis 4:4-8). From that point on, violence continued to spread. With a few exceptions, humanity continued to follow human will instead of God s will. The other kind of violence in the Bible is much, much harder to understand. This violence appears to come from God s own hand. And that just doesn t make sense to us. If God is full of love for everything He has created, why would God want to punish people and whole cities to the extreme? Today s reading picks up in the desert of Sinai. The Israelites have just escaped from Pharaoh and have already forgotten the miraculous deliverance that God orchestrated for them. While Moses was on the mountain, receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the people decided to make a golden calf to worship instead of the God who had just saved them. When Moses descended from the mountain and saw the idol they had made and the detestable worship they were making, Moses angrily smashed the stones that the Commandments were written on. More shocking, however, is that God wanted to destroy all the Israelites then and there, on the spot. But Moses pleaded to God to spare the people. Moses asked all those who were for the LORD to step toward him. All those who did not stand for the LORD were killed by those who stood with Moses and the LORD. Exodus 32:28 tells us that 3000 Israelites perished that day. God sent a plague on all those who remained to punish them for their participation in sin. (Exodus 34:35) Shocking? Yes. Today we are reading parts of the Bible that are unpleasant and not normally read in church. We are seeing a side of God which some might prefer not to see. Hopefully by the end of this message, you will see that God s love is actually what makes God wipe out evil. It is love to destroy everything that leads us away from worshipping the True God and would prevent us from living in God s love for eternity. Here is what happened next Hear the Word of the LORD from Exodus 34: 14.. Hebron Presbyterian Church Rev. Cinda Isler 1

2 The LORD said to Moses, Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. 3 No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain. 4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. 8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. 9 O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, he said, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is s stiff- necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance. 10 Then the LORD said: I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. God and jealousy don t seem to go together, do they? Yet God calls Himself jealous. Why would God say that His name is Jealous? I admit, I had to do some extensive reading to understand this myself! J. I. Packer, a world- renowned Anglican scholar devoted an entire chapter of his book, Knowing God, 1 to explain why it is good thing that God is jealous. God is not jealous like we are. We get jealous when we are envious for something that isn t ours. For us jealousy is not a virtue, but a vice. But God s jealousy is righteous; for Him it is a zeal to protect something that is precious. I can understand this kind of zeal as a parent. And I imagine that you can too, even if you re not a parent. Think of something that is precious to you, like a spouse, a parent; a pet. If someone tried to take that precious thing away from you, how would you feel? Protective? Would you 1 J.I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, Illinois, 1993), 167. Hebron Presbyterian Church Rev. Cinda Isler 2

3 be zealous to protect what was precious from harm? You betcha! And rightly so! That is our moral responsibility and very much a holy jealousy! God can only be right in protecting those with whom He has made a covenant. On the other hand, God is also right in expecting that His people honor their side of the covenant. God frequently refers to His covenants with us to be like a marriage. Just as a man and woman pledge faithfulness to one another, so do we pledge our faithfulness to God. We promise not to be swayed by, or enticed by, or follow, any other gods. God is rightfully a jealous God. Think about it, would you want it any other way? No, God s love is wonderfully affirming for us. God is jealous of what He loves. God expects total loyalty in return. In our reading we heard another disturbing thing. What does it mean that God punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation? We can understand why God would punish the guilty, but why the children? Verses like these are why Study Bibles are a good idea. In my Bible, the little note at the bottom of the page for this verse helps to make sense of this part which seems pretty unfair. Children, unfortunately, do get caught up in the sins of the parents. We know first- hand that how the parents live does affect the lives of their children. Children do grow up with the same values as their parents. By God s grace, children can break out of unhealthy patterns, but those who choose to continue to live with sin as adults, will also face the consequences of their choices. The parents sins follow them. The other question to ask when we read this passage is Doesn t God also love the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and the Jebusites? Why does God need to drive them out in order for the Israelites to move in? It does seem pretty unfair to send them out when that is their home. It makes us think of other times in history when entire nations were uprooted by stronger, greedy people. But, before jumping to conclusions, there are some things to understand about what God was doing. Paul Copan, who wrote Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God 2 helps us to understand why God does what He does in the Old Testament. First, God was not attacking them because of their nationality. God intended for His salvation to be for all the nations. (Genesis 12:3) Foreigners were welcome to join Israel as sojourners and aliens. (Leviticus 24:22) They were expected to observe God s covenant standards and God commanded the Israelites to treat them with respect. (Leviticus 19:33-34) There were obviously other reasons why God wanted the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites gone. Genesis gives us the clue. Turn with me to Genesis 15:12. 2 Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Baker Books: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011), 163. Hebron Presbyterian Church Rev. Cinda Isler 3

4 ..read Genesis 15: (page 10) As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. Four hundred thirty years (430) had passed since Abraham had received the promise, but God had been patiently waiting because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. (Genesis 15:16) The sin of these nations had been increasing for hundreds of years. Their moral transgression had reached the tipping point and God gave up on them, and gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts. (Romans 1:18-32) They knew God, yet they refused to worship Him. Their consciences had been desensitized to goodness as they followed the example of their god and goddess, Baal and Anath, practicing child sacrifice and engaging in depraved sexuality. They were bloodthirsty and ruthless. Their wickedness and immorality was detestable to God, it contaminated even the land, and Leviticus tells us that God was provoked to vomit them out. (Leviticus 18:28). 3 As we can see in the story of Jericho, there were those residents who chose to side with God and were spared. Rahab and her family were saved because she made the decision to help God s plan. (Joshua 2) In Sodom the angels tried, but were unable, to find even ten righteous people in the town. (Genesis 19). It is important to see that God was wiping out sin through the eradication of these towns. God was protecting His plans to raise up a nation of holy people through whom Jesus, the Savior of all people, could be born. These people had chosen to side with God s enemy, who would work against that plan being carried out. God, who is all- seeing, all- knowing and all- wise, acts in ways that we can t always understand. But we can trust, that because of God s great love for all people, He will be jealous to stand as judge against all evil. There is one last question that I would like to talk about today. Some people answer the question about violence in the Old Testament by deciding that there must be two different Gods in the Bible. They say that the God in the Old Testament is harsh and violent and is different from the God in the New Testament, who is non- judgmental and loving. This is not a new idea. A man named Marcion proposed this idea way back in the second century AD. He called the Old Testament God inferior to the God who is the Father of 3 Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?, 159. Hebron Presbyterian Church Rev. Cinda Isler 4

5 Jesus. 4 He threw out all of the Old Testament writings and taught that the true God is not the one in the Old Testament. He taught that God would never bring judgment, and that God requires nothing from us but love. As you might imagine, Marcion s view is still extremely popular today and it actually is the primary message preached by many of our churches. But it is dangerously untrue and fanciful thinking. Scripture tells us that God doesn t change. He is immutable. God s name by which He announced Himself to Abraham is I AM. (Exodus 3:14) His name describes who God is. He is now, and was, and will always be. The God who created the world in the Old Testament is the same God who sent Jesus to save us in the New Testament. God both loves us and is jealous for us. God still detests sin. God still expects our total devotion. Psalm 33 tells us The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. (Psalm 33:11) God has His reasons for not severely punishing disobedience right now. We learn in Scripture that God is waiting until the time is right for His judgment. Second Peter tells us that God is being patient, wanting all people to come to salvation. (2 Peter 3:9). The New Testament is full of warnings about the Day of Judgment which is yet to come. We just don t read them very often, because we prefer to focus on the love passages instead, but they re there. When Jesus comes again in the Second Coming, like we say we believe in our Apostles Creed, ( He will come again to judge the living and the dead ), all the dead will rise to meet Jesus in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). All people who have lived on the earth, regardless of religion or nationality, will appear before God. (Daniel 12:1-3) Our gentle Jesus will also be our Judge. (Acts 10:42; Romans 2:16). Yes, Jesus! For those of us who belong to Jesus, it s so very comforting, to know that the One who will judge us is also the One who has saved us. He is our Savior, our friend and our brother! We are not afraid, because he has made us worthy to stand forgiven before God. Jesus has wrapped us with his very own holiness. Like a parent who disciplines out of love, God protects us and guides us. He tries to keep our paths clear of evil. He demands our obedience, not to feed His ego, but because God knows that our obedience will save us. On the Day of the Lord s coming we will be grateful that we have chosen the narrow road which leads to life. May all people of every nation hear the voice of God calling them to let go of sin and enter into his gate of life. Amen 4 Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Volume 1 (HarperCollins:New York, New York, 1984), 61. Hebron Presbyterian Church Rev. Cinda Isler 5

6 Hebron Presbyterian Church Rev. Cinda Isler 6