–By Dr. Mark Shipp/Austin Graduate School of Theology

The third part is one of the most difficult to grapple with. Thank you Mark for your well thought out and prayed out words.

How do we reconcile that the God who is love in 1 John 4 is also the God who it seems like from the way the stories are written, commanded His people to kill others?

One of the earliest heresies is that of the 2nd century Marcion, who thought the God of the OT was a vengeful God of wrath and not the loving father of the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is, the OT is no less the record of God’s grace and love than the New. But, love in the Old Testament or New is not indulgence. It is not being given everything we want regardless of our behavior and regardless of consequences.

God’s wrath and God’s love are not opposites; they are flip sides of the same coin. God’s wrath is his judicial arm, the “left hand of God’s justice.” God takes human evil and sin seriously. He is not an indulgent uncle, dispensing gifts regardless of people’s behavior. If God did not care, he would not hold us accountable for our bad behavior. But for grace to be grace, evil must be real. Grace is meaningless if sin is not real, and if consequences for sin are not real.

Justice is not a bad word. Justice is God’s love oriented toward the victims of human evil. What does it say about the victims if God never acts to requite and punish sin? Scripture makes it quite clear that vengeance (God’s judicial wrath) belongs to God and not to us. The stories of war in the OT can be understood I think in these ways:

1) The Old Testament does not condemn war per se, nor capital punishment.
It does condemn murder.

2) God is patient and restrained his wrath upon the Canaanites (who offered
their babies as sacrifices to their deities!) until their iniquity was complete
(Gen. 15).

3) Examples of the “Ban” (= devotion to destruction) in the OT Are Few: 1)
Jericho; 2) Ai; 3) Hazor; 4) The Amalekites under Saul. In the case of
Jericho, “God fought their battle for them.” All they had to do is walk
around the city and make music, then take the city as a gift. In the case of
Hazor, they responded to the aggression of the northern Canaanite coalition
against them.

4) God Fought their Battle: The point I just made relative to Jericho is
important. God fought this battle for the Israelites, as he fought the
Egyptians in the book of Exodus. It was God’s battle. All they had to do in
Exodus was stand firm and watch. The Lord vanquished Pharaoh and his
armies, and something similar is going on in Joshua. When they were
faithful, God gave them the land as a gift.

5) Not Much Destruction of Canaanites Actually Happened: In all cases in
the book of Joshua, they really did not do what God intended, and as Judges
makes clear, they did not drive out the Canaanites.

6) “Driving Out” vs. Destruction: Relative to this last issue, the majority
approach of Deuteronomy is not annihilation, but “driving out” the
Canaanites.

7) The Issue of Corporate Identity: There was no such thing as “noncombatants”
in the ancient world. Little Canaanites were still Canaanites.
People were understood as part of a group first, and only understood as
individuals second.

8) Israel was a nation-state as well as a theocratic union. It is important to
remember that it is sometimes inevitable and necessary for nations to wage
war. People are prone to think that the wars their nation wages are just wars,
while those of other nations are not. Israel’s wars must be judged based upon
the criteria for the waging of holy war in Deuteronomy and compared with
the practice of warfare in the broader ancient Near East of the day.

I think kids understand a lot more than we give them credit for. Kids understand
consequences for bad behavior. If a kid is never punished for being a bully, why
should he ever stop? I think we use age appropriate language for children, but tell them 1) it is God’s battle, and God is always just and righteous; and 2) God
acts so that bullies can not always get away with bullying.