Dear Prof, in the Old Testament there are lots of accounts of God condoning mass murders and wiping out whole tribes of people. Doesn’t this contradict the Ten Commandments and why does God suddenly change his mind about that in the New Testament?
The Prof. responds:
I remember a teenager summing up the Bible in one sentence: ‘The Old Testament is what God was like before he became a Christian!’ This is a dualistic approach that drives a wedge between the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). Christians often ignore the OT as an awkward extra and stick to pocket Bibles with the ‘nice’ bits. So without ducking the difficult bits, how can we reconcile the OT episodes of violence with Jesus and the NT? Three principles for interpreting the Bible can help.
1. The Context: ‘If you take a text out of context, you are left with a con!’ Passages that condone military aggression are in the context of God giving Israel the promised land (Canaan). His purpose is that Israel may have a base, from which to be a blessing to all nations (Gen. 12:1-3). In driving out the Canaanites, God is not against their ethnic race (genocide) but their evil religion – including brutality, cultic prostitution and even child sacrifice. Israel is called to enact God’s judgment by eradicating evil in order that she can be a holy nation bringing light to all nations. This occurs in a cultural context where land was contested by nomadic peoples without clear national borders. Fighting for land to establish your people group was the ‘norm’ for that era. Given this context, God is not sanctioning ‘murder’ (unlawful killing). The sixth commandment is more about individual ethics than foreign policy.
2. The Covenant: ‘What is physical in the OT is often spiritual in the NT’ The new covenant causes a paradigm shift regarding warfare: ‘For our fight is not against flesh and blood but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm’ (Eph. 6:12). The difference between the OT and NT is not that God has changed but the covenant has changed. As Jesus puts the sword back in the scabbard and yells ‘No more of this!’ (Luke 22:51) he signals an end to the old covenant’s physical kingdom established by the sword and the arrival of a spiritual kingdom. So it is never appropriate in the new covenant to take up arms for the cause of Christ– for your country maybe, but never for God’s kingdom. However, as God has not changed, these OT passages still function as a warning (Heb. 4:1-3). God still hates evil and will condemn the guilty without mercy if they refuse to repent. Though he is slow to anger, his patience should not be interpreted as softness (2 Peter 3:9-10). If the promised land was to be a type-of-heaven offering hope to this world, the destruction of the evil inhabitants is a type-of-hell offering a warning. ‘Behold, the goodness and the severity of God’ (Rom. 11:22).
3. The Crucified Christ: ‘The OT must be interpreted in the light of Jesus’ Perhaps the hardest passage in the Bible is the sanctioned death of children as part of OT warfare (1 Samuel 15:2-3). We should be slow to iron out these wrinkles with simplistic explanations. The historic distance between them and us must not deafen their cries – these were real people. The Bible itself has not edited out all the nasty bits in a desperate and insecure PR campaign. Instead these passages are left untouched and now leave a bitter taste. The only place to go with it is to the foot of the cross. Here God has again sanctioned violence – only this time against his own son. Here the willing Son of God is on the wrong side of evil – he bleeds and dies not only for the Israelites but also for the Canaanites… and for us. He drinks the cup of judgement so that all nations may drink the cup of salvation. The OT and NT are only reconciled at the cross of Christ where ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son’.
Further reading:Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the OT by Paul Copan (Baker Books: 2011).
Andrew Ollerton is Vice-Principal of the Centre for Missional Leadership (Watford) www.lst.ac.uk/cml and author of The Bible Course – an eight session interactive journey through the Bible. contact@thebiblecourse.org.uk.
What to say to the young person: God doesn’t change - he doesn’t have a testimony of moral transformation. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is the same as the OT (Heb 13:8 ). So accounts of aggressive force used by Israel do not contradict God. But they may challenge our soft and sentimental ideas. God really loves righteousness – so Israel is used to judge the wickedness of other nations. He is the untameable one whose purpose will prevail. Our job is not to tidy him up but to trust him. God is not safe - ask the Canaanites (OT), or Ananias and Saphira (NT) - but he is good and his love endures forever!
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