Sanctioned Killings - God Will Surely Come To Your Aid

Some people distrust God because they object to the killings in the Bible that he either initiated directly or ordered the Israelites to carry out.

They cannot conceive how a loving God could tolerate, let alone authorize, such brutality, especially when the victims included innocent children.

God sanctioned these killings to ensure the success of his salvation plan and to punish individual and corporate sins.

He gave the victims fair warning of his impending judgment and ample opportunity to avoid it by repenting.

Murder Prohibition

God issued ten universal commandments as the Israelites journeyed from Egypt to their promised homeland. One of them prohibited murder, but not all killing.

Murder is the unlawful, premeditated killing of one person by another. It is widely regarded as the supreme expression of evil.

God is internally consistent. He could not prohibit murder in general and then turn around and ordain it at opportune times.

God is also inherently righteous. He can only do good things. He cannot initiate evil.

Therefore, we must conclude that the killings God sanctioned in the Bible were not murder but justifiable homicides.

Justifiable Homicides

Justifiable homicides are lawful killings.

Examples include self-defense against attackers threatening bodily harm, safeguarding property against intruders intent on committing felonious damage, defending others under deadly attack, specific law enforcement actions when the lives of officers or the public are endangered, state-administered executions as just punishment for serious crimes, and authorized military combat.

God, the supreme arbiter of right and wrong, determined that the killings he ordained in the Bible fell into one of these categories.

Individual Killings

God directly killed several individuals in the Old Testament and two in the New Testament for their personal sins.

Old Testament examples include:

Two adult sons of Judah, one of the twelve Israelite patriarchs. One for a specific act of disobedience, and the other for his overall wickedness.
Two adult sons of Aaron, the first high priest of Israel. These men, both priests, offered a sacrifice that violated God’s mandatory protocol.
Three malcontents who incited a rebellion against Moses and Aaron as the Israelites traveled from Egypt to their promised homeland.

In the New Testament, God killed a husband and wife for lying about the amount of money they donated to the early church.

Firsthand Knowledge

These individuals would have avoided their fate had they meekly adhered to what they knew firsthand.

The Old Testament men had witnessed the ten plagues in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. They followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They knew the Mosaic Laws.

If they had walked in harmony with God in response to this knowledge, they would have avoided punishment. Instead, they dismissed their lived experience and did as they pleased.

The New Testament couple knew at least one of Jesus’ apostles personally, if not all of them. They heard him preach and may even have witnessed the miracles he performed. They watched the early church grow explosively.

They would have avoided their fate had they taken all this to heart and cultivated an intimate relationship with God rather than a superficial one. Instead, they deceitfully sought the acclaim of their fellow church members for their feigned generosity.

Mass Killings

God carried out or authorized mass killings in the Old Testament to punish wickedness and to ensure the success of his salvation plan.

Here are a few examples:

In the great flood, God drowned every person on earth, including children, except Noah’s family, who were safely housed in the ark.
He killed the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, including children, by raining fire and brimstone on these city-states.
To convince Pharaoh to release the enslaved Israelites from captivity, God killed the firstborn male in every Egyptian household.
Upon returning to their promised homeland, God instructed the Israelites to kill every resident of the Canaanite city-states they conquered, including children.
He inspired Samson to kill thirty Philistine men.
God commanded King Saul to eradicate a nearby Canaanite tribe, the Amalekites, including their infants and livestock.

Covenant Context

The righteousness of these mass killings becomes clear when considered in the context of God’s covenants, the ample warnings he gave to those who died, and his willingness to change course if they repented.

Adamic Covenant. God established a covenant, or pact, with Adam before he and Eve first sinned.

He promised that they and their descendants would enjoy eternal bliss if they refrained from eating the forbidden fruit.

Unfortunately, they did not fulfill their end of this bargain.

In response to their disobedience, God initiated a salvation plan that would nevertheless fulfill the pact he made with Adam.

He would redeem humanity by accepting the eventual death of Jesus as the universal atonement for all sin.

He stipulated that individuals who humbly complied with what they knew about his salvation plan would qualify for the eternal bliss he promised Adam.

Abrahamic Covenant. God later established a pact with Abraham that expanded on the one he made with Adam.

He vowed that Abraham would be the progenitor of a great nation that would inhabit a territory along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. He also pledged to redeem humanity through one of Abraham’s distant descendants, namely Jesus.

Abraham’s offspring through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, the Israelites, transformed from a small clan into a large nation during their four hundred years of Egyptian captivity.

Mosaic Covenant. After enabling the Israelites to escape from Egypt and cross the Red Sea, God promised Moses that he would bless them if they obeyed him and curse them if they disobeyed.

Davidic Covenant. God promised King David that his kingdom would endure forever, meaning that Jesus, the coming Messiah, would be his descendant, in human terms.

Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, was a distant blood relative of King David.

Salvation Plan

God effectively proclaimed in these four covenants that the Israelites, their promised homeland, and their devotion to him were essential to his salvation plan.

He said, in essence, that these prerequisites had to be in place before Jesus could come to earth to atone for sin.

The mass killings God sanctioned in the Old Testament ensured that these preconditions were met.

The Big Flood. God drowned everyone on earth because he deemed all humanity wicked and corrupt, except for Noah, a righteous preacher.pt, except for Noah, a righteous preacher.

God repopulated the world with Noah’s offspring so that the faithfulness and obedience he had shown in building the ark would inspire a similar level of righteousness in future generations.

Sodom and Gomorrah. God showered the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone after their immorality endangered a man named Lot and his angelic houseguests.

Lot and his children escaped this devastation, but his wife did not, due to her last-minute disobedience.

God killed the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah not only to quash their wickedness but also to protect the bloodline of Jesus, humanly speaking.

Lot was King David’s forefather. Killing his menacing attackers ensured the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant.

Egyptian Males. God killed the firstborn Egyptian sons only after Pharaoh ignored the first nine plagues and refused to release the Israelites from captivity.

He slew these men and boys because the Israelites needed to return to their promised homeland to set the stage for the earthly life of Jesus.

Canaanite Cities. The homeland God promised the Israelites was not deserted when they arrived.

Instead, it was occupied by independent city-states, each populated by warring tribes unwilling to surrender their territories. They needed to be vanquished.

These tribes also worshipped a pantheon of deities. Their rituals included elaborate ceremonies, animal sacrifices, temple prostitution, and human sacrifice.

God instructed the Israelites to kill everyone in these city-states to both seize their territories and prevent his people from straying spiritually.

He knew the Israelites would be inclined to assimilate the idolatry practiced by these tribes unless it was eradicated.

Unfortunately, the Israelites failed to fully follow God’s instructions, resulting in chronic wars with these city-states and dalliances with their pagan deities.

Samson. God ordained Samson before his birth to free the Israelites from the barbarism of a violent, pagan, neighboring tribe, the Philistines.

As an adult, Samson publicly broke his vow of consecration to God and was only sporadically faithful in fulfilling his sacred duty.

However, in a fit of rage at his wedding feast, he killed thirty deceitful Philistine men after losing a foolish bet to them.

God prompted Samson to act out his anger in a way that fulfilled his divine destiny.

Amalekites. The Amalekites, a violent Canaanite tribe, frequently raided the Israelites’ territory.

They also practiced sorcery and observed other pagan traditions common to the region.

God ordered King Saul to kill the entire population to ensure that the Israelites not only survived as a people but also remained devoted to him.

Unfortunately, King Saul failed to fully comply with this order, leading to persistent problems for the Israelites in the years that followed.

Territorial, Not Genocidal

Some critics contend that these mass killings constituted genocide, but this is untrue.

Genocide is the deliberate destruction of an entire racial, ethnic, religious, or national group.

In unleashing the great flood, God condemned all humanity to death for its corporate sinfulness, not specific multitudes because of their bloodlines or nationalities.

He did not kill every living Egyptian, only the firstborn males. He intended to secure the Israelites’ freedom, not wipe out an entire population.

God ordered the Israelites to kill everyone living within the boundaries of the city-states they conquered, but he did not instruct them to pursue and kill those who had fled to safety.

The Bible records several instances in which God spared individual Canaanites who chose to worship him and city-states that submitted to Israelite rule.

These outcomes demonstrate that his goals were territorial, not genocidal.

Ample Warning

God forewarned the victims of these mass killings and gave them ample time to avoid their fate by repenting.

Noah spent more than fifty years building the ark. The folks who listened to him preach righteousness or visited his construction site and heard his warnings about the coming flood had decades to begin walking in harmony with God before the rains fell.

The leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah knew they needed to repent because Abraham had witnessed to them about his relationship with God after rescuing them from the clutches of the nearby militant city-states. They disregarded his testimony.

Pharaoh had weeks, if not months, to save the firstborn Egyptian males by releasing the Israelites. He spoke with Moses before and after the first nine plagues and witnessed the devastation they caused before the final plague struck.

The residents of the Canaanite city-states, informed by merchants traveling along nearby trade routes, were aware of the Israelites’ miraculous escape from Egypt long before the Israelites arrived. They had forty years to repent while the Israelites wandered in the desert.

The Philistines and Amalekites also knew the Israelites’ history and saw them conquer nearby city-states and prosper for centuries before Samson and Saul came on the scene. They had more than enough time to repent.

Last Resort

God never wants to condemn anyone to death. He would rather that everyone comply with his salvation plan so they could live with him in heaven forever.

He is also omniscient and unconstrained by time. He sees all the immediate and ultimate ramifications of every possibility at once.

God ordained these mass killings as a last resort after weighing the outcomes of every other possible course of action.

They were neither his first choice nor his ideal alternative, yet in his infinite wisdom, he considered them his best option.

Divine Amenability

That God would have preferred to avoid these mass killings is evidenced by Abraham’s negotiation with him over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Upon learning of the impending destruction of these two city-states, Abraham asked God to spare them if he could identify fifty righteous residents living there.

After God agreed to this condition, Abraham bargained with him several more times until he agreed to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if he found only ten godly inhabitants.

Unfortunately, he did not.

God would likewise have spared the flood victims and Canaanite casualties if sufficient numbers of each population had repented. He would have also spared the firstborn Egyptian males if the Pharaoh had released the Israelites.

Fair Questions

What about the people who were unaware of Noah and the ark because they lived far away and never met any traveling merchants who could have briefed them? It seems unfair for God to drown them.

Everyone alive at the time of the flood had the same opportunity to repent of their sins, regardless of their location.

The people living far from Noah knew of God’s existence through his natural revelation and of his moral superiority through their consciences.

Plus, many of them were only a generation or two removed from Adam’s time on earth. Their elders may even have known him personally.

Consequently, Adam’s interactions with God and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, along with the lessons he learned about obedience and repentance, were likely part of their oral tradition, as they were for the Israelites.

As he does with unbelievers today, God enlightened these people about his mercy and forgiveness at critical junctures, in hopes of prompting their repentance.

Those who responded affirmatively to his entreaties still died in the great flood, like their unrepentant neighbors, but unlike them, they inherited eternal life upon their deaths.

What about the innocent children who drowned in the great flood or perished when the Israelites conquered the Canaanite city-states where they lived? It seems unfair for God to ordain their deaths.

Unfortunately, children often suffer the consequences of parental sins.

Today, some are killed in car accidents because a parent was drunk while driving. Others die because of parental neglect or abuse.

Scripture indicates that the children killed in these ancient cataclysms, who were too young to comprehend God’s salvation plan, were immediately ushered into heaven upon their deaths.

The older children who understood it had the same opportunity to repent of their sins as the adults did.

Were people forever doomed once the rains began, the fire and brimstone fell, or the Israelites invaded? Or could they still qualify for heaven in their final hours?

Everyone who died in one of these calamities could still repent right up until their last breath and enter heaven upon their demise.

The thief who asked Jesus for mercy while hanging on the cross next to him illustrates this truth. Jesus assured him that he would enter paradise upon his death.

God likewise welcomed into heaven the victims of these mass-casualty events who, at the last minute, confessed their sins and asked him for mercy.

Pivotal Point

The killings God sanctioned raise questions about his character because we would like to think that his love for humanity dictates all that he does.

However, God’s character is multifaceted and symmetrical. His many attributes coexist harmoniously in a state of balance and parity, without friction or tension.

This means that his justice compels him to punish us for our sins just as much as his love compels him to extend grace to us.

It means that his judgment of our unrighteousness is equally informed by his compassion, forbearance, patience, kindness, and mercy.

He leaves it up to us to determine which direction he ultimately pivots.

God told Adam in the Garden of Eden that the penalty for sin would be eternal death, and he has never renounced that statement.

This is why Jesus came to earth to die on the cross. His atoning sacrifice paid the penalty for all humanity’s sins so that God could lawfully offer us eternal life.

Our acceptance or rejection of this atonement determines whether he grants us a free pass to heaven upon our death or requires us to pay the penalty for our sins ourselves.