Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Can A Good God Command War? | Torah | Numbers 21:1-3, 21-35

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Is war ever moral? Does God commit genocide in the Old Testament? How should you respond to holy war in the Bible? In today's episode, Patrick talks through Numbers 21:1-3, 21-35 to answer questions you may have about God's justice and war in the Bible. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Numbers 21:1-3, 21-35

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. If you follow the news, you probably saw the story of Salman Rushdie. He's an author. He wrote a book called The Satanic Verses, which critiqued Islam. And as a result of publishing that, in 1989, the Iranian Supreme Leader at the time issued what's called a Fatwa. It's essentially a call for assassination. And he said that he would pay anyone who assassinated Salman Rushdie three million dollars for their work. As a result, Rushdie spent the rest of his life in hiding. Until recently, he was speaking at the Chautauqua Institute in Western New York, and someone rushed the stage,

and they stabbed Salman Rushdie, obviously with the intent to kill him. He didn't die. He was lifelighted and was in critical condition and is still doing, I don't think, very well. But I bring up the story for a specific reason. Because if you're a Christian and he talked to those who are skeptical of the faith, they will often say that this kind of story, it's a story. It's a found in the Old Testament. Jihad, the call to go to war, holy war, it's found in the Old Testament. They would point to these circumstances that we're about to look at in the book of numbers when the Israelites were commanded by God to go to war and to completely destroy their enemies who were living in the land of Canaan. And so it's a really important question because you have

to ask, can a good God command war? Can a good God command the extermination of an entire people group? I mean, isn't that genocide? Can a good God command the destruction of non-combatants? Is the God of the Old Testament just a bloodthirsty monster? Is he immoral? And really, what's the difference between this and a fatwa? This and a jihad. Isn't this genocide? These questions led, especially in the wake of 9-11, many new atheists to go on the offensive against Christianity. Richard Dawkins, he described the God of the Bible like this. He said that he is a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser, genocidal, capriciously malevolent bully. Is that true? Is that the God of the Old Testament? It's a question that I think a serious Christian has to wrestle with. And in Numbers 21, we read one of the

first stories of Israel going to war with the Canaanites. Specifically, the Canaanites living in the region of the Negev. This is the southern portion of Israel. So I'll just pick up in Numbers chapter 21, verse one when the canaanite king of arad who lived in the ngev heard that israel was coming along the road to atheorum he attacked the israelites and captured some of them then israel made this vow to yahweh if you will deliver these people into our hands we will totally destroy their cities yahweh listened to israel's plea and gave the canaanites over to them they completely destroyed them in their towns and so the place was named horma as the chapter goes on we read of other attacks that happened. They attack two kings, Syhon and Og, and they completely destroy the people associated with them. And again, it begs a question, can a good God allow this? Can a good God even

command this? Now, as Christians have tried to answer this question, there have been a number of unhelpful answers. For example, there are some scholars who want to say that these events didn't even happen. They question the historicity of the Old Testament, and they say that these stories were more projections on the past than real past realities. And so, of course, God would not actually command people to go to Holy War. And he never did because these things never happened. Now, I have a problem with this because it's very clear that Genesis through Deuteronomy are real, true, reliable history. God did command these things and we have to wrestle with them. We can't just write it off and say, oh, well, that never happened. Another angle that I hear that I think is unhelpful is this. People will say,

well, look, that was the God of the Old Testament. But we were, worship the God of the New Testament. The God of the New Testament doesn't command holy war. He tells us to love our enemies. The way that Christianity spreads isn't by destruction and violence. It's by persuasion and love. And while there's half truths in all these statements, it doesn't give you the full answer. Because the truth is this.

The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. There's not two different gods in the Bible. And God didn't do an about face in the New Testament and say, hey, the way I was back then or the way I did things back then, well, I've really thought hard about that, and I've decided I've turned over a new leave. I'm going to do things differently. No, he's the same God. He is exactly the same God. And if we want to understand why these events happened, we have to take him on his own terms. He hasn't changed. He is the same. So how do we respond to Holy War in the Bible? How do we respond to God's command to destroy the Canaanites? Well, I don't think that there's a single answer to this. So I want to look at this,

a few different angles. And the first one is this. I'd call it the geographical angle. You see, if you read the text carefully, it will become evident, absolutely clear that Holy War is only appropriate within a specific geographical space. In fact, later in the Old Testament, God critiques the Israelites for trying to take land that's not theirs. Now, this begins to make sense when you understand that God sees himself as the superintendent of history. He is sovereign over all nations. And there's this sense in which he's given different plots of land to different people groups. And he had given the land of Canaan to Israel all the way back in the time of Abraham,

when he made his covenant with Abraham and he said, I'm going to give this land to you and your descendants. That doesn't mean that they have the right to spread that holy war outside of the land. In fact, quite the opposite. This is the one space that God has given to them. And so when they go into the land, he is giving Israel what he's committed to them. He is giving to Israel what is rightfully theirs. Here's a second angle.

I like to call this the holy distinction angle. It's kind of fun, isn't it? Here's what I mean. There's a reason why God calls the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites, and it's this. Because he wanted them to be a light and salt in the world. He wanted them to live distinctively, to have a distinctive morality, to have distinctive worship, to have a distinctive vocation and calling in the world. And he understood that if they came into the land and they saw the idol worship that was happening there, they would be tempted to worship those idols too. They would give up on the distinctive morality that God had called them to. They would give up on the distinctive worship that God had called them to. And to give

Israel a fresh start, he had to remove the Canaanites from the land. Here's a third angle. I like to call this one the justice angle. You see, Yahweh truly is the judge of the universe. In the end, God is going to hold all people accountable, all nations accountable for their actions. And there are times in history where God takes that end times justice, what he will do at the end and he brings those things into the present. Now, that's not up to us to do. We don't get to say, hey, I'm bringing God's justice today. God's the only one who gets to say that. And so when he commands the Israelites to execute justice against the Canaanites,

it's because he's God and he is the judge. He can be trusted to do the right thing. Now, you might be thinking, but how is that justice to destroy people? And what you have to understand is that Canaanite culture was incredibly corrupt. Just ask yourself, how would you respond to a society like this? A society that devalued children so much that they sacrifice children to their eyes. How would you respond to a society that had completely normalized sex slavery? If you were a little girl born in a family and your family didn't have wealth, they could sell you to the local temple where you could be

abused and used by men over and over and over and over again. What would you say about a society that normalizes sexual abuse and the poor treatment of children? Well, I think what you would say is there needs to be justice. Something has to be done here to set things right. And that was exactly the kind of culture that was prevalent in Canaan. And so when God sends his people in to destroy the Canaanites, he is executing justice on them for generations and generations and generations of child abuse and sex abuse. This is real justice. No, I want to say this.

God is patient. In Genesis 156, he tells Abraham, you can't come into the land yet. And when Abraham's kind of like, well, why not? He says, because the sins of the Amirites have not been filled up. He's saying, look, I'm being patient with these people. I want to give them an opportunity to repent. And in fact, God gives them hundreds of more years to turn away from their evil ways, but they don't turn away. Their sins fill up.

And finally, God says, I have to execute justice on these societies. Okay, here's another angle. I call this one the rhetorical angle. I like how these all kind of sound academic, right? Okay, so here's what I mean. In the ancient Near East, there was a particular kind of literature that was written around warfare. And in this literature, hyperbole was frequently used. You would exaggerate your victory.

You'd exaggerate the amount of people who were in the war. You'd exaggerate how totalizing the war was. In the literature we read and the Old Testament fits into that ancient genre. Now, that doesn't mean that the Bible is misleading. It means that people in that day and age, when they read the story of a war, they knew how to read it. They understood that there was going to be hyperbole. They knew that you'd kind of have to dial it back to get to the real authentic story. And so when we read these passages that talk about total war, we should,

No, that that's hyperboizing. It wasn't as total as we think. And by the way, we know this for a fact. How do we know it? Well, we have the story of Rahab. There's a Canaanite who was rescued for trusting in Yahweh. We know from future stories weren't totally destroyed because they're still living in the land and they're still worshipping some of their idols. And so while God's commands might sound totalizing, these stories might sound totalizing, part of that's just rhetoric. It's not as totalizing as it sounds. Here's another one. I'd like to call this one the chronological angle. Historically, this kind of holy war, it takes place largely within a single generation. This is not a lifetime calling for Israel. God calls those who are with Joshua to go and to conquer the land. That is a short-term period where they're called to do this. And that matters because later, wars that are not called for by God are condemned. They're condemned unequivocally. When God calls you to go to war, you go to war, but not outside of this.

This was a single time period. Another angle would be the limited warfare. angle. And it's just to say this, if you read through Deuteronomy, God really limited the way that Israel could execute its wars. Back in the day, it was kind of a scorched earth approach to warfare. You did whatever you had to do to win, but God doesn't allow that. He doesn't allow the Israelites to destroy forest in their desire to do warfare. He doesn't allow them to do whatever they want to to their prisoners. There are limits that God puts on warfare for Israel. Okay, one last angle. This is a big fancy theological word, so stick with me. I call this one the eschatological justice angle. Here's what I mean.

Eschatological, fancy word, it simply means end times or what's going to happen at the very end. And what I mean when I say this is that the justice that God executes against the Canaanites points forward to a future justice, to the time when God will hold all people accountable. And so there's a real sense in which this passage is a warning to all humanity. If you don't repent, if you don't turn to God, you will be under judgment for your sin. So I know this is a big mouthful, but let's just try to revisit all those together. The geographical angle, this is a limited war in a limited space. The chronological angle, this is a limited war in a limited time frame.

The holy distinction angle. God has a calling for Israel to be salt and light, and they can't do that if they're worshipping the gods of the Canaanites. The justice angle. Look, this was a corrupt culture that needed to be held accountable. for its abuse of children and its sexual abuse of little girls and little boys. The eschatological justice angle. God will one day hold all people accountable.

And this story points forward to that fact. The rhetorical angle. Look, it sounds totalizing, but we know that ancient Near Eastern warfare literature was often hyperboizing. And this text is no exception. So I'm giving you all these things just to help you think through. How do we respond to the questions about Holy War? Let me close with some common objections questions. First of all is this, should we compare the Holy War in numbers and Deuteronomy and Joshua? Is it comparable to jihad? I'd argue that if you think about it from the geographical and chronological angles, it can't be. Jihad has no limits. There are no geographical limits. There are no chronological limits. But the Canaanite wars were waged by a specific people against a specific people at a specific time and a specific place. This is not a universal way.

for Israel to spread the news of Yahweh. This is a one-time thing that happened in history. And so it's not like jihad. This is not how the kingdom spreads in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. How about this? Can a good God command total war and the killing of non-combatants? And to answer this question, I would go back to the rhetorical and holy distinction angles. Look, here's the deal. From the rhetorical angle, we might point out that this war wasn't as total as the text often suggests. Using the holy distinction angle, we can highlight God's desire to preserve the holiness of his people. The presence of idolaters in the land of Israel would threaten Israel's loyalty and vocation. They're calling to represent Yahweh to the world. Now, I know all these examples might not be convincing to everyone,

but if we want to understand what happened in the Book of Numbers in Deuteronomy and later on in Joshua, we have to understand it on its own terms. God is a good God. God is a patient God. God is a loving God. And yet, because he loves, he must execute justice. Because he loves, he must act when children are being abused. When there is sexual abuse of minors, he has to do something about that. And he has to do it with all of us because we are all sinners before him. We have all rejected him. We have all redefined good and evil. And as a result of that, we are all under God's justice. We are all just like the Canaanites. And so in that sense, this story does point us forward. Because if justice is God's only answer to sin, we're all in trouble. We're all under his justice.

And yet we know that that's not the ultimate answer. The ultimate answer was Jesus dying on a cross. He took the justice of God in our place. He died the death that we deserved. He put himself in the place of the Canaanites, in the place of you and me, so that we wouldn't have to face that justice. And so as we read these stories, we must be reminded that we do worship a just God and that he has executed justice, but he has graciously done it on his own son rather than you and me. And so now we, just like the Israelites, are called to set aside our idols to live holy lives before him, to follow him in our vocation wherever we're at, to be salt and light in the world.

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