When I was still a young Christian, I had difficulties understanding some of the things that God commanded the Israelites to do in the Old Testament. By this, I am referring to those time when He commanded Israel to totally wipe out nations off the face of the earth. Even the Noahic Flood caused me to wonder whether there was indeed a difference in the God of the Old and New Testament. This question is continually being asked today by Christians and non-Christians alike though with different motives.
Actually, if people made the effort to carefully read the Bible in its entirety, then the only logical conclusion will be that God is unchanging and He is both the God of Love and Judgment.
Noah Flood
When God decided to destroy the entire world due their sin and the corruption of Satan, He actually gave the world 120 years to turn from their evil (Genesis 6:3) while Noah and his family did the "dumb" thing of building the gigantic ark. Can you imagine the sheer curiosity that would have been generated amongst the inhabitants on the earth to at least find out why this single family was doing? The Bible did not tell us what were the reactions of the people then but we can safely concluded that they did not believed them as no one other than Noah and his family got on the ark in the end. Was 120 years sufficient to bring a point across? I certainly believe so.
Sodom and Gomorrah
Leaving the reason why God would want to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah to another post, here we see, once again, God's compassion on mankind that He insists on giving us just one more opportunity to turn back to Him.
But before we go into that, Abraham had a interesting conversation (or bargain) with God on why He should not destroy entire cities if some good people can be found from amongst the cities. The "bargain" ended with God agreeing that He would not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if He could find 10 such persons. We now know that only Lot and his 2 daughters were rescued (Lot's wife decided that she liked Sodom better and was turned into a pillar of salt). What this incident demonstrated is that God's compassion and patience is long-suffering.
The other point to note in this incident is that he chose to send 2 angels to investigate.
"And the LORD said, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom". (Genesis 18:20-21)
Why the need to do this when God is omniscience (all knowing)? Surely, He knows that wickedness of the people in that city. The only logical reason is that God wanted to give Sodom and Gomorrah one final opportunity to turn from their evilness. This was the same approach that God took with the city of Nineveh when He sent the prophet Jonah to preach repentance.
We know that Sodom and Gomorrah failed this final test and the 2 cities were destroyed.
The Canaanite Nations
What God did to the nations of Canaan has been used by detractors ad nauseum as proof that God is sadistic and seek out to destroy all lives of these nations, women and children.
"Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. "But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)
However, these people conveniently left out God's other instructions in the verses just before the passage mentioned above:
When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. (Deuteronomy 20:10-14)
So what are we to make of this discrepancy? To answer this "mystery", we need to go back to Genesis when God spoke to Abraham and broke to him the "bad" news that his descendants will not possess the Promised Land immediately and would in fact be enslaved by the Egyptians.
God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions... Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:13-16)
The Amorites was one of the Canaan nations and God was essentially telling Abraham that He was giving the Amorites another 400 years to repent or head towards self-destruction. What did they do to warrant such a complete destruction? In Leviticus 18:1-23, God listed down the many abominations that were not to be practised by the Israelites. God then pointed out:
Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18:24-25)
Why then did God also commanded the killing of the children? I do not claim to know the answers. But I can hazard a guess that if the Canaanites were sacrificing their children to their gods, it would have been no worse off than what God has decided to do. Granted, God could have used natural disasters or plagues to destroy these nations. However He has chosen to use Israel as an instrument to carry out justice. It did not mean that Israel itself was without sin and they deserved the land. In fact,
It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people. (Deuteromony 9:5-6)
Obviously, there are many more "difficult" passages the critics can throw at the Christians but with careful study and an open mind, it will not be difficult to reconcile the perceived God of Judgment of the Old Testament and the God of Love in the New Testament.
The morale of the story? Those who love the Lord need to know the Bible really well in order to give the reason for their faith.
