Conquest: Is that pro-life?

Since we brought up Saul’s failure to completely annihilate the Amalekites in the previous post, the time has come for a look at the topic of conquest in the Bible. When God commanded the destruction of the nations that were occupying Canaan—infants and children along with grown men and women—was that a glitch in the Bible’s pro-life ethic? 

Let me say at the outset that I’m not going to attempt to explain why God, in general, allows the innocent to die. I could not answer that question any more than I could say why He allowed Bethlehem’s innocent babies and toddlers to die in Jesus’ place, or why He chose to have the sinless Son of God die for guilty sinners. Some things are not only beyond the scope of this post but also beyond our understanding (Deuteronomy 29:29; Job 42:3; Isaiah 40:13-14, 55:8-9; 1 Corinthians 2:11, 13:12). 

I’m also not going to look into it in terms of “genocide.” Others have capably done that, for instance, David M Howard, Jr. in “Destruction and Dispossession of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua.”  

Death is the result of sin. We all sin, coming short of the glory of God. For that, we all deserve death, “the wages of sin.” All who put their faith for salvation in Jesus Christ and His righteousness, will receive eternal life and escape eternal death. This needs to be said, but it is also not the topic of this post.

What we’ll try to deal with is this: when God commanded Israel to clear the Promised Land of the nations who lived there, was that murder? Was it unjust killing and, therefore, inconsistent with the Bible’s teaching on the sanctity of human life? Did His commands violate the very pro-life ethic that He had so carefully developed in the law? Were those laws meant to only preserve Israel and no one else? Does God behave differently than He expects us to behave? 

Here are a few things that shouldn’t be in dispute, and which should inform our thinking:

God is the sovereign Creator

► God is the Maker of mankind (Gen. 2:7, Acts 17:26-27). As such He maintains potter-like control over creation. He has the right and the power to do as He wills with individuals and nations (Isaiah 64:8; 1 Samuel 2:6; Psalm 24:1, 82:8, 104:29-30). Of course, much more could be said about this topic.

God is all-powerful

► As powerful as He is, it is not impossible or unusual for God to limit His indignation and wrath to a single individual, as with Ahab in 1 Kings 22:34-35 or Herod in Acts 12:23. But nations too are very little compared to Him (Is. 40:15-17). 

When God expands His range of retribution from an individual to a larger group, is it an occasion for potential error? Might innocent people might get accidentally swept awy in a battle or supernatural disaster? The assumption is that the killing of individuals would be more just than the wiping out of nations, but is it?

God is the righteous Judge

God makes no errors in judgment (Ps. 9:7-8, 67:4). He is precise. Abraham depended on this, saying in Genesis 18:25: “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”

► Indeed, God was able to pluck one man (Lot) and his family from Sodom before fire began falling from the sky, just as he’d been able to sustain Noah and his family through the worldwide flood. So it’s not surprising that He was also able to preserve one woman (Rahab) and her family from destruction as Jericho’s wall was collapsing around her home.

This point is key to our discussion. Within the sweeping catastrophes that He sends as punishment, God is fully capable of protecting or rescuing anyone He deems “not guilty.” His wrath is not only restrained but also carried out with pinpoint precision. Nothing is too difficult for God (Jeremiah 32:17-19).

His wrath is not like our own. Our propensity is to lash out uncontrollably, without regard for the harm it might cause to innocent bystanders. This is why man’s anger does not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1:20).

► As righteous Judge, and even though He doesn’t have to, God’s word provides us—His creatures—with justification for His acts of judicial killing. Why does He do this? I believe it’s because we are creatures made in His image. He wants to reveal Himself and His reasoning to us. Thus, He lays out detailed indictments against the guilty before issuing sentences. 

• For example, 120 years before it happened, God justified the great, universal flood to Noah (Genesis 6:13). 
• He laid the basis for what would happen in the conquest of Canaan to Abram in Genesis 15:16. The inhabitants of the land would have 400+ years of grace before destruction.
• Before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, He informed Abraham and Lot that the time was up for these two wicked cities (Gen. 18:20-21, 19:12-17).
• Before the conquest was set to begin, God gave Israel divine legal authorization for acts of total annihilation (Leviticus 27:28-29, Deuteronomy 20:16-18). One justification was the nations' practice of child sacrifice. They were guilty of all the abominations listed in Leviticus 18, which God particularly wanted Israel to avoid and for which His own people would receive the death penalty.
• Micah 6 and Isaiah 1 are severe indictments against God’s people, Israel, and justification for their going into exile. God’s justice will not allow His people to continue doing the very things for which the Canaanites had been removed! 
• The book of Amos is one big indictment against Israel and other nations. Large portions of Isaiah (13-23), Jeremiah (46-51), and Ezekiel (25-32) are taken up with indictments against Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Elam, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, Babylon, Assyria, and others.
• God sent Jonah to preach a message of grace to Assyria prior to its destruction. Why? Because there were 120,000 persons who did not know their right from left hands (Jonah 4:11).
• Matthew 23 is Jesus’ indictment against the religious leaders of His day.

In wrath He remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3:2), yet God’s indictments are true and irrefutable. In contrast, Satan only brings false accusations to God against His people (Job 1:6-12, Zechariah 3:1-2, Revelation 12:10). Jesus Himself is the Defense Attorney for all who have taken refuge in Him (Romans 8:33-34; 1 John 2:1).

One more example: See Ezekiel 9:1-11. During the time of Israel’s exile, God showed the prophet six men (angels?) who would carry out His judgment. The city’s iniquity  was “very, very great.” The land was filled with blood (unjust killing… murder) and perversion. 

One of the men would scour Jerusalem for anyone who sighed and groaned over the wickedness of Jerusalem; he would mark their foreheads. The other men would slay anyone not having the mark—whether they be “old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women.” God expected even little children to feel as He does about sin! It appears that Ezekiel was the only one who earned a mark.

This is not the only time in scripture that a mark on a forehead singled out a person for protection. Remember Cain? But think also of Revelation 9:4 where locusts will be sent to torment men, but not anyone with “the seal of God on their foreheads.” Similarly, God marks out and reserves certain men for destruction (Jude 4-8, 1 Peter 2:8, and 2 Peter 3:7). Thus we see that God has an organized, efficient record-keeping system that mere mortals can’t begin to comprehend or match.

God uses righteous means to carry out righteous judgment

God used hornets to drive out the occupants of the land promised to Israel (Exodus 23:23-33). He also used storms and various sounds. He cast armies into confusion and they killed themselves! Even when He used the people of Israel, it was miraculous because they were outnumbered and inexperienced in battle. This tells us that, whatever means God used in the conquest of the Promised Land, they were supernatural and effective.

But Habakkuk 1:13 raised the question, is it fair or right for God to use imperfect people to execute His judgment on the wicked? Does Nation A have the right to obliterate Nation B even though Nation A has obvious sins of its own? 

► It is not the virtue of the conquering nation that provides justice, but the righteousness of God. This is an important distinction. He has higher purposes in mind beyond the nations in question. 

Assyria and Babylon were not only much larger and stronger than Israel, but also much more wicked. God would not be just if He had allowed Israel to go on in their wickedness. His name and His glory were at stake.

As God’s chosen nation, Israel was the beneficiary of His unconditional covenant with Abraham. They were given the Law and Prophets. They witnessed many miracles. Because of these things, Israel was held to a higher standard than other nations. 

It was particularly galling for YHWH to see His covenant people commit the same sins for which He had removed Canaanites from the Promised Land. Israel had to be severely punished. Yet, because of the covenant, God would not completely wipe them out. He would be true to His word and leave a remnant. He was perfectly capable of pinpointing which Israelites would be in the remnant.

But as God utilizes nations in carrying out His will, He also holds them to account. Babylon would answer for conducting themselves with such glee in conquest (Hab. 1:9-11). Edom would face punishment for gloating over Judah's fall (Obadiah 10-11). Nations would be held accountable for their treatment of each other, not just Israel (Amos 2:1). So God is keeping close tabs. No nation’s actions go unnoticed or unaddressed by Him.

“The Lord knows those who are His” —2 Timothy 2:19

Paul assures that no person whom God has redeemed will be lost to the vagaries of global conquest or catastrophe. He brought this teaching into the New Testament from Numbers 16. In that account, the faithful were called upon to stand apart from the doomed so as to protect themselves. 

Ultimately, we rely on God’s mercy in the atonement. Aaron stood between the living and the dead to halt the plague; Jesus now stands in that position. We’re all as rebellious as Koreh, guilty and worthy of death, but we can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ—who gave His life to die in our place and was raised again victorious over death.

Next: Pro-life virtues in Psalms 8, 9 and 10

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Related posts: 
Is God pro-life?
Earth was filled with violence

Image credit: Sodom and Gomorrah, by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937), circa 1920, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Ossawa_Tanner_-_Sodom_and_Gomorrha.jpg. Tanner was the first African American artist to achieve international recognition.