In a short debate I posted a few days ago, the late Christopher Hitchens attacks God, the Old Testament, and Christianity by saying, "There is no commandment saying that parents are to be nice to their children. Why is this? Because in the next chapter, the so-called children of this terrifying God, who exacts compulsory love, are going to be ordered to commit genocide against the Amalekites and the Midianites and the Moabites."
A few errors stuck out in Hitchens's statement. I'm going to skip his part about being nice to children, because that's not the point of my post, so, one, God did not order this judgment in the very next chapter after the ten commandments, either Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. Two, He didn't order the annihilation of any of those three groups in either Exodus or Deuteronomy, where He gives the ten commandments. God ordered the protection of the Moabites, who were not in the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 2:9, God said, "Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle." Hitchens was doing what might be called, blowing smoke. That can be seen in a lot of what he says that doesn't correspond to the Bible. He's making it up and then counting on people not knowing what scripture says.
Genocide is a loaded word. Men came along to originate the word and the concept. There is an ethnic or racial component in the invention of the word. The idea is that a particular race deserved annihilation, complete eradication, as when the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews, just because they were Jews. Genocide necessitates a racial or ethnic component. Hitchens applies this man-made word to God to position God under the judgment of man, as if God is a criminal under the trial of utterly sinful men such as Hitchens. While Hitchens breathes God's air and eats His food and exists only by God's power, He uses those gifts to insult and blaspheme God. He's not the only one. Billions do the same every day.
If you read the Old Testament, the reasoning behind the destruction of the Canaanites was not because of their race. God doesn't have a problem with any race. Race isn't even a thing in scripture. God saved and blessed Rahab. He saved and blessed Ruth. He exalted the Queen of Sheba. God ordered Jonah to Nineveh to preach repentance to the Assyrians, because He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11).
God's destruction was because of unrepentant behavior. God also has unique knowledge. He knows whether a particular people are even redeemable, even as seen in His own destruction of everyone on earth between Genesis 6 and 9 with a worldwide flood.
Everyone is going to die, based upon the righteous judgment of God. When people die can relate to what they believe and practice. They may die earlier. If they are not going to stop believing and practicing a certain way, based on God's purpose, He will penalize them with the death earlier than what they could have died. This all relates to the purpose of God's creation. He is God. God didn't have to create men in the first place. He gives men an opportunity for eternal life and blessing, despite man's rebellion against God. Hitchens wouldn't do the same, if he were God.
The purpose of the eradication of certain groups by God, different than their punishment, according to God is because of their influence on His people. He wants His people committed to the same belief and practice He is committed to, and this is seen in Israel's participation in the destruction of those people. God's people should associate with Him in judgment.
God will destroy people to fulfill His purpose. We live in a society today that tolerates what God is against, and what's worse to almost all of them, especially the young people, is when someone is rejected or punished for believing and doing something different than what God says. It's the worst sort of self-righteousness, exalting itself above God. It's what Paul says in Romans 10:1-3, when he says they establish their own righteousness and do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God.
Consider God's reasoning in Deuteronomy 7:2-4:
2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
Then read how God puts it later in Deuteronomy 20:16-18:
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: 17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: 18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.
It's worth it for God to have these people killed so that they will not be a bad influence on His people. It is the ultimate in separation. That is how serious God is about His people doing what He has taught them to do.
God is so serious about separation, that we know that one reason He killed everyone on earth with a flood was to separate them from Noah and his family. That was what Peter meant by "saved by water" (1 Peter 3:20). Noah and his family were saved from the world. Eternal life itself is being saved from this present world, a world of sin. Jesus expressed the same in His upper room discourse in John 14-16 and then in His high priestly prayer to His Father in John 17. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15-17).
People are not as serious at staying away from the influences of this world as God is. People are more serious about adding 30-50 years to this earthly life, years spent walking after lust and serving themselves. They think God should be fine with that, because everything is poured into their little lives, their little kingdoms. They think they're so important. They can't leave their lives of lust early, so God would be wrong to cut them short. They judge God to be wrong in this. He must let them live. So.
Let's say that God allows people to live out their lives in a seemingly ordinary way. People die at various ages of different maladies or crimes or diseases. They reach an average age of 70 to 80. They worship idols. They take on devout atheism. Some give themselves to a religion of their choice, not the truth. Now they die when they would have died of mostly natural causes. Would this satisfy Christopher Hitchens and those who agree with him? Their god would still need to knuckle under their demands from them under their judgment. It wouldn't change anything, because actual God won't. He shouldn't. He is one hundred percent just.
God sees a separating death from a different perspective. His desire is holiness. He created man in His image. His purpose was a life characterized according to Him, which is a better life and the life God intends for man.
Still today, it doesn't surprise me that an entire nation or group of people could have alienated themselves from God without exception. Their coexistence with the offspring of the righteous does and will ruin many, and after several generations turn them into the unrighteous. Scripture and history evinces this. God's Word warns about it. It is so sure that it is axiomatic. It is of the quality of a natural law, it is so self-evident.
Separation is required to keep a people holy and in the will of God. Everyone should assume that without the intervention of God's grace, the human race would eliminate itself. Only God's grace keeps men from such evil that they would kill themselves off without the aid of God's commandment of His people to cooperate with Him in doing it.
My wife and I visited historic Williamsburg, the capital of colonial Virginia. Next to the jail was a hill with a gallows for execution of thieves, adulterers, and murderers. The point of such a public showing was to deter these practices. More people overall would live and with a better life for all if such activities were threatened. It also eliminated bad influences. Criminals produce more criminals. Toleration of ungodly behavior will result in more of it. Toleration supports the bad behavior.
In the age in which we live, God still requires separation. Every New Testament book teaches it. To preserve a godly group or culture, it must separate from the ungodly.
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