Did God Commission Terrorism in the Bible?
00:00:00.000 | A podcast listener named Ian writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, like many Christians,
00:00:09.520 | as part of Scripture I have always struggled with the Canaanite genocide. I feel like I
00:00:14.360 | understand why God commanded Israel to cleanse the land of pagan influence to protect them
00:00:18.880 | from the potential idolatries. But my question is this, when we see ISIS and other terrorist
00:00:24.260 | organizations essentially doing the same thing for what they consider to be the same reason,
00:00:28.880 | purging the land of infidels by the command of God, how can Christians take the moral
00:00:33.660 | high ground and condemn this modern genocide?"
00:00:38.020 | It's interesting, I've been thinking about that question recently, thinking I've got
00:00:41.820 | to write a blog about this because it seems so not only relevant, but increasingly relevant
00:00:47.900 | on to the end of the age. I just think this kind of question is going to be imperative
00:00:54.860 | to answer. So I'm glad I've been pushed a little bit to think about it some more.
00:01:00.500 | So first, let's clarify. There are similarities and dissimilarities between what ISIS is doing
00:01:09.060 | and what Joshua, as they entered the Promised Land, did. A couple of similarities. Both
00:01:15.180 | killed people, even in horrible ways, men, women, and children. There's no sense in trying
00:01:21.900 | to whitewash what happened there. God told Joshua to clean house on the Canaanites. Number
00:01:30.660 | two, both believed that they were killing people who ought to be killed and whom God
00:01:37.900 | had commanded them to kill.
00:01:41.260 | Ian said in his question that one reason God ordained this through Joshua was to protect
00:01:48.980 | them from idolatry. That's true, but that's not what made it just and right. What made
00:01:55.480 | it just was that these nations had sinned against God for so long and so deeply. God
00:02:02.940 | said to Abraham, a key verse, Genesis 15, 16, that the Jews would come back from Israel
00:02:10.440 | and they would perform his judgment. And here's what he said, "They shall come back here in
00:02:16.580 | the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." In other
00:02:24.580 | words, God was timing his judgment on the peoples of the land at a point where it would
00:02:31.940 | be perfectly right and just for him to work a horrific judgment because of the fullness
00:02:41.220 | of their sins. And God warned Israel not to think that God's punishment was owing to Jewish
00:02:49.940 | righteousness, but rather was owing to pagan wickedness. And the key text there is Deuteronomy
00:02:56.540 | 9, 4, "Do not say in your heart after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you,
00:03:03.260 | it is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me to possess this land,
00:03:09.300 | whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them
00:03:15.100 | out before you." Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going
00:03:21.660 | in to possess the land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your
00:03:26.300 | God is driving them out from before you and that he may confirm the word that the Lord
00:03:32.660 | swore to your father, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So today we look back and we approve
00:03:39.780 | of God's right to punish the wicked and in those days to use a human instrument, namely
00:03:49.780 | Joshua and his armies, the Jews, to carry out his kingship over the land and his right
00:03:56.180 | to punish. That was God's way in that day. However, that's not his way today. So we need
00:04:06.540 | to consider two massive differences between Isis killing today and what Joshua did in
00:04:14.460 | that day and would not do today. So this is my answer to the question, "How do we take
00:04:20.020 | the moral high ground here?" So two differences. Number one, Isis does not serve the true God.
00:04:28.500 | Joshua did. We know that Isis does not serve the true God because Jesus has come into the
00:04:37.060 | world from God as the Son of God and the Messiah and he has made himself the litmus test for
00:04:48.100 | who truly knows God and loves God and worships God. For example, John 5.42, "I know that
00:04:53.980 | you do not have the love of God within you, for I have come in my Father's name and you
00:04:59.340 | don't receive me." Anybody who does not receive Jesus as the Son of God does not love
00:05:04.620 | God. John 5.42. John 5.23, "Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father
00:05:13.060 | who sent him. Therefore, Isis, not honoring the Son of God, does not know and honor God."
00:05:20.460 | John 8.19, "If you knew me, you would know my Father. They didn't know him." Isis
00:05:25.660 | doesn't know Jesus for who he really is. They reject him for who he really is, and
00:05:31.220 | therefore they don't know the Father. John 8.42, "If God were your Father, you would
00:05:36.860 | love me." Isis does not have God as their Father because they don't love the Jesus
00:05:41.620 | of the Bible. 1 John 5.12, "Whoever does not have the Son does not have life." Isis
00:05:49.380 | doesn't have eternal life. They're lost. They're perishing because they don't have
00:05:52.980 | the Son of God. All these texts mean that whoever does not have love and honor and know
00:06:01.300 | and have the Son of God as their Savior, as their Lord, as God, does not love, does not
00:06:08.380 | know, does not worship, does not honor, does not have the true God. Therefore, Isis does
00:06:14.660 | not serve the true God because they do not serve Jesus Christ as their Savior and their
00:06:21.260 | God. They do not have the moral high ground. They occupy the low ground of treason against
00:06:27.260 | the God of heaven. That's the first difference. Joshua served the true God. Isis doesn't
00:06:34.580 | serve the true God. Second difference, and the first one leads to it. Joshua was performing
00:06:45.400 | God's will then in a way that would not be God's will now. That was then, this is
00:06:55.660 | now, and Isis is failing to make that distinction, as though the way Joshua acted before the
00:07:03.580 | coming of the Son of God is the way it is appropriate to act after the coming of the
00:07:09.260 | Son of God. But the New Testament makes crystal clear, with the coming of Christ, massive
00:07:14.580 | changes entered the world in the way God deals with the world. And I'll just mention two.
00:07:21.100 | There's lots more, but these are the ones most relevant for Isis and the difference
00:07:27.940 | that Isis has from what God calls us to be and to do today. They don't take either
00:07:34.140 | of these into account. Number one, God no longer works through a people who are a political
00:07:41.040 | state or an ethnic entity to perform his kingdom-spreading, saving work. In the days of Joshua, God was
00:07:49.860 | the king over an ethnic people, Israel, who had a political identity as a state, among
00:07:56.940 | other political states. That is not the way God works in the world since the coming of
00:08:03.260 | Jesus. And here's a key text, Matthew 21, 43. "I tell you," Jesus is talking, "I
00:08:08.540 | tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, Israel, and given to a people
00:08:14.420 | producing its fruits." In the context, that means God is no longer dealing with Israel
00:08:21.420 | as the embodiment, ethnically and politically, of his kingdom on the earth. He's giving
00:08:26.140 | it to a people who produce its fruits, namely, the Church of Jesus Christ. And since God
00:08:33.100 | works through his Spirit by his Word in a people called the Church, they have no status
00:08:40.200 | as a political state, and they have no singular ethnic identity. That's the new way that
00:08:46.540 | has come about since the coming of Jesus. God does no longer work as a king, exerting
00:08:53.300 | immediate authority over a people gathered as a political state or as a single ethnic
00:08:58.740 | identity. And here's the second big difference in the change, and this is probably the most
00:09:03.660 | decisive. Since Christ came, the kingdom of God is not now of this world and does not
00:09:15.380 | spread by the sword or the bullet or the bomb. And the key text is John 18, 36. Jesus said,
00:09:23.260 | "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would
00:09:28.540 | be fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not of
00:09:34.580 | this world." Therefore, it's wrong, it's sinful today to use violence and force and
00:09:42.820 | coercion to try to spread the faith in Jesus Christ, faith in Christ, the Son of God. That's
00:09:50.980 | the mark. Faith is the mark of God's people, and it cannot be coerced by sword or bullet
00:09:57.740 | or bomb. No force will be used in establishing God's kingdom on the earth until King Jesus
00:10:08.100 | steps out. When he appears on the clouds, he alone will have the right to bring the
00:10:13.340 | punishment that he now will give, and he will make clear that he has the sovereign rights,
00:10:19.420 | and he will destroy all his enemies. But until then, Christians die to spread the gospel.
00:10:25.720 | We do not kill to spread the gospel. And if Obama orders a destructive strike against
00:10:34.320 | ISIS militarily with a bomb, it's not because they are Muslims and have a faith, a particular
00:10:43.700 | sign. It's because they're murderers. It's not in the service of compelling faith, like
00:10:49.700 | Western faith is going to be spread by the dropping of a bomb. That's not at all. Christian
00:10:54.980 | faith is not Western. It's not spread by dropping bombs. The dropping of that bomb
00:11:01.060 | is not the spreading of a faith, it's the preventing of the destruction of life and
00:11:07.420 | the removal of the possibility of any faith, Muslim or Christian. So we approve of God's
00:11:14.740 | rights to punish sin the way he did through Joshua. But we do not approve of anything
00:11:21.420 | like that today, because Messiah has come and put the advance of his kingdom on a different
00:11:28.380 | footing of gospel proclamation.
00:11:31.740 | >>Amen. And he's coming back. Thank you, Pastor John. What an end to this week. We
00:11:37.500 | will return on Monday to try and reconcile two passages that seem to be in tension, 1
00:11:42.060 | Corinthians 12.3 and Matthew 7.21. Some of you know just how perplexing these passages
00:11:46.700 | are to try and put together. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend.
00:11:50.620 | >>Thank you.
00:11:51.620 | >>Thank you.
00:11:52.620 | [END]
00:11:52.620 | [ Silence ]