Why does God seem so cruel in the O.T.?
A. Update March 13, 2022 I am now leaning strongly in the direction of what Brian Zahnd is proposing in his book, titled “Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.” Up to now my thinking was in line with Norman Geisler, stated in “B” below. But what Brian proposes lines up more with the revelation of God that I see in the life of Jesus on earth, which is the exact image of the Father as explained by Paul in Colossians. I have not totally abandoned “B”; it remains a remote possibility for me.
B. Original possibility from HBH first edition, 2006:
Why does God seem so cruel in the O.T.? It is precisely because we do not know the Blessed Hope. Though God wipes out entire groups of people, He yet will resurrect each one and fulfill His ultimate purposes in them as individuals. Dr. Norman Geisler, author of When Skeptics Ask and Inerrancy wrote regarding the Canaanite and Amalekite cultures:
This was a thoroughly evil culture… They were into brutality, cruelty, incest, bestiality, cultic prostitution, even child sacrifice by fire. They were an aggressive culture that wanted to annihilate the Israelites. God took action not only for the sake of the Israelites but, ultimately, for the sake of everyone through history whose salvation would be provided by the Messiah who was to be born among them.
God’s purpose in these instances was to destroy the corrupt nation because the national structure was inherently evil.…Many verses indicate that God’s primary desire was to drive these evil people out of the land they already knew had been promised for a long time to Israel. That way, Israel could come in and be relatively free from the outside corruption that could have destroyed it like a cancer. He wanted to create an environment where the Messiah could come for the benefit of millions of people through history. Besides, under the rules of conduct God had given the Israelites, whenever they went into an enemy city they were to first make the people an offer of peace. The people had a choice: they could accept that offer, in which case they wouldn’t be killed, or they could reject the offer at their own peril. That’s appropriate and fair. Most of the women and children would have fled in advance before the actual fighting began, leaving behind the warriors to face the Israelites. The fighters who remained would have been the most hardened, the ones who stubbornly refused to leave, the carriers of the corrupt culture.…God is not capricious, he’s not arbitrary, he’s not cruel…he is undeniably just.19
Is this not the way we would expect a just God to act to protect His world? He had to establish a certain degree of righteousness on earth to allow His purposes to be fulfilled.
19 Geisler, Norman. Quoted in The Case For Faith. Lee Strobel. Grand Rapids, MI; Zondervan, 2000. 121-122.
Taken from Hope Beyond Hell page 229-230
June 29, 2010
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May 11, 2012
The above question, “Is God cruel?” was answered for me in the most simplest example I got to experience.
My dog had contracted some bizarre illness . She began getting weak and lethargic and then after a few days expelled about 8 oz. of red blood from her bowls. This continued all day as her health dropped dramatically and couldn’t even walk, but just laid down like she was dyeing with vomit falling from her mouth. Lifeless eyes with her body wreaking of pain, I called the vet in which they told me it sounded like Parvo and asked if we had raccoons in our area. I confirmed we were having trouble keeping them out of our trash and assumed my dog may have eaten some of the trash they drug out of the containers. The vet told me she would not survive. 98% of dogs don’t survive unless you can get them in for drugs at the extreme onset of Parvo with even that not being a guarantee. Then she said the thing that opened my eyes to Gods ways in the OT. She said, “If you bring her in, we will put her to sleep so she don’t have to suffer any longer from the state she is in.”
As a loving parent (if you will) of my dog, the right thing to do was to put her to sleep (destroy her). I could see for the 1st time why God destroyed certain nations in the OT. They had gotten so far off track in their sins over generations as if it were a disease, in which they could not recover. We don’t read of what they were going through because of their sins. Did their drunkenness leave them sick every morning? Did their fornication leave them with broken hearts and diseases? Did their fear of idols and many other things drive them to insanity? Did their deception drive them to oppress and kill nations serving God? The only thing God could do was to put them out of their misery as a loving God – later to restore them when all things are revealed and blinders are taken off.
Food for thought.