My wife and I have been talking through issues such as God killing David’s son for his sin and the violence mentioned in the OT. We are both seeking to understand and I am looking for good resources in this topic. I have Paul Copan “Is God a moral monster.” But I am looking for other resources as well.
I recommend reading reliable commentary on difficult passages. Standby texts like Matthew Henry generally provide both contextual explanation, and helpful insight along historic Protestant lines.
It is good to remember that our age is quite unaccomodating to a properly humble and reverent frame receptive to revelation from God. Our time is definitely one where even Christians tend to re-create God in man's image, imposing our standards on he who sets the standard for his creatures.
I can understand where you are coming from but I believe if that is taken to its logical ends it can be problematic. I believe that God is not afraid of our questions and as I genuinely believe the scriptures to be infallible and inerrant there must be good explanations for these things. This is especially in the context of apologetics where our whole goal is to give an answer when one is asked of us. Simply saying “if God does it, of course it’s just.” I believe can be more harmful to the searching non-believer as it can be seen as dodging the important questions
I recommend reading reliable commentary on difficult passages. Standby texts like Matthew Henry generally provide both contextual explanation, and helpful insight along historic Protestant lines.
It is good to remember that our age is quite unaccomodating to a properly humble and reverent frame receptive to revelation from God. Our time is definitely one where even Christians tend to re-create God in man's image, imposing our standards on he who sets the standard for his creatures.
Yes thank you for this! I simply mean resources to help us better understand these things. We believe God and his word and therefore I believe he does not contradict himself! Thanks for the recommendation of the commentaries I hadn’t thought about looking at ole Matthew Henry!
The key to coming to terms with the way that God deals with man is to know man and know God.
The Reformed faith helps us come to terms with the problem (from our point of view) of God’s dealing with the sin of David (or the sin of the Canaanites). Books that provide relatively short answers to such questions might be useful, but not nearly as useful as a thoroughly grounded understanding of theology as explicated in such works as the Westminster Confession of Faith, Calvin’s Institutes (as well as his commentaries), FrancisTurretin’s Elenctic Theology, Bavink’s Reformed Dogmatics, Geerhardus Vos’ Biblical Theology and so forth. These books help us to understand what the Bible says about the nature of man and the nature of God, about the seriousness of sin and the holiness, justice and love of God, and about the reason that God’s plan of salvation is what it is.
It is only when we understand the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin that we begin to “think God’s thoughts after him."
If we are offended by the way that God acts, it is because we are sinful creatures who are by nature children of wrath in rebellion against God. Further, we are finite. Not only do we lack the ability to understand all that God does, but God does not reveal everything to us. Ultimately God is incomprehensible (check out Westminster Confession of Faith 2.1).
But, we know that God as Creator has the right to do as he pleases with his creatures.
Not only that, but God, who is infinitely holy, just and loving, always acts in accordance with his nature towards his creatures.
Further, we know that in Adam, all men sinned. Babies are not born righteous; they are condemned to die (Rom. 5:18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men…). God does not condemn the righteous. God is perfectly just to terminate the life of any person, even babies, whenever and however he pleases.
Think of it this way. I once lived in California. I found a rattlesnake in my back yard and killed it. My neighbor excoriated me for killing the snake. “What did that snake ever do to you?"
I replied, “I didn’t kill the snake because of what it did. I killed it because of what it was.” I had small children who played in my backyard. The snake posed a threat.
God has a snake problem. The problem isn’t merely what we do. No doubt, what we do is a problem, but we do what we do because of what we are. In some cases, God can and does dispatch with guilty men. But in others God changes their serpentine nature. Why God chooses to punish some and regenerate others is a mystery from our point of view, but if we know God, we know that whatever he ordains is right.
In Joshua 6:17–21, we encounter the first significant discussion in the book about the related concepts of setting the Canaanites apart for destruction and driving them out of the land.1 The supposed “genocide” of the Canaanites is one of the most vexing questions in the entire Old Testament and...
I attach a photo below of some books on Biblical difficulties, but a few remarks first.
As to the killing of David's son, not only were the heinous acts leading to his birth such that were that child to come to the throne, it would be a blot on the holy nation (i.e., the faithful remnant), and bring great grief to the child himself, forever to be shrouded in the ignominy of his very existence; it was a mercy to him. The father of the child was liable to the death penalty, but for the LORD's name's sake it was forgiven, a sign to many in the ages to come that there is forgiveness even for great wickedness. The wisdom and mercy of God endureth for ever.
As for "the violence mentioned in the OT" — the killing of even infants in the nations under righteous judgment: these nations were saturated with demonic presence and practice, the worshipping of these, and the offering of infants as sacrifices to them. Even the little ones in the womb were nurtured in mothers filled with that culture's demonic spirit.
We see in the later Haman of the Book of Esther (as his name indicates, Haman was a descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites), what one surviving descendant can do, or attempt to do (inspired by his father the devil).
The holy remnant in the nation of Israel was targeted by the dragon who, up through the centuries and millennia, sought to destroy the Seed of the woman who was prophesied to crush (break שׁוּף) his head (Gen 3:15). The preincarnate Eternal Son protected His own line, so as to effect the salvation of the world, that is, of all those in it who would believe in and love Him, when He became manifest in the fullness of time, as Jesus of Nazareth.
www.thegospelcoalition.org
