I'll give the professor in my Pentateuch class this: he asks really provocative questions for our weekly discussion board posts. They are not ones you can give simplistic answers to (not that I tend in that direction anyway...), and this week's was no different.
Q. How does a Christian interpret and respond to war in the Pentateuch, particularly the use of war in judgment and punishment? (use Numbers 31 as a reference point).
A. I have a dilemma here. And it's not just struggling to reconcile Jesus' NT teachings on loving your enemies with what seems to be God-sponsored genocide in the OT. It's a bigger issue than that. It's reconciling Jesus with ... Jesus. Here's what I mean:
As a Christian, I hold certain doctrines about God, which help me interpret and respond to the Bible, including parts of it that are difficult (like Numbers 31). For example:
Christian doctrine holds that God does not change; He is immutable, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Do I believe that? If not, am I ready to argue that God evolves, improves?
Christian doctrine also holds that God is a Trinity, three persons, one unity, Father/Son/Spirit. Do I believe that? If not, am I ready to embrace the idea of multiple Gods... or to reject Jesus' divinity?
Christian doctrine also holds that God is eternal; He was, and is, and is to come. Do I believe that? If not, am I ready to argue that God had a beginning, or that God has not been eternally Triune?
Maybe this doesn't yet seem relevant to Numbers 31, but let me try to tie it together. If God does not change, if God is Triune, and has been so from eternity past, then here's what I really have to face:
The Son of God was involved with, and complicit in, the God-sanctioned wars of the Old Testament! I mean, how can it be otherwise, if Jesus is the second person of the Trinity and was "The Son" from the beginning?
The Jesus who spoke of loving enemies, forgiving those who wronged you... also told the Israelites to annihilate the Midianites (incl. all boy babies) in Numbers 31, as revenge for a prior affront to Him. (31:2,3,16) Jesus, as the LOGOS of God, present in the cloud, the fire, the Shekinah Glory, ordered them put to death.
Who is it that I worship, exactly, when I worship Jesus, the embodiment of forgiveness and turning the other cheek?
I submit that, if we're honest, none of us are exactly sure Who Jesus is. We (I) would rather not make it complicated by thinking about it overmuch, either. The problem with that is that God IS complicated, and not as simple as we'd like. God is to some extent unknowable, and if we trust Him it has to be without perfect understanding on our part - no theological education can get us there.
The other dilemma we (I) have to deal with is the popular notion that war can somehow be eradicated. Jesus Himself doesn't give us that as a legitimate hope in this age (Mt. 24:6-7; Lk. 21:9-10), any more than He allows us hope to eliminate poverty (Mk. 14:7; note His quote of Dt. 15:11). We can no more eliminate war or poverty than we can drought, disease, or disasters. It is part of this life to have troubles (Jn. 16:33; Lk 17:1), but woe to him by whom they come.
Jesus promises punishment for wrongs done. (Lk. 17:2) God also somehow uses governments (Rom 13:4) and nations (ex: Rome against Jerusalem, Mt 23:36-38) to administer punishment. Sometimes people, especially Jesus' followers, are punished unjustly. (1 Pet. 3:16-18) Abraham Lincoln quoted Luke 17:2 in his 2nd Inaugural Address (in the midst of the American Civil War), following it with this comment: "The Almighty has His own purposes". Right! And we (I) don't understand them.
Lincoln also quoted Psalm 19:9, which helps me know how I must approach the topic of war in the Pentateuch: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." I approach this topic, as well as all others which I don't understand, by admitting first that I don't know God exhaustively. But I do know enough to still believe (even in the Old Testament accounts of war) that God is who He says He is:
Ex. 34:6-7
"The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
AND
by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
He is both, even though I don't understand how. The God of the OT and the God of the NT are the same, even if it's unsettling, confusing, embarrassing, or I just don't like it.
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