I struggle with this too, but for me, I also try to remember that God’s only son also died for us as well.
Remember that Ananias and Sapphira were killed in Acts 5 for lying to the Holy Spirit, accepting the honor and generosity of the community yet witholding part of their offering to God. This was the New Testament, after Christ. They withheld the money from selling their land and they dropped dead right there in front of the whole community who were struck with fear.
Also please remember that God spared the firstborn of the Israelites in Exodus, and later consecrated the firstborn of all Isreal to himself.
We remember that God told Abraham to get the knife and kill his son. but we sometimes forget that he also told him to stop, and fail to recognize that through this test God granted Abraham and his decendents the gifts of a royal kingdom, a land flowing with milk and honey, and worldwide blessing.
There is great mercy in God’s plan, even in the Old Testament. Take the golden calf incident at Mt. Sinai as an example.
The Levites carried out the command of Moses, and that day there fell about three thousand of the people. (Exodus 32:28)
For representing God’s strength as a golden calf, and for rising up in wonton revelry, God wanted to destroy all of them, but Moses interceded and God relented. Instead of killing all of Israel and starting over fresh, only three thousand were killed that day. This alone shows God’s great mercy and willingness to forgive. We often look at the killing of three thousand and see it as an isolated instance, but it is actually part of an overarching plan which God had from the beginning, and it is intimately tied to the events in the New Testament, specifically Pentacost. Check this out…
Pentacost happens, and the people present hear the followers of Christ speaking in all different languages. Peter then stands up and exhorts the crowd to accept Jesus and be baptized, and guess what happens?
*
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day. (Acts 2:41) *
Did you catch that? Three thousand were
lost at Mt. Sinai but three thousand were
added at Pentacost. Pentacost is a reversal of Mt. Sinai. Israel rose up in disobedience at Mt. Sinia and were lost, but three thousand were added at Pentacost, effecting a complete reversal. Pentacost is a reversal of Mt. Sinai.
Pentacost is a reversal of Babel too. At the tower of Babel, God confused the speech of mankind, but at Pentacost God allows everyone to understand each other through the universal language of the Gospel - the Good News of Jesus Christ. Pentacost is a reversal of the tower of Babel.
I use these by way of example, to show God’s mercy and love, his overarching plan, which we often don’t see because of the time span between Moses and Jesus, the inherent difficulties in reading scripture, and our own lack of understanding of how the Hebrews told stories.
We can’t just look at the Old Testament as a series of incidents unrelated to the New Testament, but have to look at each incident in terms of how it points us to Christ, how it points us to moral Christian living, and how it points us to our call to spend eternity united to the Trinity. We can’t just see the killing as killing, but as communication to us by God about his plan which spans 72 books of the Bible.
-Tim-
