In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God commanded Saul and the Israelites, This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'" God ordered similar things when the Israelites were invading the promised land (Deuteronomy 2:34, 3:6, 20:16-18). If God is so loving, why did he kill innocent people in the Old Testament, mainly the children and unborn? When God sent the many plagues on Egypt to punish Pharaoh; no doubt many of his citizens perished and died. Are we to believe all were guilty? Of what? Or did they suffer for their leader's sins?
Now the argument that we're all sinners and fall short of God's grace and deserve death is not the black and white answer I am seeking. Of course we're all sinners. Of course we all deserve to perish and die. If that were the case then God might as well get rid of all His creations right now and live happily ever after without us humans bothering Him. So, no I'm not questioning that we all deserve death as sinners. What I'm questioning is that it seems improbable/unbelievable that every single person, mainly the children and unborn deserved to die.
When Pharaoh disobeyed God it would have seemed reasonable to punish him personally. What point is there in punishing every single person living in Egypt by sending the plagues? Pharaoh didn't appear to suffer as much as the people (until the last plague took his son) Were all his people compliant with Pharaoh's disobedience and therefore worthy of punishment? To me, there is room for doubt.
The reality is that we don't know God's reasoning and motives for His actions. He let some people perish in what seems to us to be unfair justice. Some may say that's His privilege and not ours to question. But to say we all deserve to die because we've all sinned, while true, does not address the sentiments behind the question asked. I don't expect for anyone to ever have the answer, it to simply ask, even when no answer is available, is still worthy of study.
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Lamentation 3:24 The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope.
Paul Young (the author of The Shack) said in an interview that Jesus never called anyone a "sinner". Yes, we all are sinners, but Jesus was focused on love & grace, not our sins. In my opinion.
That doesn't address your observation, Steve, but that's what came to mind when I read that. That, and maybe, those Old Testament stories are not to be taken literally. Just a thought...
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Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. ~Paul Tillich
I don't know why God ordered the destruction of the innocent with the guilty, but we do know that He knows that "we are like dust" when it comes to our frailty, and that "not even a sparrow falls without His knowing". So He lets into heaven those that He finds innocent, and judges the evil in hell.
I know that that sounds too "cute" of an answer, but we have to remember that our minds are finite and can only know so much, while God's is INFINITE and has complete and TOTAL knowledge of EVERY person, thought, action and reaction in the universe, from the beginning to end.
