Responding to the skeptic, there are number of possible answers to this question from the Christian perspective:
1. You might not like this answer, but the Canaanites
deserved it. As a Christian, I believe the Bible’s teaching that man is depraved
and wicked. When you hold that truth up to the absolute perfection of God, our
“innocence” becomes something completely different. In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis observed,
“When we merely say that we are bad, the ‘wrath’ of God seems a barbarous
doctrine; as soon as we perceive our badness, it appears inevitable, a mere
corollary from God's goodness.” Indeed, the Canaanites were idolatrous,
polytheistic, and denied the Creator God of Israel. They also engaged in
adultery, incest, child sacrifice, bestiality, and more. When we compare much
of the Canaanites sins to our own culture, it can become easy to miss the magnitude of their sins, especially in
our relativistic culture that tends to find the “gray” area rather quickly. As a Christian, I
believe God takes these sins (and all sin) very seriously. Let me quickly give
you two reasons why I think this is true. First, God threatened to destroy the
nation of Israel if they engaged in similar acts (and He very nearly did just
that). Don’t miss that point: God threatened to destroy the very nation that called Him their God, with whom He shared a
covenant. With this in mind, it begins to make sense that God would command the
killing of the Canaanites. In his “We Don’t Hate Sin so We Don’t Understand
what Happened to the Canaanites,” Clay Jones noted, “It shows that what God
commanded Israel to do to the Canaanites wasn’t genocide—it was capital
punishment.” The second reason
I would like to offer to illustrate that God takes sin very seriously is in the
fact that He sent His Son as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for sins on our
behalf. The Canaanites were guilty. You and I are guilty. Jesus Christ was not guilty. It is because of His innocence that He
was worthy to pay the penalty and
punishment for sin, for those who would put their trust in Him. And this is our
only hope. He bore sin on the cross, but was able to defeat sin and death when
He rose from the grave. The sin that did not defeat him will defeat those who choose to pay for their own sins. Like the
Canaanites, we deserve the death sentence, which will be handed down if we do
not put our trust in Him.
2. As a Christian, I believe God to be a perfect Judge,
who is worthy and within His rights to exercise His judgment at any time.
Therefore, it is in God’s purview to kill or save, annihilate or redeem,
condemn or justify His creation. Before Jesus came, people were carrying around
their sin “on their head” (so to speak). Because of this, God could judge them
at any time. We find this to be true in numerous places in the Old Testament,
including in His command to kill the Canaanites. Since Jesus came and defeated
sin, there are now two kinds of people. There are those who have put their faith
in Him (like myself) and are no longer carrying around their sin “on their
head.” Jesus paid for their sins, so God will not (nor ever) condemn them for
their rebellion against Him. The second kind of person are those who have not put their faith in Him. Are they
carrying around their sin on their head? Yes, this is true, but God has made it
known that He is withholding His
judgment for now. Nevertheless, the end of days for the individual or the End
of Days for everyone, with the Day of Judgment, might come before we know it.
As with the Canaanites, God will be perfect
in His judgment of those who have chosen to pay the penalty for their own
crimes against Him.
3. As a Christian, I believe one of the reasons why God
ordered the killing of the Canaanites is due to the greater good that would come from annihilating their destructive
influences and practices. Indeed, this is proven in the fact that Israel did not completely drive them out, which led
to many acts of evil that would affect them for generations. (The rest of my
justification for this response is found under Point 2 regarding why children
die of cancer.)
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