angryman   Maybe you have heard (or even said yourself) that the God of the New Testament is a loving God, but that the God of the Old Testament was mean.

   Let’s contrast the two.

   In the New Testament we read that many people were “bringing even their babies to

[Jesus] so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. But Jesus called for them, saying, ‘Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’” (Luke 18:15–16).

   On the other hand, In the Old Testament we read that God told the Jews to wipe out whole groups of people when they came into the Promised Land. “Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deuteronomy 20:16–17).

   That sounds like a big contrast, but if you’ll stick with me, I’m going to show you that the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament were the same loving God.

   It does sound drastic that God wanted the Jews to “utterly destroy” those enemies, but let’s look a little deeper.

   First of all, God has never told His followers to kill people just because they didn’t worship the One true God. The instructions in the text above were limited to one historical event and only applied to the specific peopled mentioned. We know that the command doesn’t apply to us because none of those people are alive today.

   It is also important to point out that God gave those pagan people more than 400 years to turn away from their wickedness. God proved that He was gracious by warning them ahead of time that judgment was coming. We read about that when God announced this to Abraham: “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, [Egypt] where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years….Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity [sins] of the Amorite is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:13,16).

   Why did God want those people wiped out?

   In Deuteronomy Chapter 18, verses 9-12, God lists nine horrible sins that those nations in the Promised Land were practicing. I’ll just mention the first one because it must have been the worst. They were actually burning their children alive in order to worship the god Moloch. One scholar said that Moloch was: “the name of the idol god of the Ammonites, to which human victims, particularly young children were offered in sacrifice. Its image was a hollow brazen figure, with the head of an ox, and outstretched human arms. It was heated red hot by a fire from within, and the little ones placed in its arms to be slowly burned, while to prevent the parents from hearing the dying cries, the sacrificing priests beat drums.” [James Strong, Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2001]

   Wow! That puts God’s commands in a new light. God wanted the Ammonites (and those other people groups) wiped out because He loved children, and He didn’t want the Jews to be influenced by their cruel example, or worse, to intermarry with these heathen people and begin doing the same things. In order for God to love children, He must oppose those who kill or abuse them.

   The same is true for us. We can’t claim to love children, unless we are doing what we can to stop those who are hurting them, especially those who murder children. Notice that God takes the murder of children personally: “You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire” (Ezekiel 16:21).

   That is how we know that God is opposed to abortion. Life, especially human life, is a miracle of God’s doing, and purposely harming that life offends the One who made it. In 1981 the American Medical Association explained their opposition to abortion this way: “If our language has appeared to some strong and severe, or even intemperate, let the gentlemen pause for a moment and reflect on the importance and gravity of the subject…We had to deal with human life. In a matter of less importance we could entertain no compromise.”

   Loving what is good requires that we hate what is evil. “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate” (Proverbs 8:13). God has always hated evil, in both the New Testament and in the Old, and the God of the entire Bible has always loved and protected innocent human life. He wants us to do the same thing!