When God Seems Like A Moral Monster: God-Ordained Violence in the Bible | Harrison & Lake Errock Campuses

Deuteronomy 20:16-18 The accounts of God’s commands to the Israelites to devote the peoples of Canaan to destruction have at times been used to portray God as vindictive or even as a moral monster. Yet when these texts are read carefully in their broader biblical context, a different picture emerges: while God’s judgment on sin is real and at times severe, He consistently reveals Himself as one who delights in mercy. That truth reaches its clearest expression in the sending of His one and only Son, who bore the judgment we deserved so that we might receive the mercy we could never earn.