God-ordained Genocide

eleos1954 said:

God knows the future ..... we do not .... if mankind is left totally to himself ... we would indeed annihilate (destroy) ourselves. God wants to preserve humanity not destroy it .... because He knows without His intervention we would do this ... then yeah He has commanded what we call "genocide" in times past ... but not to the point of extinction of the human race by human hands though ... all judgement is up to Him. In the cases of "God ordained genocide" in the bible in earlier times ... personally ... I can only conclude that God foresaw to protect the linage from which Messiah would come (Jesus who through Him one might be saved - receive eternal life - most important) and He chose in some cases in the past to work through mankind to do that .... sometimes not.

This is clearly seen by God Himself his act of near "genocide" by the flood. God has total authority over His creation and He will indeed act Himself.

We should wait on the Lord and not commit genocide ourselves and leave that up to God. We live in similar yet different times (after Messiah) as Gods prophetic timeline plays out. He is in control of everything ... and ultimately it does end well. So, though it occurred in the past it was not without reason ... with the onset of Messiah that "reason for genocide" was removed.

Prophetically speaking ... we will once again come to the point of completely destroying ourselves ... we have almost unbearable times ahead ... however .... God will step in and end it all Himself before we completely annihilate ourselves... and the good news He will re-create everything very very good and this will be for eternity ... Amen !!!!

As far as mankind goes ... God has placed mankind (and His other intelligent beings) from the beginning (in the position of choice (free choice). It's about love ... you can't have true love without choice. So this is the Love of God ... love is complete freedom of choice give to us by our creator ... God will accept everyone's choices ... to love or not to love. God is love. He loves all so much that He allows all freedom of choice and won't make their choices for them ... this is true love.

God is waiting until everyone has made their choices (He is long suffering) ... He will then return. Amen!!

Some say God is a mystery ... how He acts or does not act is a mystery ... no not really ....

The mystery of God's will is the uniting of all things in heaven and earth under Christ.

We can understand this.

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Halbhh said:

It is accurate, yes, in human terms when a person thinks God doesn't exist or if a person assumed that God killed them but didn't bring them to a new place alive in the spirit. Or if a person literally believes there is no afterlife.

The contradiction that makes "genocide" inaccurate only happens when someone tries to say that "God committed genocide".

So, in post #46 there is a more accurate phrase for when God exists (as we know He does) and is the one doing the removal from Earthly life.

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HTacianas said:

All the people were killed. That was a war. You're applying the modern notion of genocide to a time when there was no such thing. It was simply the way wars were fought in those days.

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Halbhh said:

@HTacianas @eleos1954 @Hammster -- consider:

Suppose one day you find out that a criminal drug dealer named Jane who lived not far from you, both her and her daughter Sarah are gone, and you read that a group of apparent vigilantes (some called a 'lynch mob') have killed both Jane and her daughter Sarah with a dramatic attack (with grenades, actually).

An obituary for Jane and her young daughter appears in the local paper....

Years pass. You grow older and it's finally time to retire.

You decide you don't like this neighborhood anymore and you want a very different life so you decide to move to a far away place, somewhere better.

So, you take a flight with all your few things you choose to keep, and fly to New Zealand.

There, in New Zealand you are amazed and delighted to meet both Jane and her daughter Sarah both quite alive and doing great, living blissful happy lives, where it's clear Jane has very much changed her life for the better!

Well, then you have to amend the belief that Ralph actually killed Jane and Sarah, as they are quite clearly alive.

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HTacianas said:

The destruction of the enemy.

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Halbhh said:

Right, sorry. Let me put that here.

Is it Genocide?

We learn that when wicked people (and their children) die, they are not actually dead in actual reality. (not yet)

Because God exists.

So, for example, the very wicked people before the Flood, where God removed them all from the Earth -- they didn't die in a final way (not yet...) when their mortal bodies perished, but instead we read about them that they became "spirits in prison" -->

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. ... -- 1rst Peter 3:18-20a

And we read that Christ Himself came to proclaim to them! (verse 19) When He had died in body on the cross but was still alive in spirit, Himself.
What did He proclaim? We read this:

6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit. -- 1rst Peter 4:6

So, He proclaimed to the dead (dead only in body, but not in spirit) the Gospel message then!

Ergo, this whole picture isn't at all really like 'genocide' in the way humans mean the word.

Because God cancels death.
Those who die are not dead.

Instead of 'genocide' a more accurate word would be 'transportation'.

Since Genocide is a misleading term in a key way (see post #44), here's a phrase that is more helpful clear:

Penal transportation was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies became their destination. While the prisoners may have been released once the sentences were served, they generally did not have the resources to return home.

Penal transportation - Wikipedia​

en.wikipedia.org

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Halbhh said:

It seems to matter a lot to atheists who use it as the by far most common argument against God existing, and here I'm trying to point out that misnomer involved.

It would be accurate (and more accurate) to call it instead a "removal" instead of a "genocide" because to all (including those interested in God) who don't yet know God, they take it to mean God destroys even innocent unfairly, while we know that's not what the scriptures say. So, we should change our own wordings to be accurate to scripture in a way that the lost can also be helped to learn about God. God "removed" the wicked and their children, instead of simply killing them and leaving them dead forever.

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Halbhh said:

Yes, and even the livestock were to be destroyed also in some cities, and even the gold and silver of certain cities was not to be kept but instead thrown into the bonfire.

I haven't time now to give a more extensive reply at the moment, but from the mainstream Ellicott's and Pulpit commentaries on 1 Peter 3:19 - Suffering for Righteousness are useful to learn more about where the dead who aren't yet finally judged but also are not yet redeemed will be.

See Ellicott's and Pulpit commentaries at bottom of this page:

1 Peter 3:19 - Suffering for Righteousness

in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison

biblehub.com

Ergo, it makes sense to the whole of scripture then that of course Christ can choose to preach the gospel (as we read was proclaimed) to any grouping of this location which He chooses, even some or many from among the Canaanite cities whose inhabitants were removed from this life to what's next for them. Can't rule that out, even though those cities we read were guilty of the most extreme of evils, as per Deuteronomy 12:31.

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