The Christian Practice of Killing Canaanites
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Christianity is a uniquely violent faith. Christ himself said so,
Matthew 11:12 (ESV)
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.
The Kingdom of heaven is full of people who violently take it by force. Full of people who wrestle like Jacob, who make war like Jacob, who smash tablets of stone like Moses, who skewer two people at once on a spear like Phineas, who tear down temples like Sampson, who curse liars like Peter, who rebuke Apostles like Paul did to Peter, and who take up their crosses, a gruesome torcher and execution device, and williingly die on it. Ours is a violent faith, but not violent without purpose or in ways that serve human greed or bloodthirst.
The Death of Joshua and the Leadership of Judah
The Death of Joshua and the Leadership of Judah
While Joshua had given Israel much victory in their pursuit of the promises of God, he fails to be a leader competent enough to lead the people of Israel to totally recieve their inheritance.
He first failed by making a covenants with the Gibeonites.
He, as a mortal man, failed to completely illiminate the Canaanites before he died. Hebrews 4:8 “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.”
Joshua had ratified the covenant before he died, giving Israel no excuses for ignoring it or disobeying it.
But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.”
The book of Judges begins with Israel looking for leadership, and God clearly communicates with them. So far, things look great! Judah is chosen to be the tribe that will lead the rest of the people into their inheritance, and they successfully take on the responsability.
It is not lost on us the Davidic and Messianic significance of this choice. Judah will always be the tribe that leads God’s people into God’s promises, pointing us to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Christ, who brings the people of God to God. Will Judah act like the leaders they are tasked to be? Will they successfully lead God’s people out of the wilderness of sin and into rest in the eternal covenant with God?
Judah is given guarenteed victory. Judges 1:2 (ESV)
2 The LORD said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.”
In Judges 1:2-10 things seem to be going well. Judah has taken on its role as leader of God’s people, and pursues the wicked Canaanites to eliminate them from the promised land.
Israel’s Victory and Failure
Israel’s Victory and Failure
The problems begin to arise when tribe of Judah is unable to take out the inhabitants of the plain (1:19). At first we may be asking, “why did God leave them to defeat when he has promised that they would have victory over their enemies?” This is a valid question. God had clearly communicated that Judah was the tribe appointed to lead the rest of Israel to occupy their land. But what we see is eventual military failure to the tribe with God’s plessing. How do we make sense of this?
To answer that question, it is helpful to look back at another famous military failure in Israel’s history. The failed attack of the city of Ai in Joshua 7. As a result of that failure, Johsua was quick to come before the Lord in a humble disposition. God then told him in verse 11,
Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings.
Because one man had sinned, the entire nation suffered. Thirty six of God’s people died because one man got greedy and did not take sin seriously. It showed that this man either did not believe God, did not care about what God said, or took God’s commands more as suggestions than spacific laws. This attitude shows a lack of submission to God as Lord and as a result the entire nation suffered.
That incident made some things very clear about being part of the people of God:
First, breaking the covenant in even a small, seemingly insignificant way through disobedience that appears to hurt nobody is a serious offense in the eyes of God.
Second, the sins of one person in the community of God are bound to affect the community as a whole, even if that effect does not come from the natural consequences of the sin itself.
Third, once the community of God knows of this sin, they are obligated to immediately deal with it according to how God has commanded them to. In the case of Achen in Josh 7, this meant a death sentence. In the case of sins purposely and proudly committed, the sentence was removal from being among the people of God.
Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.”
So what is wrong here? Why is Judah losing the wars with the Canaanites all of a sudden? We can conclude that there is something the people of God, or some in the people of God, are doing that is blocking God’s blessing for them in war.
What sin is this? We do not have to look far to find it. Starting in 1:27, we discover that Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali did not drive out all the Canaanites from their land, but instead made an arrangement with them where they were allowed to live as slaves in the land of Israel. In fact, we learn that they had actually made a covenant with these groups, similar the the covenant Joshua had unknowingly made with Gibeon when he failed to enquire of the Lord. They too were put to forced labour, but the covenant had to remain. This apparently set a precident for the tribes to start making these deals knowingly, using God’s victorious power to give them free slaves instead of obeying God’s command to ruthlessly root out those people from the land.
The other reason these Canaanites were left in the land by God’s sovereign power was to test his people. This was not in order to tempt or ensnare them, but rather to prove what God already knew about them: that they would not truly worship him.
So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not.” So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
Confontation
Confontation
So when we come to our text, we are told clearly from the mouth of God why God has taken away his victorious power from Judah and the rest of the nation. They are directly disobeying God’s command given in Deuteronomy 7:1-4
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
The command against making covenants instead of completely destroying these wicked and unjust nations is given for the reason that, if these wicked people are allowed to stay in the land they will lead the people away from God to go after false gods. In the same way that Adam and Eve were cut off from the tree of life, Israel cannot have a covenant with the Canaanites and inherit the Kingdom of God at the same time. So now, the covenant made with the Canaanites will become the beginning of Israel’s own undoing. Because they wouldn’t destroy the Canaanites, now they cannot destroy them. Their judgement is that the Canaanites will stay in the land and become a snare to Israel, along with their gods.
This causes the people to weep before the Lord, and Bochim is named literally meaning “weeping”. They make sacrifices to the Lord, but this will not last into he next generations. Although the people who made the covenants with the different Canaanite groups didn’t worship their gods, their children would quickly fall into it. The seemingly small compromise of the fathers led to the greater sins of their children, but both have the same problem: they’re lack of commitment to their covenant with God.
This was indeed a place of weeping, because here Israel was denied the perfect rest they were promised in God because they wanted to hold onto sin at the same time. Instead of ridding
No Canaanites Allowed
No Canaanites Allowed
This threat to the people of God did not go away in the New Covenant. In fact, there is even more risk and more danger now.
Hebrews 4:1 (ESV)
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
The author of Hebrews points to the unbelief of the Israelites as being the reason they died in the wilderness; unbelief that was manifested in disobedience. All sin and disobedience is a manifestation of unbelief, and unbelief is what cuts us off from the promises of God.
There is something very striking about how Israel’s refusal to banish all Canaanites from the land and the consequence of having Canaanites in the land. God’s punishment for their sin is letting them slide into more sin and reap the harsh consequences.
The Canaanites represents the Kingdom of Darknessness, the realm of Satan, the world and its forces and thinking. It represents a spiritual wasteland and corruption in a world that God has made pure and good. This has nothing to do with their race, as we see in God’s mercy towards Rahab. But their idolatry and brutality represent human nature captivated by sin.
When God gave Israel the promised land, he was claiming victory over the domain of darkness that currently resided there in the Canaanites. They would be cut off from the land (Deut 12:29) because the people of God would make the land a Temple, they being a Kingdom of Priests. The land would be Holy because the people in it would be holy, and the people holy because their God was holy.
So in refusing to drive out the Canaanites, Israel was essentially failing to drive out the Kingdom of Darkness. They were unwilling to let the land be a holy place, and as time would go on they would be unwilling to be a holy people serving a holy God. As a result, God would stop giving them victory, meant to display his holiness and glory, and instead make the Canaanites a thorn in their flesh to show them the futility of their refusal of Holiness.
Not an Option
Not an Option
So the clear takeaway from this meeting that Israel has with the Angel of the Lord is this: Holiness is required for those in Covenant with God.
The purpose of God’s covenant is glory through a loving relationship with human image bearers who act as mediators to lead a fallen world back to God, their rightful King. Holiness is a seperation from the world for the purpose of devoting oneself to that goal.
When Israel refused to eliminate the unholy Canaanites from their land, they showed a lack of devotion to that goal by compromising God’s glory for their own conveniences.
The result is God refusing to give Israel victory over their enemies until they are ready to be completely devoted to God’s glory through obedience to God’s instructions. This is called ‘repentance.’
People in a covenant of love with a holy God must be completely devoted to that holiness or they will not experience the joy of that covenant. This applies just as much to the church as it did to ancient Israel. The problem is that this people could never be holy because their hearts were never holy. They had no enduring desire for holiness, although it was there for a time, the flesh leads where it will and soon it lead to the alter of false gods.
In Christ, our hearts have been changed. We have died to sin and been made alive in the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:1–2 (ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
God’s expectation for his people is holiness, which means being a Christian means killing Canaanites. Of course, not literally but in the sense that it means ruthlessly driving out sin from our lives,
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
It means making war on worldly affections
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
and even cutting off unholy people, people living unrepentant livees, from the fellowship of the saints
Deuteronomy 21:21 (ESV)
So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Being a Christian and part of a godly church will mean ruthless Canaanite elimination, both in our private lives and as a church community. It will mean driving out habits, desires, personality quirks, and everything without excuse that is unholy in our lives. It will also mean barring the Lord’s Table from those who do not know God or show the fruit of true repentance. It will mean engaging in confronting those you see a fellow Christian walking in sin and risking that relationship.
It also means being humble and open to correction from others in the church.
Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
Conclusion
Conclusion