Is Our God a Violent God?

How do we reconcile Jesus' commands of love and non-violence with the image we have in the Old Testament of war and death? We see that God commands people to commit murder, 1 enact genocide, 2 and He even personally killed thousands of people Himself. 3 He send angels to destroy armies 4 and generally obliterates those who defy Him. 5  Is this a do as I say, not as I do type of situation?

Actually, it is.

God is literally doing something that He tells us not to. He is indeed destroying those who defy Him in the Old Testament. There is a massive death toll in the Old Testament that can be directly attributed to God's divine command, or even His direct action. Yet, Jesus tells us we are not to do so. Jesus, the very God that smote people for thousands of years came down from Heaven to tell us we were not to fight back, we are to love our enemies, and to lay down our lives instead of taking lives.

How can God justify that? How can he tell us not to do something then do it Himself? Well, simple really. Jesus, as God in the flesh, came to show us how to live as submissive servants of God. He showed us what God's desire for man is; that is, how a perfect man should live. A perfect man, a man of God, is a man like Jesus. 6 We are directly commanded to not resist evil or to hate or kill our enemies, ever for any reason. (see this post for details on that subject) 

But back to God's violence. Is it hypocritical for God to command us not to take revenge, yet He avenges Himself? Is it wrong for him to command us to do good to those who seek to kill us, yet He kills those who defy Him? Not at all. We are not God. We are not in God's position. Just as a judge has the right to pronounce sentencing upon criminals and a police officer may exceed the speed limit as needed, God is the ultimate Judge and Law Enforcer. We, his citizens and children, are not. Parents may do things, a great many things, that they forbid their little children from doing. It would be foolish to allow a three year old child to drive, set bedtimes, or operate any machinery. It's not hypocrisy for them to forbid it, it is love and wisdom. 

In the same way, God forbidding us from enacting violence, and instead commanding us to love at all times and at all costs is not hypocrisy. It is instead wisdom. He sees the heart; He knows the situation. We do not. He is the Father and we are His children. He has the full right to enact His Judgement while commanding us to not do so.

So do Jesus' commands of love and non-resistance ignore the Old Testament? No. We see that Jesus Himself will come to judge the world in the end. He will bear His sword eventually. However, we are commanded not to do that ourselves. We are commanded instead to be salt and light; to give life, not to take it.

In the end, some people would claim that the Anabaptist view of complete non-resistance is ignoring part of God's nature. However, the Anabaptist view of nonresistance is what we know God commanded us to follow; not inherently meaning God cannot do otherwise. We know God has the right to judge and to take life; after all, He is the very Author of it. He can take away because He both gave it and can also give back. We are commanded explicitly to love our enemies, personal and political, all the same. Jesus told us explicitly that His Kingdom was not of this world, which is why His people did not fight, and that holds true today. We are called to be loving examples of God. He will take care of the rest.