The Christian faith has long been at the receiving end of endless accusations of being the source of violence and hate in the world. As a result, many people mistakenly think that God is a violent, bloodthirsty being who is out to destroy and devour life.
But truly understanding God and knowing why Christ came down to earth will help us see that God is not about violence, hate and death, but about life given abundantly instead.
Many sceptics read the Old Testament in the Bible and see all the savagery and barbarism and think that God is a primitive and violent God. It's funny how they read accounts of cavemen, the Egyptians, Mayans, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan and not consider them barbaric but just part of history. It's only when they deal with the historicity of the Bible that they ridicule the Bible for violence.
God never was the source of violence. The Old Testament Bible speaks of Him as the Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). People are the source of violence. Sin was the motivation of violence.
But wasn't it God who ordered Israel to slaughter and exterminate the Canaanites? The order was based on two precepts. First, that war and conquest were the norms of the day and that if the Canaanites were not exterminated, they'd be the ones to exterminate their enemies. Second, that God was acting as the righteous judge who would judge the heathen Canaanites for their unrepentant and extremely wicked practices of slaughtering babies, raping women and animals, murdering a multitude of innocent people and so forth.
God is not and will never be the source of violence. When God created the world, His original intent was to see a world that existed in peace and glory. Genesis 1:31 says, "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."
God exists in love because He gave His own Son, Jesus, to us in love so that we would be free from the violence of sin and transgression.
If there are people to blame for today's culture of violence and hate, they are the broken and lost people together with the sin they commit. Sadly, even Christians can be broken and lost, too.
Violence and hate remain prevalent in the world, even among Christians. This is definitely not the way of God. However, just because there are a few bad apples, it doesn't mean the apple tree is not an apple tree.
The heart and being of God has always been love, not hate. 1 John 4:7 tells us, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."
That love is made most evident in Jesus Christ who violently suffered at the hands of our sin and corruption because He loved violently and fervently all of mankind to the point of laying down His life for all.
