I was recently asked how one might respond to an atheist that condemns the God of Scripture for allowing practices that offend modern sensibilities. Some of these may include slavery, war (in which God commands the destruction of whole communities), forced marriage after a rape, and other laws that seem unwarranted in our contemporary culture.

Many of these things can be quite confusing if one has no understanding of redemptive history or if one judges all things from his/her own post-modern context.  Since we all wrestle with these types of questions, I thought it might be helpful to point out the following…

1. When giving the law to Moses, God was dealing with a primitive people who had just come out of 400 years of slavery. They had been utterly immersed in Egyptian culture. They thought and acted like Egyptians, not as those that had any codified revelation from God (certainly not like 21st century people). Therefore, when God gave them the law, He condescended to stoop to their level so that He could be understood. In doing so, he placed limits, or barriers, around various sins.  For example, God hates divorce, yet because of the hardness of their heart He permitted it, but with certain constraints (Mt.19:8). He was doing the same in regard to slavery, etc.
2. The problem for the unbeliever that asks these kinds of questions is that he/she is judging all these issues from a 21st century perspective. What that means is that he/she has had the advantage of 5,000 years of divine revelation, the coming of Christ, and the teaching of the apostles and the apostolic church. All of these influences have permeated his/her thinking by virtue of having been raised in our western culture.
• For example, the objection to capturing and forcibly marrying women from defeated cultures would have seemed absurd to cultures such as the native American tribes before Christianity, the Germanic tribes of northern Europe, the Vikings, the Chinese, un-Christianized Huns, etc.
• The only reason why the post-modern unbeliever objects to the type of warfare where slavery is a viable outcome for a defeated foe is due to the influence of the “just war theory” of St. Augustine. So to use the terms of Cornelius Van Til, the post-modern unbeliever is operating on borrowed intellectual capital. He/she is thinking in Christian categories while, at the same time, rejecting Christianity. Therefore, the judgments and arguments of such a person are irrational otherwise he/she would realize that the “law” he claims to live by (probably human reason) is actually the law of God. That person would also realize that he/she violates that law in many ways and would cry out for mercy and repent.
3. The very objections that the unbeliever raises against God are based on God’s unfolding revelation in the New Testament and its application in our western culture. For instance, while Southerners used the OT law to defend slavery in the antebellum South, abolitionists used the NT books of Philemon, Galatians and the limits placed on slavery in the OT in order to refute that practice in this country. Not all of this would have been comprehended by ancient Israel, but it unfolded through the prophets and finally in Jesus Christ (Heb.1:1-3).
4. The OT law was full of types and shadows that were fulfilled in Christ. So the laws of warfare, captivity, forced marriage and slavery depict the spiritual situation that all of us face. The devil, at war with God, has taken humanity captive, forcing it to obey the dictates of sin (Rom.1-3,6) and keeping them in bondage by the fear of death (Heb.2:14). We are unable to slay this giant and free ourselves. The price of our emancipation is to high for us to pay. Therefore, in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a woman, to free us from the power and condemnation of sin, defeat our ancient, yet powerful foe, and to pay the price of our redemption. In doing this he set us free.

What our unbelieving friends needs, is not a primer on biblical ethics or a defense of the rightness of God’s commands. After all, God is God. It is the height of arrogance to accuse God of wrongdoing. What such a person needs is the gospel and his/her own subsequent humble submission to Jesus as Lord. It does us no good to engage in unfruitful and vain arguments that lead to nothing. We must present Christ and His gospel at every opportunity. Only Christ can open up the blind eyes and soften the stubborn hearts of those that refuse to see.