He must be otherwise we’d hear some condemnation of it in the Bible, surely. But there’s no hint of a biblical program of social reform. In fact, at first sight, the Bible writers seem to endorse the institution. So why don’t we read about the condemnation of slavery in the Bible? 

This is the apologetic equivalent of the poke in the eye. It hurts. And it’s hard to see the issue clearly. However, there are three issues to bear in mind with regards to this subject. 

1. Slavery was not as bad as we think

No one is arguing that the slavery abolished by Wilberforce and his peers wasn’t a disgrace. It was. And we must continue to eradicate anything that approximates to it. But that’s not what the institution of slavery was like in the Old Testament, particularly in Israel. So let’s not read it back into the Bible, just because the word is the same. We need to be careful of committing an illegitimate totality transfer! Though the ancient Near Eastern slave was commonly thought of as the property of his master, the arrangement was more akin to the employer employee relationship that we know of today. I willingly placed myself under bonded employment with the Royal Navy and, had it not been for ‘Options for Change’, would have had to serve my time or buy my freedom! As it was, they paid me to leave in a very wonderful redundancy package.

Though slaves didn’t have any legal rights, they enjoyed a range of privileges. They could start their own business. They could earn money to pay for their own release. They could own their own property. 

They were able to purchase their own freedom. But many chose not to. They preferred the stability offered by their master’s provision of clothing, food, shelter and employment.

They had good job prospects. Some were employed at the highest levels of civil government. Others worked in mines under awful conditions. In between there was a range of experience.

But it wasn’t all bad. It’s not ideal. Social reform is preferable. But let’s not wrongly associate the institution with the worst excesses of the practice.

2. Slavery was regulated by the Mosaic Law

The Old Testament recognised the incongruous practice of slavery in a nation that was once slaves in Egypt (Deuteronomy 15:5). The Mosaic Law did not abolish the institution. It regulated it. It did so in three ways

a. The Mosaic Law reformed a deeply entrenched social convention

A combination of human sin and the deep entrenchment of the practice in the ancient Near East meant that the practice could not be easily eradicated. The only sensible thing to do was to mitigate, limit and control the custom. Therefore, biblical slavery was an attenuated form of that commonly practiced in the ancient Near East. Under the Mosaic Law freedom from slavery was the ideal status in Israelite society. Slaves were released every seven years. But slavery was not an easy thing to eliminate. There were two dominant reasons why it was a difficult practice to eliminate. First, foreign slaves were commonly acquired through one nation’s victory in warfare over another. These foreign fighting men needed to be assimilated into a new society in such a way that they were unable to organise and initiate a new attack. Secondly, in the absence of a welfare state or a generous church, unkind economic conditions meant that for some the only sensible thing was to sell themselves into bonded employment. Destitute Israelites could then pay back their debts but they could only be held in slavery for six years. After this time they were to be set free (Exodus 21:1, Deuteronomy 15:12, Jeremiah 34:14)

b. The Mosaic Law did not grant slave owners absolute rights over their slaves

The biblical demands concerning those who had slaves and servants assumed that their power of the master was not absolute, even though this was the common assumption in the ancient Near East. Consider the following situations

A master could lose his life if he killed his slave (Exodus 20:20&23)

If a master inflicted bodily injury on his slave, the slave was automatically released (Exodus 21:23-26)

The slave had a day of rest each week (Exodus 20:10, Deuteronomy 5:14)

All slaves in Israel were to be involved in the religious life and celebrations of the nation (Deuteronomy 12:12&18)

Any demeaning or oppressive treatment of slaves was condemned by biblical writers since any slaves who had run away from harsh masters were not to be returned but were to be harboured and protected (Deuteronomy 23:15&16)

Israelite servants could not be sold by their masters (Leviticus 25:42)

The Israelite slave master was not permitted to do what he wanted with his slaves.

c. The Mosaic Law improved the conditions for slaves

The Bible affirms that slaves had full personhood, dignity and rights alongside their masters. This was a significant advance on the surrounding cultures. In Exodus 21:20&21 we read this,

‘If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property’.

The point is not that the slave is the property of the master and can be treated however the master chooses. These verses endorse the personhood and dignity of human slaves. If the master struck a slave so severely that the slave died immediately, the master was tried for capital punishment. The slave was considered a human being with dignity. On the other hand, if the slave did not die immediately as a result of this act of using the rod (an instrument of discipline) them the master was given the benefit of the doubt and was judged to have struck the slave with judicial and not homicidal intent. The master would be cleared of murder if the slave got up after a couple of days. But in Exodus 20:26&27 the slightest injury to the slave would entitle the slave to freedom and exemption from further debt. When the passage says that the slave is the master’s property, the point is not that slaves are personal property but that the owner has a personal investment in the slave that he stands to lose either by death or by emancipation. This law is unprecedented in the ancient world where a master could treat his slave as he pleased. 

3. Slavery was undermined by the Gospel

Paul condemns those engaged in the slave trade in 1 Timothy 1:9-11. But we’ll search in vain for any social reform programme. The reason being was that the Apostles prioritised internal individual reform rather than social corporate reform. In the same way that Jesus refused to take on the rule of Rome, neither did the Apostles take on the institution of slavery. But that doesn’t mean that they approved of it. Both Christ and His apostles sought to undermine the socio-political system through the subtle but profound influence of the gospel. The gospel undermined slavery in the following three ways.

a. slaves were treated as Christian brothers and sisters

Paul taught that spiritual status was more important than their social status (Galatians 3, Colossians 3). They were Christian brothers not simply slaves (Philemon).

b. slaves we encouraged to acquire their freedom if offered

Paul laid down clear directions for the appropriate behaviour of Christian slaves and Christian master (Ephesians 6, Colossians 3&4). But he also encouraged slaves to acquire their freedom if that was an option available to them (1 Corinthians 7:20-22).  

c. slaves were given positions of leadership in the church

In Romans 16 Paul mentions two slaves amongst his fellow workers. They were given places of honour within the community. Clearly there was nothing to prohibit slaves from rising to positions of responsibility within the church 

This reversal of social convention within the Christian community would have spoken volumes to a watching world. Over time this would have a massive impact on the larger society. As John Stott says, ‘thus, principles were laid down in Scripture with which slavery was perceived with steadily increasing clarity to be incompatible’ (J.R.W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials, p231).

Conclusion

So where does that leave us? As I understand it we’ve established three things

1. Old Testament slavery was nowhere near as bad as we may have first thought

2. The Mosaic covenant reformed a widespread practice and made it more humane

3. The Gospel undermined the institution and planted in seed form the beginnings of its end

This term’s Christianity Explored has been a real delight. But it’s also been the most demanding I’ve known. The questions have been stimulating and genuinely thought provoking. What’s been especially striking is the objections that have been raised to the Christian faith, especially to the existence of the God of the Bible.

The issue of God’s destruction of His enemies in the Old Testament came up a few weeks ago and I promised that I’d think about it and write something up. Here it is. I don’t suppose it’s the last word on the subject. And so let me recommend another couple of answers here and here. 

Let’s be honest, we find some of what God commands in the Old Testament unpalatable. For example, Old Testament Israel’s foreign policy was pretty full on. Look at Deuteronomy 20:10-18. God commanded the wholesale slaughter of nations. And He wasn’t simply talking about the fighting men. He ordered the destruction of men, women and children. It would be fair to say that it’s not only unbelievers who struggle with this depiction of God. It is incidents such as these that have led people like Richard Dawkins, the proselytising atheist, to accuse the God of the Old Testament of being genocidal. We might not agree but we can see where he’s coming from.  

I suspect that there are two troubling concerns to this depiction of God.

In the first place, we want to know why God commanded the wholesale slaughter of cities. This raises questions about the character of the God we’re expected to worship. Are we really being asked to worship and serve a God who advocates the slaughter women and children?

In the second place, we want to know whether this command still stands. The idea that we should conquer the world in a re-enactment of the Crusades sounds preposterous. Trying to propagate a religious ideology through the use of force is abhorrent. If that’s what Liberal Democracies fear that the Islamic Fundamentalists are trying to do, you can see why they might be suspicious of Christian with similar ambitions.

But the idea that God is guilty of genocide is a distortion of what was going on. We’re in danger of leaving certain aspects out of our reckoning. These are some of them.

1. God was preserving a nation through whom He would bring salvation

God intended to bring the nation of Israel into existence because they would be the means by which He would pour out His blessing to the nations. God’s plan of salvation, which would culminate with Jesus’ birth, began centuries beforehand in the midst of hostile Canaanite territory. Therefore, the command for Israel to engage in military conflict with the surrounding nations was not an isolated, nationalistic agenda. It was part and parcel of God’s intent to bring salvation to the world. He began with the historical situation and had to move the nation through the gruesomeness of war to clear the way for salvation through Jesus Christ. And so we need to come to terms with the fact that war was a normal, though unacceptable, way of life in the ancient Near East. If Israel was to continue as a nation then they had to fight for their existence. Their ‘full on’ foreign policy was shaped with this in mind. They were required to take up arms in self defence as they faced enemies who sought to eradicate them. Therefore, in most of the wars, the Israelites were defending themselves and were not the aggressors. Israel did not initiate most of the conflicts in which they were involved [Exodus 17:8, Numbers 21:1 & 21-32, Numbers 31: 2-3, Deuteronomy 3:1, Joshua 10:4]. In fact as Deuteronomy 20:10 makes clear, Israel’s first responsibility in warfare was to offer terms of peace. If the city complied they went into forced labour. But if the city refused then Israel would make war against it. Israel’s foreign policy was shaped with preservation in mind.

2. God was punishing the nations for their wickedness

In Leviticus 18:24-30 we read about God’s attitude to the nations. There are similar warnings about the Canaanite practices in Exodus 23:24 & 32 and Leviticus 18:25. The Archaeologist W.F. Albright, in his book From Stone Age to Christianity, puts some flesh on the phrase ‘abominable practices’. He identifies ‘their orgiastic nature-worship, their cult of fertility in the form of serpent symbols and sensuous nudity, and their gross idolatry’ [W.F. Albright, From Stone Age to Christianity, (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1940), p214]. And so we need to come to terms with the fact that the nations that were destroyed by the Israelites were not an innocent, decent civilization. God had been patient with this unbelieving and immoral people. But His patience had run out. In fact an argument could be made that it was in the best interests of society in general that this culture was wiped out. Much as we might argue for something similar with regards to Nazi Germany. The eradication of this immoral culture should not be viewed as a regrettable incident in Israel’s history but the righteous act of a God who is intolerant of all forms of evil. The shocking thing is not that God does this but that He doesn’t do it more often.

3. God was purging the land of idolatry

If Canaanite culture survived it would have been a continual temptation for Israel. The idolatrous worship of the original inhabitants of the Promised Land could easily have turned Israel from serving the one true God. This is assumed in Moses’ words in Exodus 23:23-33.

Tolerant co-existence of false worship and wicked lifestyle was problematic in a theocratic state. God’s requirement for Israel to be holy is repeated throughout the early chapters of the Old Testament [Leviticus 18:30 & 20:26]. The ongoing presence of the Canaanite tribes threatened this. The monotheistic faith and practice of Israel could only be preserved through the destruction of corrupting rival cultures.

4. God was exercising His right to take life

We’re understandably appalled at the treatment of the women and children who took no part in warfare. We think that this raises questions about God’s goodness. But that’s not the case at all. It is God’s decision how long we live for. We need to come to terms with the fact that it is God’s prerogative to give and take life. Whatever we think, it’s not an inalienable right that we exist. It’s God’s good and undeserved gift. If He decides that we live for only a few days we cannot charge Him with injustice. He’s done nothing wrong. God was under no obligation to create and having created God is not under obligation to sustain the universe. So even the termination of women and children, though shocking, isn’t unjust.

5. God was employing Israel as His instrument

The Israelites were instruments of God’s judgement. He directed their military activities. He was the divine commander directing His army. Every conflict in which Israel was supposed to engage was initiated by God. Unlike her neighbours Israel did not fight wars for war’s sake. The conquest of the Promised Land was not simply the means of giving His land to His people, but it was also the means by which He destroyed a wicked people. Moses says sa much in Deuteronomy 9:4&5.

Many of us struggle to rid our minds of the marauding images of medieval crusaders wreaking a campaign of havoc, pillage and rape. But God required His Israelite army to uphold ethical and moral standards even as they were engaged in the act of killing (Deuteronomy 23:9). Israelite soldiers were to stand apart from their ancient Near Eastern counterparts in the way they conducted themselves. It’s also true that God employed other nations as His instruments to exact His punishment on His own people when they compromised their covenantal loyalty. Israel wasn’t exempt from the demands of living under the lordship of God. When Israel broke faith with God, He treated them like the other nations. He struck them down as they incurred His judgement and wrath. God judges disloyalty and disobedience whether it occurs amongst His people of amongst His enemies.

Conclusion

And so with these five aspects duly considered it’s reasonable to conclude that God cannot be charged with immorality. The nations were not innocent, they were immoral idolaters. They did not deserve to live and neither did their offspring. In that sense they’re no different to us. God was entirely just in His treatment of all humanity. But He was especially merciful to Israel and to all those who allied themselves with their ultimate ruler, their covenant keeping Lord. God continues to be merciful to all humanity in our continued existence. But He’s especially merciful to those of us who have allied ourselves to His Son Jesus Christ. In him we are not assured of a lengthy existence in this world but that’s a given for the next.

It ought also to be clear that the particularity of Israel’s situation means that the command to drive the nations out of the Promised Land is no longer applicable. They were strict limits to Israel’s military activities. He determined where they went and who they fought. He told them how to fight. And He gave them victory. It was all tied up with God’s promise of the land of Canaan. They were not to embark on a worldwide crusade to force conversion through the sword. They were simply to establish a theocracy through whom God could bring His Saviour to the world.

That God used Israel as His instrument in the past does not provide justification for nation’s claiming God’s support of their military activities now. There is no theocratic state who can claim God’s permission to engage in modern crusades. God continues to use nations as the instruments of His judgement and punishment. But we have no way of knowing when He does. We simply do not know what God is doing in the world. What we do know is that if we live life as His enemy we will face Him as His enemy. And God doesn’t lose. The wise thing to do, like the cities in Deuteronomy 20, is to make peace whilst we can and to enjoy the blessings of His rule.