Of course, I found it amusing – and I told them so – that atheists who believe that morality is relative and there is no absolute, universal moral standard of conduct, would charge God – or anyone, for that matter – with being immoral. Its funny how atheists will take the moral high ground when they’re attacking God. Suddenly, “everyone knows”, or at least every “normal person knows,” that genocide and dashing babies against rocks is wrong. But, I have asked time and again: what is “wrong” and what is a “normal” person given chance, change over time, and a closed universe? The rest of the argument along these lines, which I set forth, also come up in this book by Tim Keller and this video of a debate between Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens.

But beyond that, here is an example of where knowing the full scope of biblical revelation as the unfolding of God’s plan of redemption in history becomes so helpful. The assumption of the atheist or skeptic is that babies are innocent and as such do not deserve death. Even us Reformed folk have a hard time thinking otherwise! After all, the death of a baby can be one of the most tragic things that a family can experience. The mere idea of a baby dying, no less being dashed against rocks, hits us at the heart. However, the Bible is very clear, there was only one baby born innocent in all of history. Everyone is not only born in sin, but conceived in sin, having the the sin, guilt, and corruption of Adam imputed to them. That means even babies are sinful and under the curse of God deserving his full wrath and anger. If it were otherwise, then babies wouldn’t die. But they do die, therefore they must have the sin of another imputed to them.

Given this, we know then that God has no obligations to allow anyone to live. We all deserve his wrath and the curse of our sin, which is death. Therefore, it ought not to surprise us that God would order the death of an entire people group. He is simply carrying out the sentence which sinners deserve, but which has been delayed since the fall. There is nothing immoral about God’s acts of genocide. It is he carrying out his justice. It serves as a foreshadow of the eternal wrath of God coming to all who are found outside his gracious covenant.

But now, inevitably, the point comes up: so that means that religious people have a precedent for today carrying out acts of genocide. In fact, atheists argue, just about any time we see genocide committee today its in the name of religion. Of course, historically, that’s not completely true. After all, atheistic Russia was able to commit genocide with the best of ‘em. But it is true, much blood has been shed in history in the name of religion.

However, that can’t be blamed on the Bible. And once again, a redemptive-historical hermeneutic is of help to us. When did God order Israel to do the things they did? He did so in the Old dispensation. He did so in the time of revelation. He spoke directly to his people through the prophets commanding them to take up the sword and slaughter in his name. However, we no longer live in that dispensation, nor in the time of revelation. God does not reveal himself directly with new revelations today. All that is contained in God’s revelation for his church is already in the Bible. Therefore, if someone picks up a sword and says “God told be to slaughter all the Irishman in American,” you ought to be just a little suspicious of that someone. God just ain’t revealing new things like that today.

But what is more, we have the new and final revelation of the New Covenant. And there we are told explicitly that God’s Kingdom is not fought with carnal weapons of swords, armies, or – if you will – tanks, guns, and missals. Rather, our warfare is spiritual and it is fought with the proclamation of the Gospel and God’s offer to be reconciled to him and one another through Jesus Christ and by faith alone in him.

So, a robust Biblical Theology, far from offering us problems as Christians actually offers us solutions. Furthermore, no need to fear the skeptical attacks of atheists. What on the surface may seem to be a problem set up to take down our faith, is nothing more than self-defeating folly upon closer examination of the text of Scripture.

Oliphint recently appeared on Prime Time America to talk about the reader.  I regret, you’re going to have to work if you want to listen to this one.  Here are the details from Westminster:

Download Hour 2 on the right hand side and the interview is 31:00 in. For Part Two of the interview, do the same for the day after here http://www.moodyradio.org/brd_ProgramDetail.aspx?id=45724

1. Every Thought Captive by Richard Pratt, Jr.
2. The Battle Belongs to the Lord by K. Scott Oliphint
3. Always Ready by Greg Bahnsen
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (especially Book I – you’ll have to listen to the discussion to hear why this is on the list)
5. Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended by Greg Bahnsen
6. Van Til’s Apologetic by Greg Bahnsen (contains large portions of Van Til’s writings)
7. Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til annotated by William Edgar
8. The Defense of the Faith, 3rd edition by Cornelius Van Til annotated by K. Scott Oliphint
9. A Christian Theory of Knowledge by Cornelius Van Til
10. Survey of Christian Epistemology by Cornelius Van Til
11. Common Grace and the Gospel by Cornelius Van Til
12. Introduction to Systematic Theology by Cornelius Van Til annotated by William Edgar