Is It Murder When God Kills

The Bible tells us there have been many deaths by divine order — the flood of Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, the firstborn in Egypt, and the list goes on. In many places, God is seen wiping out men, women, and children. Of course, this leads many people to question the morality of God. Is God a murderer?

How is it right for God to tell us not to kill and then turn around and wipe out the entire earth? Isn’t that hypocritical?

No — and I will explain why.

It comes down to ownership. Murder is wrong because it takes something that doesn’t belong to us. All life belongs to God — and that’s why He, and only He, has the right to give or take it.

Why Is Murder Wrong

Think about this for a moment. Of course, we all know murder is wrong (it’s a law written on our hearts). But have you ever considered why?

If it were just because it causes pain to others — not just the victim — then you might think murder would be fine as long as the victim wouldn’t be missed. Only a murderer would think that’s okay.

If it were just because it harms society as a whole, then any murder of anyone that society deems unwanted or a burden would be fine. The old, sick, and disabled would all be considered part of open hunting season. Again, only a murderer would think that’s okay.

So why is murder wrong?

Let me help you figure it out. When someone takes another person’s life, they are taking something that doesn’t belong to them. This is why murder is wrong.

My life isn’t yours to freely take any more than your life is mine to take. We don’t have the authority to take what isn’t ours. And taking someone’s life is the most valuable thing anyone could steal from another.

But what if you did own the lives of others? What if the breath in their lungs were there only because you gave it to them to use, not to own? What if their life was not actually “theirs,” but yours?

God Owns All Life

The owner of life has the authority to give it and to take it. It belongs to God, not to those to whom God has loaned it. Your life doesn’t belong to me — but it doesn’t belong to you either.

Murder is taking a life that isn’t yours to take. But all lives are His to give and take. If God owns our lives, it isn’t wrong for God to choose how and when they end.

Now, you may think, “But God doesn’t own my life.” Are you sure about that? Where did your life come from? Do you have power over it to keep it? If you feel like it’s your life, not God’s, you’re simply wrong.

At any moment He can withdraw your soul and call it away from your body. You can’t stop Him. He isn’t stealing it from you — He’s collecting what He loaned you. And it really doesn’t matter how you feel about that.

Murder is taking a life that you don’t have the authority to take. And you don’t have that authority because God owns all lives. Old, young, men, women, bound, and free — all lives ultimately belong to God.

If God calls His breath from all people at one time, He has not committed murder. He has collected what is His.

It doesn’t matter why He withdraws His breath from our body. It doesn’t matter when He does it either. And it doesn’t even matter how He does it.

If He wants to send a plague, an army, or just gently whisk your soul away in the night — it’s His choice. So a worldwide flood, fire and brimstone, or people ordered to destroy whole nations — any way He does it is up to Him.

The point is that our lives are His to do with as He will, not our own. That’s why He can do it — and we cannot. This includes the life of the guilty and the innocent alike. We have to come to terms with that fact: He owns our lives, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Ownership and Moral Rights

Some may argue that ownership doesn’t give God the moral right to take a life. But we’re not talking about everyday ownership — we’re talking about divine ownership. Humans don’t actually “own” anything or anyone. God does.

The reason our “ownership” of something doesn’t necessarily give us moral rights to destroy it is because we don’t actually own it like we think we do. Everything we “have” belongs to God; therefore, we have no authority over it that He has not given us.

That brings us to the question of human judges and executioners.

Judges, rulers, and executioners are not acting under their own authority. Their authority to take life exists only because God has temporarily delegated it to them for the sake of justice.

That’s also why we shouldn’t call judges murderers for sentencing people to death, or executioners for carrying it out. God has given them a limited authority to do so. They haven’t taken it upon themselves without Him granting that power.

The lives of those executed don’t belong to the judge, but God has delivered them into the hand of the judge for the express purpose of executing His justice upon them. Every legal system in the world operates on the premise of authority that is given to them — not arbitrarily taken.

In the same way, when God ordered nations to go to war and wipe out entire peoples, they did so not on their own authority but on God’s authority. This is also why genocide in this context was not murder — because God owns all lives and can choose the methods to end them.

Why the Violence

Of course, that leads us to another question. If God has the authority to say when we die, what gives Him the right to make our death violent at times?

Again, the answer is ownership. But God also uses suffering and turns it into something good.

God does not delight in destruction, but He does use it to fulfill His purposes — to restrain evil, reveal His power, and bring people to repentance.

It’s actually a little bit self-centered to think that the method of our death revolves around us. Just because we want a peaceful one doesn’t mean a greater good can’t come from something less peaceful. The death of people in Egypt when God sent plagues served to make Him known to the ends of the earth.

If that suffering can save others by bringing them to the knowledge of God, then it was worth it — even if it wasn’t pleasant at the time.

God uses our method of death to accomplish His will. That will is to bring those who love truth to salvation. Sometimes we don’t know how any good can come from something, but God sees the full picture. It would be unwise to accuse God of cruelty when we don’t know how it actually becomes mercy.

What About the Innocent

We may be able to come to terms with all life belonging to God, but sometimes it’s harder to come to terms with the emotional pain of it. It’s natural to question or even feel that God is cruel when He takes a life — especially if the life is that of a child.

It becomes even harder if they suffered during their final moments. Rarely do people give up the ghost peacefully.

That’s not because God is cruel. It’s because God didn’t design us to die in the first place. It may seem natural in this world for things to die, but it isn’t. What was natural was perfect, eternal life. That changed when Adam sinned.

Even those who have not sinned will die because death has entered the world. My sin doesn’t just affect me — it has far-reaching effects. The sin of Adam caused every human body after him to become frail and eventually die. Sadly, this includes children.

Suffering is the effect sin had on the world. Even those who are innocent suffer because of it. It isn’t a punishment — it’s a reality of living in a world changed by evil. It wasn’t God who caused the suffering; it was sin itself.

But death isn’t the end.

When the innocent die, they enter the joys of the Lord God that no man has ever been able to comprehend. They step away from this world of pain and suffering and enter a new one filled with joy and pleasure. They don’t see any more hard days on earth.

Is this really so cruel? Is it cruel to remove the innocent from the suffering of the world and bring them home? The pain of death lasts for a moment, but then will never come again. They have lost nothing.

Those children who died in the flood of Noah entered into eternal joy. But what would have happened to them if they had not?

In a world so perverse that no one would raise their child to be righteous, those innocent children would have become corrupt adults. They didn’t stand a chance. Hell would have waited for them.

But God took them before they became guilty of sin. He took them home in mercy, saving them from the life that was in front of them — a life of corruption and eternal wrath.

So it’s important that we consider that this life is not the end. The innocent do not suffer any longer after He calls them home.

God isn’t unrighteous to take what belongs to Him, especially to protect it from being destroyed by the world.

He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked — how much less pleasure would He take in the death of the innocent? God doesn’t treat us with callousness. He cares about what we go through. But sometimes we have to go through pain for the greater good to come from it. And sometimes we simply have to trust that God knows what that greater good is.

So no, God is not a murderer — He is the Creator reclaiming what has always been His. Death does not make Him evil; it reminds us that life itself is His gift. Every soul He takes home, every breath He withdraws, serves His good purpose — even when we cannot yet see it.