How could a righteous and loving God allow the other innocent babies of Bethlehem to be murdered and only save Jesus? (Matthew 2:13-18)
We start this answer by remembering that a righteous and loving God created man in His own image, righteous and loving. It was Adam and Eve that chose to believe the lie of Satan over the truth of God. It was Adam and Eve that chose to include evil in a world that was very good. It was Herod the Great, born a descendant of Adam and Eve, complete with a sinful nature, that chose to destroy the infants of Bethlehem to protect his honor. It was a band of soldiers that chose to go door to door and carry out their bloody and merciless orders. Thanks be to God for the wise men who chose to go back a different way and have nothing to do with Herod’s plot. Thanks be to God for Joseph and Mary who chose to flee to save their Son, Jesus, the Son of God. Thanks be to God for Jesus to return and one day accept the equally brutal death assigned to Him, not the death at the hands of Herod, but the death at the hands of God Almighty. Thanks be to Jesus for removing the curse of Adam and Eve, the curse of sin and death, for as many as will believe on Him.
So, we might answer the question like this. God allowed Adam and Eve to sin in the garden and bring about the curse that would bring death to all mankind, including the deaths of those innocent babies. But God saved His precious Son, Jesus, so that He could one day die for the sins of the world so that whoever believes in Him will be saved.
Another way to look at this question is to consider the murder of innocent babies today. Every year, around 73 million babies are aborted in our world. We might ask the same question today, “why does God not protect these innocent babies?” The answer is that God allows the selfish and greedy to abort them for worldly and sinful reasons, like Herod did. At the same time, God allows other people to be complicit in these abortions and carry them out, like the soldiers did. And, at the same time, God allows righteous people to speak out against abortion and save some, like the wise men and Joseph and Mary did.
The plight of the babies in Jesus’ day and the plight of the babies today are both very vivid reminders of the curse on this earth that is brought about by mankind and our need to be saved from our sins. As Jesus said so clearly in Luke 13:3, “…but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”