God commanded people to kill in the Old testament, does he still command people to kill today?
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While God did command nations to kill, it's important to remember that he never commanded individuals to kill devoid of their representing a nation.
So no, I don't think you could say that it is legit for any single individual to claim that God commanded them to kill. On the contrary, one of the ten commandments is, "You shall not murder." (Exodus 20:13). The word that God uses for murder is different than the word that is used to mean "kill" when it is carried out in war.
So to answer your question, yes. You can deny their claim. They were not told by God to murder.
You can read more about the words used here.
Upvote:1
One thing to consider is the different role of the individual vs. the role as an agent of the State. With a notable exception of Abraham and Isaac (and maybe some others I can't think of) the specific command to kill an individual or obliterate a nation, etc. seems to be given to a representative agent of the State as the agent of the State. Also, bear in mind that Israel underwent a government transition throughout the OT, so in a purely theocratic society, a priest might act as judge and would deliver justice based on revelation. As the government model changed priests, kings, soldiers, spies, etc. were given orders to kill at times as agents of the State.
That being said, the individuals acting on their own behalf don't have the same authority that agents of the State do, and most governments (AFAIK) don't follow the same theocratic model that early Israel did (so, I'm not aware of many courts of law -- especially, ostensibly Christian courts -- killing someone because "God told them to"). All that to say, if someone claimed that God told him to murder someone, I think we would have very little Biblical precedent to consider him anything other than delusional.
As a bit of post script: regarding Abraham and Isaac, it's important to remember a few things: Abraham had received a promise that God was going to create a nation from him; Isaac was ultimately spared though Abraham didn't really know how that was going to pan out; and this predated Moses, the law, and the "modern" government body of Israel, so the notion of the State was not really well-defined at this point. I don't want to try so hard that I'm forcing a fit through rationalization, but I think it could be argued that based on his role within his tribe, Abraham may very well have been acting as the appropriate agent of his State (tribal priest, for example?)
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