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A Christian View of War
March 23, 2003
By Robert W. Robinson
War is evil. As I understand it, there will be only one absolutely “just” war—and that will be at the end of the age, when God will righteously go to war against Satan and those who will side with him. Until then, we must realize that all wars are evil. Wars are caused by evil, and wars’ consequences are evil. The weaponry at our disposal now only compounds the evil. To call war anything other than evil would be a self-deception. This has been, and I hope will always will be, the Christian understanding of war.
The issue is not whether or not war is evil, but whether or not it can be avoided. When a nation is faced with a malevolent force that threatens innocent lives, should not that nation seek to remedy that injustice? When a nation’s people are threatened, should it not take defensive and sometimes forceful measures? In other words, is it ever better to fight than to not fight? Could war perhaps be a lesser evil than allowing aggression and terror to go unchecked and unpunished?
The war with Iraq has very many complex issues related to it. And from the outset, I want to make it known that I do not wish to give my opinions on this particular situation. What I do wish to do is more foundational: It is the duty of Christian leaders to help their congregations to think in a Christian way about the issues of their day. It’s not enough to simply apply our Christianity to our private lives (our marriages, our families, our ethics at work). It’s not enough to just
apply our Christianity to the “spiritual” realm (church attendance, prayer, worship). I’ve heard it said that either Jesus Christ is Lord
of all, or he is not Lord at all. The Lordship of Jesus Christ includes the issues of our day—issues concerning war, issues concerning economic justice and caring for the needy, issues relating to technologies such as cloning and genetic engineering, issues relating to the education of our children, issues relating to male-female relations…(just to name a few!). So it is not my place to tell you
what to think, but how to think.
There is a danger in giving a message like this at a time like this—some will misconstrue me as being either too “pro” or too “against” the current war in Iraq. Some will hear something and will presume to lump me into a category, and in a heightened time of emotion like this, it is easy to misunderstand what you hear. Please hear that it is not my intention to debate this particular war. It is simply to give you the tools to think “Christianly” about the issues of any war, and this one in particular for
yourself.
So, in this message, I intend to give Christians a base of understanding about the issue of war. From this foundation, you will be able to make up your own conscience-led decisions on where you stand on all the more complicated issues of any given war—including the current war in Iraq. Without a Christian foundational understanding, we will not have the proper filter through which to interpret what those pundits from both sides of a debate have to say. We will become guilty of simply parroting the party line of whoever we have a tendency to vote for (whether it’s Democrat or Republican or something else). Christians are
individually responsible for what they believe; we cannot simply “tow the party line.” I have no agenda to represent either the left or the right, the doves or the hawks. I just want to answer the questions that Christians ask concerning war.
So, the way I’m going to try to tackle a topic as immense as this is to try to anticipate what questions people are asking about Christianity and war. I will give brief, and I hope informative, answers to these. I’m sure I’ll miss some of your questions, and if I do, I apologize. Try to figure out the answer by extrapolating it from what I do say, and if that is not enough, please feel free to ask it of me.
Email
me at vanguardchurch@juno.com
So, here is our “Q & A” on Christianity and War.
1. Would Jesus ever go to war?
The answer to that is simply, yes. As I referred to at the outset, Jesus is pictured in the book of Revelation as the ultimate righteous warrior.
This is what the apostle John saw when he got a prophetic glimpse into how the world will end:
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”
(Rev. 19:11-15) This is far from the Jesus we normally think of—it is not the picture I saw hanging in Sunday School. But this is who the Lord is. It is also the picture of God throughout the Bible. Speaking of God the Father, named Yahweh (The
LORD) in the Old Testament, Moses sang this song:
“The LORD is a warrior; the
LORD is his name” (Exodus 15:3). Which brings us to question 2.
2. Is it proper to apply Old Testament Texts about Israel to our country today?
There are three ways Christians have seen the Old Testament in relation to us today. The first is illustrated by a sermon I heard on the radio last week. I was listening to a popular radio preacher legitimizing American war efforts based on several Old Testament texts about Israel warring against their enemies. His presumption was that the United States is the closest thing to a godly nation in the world, being that we (in his estimation) are a “Christian Nation.” Therefore, the way God was
with the Israelites in Old Testament times is how God is with Americans
in our day.
Here is the problem with that interpretation: Israel was a theocracy—under the direct leadership of God. Their whole nation was wrapped up with being the holy people of God, and all their laws were tied directly into being a chosen people, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, with a royal priesthood. When we seek to find something analogous to that in our day, we do not find it in any
nation—not the United States or Great Britain or any other country. The New Testament applies that only to the people of God under Christ! Peter writes to
Christians these incredible words:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
(1 Peter 2:9-10)
So, most of Christianity throughout history has interpreted the Old Testament promises to the “People of God” (that is, Israel) to be
spiritually granted to the “People of God” in the New Testament (that is, peoples of every race, nation, language and tribe—Jews and Gentiles alike who have yielded to Jesus Christ). And the
physical wars of the Old Testament are a precursor to our spiritual warfare in the New Testament.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12)
So, that naturally brings up the next question:
3. Has the Old Testament been superceded by the New Testament?
Another way to take the Old Testament is how our pacifist brothers and sisters do (like the
Friends [Quakers] and the Mennonites). They see that the Old Testament conception of God (God as a
warrior) as being superceded by the New Testament conception of God found in Jesus (God is
love).
While I respect our pacifist Christian brothers and sisters (and we have a lot of Quakers and Mennonites in the Canton area!), I must disagree with their stark separation of the revelation of God in this way. Their conception of the Bible robs it of its full revelation of who God is. It is better to see the entire Bible as teaching the law of love
throughout. The New Testament does not supercede the Old, but fulfills the old—reinforcing and interpreting it rightly.
The Old Testament was actually all about love balanced with justice, just as is the New. That is why there were rules set to limit Israel’s destruction and violence as they took over the Promised Land (Deut. 2). That is why the Psalmists grieved over violence, looking to God to cease all wars and to destroy all weaponry (Ps. 46; 120). That is why David, the great King of Israel, was not allowed to build God’s temple because he “shed much blood and have fought many wars” (1 Chron. 22:8-9). Through Isaiah (and many other Old Testament prophets), God lets us know that his ultimate plans are for peace, not for war. A golden age of
peace will come from God’s intervention into our world. “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
(Isaiah 2:4) As Brian McLaren recently wrote, “Going to war is never a dream come true; it is always a nightmare come true, God’s best dream for us being temporarily defeated. Training for war is a reminder that the dream of God for planet earth is still frustrated, and taking up swords and spears (or tanks and bombs) means that one or both sides have failed, one or both sides have been defeated, have failed to let God ‘judge between nations’ and ‘settle disputes for many peoples.’”
So, the Old Testament is a guide to our understanding about our God and our attitude toward war, but not as the two extremes seem to want to have it: Either as a direct analogy to us in the United States to justify war, or as something that has passed and has no relevance for the way we should see the issues of our day.
The third way of understanding the Old Testament is one I have come to believe is the only proper way to do so. My understanding is in line with historic Christianity: that of the Church Fathers, St. Augustine, John Calvin, and much of the current evangelical church: that the Old Testament functioned as a precursor, a type, which found its fulfillment in the New Testament. After all, Jesus did say,
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).
4. How should we then understand Jesus’ teachings about “turning the other cheek” and “loving your enemies”?
Okay, I said that the New Testament does not “supercede” the New. But is that not what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5?
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:38-44)
D. A. Carson explains: “The OT prescription (eye for eye) was not given to foster vengeance; the law explicitly forbade that (Lev 19:18). Rather, it was given, as the OT context shows, to provide the nation's judicial system with a ready formula of punishment, not least because it would decisively terminate vendettas.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary). In other words, under their Theocratic system, Israel’s Law was clear that personal vendettas beyond proportionate justice were wrong. Old Testament Israel had governing authority to carry out justice, but the punishment had to be proportionate to the crime.
Also, it must be noted that Jesus is not quoting the Old Testament when he says,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.’”—nowhere in the Bible does God say to “hate your enemy.” Jesus must be quoting what had become the common rule of his day, and he is seeking to clarify what God’s intentions in the OT Law had always been.
So Jesus says, “turn to him the other (cheek) also,” and “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. He is saying that in the New Testament, the new
spiritual People of God (that is, those who are His disciples and followers) must take the Law of God about not being vindictive to a more personal, spiritual level. The law of Israel guided that nation; now Jesus is bringing it to its fulfillment in the individual heart. Jesus said,
“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight…” (John 18:36). He is saying is that as individuals, we must never retaliate against anyone who is doing evil against us. We are not to use force or violence to repel an evil perpetrated against us.
We must hear Jesus say this anew today, for many of our Hollywood movies portray
vigilantism and vindictiveness as virtues. Jesus said just the opposite.
But it’s also important to note that Jesus is talking here to each of us as individual Christians. He is laying down the code for
personal ethics. I must turn the cheek and I must go the extra mile. It does not mean that justice no longer matters; rather, it means that our personal hatred must be turned into love, our desire for kangaroo courts and lynch mobs and blood feuds must be turned into personal nonresistance to violence. For God has appointed a means for carrying out justice in this world—in
government! (We will discuss this in question #5 on the next
page.) Therefore, personal vendettas are no substitute for legal punishment carried out by government.
Government’s authority to carry out justice has not changed, but now in light of Jesus’ teachings, governments have a brighter light by which to carry out that justice. After all, the principles he taught for individuals must have some impact on the whole of society. This is not
superceding the Old Testament, for what the OT was teaching is still true: Government punishment of wrongdoers must match the crime. Domestically, that means there must not be any “cruel and unusual punishment.” Internationally, that means that wars must be fought only in proportion to the threat, but no more.
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