Christ brings division, even among Christians (1 Cor 11)...
the peace we seek, is found only in him. False worldly peace doesn't excuse the
gun-toting, gun-enforced pseudo-peace of either the Right wing militarist or
the Libertarian, nor does a lack of peace in a world of violence grant
permission for Christians to take up the sword. Thousands of pages have been
written attempting to defend the Christian war ethic, just war, 'self-defense'
and a host of other lies and scriptural distortions.
Romans 12 clearly explains the context of the Christian. We
are transformed, we are different from the world. Read chapters 12 and 13
seamlessly, without the artificial chapter division and note the contrast. Chapter 13 does not begin a new topic. The
discussion of the sword-bearing state is directly related to the discussion
already begun in what we call chapter 12. It's the same discussion and Paul is
drawing a contrast. He is explaining why there is a state and how we as
Christians are to understand it and interact with it. But it's very clear we
live and think differently. It has nothing to do with us nor we with it. It is
God ordained but it's not covenantal, it's not a work of the Holy Spirit.
The state is legitimate but temporary, providential not holy,
necessary but a-covenantal. The pilgrim people who use this world as that which
is passing away, who turn the other cheek, who offer the cloak as well, who
bear the cross, who living godly in Christ and in imitation of Him, willingly
suffer persecution, live under the state but are not part of it and its sword
mission. Like the Assyrians and Babylonians of old the New Testament state
serves God's Providential purposes but the Jews/Christians living under these
regimes were not to enlist in their armies nor help them wage war.
Daniel and Joseph are poor examples to appeal to. I say poor
not in the sense of impugning their conduct and testimony. Poor here refers to
the analogy. In other words their situations are not quite analogous with a
Christian voluntarily enlisting in the military or of their own accord seeking
a position within government. While not irrelevant they are hardly patterns for
some fancified notion of 'Christian statecraft'. These men were captives and
slaves. They did not volunteer.
If one wishes to pursue their so-called 'Christian
Statecraft' I would urge caution. I seriously doubt many Christians would wish
to entertain the socio-economic policies Joseph enacted. They are hardly
compatible with American Evangelical notions of godly government. I don't
believe I'm taking much risk in stating that were a Christian to seek office
wishing to implement a 'Joseph' platform of universal state ownership and
paternalism they would be strongly opposed by our contemporary Evangelical
champions of Enlightenment categorised rights and economic policies. Joseph's
Egypt was hardly a place concerned with civil rights or capitalist orthodoxy.
With regard to Daniel's policies, we know next to nothing. One gets the
impression his conduct was praised because of his efficiency, integrity and trustworthiness
not in implementing what we would call godly policies, but in faithfully
executing the decrees of the Babylonian rulers.
It must be maintained that the New Testament nowhere
envisions Christians enlisting in the ranks of the state or wielding the sword.
Sixteen centuries of anti-Christian theology constructed in
the name of 'the Church' does not negate this truth. Hiding behind the lies of
Just War, Christendom and Christian Nationhood does not change it either.
Christian Pacifism has nothing to do with some kind of
namby-pamby 'kumbaya' vision of harmony. The world is full of evil that needs
to be answered. We deserve vengeance but we're delivered in Christ. We have no
claim to vengeance. We have no right to bring claim against those that have
wronged us. Christ is our vengeance. He is the
vengeance.
The Day of the Lord is a day of doom. His wrath will descend
on the wicked. The world blasphemes and accuses such a vision of eschatology as
tantamount to genocide. Indeed millions and billions will die and suffer but
there is no crime. There is no murder. On the contrary, there is justice. It is
right, righteous and good. The world will find this sick. This is because they
are blinded by their sin and self-justification. They reject the reign and rule
of God and spit on His Kingdom and the standards by which it consists. They
have chosen their god and their kingdom as it were. They have unwittingly (or
not) sold themselves to serve their master along with his lies and false
promises. They have in fact, despite their protestations, declared war on the
True God and even now wage war against the Holy Kingdom of Zion and its
citizens... those who are in Christ.
He will destroy them.
What of Old Testament Israel and the conquest of Canaan? Does
this not refute any notions of Pacifism? How can we reconcile Christian
non-violence and non-participation in the state with the clearly God ordained command
to conquer by the sword?
And not just conquer... eradicate. The conquest initiated by
Joshua was of the most violent character. Certainly modern Christian Pacifism
is in grievous error.
This oft employed but erroneous argument points to one of the
fundamental issues and problems that has overshadowed the history of
Christianity, that of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. It
cannot be treated exhaustively here. It will prove sufficient to highlight the
pertinent issues.
The New Testament is the authoritative commentary on the Old
Testament. The Apostles provide us the grid, lens or formula for understanding
the Old Testament. This is true from the law, to the prophets, from the many
types, symbols and ceremonies to the great promises regarding the kingdom and
land of Israel.
The New Testament teaches all of these things are affirmed
and confirmed in Christ (2 Cor 1.20). He is the center of every promise. The
entirety of the Old Testament points to Christ and His offices. He is the Judge
or the Saviour. The Old Testament points to the Gospel and yet in another sense
demonstrates the power of sin and man's inability to save himself. Israel was a
picture of the Kingdom of God and yet in its failures and limitations also
drives God's people to look elsewhere, to look to a city whose foundations are
not made with men's hands.
All of the Old Testament is interpreted in light of the New
and in fact we learn that Israel itself was an often flawed and incomplete
picture of the True Israel, Jesus the Christ.
He is the land, the Temple and the Army of Judgment
(ironically led by another Jesus, the Old Testament Joshua). And yet He is the
True Land, the True Temple and the True Judge.
The Old Testament examples were but temporary and symbolic
pictures of parables pointing to the True Reality found in Christ.
The Old Testament conquest must be understood in light of
this. The Judgment that fell on Canaan is a judgment all of us deserve. It
symbolised the Judgment that's coming upon all the earth. Its extreme violence
is meant to depict the harshness of sin and its penalty, the price of offending
and rejecting God and the extent of sin in that it affects women, children and
even livestock.
The Old Testament conquest was not unfair. It was completely
fair and just. The fact that all of us, all nations, do not fall under such
judgment immediately is due to God's
restraining and merciful hand. The fact that He suspended that for the Canaanite
nation was not unjust but simply a refusal to further extend an already extant
mercy.
The destruction of Canaan points to what awaits all men who
reject Christ, who follow the ways of the world. They have lived for themselves
and yet are without hope.
The conquest must be understood Christocentrically. Joshua
and the Israelites were God's agents in executing a deserved and righteous
judgment. It's meant to be horrible it was a picture (in microcosm) of the Day
of the Lord.
These typological episodes were repeated in the Babylonian
destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC and in the Roman
retribution of 70AD.
This Redemptive-Historical understanding provides solid
answers and explanations in grasping some of God's 'violence' in Old Testament
times. This violence of course is not something we can take unto ourselves.
Even the Israelites under Moses only did so under the explicit and direct
command and commission of God. No nation or individual can claim such a
typological covenant mandate in our own day.
All arguments regarding so-called 'Just War', rights and
self-defence are all humanistic and have no basis in a New Testament
hermeneutics with or without regard to the Old Testament. They are spurious
speculations, dubious occasions of inference and frankly wishful thinking on
the part of those who desire to find a way to flourish in the world.
Additionally with regard to the destruction of Canaan the New
Testament makes much of the Genesis 6 episode and though this supernatural
reality has been mocked, discounted and deemed silly and disrespectable, the
New Testament nevertheless teaches and ratifies the common understanding
regarding fallen angels involved with humans. Peter and Jude are clear on this.
There are a host of secondary issues to this question but suffice it to say, in
some way shape or form the giants of Canaan are most certainly connected to the
same kind of demonic activity in Genesis 6 that produced the nephilim.*
While I don't wish to get sidetracked as this essay focuses
on Pacifism, I would be negligent to fail in mentioning that the New Testament
clearly identifies angelic activity as the source for the Nephilim and their later
demonic variations. This also played no small part in the wickedness of Canaan
and the Redemptive Historical symbolism of Israel(Christ) defeating both Og and
the Canaanite kings. The theme appears once more during the Davidic epoch and
is actually quite prominent in Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Ezekiel and the other
prophets. There are also more than a few references to it in the New Testament
but these are for the most part missed and explained away.
This crucial element of demonic activity which is actually a
fairly significant theme in Scripture has been discounted and relegated to the
'embarrassing' realm of quackery. Seeking social and academic prestige and
rooting so much of theology in apologetics and that on the same foundations of
science and philosophical rationalism, this somewhat prominent Biblical
doctrine and motif has been all but eliminated. And yet ironically it provides
no small amount of elucidation in understanding what is often deemed a
genocidal war of conquest. It will not satisfy the lost people of the world and
the wisdom they rely on, but it does provide Christians a better understanding
of what is to many a rather perplexing episode.
The demonic-elimination element does not in any way detract
from what MG Kline labeled as the Intrusion principle, the Judgment appearing
typologically and divorced from the chronological eschaton. If anything it
supplements and enhances it and helps us to better understand the nature of the
world that Christ comes to in fiery judgment and vengeance, bringing
everlasting destruction. The concept of the New 'heavens' and Earth also takes
on a different and certainly more abundant and plentiful, fuller meaning.
Some have accused Christians of embracing a revenge fantasy.
There's probably some justification to that charge. We need to be careful. We
won't rejoice in the destruction of the wicked out of a spirit of vengeance. We
all have fallen into traps, wishing wickedly in our hearts for the destruction
of enemies. There is something satisfying in seeing an antagonist fall to the earth
and crash in a heap of flames. Our flesh glories in this and it's easy to think
about getting back at the world and getting satisfaction on the Day of
Vengeance.
Rather we need to pity these people and in this life show
empathy. We can't do that when we're pointing guns at them, bombing them and
putting handcuffs on them. Let the world police itself. Let the dead bury their
dead. Our task is different and it has little or nothing to do with their city
and their dreams of Babel.
We will approve of and rejoice in God's Judgments not because
we are getting our revenge but because His Judgments are right and true. We
will rejoice because sin is being eliminated. We will rejoice because the god
of this age and all who belong to him will be cast out into the outer darkness.
We must understand that God's delay in Judgment is rooted in
mercy and we also need to reflect that. We proclaim the Judgment and need not
shy away from its force and meaning... though this will offend the world and
drive them to mock us and blaspheme. Regardless we warn and tell the truth. The
vengeance of that Day is not for us, but God executing a righteous and long
delayed judgment. While they scoff at such a notion, they stand already
condemned. The Judgment has been delayed for the sake of longsuffering (2 Peter
3). They should have already been destroyed but God is willing to wait... to
give time for repentance. Aren't you glad? Aren't you thankful? Is that not a
cause to rejoice?
And yet this profoundly shapes our ethics and expectations
for this life. While the world chases after goals
and success, we look up, waiting with blessed hope for the appearing of
Jesus Christ.
If this world is doomed to perish in fire, if the works of
man are to be burned up, if I'm to expect persecution and mistreatment...
Then would I be concerned with nationalist dreams and
building nations that wield power? How about building a business empire?
What about success in general?
Success, just what is that? As Christians using the New
Testament, let's work out a doctrine of success. How is that defined in terms
of the New Testament? I can assure it is antithetical to both the culture and
the common sensibilities of most professing Christians.
Ironically Paul teaches in Romans that even while we are
slaughtered we are more than conquerors. The world will hate us and pity us.
They will pity our children. They will think us miserable, losers. They will think
it strange that we do not join in their visions of the future, and their
understanding of happiness.
It's amusing to consider, how if we're not concerned with
defending our 'stuff' then there's not so much to get upset about, to fight
about. The more we are tied to this world and define ourselves by its
definitions of success, respectability, wealth and ethics... suddenly what
really matters is protecting these things, fighting others who would seek to
take what we have and what we 'earned'. The world is suddenly filled with
enemies (as indeed it is) but enemies not of God's Kingdom but threats to our
treasure piles.
Christians need to understand that fame and fortune are not
our calling. This point is intimately wed to the concept of 'Christian
Pacifism'. It is incompatible with the Middle Class values the Church has embraced
and ratified.
*The Klinean view that the 'Sons of the Gods' were
self-deified kings, perhaps demon inspired, carries a degree of plausibility
but ultimately fails to seriously reconcile the Old Testament text, let alone
what the New Testament has to say in reference to it.
The largely modern 'Sethite vs. Cainite lines' view is without exegetical warrant and instead
represents a case of wishful thinking and systematic theological deduction run
amok. I continue to contend that Dominionist Confessionalists and Evangelicals
who seek a voice in the culture and ultimately respect are unwilling to appear
foolish by believing something much of our culture would relegate to fantasy
and science-fiction. Though I'm not sure why this is the case as the
Incarnation and Resurrection are certainly just a problematic for modern secular
thinking. The abuses on the part of Charismatics and others with regard to the
questions of angels and demons also probably plays no small part.
Continue reading Part 4(Final)
Continue reading Part 4(Final)