I have a lot of little angles to approach this from and I'm not certain how many of them I will cover in this blog post. But we will start with the Bible. Everything that I state should be able to be backed up by the Bible. My own opinion could be wrong. If I am merely philosophizing about the right answer, then I have been letting my own wisdom take charge and that could definitely have heavy doses of mere speculation mixed in. God's word should not be diluted by my own thoughts.
I do not intend to tailor this post in such a manner as to be "politically correct." God's word is not politically correct. So neither shall I interpret it as if it is.
I do not intend to tailor this post in such a manner as to be "politically correct." God's word is not politically correct. So neither shall I interpret it as if it is.
This post is intended for other Christians to read and participate in discussion with, but feel free to do so even if you're not one.
With that...we'll start. I'm not sure how to organize this, so I'm essentially going to just start dumping some points down and expounding a bit.
1. "Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13) & "Neither shalt thou kill" (Deuteronomy 5:17). God clearly tells the Israelites here that killing is a sin. Now, if you jump around in the Old Testament, you'll find plenty of examples in which God instructed the Israelites that they were to kill the people who were in the promised land and such. So what is this then, a direct contradiction with God's law and His commandments? I've heard it argued that this law actually means that the Israelites were not to kill each other and that it was not applicable to other peoples. For right now, I'll mention the following.
- God also commanded the Israelites to sacrifice. However, please note that we no longer offer sacrifices. Could it be that we are no longer to kill at all per the directions Jesus brought us in the New Testament? More on this later.
- If I'm correct, its often indicated in these scenarios, that the "people of the land" or however they were referenced, were often wicked and idolatrous etc. God was judging these people in addition to bringing the Israelites to their promised land. So this was not simply a case of Israel randomly deciding to kill a nation that was in the way of their promised land.
- The Israelites did not make the decision to attack of their own accord. God directed them on when to attack various nations. It would probably be a good idea to ignore any cases in which the Israelites decided to attack a nation while they were not following God. Not that the events didn't happen, but since Israel was in sin at the time, we should not use their behavior at that time to advocate violent action.
2. "Thou shalt love...thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10:27). How is this related? Well...Jesus expounded on who our neighbor is. In verses 30-37, Jesus gives the parable of the Good Samaritan and at the end asks first "Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the theives?" Of course the answer was the Good Samaritan. Jesus then says (in reference to the Good Samaritan's actions) "Go and do thou likewise." In other words, Jesus is saying that we should show mercy and kindness to people. Our neighbors are not just the people nearby - our neighbors are to be all people. At the very least, it seems to indicate that our neighbors are those who are in need. Well, aren't the people in warring countries who hate us in need of the Gospel? The greatest need of man is that he needs a Saviour! It's the whole reason why Jesus came to die! He did not come to save the good people. He came to save the wicked! "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I cam not to call the righteous, but the sinners. (Mark 2:17)
3. "The thief (Satan) cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' (John 10:10) Jesus' mission is to bring life to people, and the devil's mission is to bring death. So if I kill someone, for any reason at all, have I not just fulfilled the mission of the devil and thwarted the mission of Jesus?
4. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thous shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hat you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you;" (Matthew 5:43-44) It is absolutely 100% IMPOSSIBLE to obey this command that Jesus gave us while taking violent action against another human being. Picture the following judgement day scenario. A man is standing before God. God points out a person that this man killed during a war that he participated in. The man argues "But I did it in order to protect my family and the land that you blessed me with! I was providing protection to my family and being a good steward of the country that you blessed me with!" And the response may be something along the lines of "Yes, you loved your family. Yes, you loved your country. But you did not love that man! You have defied my commandment to do so! His soul now screams in hell because you robbed him of the opportunity to be reconciled to me!" I'll reiterate - you cannot obey Jesus command to love your enemies if you take violent action against them. He gave no exceptions along with this command and it's explicitly stated. There's no difficulty interpreting what He said.
5. "And the servant of God must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. And that tehy may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will." (2 Timothy 2:24-26) There are a several things to note here.
- "be gentle unto all men." Gentle people do not use violent action against others. Also note that it says to be gentle to whom? ALL men. Not just some of them, not just the other Christians, not just the nice people - all men.
- "apt to teach." This kind of echoes the statement Jesus made in Matthew 28:19-20 to "Go ye therefore, and teach all (Note the word "all" again) nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you..." Paul is instructing Timothy that servants of God (us) should be teaching people.
- "if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." So instead of warring with people, we should be teaching them instead. Why? Well, this scripture says that we should because there is a chance that God may bring them to repentance as a result!
6. Consider the parable of the Servant who did not forgive his fellow servant (Matthew 18:23-35). Christians are like that first servant who was forgiven of his debt by his master (God). Are we really going to turn around and refuse to offer that same grace to another person? We are just as guilty of sin as they are! If we had not received salvation, we'd be right next to them in hell after judgement. It wouldn't matter that I simply told a lie, and the guy next to me killed someone. Both of us got the same punishment - eternal hell. So we are not any better than any other people, just because our sin is different from their sin and their sin is worse in our eyes. We should not dare to refuse forgiveness to someone when God has forgiven us! The consequences are serious (:34)!
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At this point, I would like to look at the topic from some other points of view also.
1. What if you were to argue that "Well, I killed the robber that was going to shoot the banker, because I knew the banker was not saved and by shooting the robber, I have extended the time that the banker has in order to make a decision to follow Christ." Okay. But what about the robber? He's not saved either. So you have just killed a man in order to save another man's life. Sounds self-defeating.
2. "Okay, but what if the robber was going to kill more people afterward too? So didn't I do more good because I allowed one man to die in order to extend the possibility of salvation to many people?" This is actually a man-made way of looking at moral decisions, It's called utilitarianism and refers to making a choice that will bring the most benefit to the greatest number of people. I do not believe that God is utilitarianistic. Look at the story of Peter's prison escape in Acts 12. God miraculously brought Peter out of the prison, but it came at the cost of 16 people's lives (verses 4 and 19). Peter was already saved. The 4 quaternions of soldiers likely weren't. So God allowed 16 people to die in order to save the life of one man. As such, I do not believe that God would accept a utilitarianistic approach to this scenario. Besides, by killing the robber, you have neglected showing love to him and as a result have disobeyed Jesus' command in Matthew 5 as we described earlier.
3. "Well, what should I do then?" You do have a few options.
- Pray. God answers prayer. There are plenty of verses for that.
- Use yourself as a shield. If he kills you and then kills the banker, at least you've done what you can. It's in God's hands now. I'd even say that you could try wrestling the robber to the ground. I wouldn't consider this to be wrong personally. Plenty of people wrestle just for fun.
- There have been stories of people who in faith told a would-be bandit to "Freeze in Jesus' name" or something similar and they did. There is power in Jesus' name - all of creation is subject to it, and "Greater things than these" shall we do.
- God may supernaturally handle the entire thing, He doesn't actually have to use any kind of human intervention at all. You can't plan for that type of scenario to work out. I we could, we wouldn't have chances to have our faith in God's control tested.
At this time, I think I will start wrapping up this post. I have a question to answer from one of my earlier blog posts concerning the statement "Christians should not serve in the military" and why this is the case, especially when considering the following three scenarios
- John the Baptist did not tell the soldier to stop being a soldier (Luke 3:14)
- Jesus did not indicate that the centurion who requested healing for his servant was in sin (Luke 7:1-10)
- Peter did not indicate that Cornelius' profession was a sin (Acts 10)
First in general...there is nothing wrong with being a soldier persay. The title carries with it the expectation or implication of violence, but does not carry that requirement. Soldiers do plenty of things that are fine. Take for example times when there are natural disasters and the arm is called in to assist in the area with rebuilding, cleanup, etc. This is perfectly fine. The Bible doesn't say "Thou shalt not be a soldier." It indicates that violence is a sin rather. Understandably, many soldiers are ordered to attack others. A soldier could refuse these orders and remain in compliance with God's law. There will of course be consequences for this denial of authority (obey God rather than men - Acts 5:29), and for that reason, I do not encourage Christians to participate in the military. However, should you choose to, I don't necessarily believe that it is a sin.
Pertaining to the specific scenarios -
1. At the time that the soldiers questioned John the Baptist, note that Jesus had not yet come and died for our sins, bringing the new way. So He had not yet brought us the contents of Matthew 5 (It has been said...But I say love your enemies.)
2. Similarly to the first point, at this time, the Gospel had not yet been fully released by Jesus and He had not yet died. Also, the Gospel was not yet being delivered to the Gentiles.
3. Peter and the centurion. I won't exactly agree with this one. Peter never explicitly said that Cornelius had to give up his profession. He did however give in verses 34-48 some other teaching which included the following:
- "God is no respecter of persons" God doesn't see one person as being more important than another. In other words, I as a Christian am not more important than a muslim in Iran.
- "But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." God will accept a convert from any country. This implies that we should not be killing people from other countries as they may be potential converts.
- "And He commanded us to preach unto the people." You can't preach to people that you are killing.
There's no further information as far as whether Cornelius continues to be a soldier after that either. Note Peter's approach. He didn't state Cornelius' sins to him. He stated the Gospel to him instead, and let God take care of the details. Our job as Christians is not to point out the areas in people's lives that need to be fixed. We are simply to bring them to the knowledge of God's plan of salvation and let God do the pointing and changing. Fellowship with Christians provides a great means to share thought on the Bible and people can learn from that however. I am not saying that we should only teach salvation. We should definitely focus on salvation when speaking to the unsaved, but this is not the same case when speaking to fellow Christians.
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At this point, I think I will end the post. I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments.
Have a great week!
