The history of mankind is filled with blood. Much of it spilled over the idea of religious zealotry. Many false religions cry out for the blood of infidels and barbarians who do not support the religion of the one holding the weapon. There have even been many bloody wars and crusades for the sake of Christ. Those who claim to follow Christ use the Bible to justify the death of others in a bloody and violent way. They will point to the Old Testament and show the violence of the Hebrew nation under God’s direction, the absolute brutality, by modern standards, of the Old Testament civil law, and of the words of Christ in Luke 22:36 which warn the Christian, “And Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” Similarly, in Matthew 10:34, He says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Looking at these words, there are times when a Christian might believe that it is time to go to war for Christ in the physical sense and use these biblical ideas to justify killing for the sake of spreading the kingdom of God.
Looking at the Old Testament, one can easily be led to believe that bloodshed is God’s modus operandi. The number of times in the book of Joshua alone where the Israelites went into a city state which seemingly had done nothing except exist in place is staggering. The amount of lost life at the hands of the Israelites in that book is genocidal in scope and scale. Does that justify violence, though? The answer is no. The violence Joshua inflicted upon those people was used as their judgment from God. In Joshua 1:7, God commands Joshua in plain language, “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” Joshua could turn to the Law of Moses and see in Leviticus 18:24-25 that the land and the people had made themselves “unclean,” meaning they had sinned. While we do not have much on how God dealt with Gentiles, we can observe in the book of Jonah that God did speak with them and give them opportunity to repent. Reading on in the Old Testament, it can be observed that Israel is a divine instrument for punishment for the sins of those people, and not a justification for any kind of bloodshed by man’s choosing.
In the New Testament, the words of Christ are clear that there will be some sort of waging of warfare. The apostles were brutally murdered (martyred) for their belief. The words of Christ in Luke 22 and Matthew 10 seem clear that we should have a sword and be prepared to use it. Peter even did when it came time to defend Christ from those who would kill him. Jesus had gone out to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Judas had left the Last Supper to fetch the servants of the high priest to betray Jesus. In John 18, Judas led those servants with their torches and weapons to that garden. After Judas kissed him and Jesus positively identifies Himself (Mark 14:45), Peter felt that he could not stand aside any longer, and lunges forward ready to defend Christ with the sword: “Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)” (John 18:10).
If there were ever a time to attack, retaliate, and go to war for the sake of Christ, this was the moment, and Peter seized it! One can imagine the scene as Peter attacks, probably yelling, the sound of more swords being drawn, Malchus narrowly getting his head rendered by Peter’s sword, lucky to only have his ear taken, and it suddenly stops when Jesus speaks, saying in v. 11, “Put your sword into its sheath.”
But, why? Why not defend You, oh God! Humanity needs You here with us! We all want you to keep teaching us Your way! Why not defend you to our dying breath because you are worth it? Why would I sell my cloak and buy a sword but to use it for Your sake? Why would you tell me that there will be no peace, but never go on the offensive? Pilate asks a question to Jesus which answers all these things. In John 18:33, Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” A king should be defended after all. A kingdom wages war. Verse 36 holds Jesus’s answer: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from this world.”
In Matthew 26’s account of the arrest of Jesus, He puts even more context to this response: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of Angles?”
Jesus’ sayings that He was bringing war with the world is a spiritual warfare. The sword is for the traveler. The context of Luke 22:36 speaks of a moneybag and a knapsack. These are the tools of the evangelist, the sword is a tool of defense and survival, but not of war. Jesus never justified violence. Doing so pulls the ideals of Jesus outside of the divine realm and into the ideas and ideals of man. Governments wage war, and Christians sometimes go out and do the bidding of whom God has given the sword of government, which is a different discussion, but violence is never justified for the Christian on the offensive. For that is what the sword of truth is used.
Lance Byers