A Biblical Perspective on War
Selected Scriptures
We are all very much aware of the fact that our nation is on the proverbial brink of war. The President has declared war and the media has begun to post the word in bold print. This is the first war of the twenty-first century.
It is, however, different than the five wars of the twentieth century: World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. It is different in that it is an unconventional war. It is what some are calling an asymmetrical war because it is not fought against a nation or a coalition of nations, but it is still a war. It is a deadly armed sustained conflict with an enemy. In truth, the war has already begun. It started when those hijacked jets hit the buildings and killed thousands of people. Those terrorists acts were essentially a declaration of war.
At this particular time, our nation is strategizing and arming for an appropriate response. The goal of that response is aimed at destroying the enemy's ability to harm us or others again. So the reality of war is swirling around us right here in the first year of the new millennium. And there are many opinions circulating in the national discourse that range from those people who advocate passivism, that is a non-retaliation, all the way to the other side to aggression, the severest kind of aggression is what some people want. There are opinions from restraint to all out destruction. I've heard everything from we shouldn't do anything to we should nuke Mecca. I have heard suggestions that we need to set about to find the specific perpetrators of these crimes against us and bring only them to justice, which would be something like trying to find the actual pilots that flew the Japanese planes and bombed Pearl Harbor and bringing them singularly to justice. I have also, as you have, heard people talk about literally annihilating anybody and everybody connected to the people who did this. And there are all points in between.
We want to come to that not just by virtue of what rhetoric feels more comfortable. We don't want to respond to this thing on sheer emotion, but rather because we are Christians and we have the Bible, we want to go to the Bible and get an understanding of war that comes from Scripture. We have to realize that the military has many believers, some of them from our own church. They are serving in a wide ranging area of responsibility everywhere from support and supply to special forces. And how are they as Christians to understand the responsibility they have under the command of those in the military, how does that fit in with the will of God and the teaching of the Bible?
I'm going to make two big points. I want to keep it as simple as possible and I'm going to load those two points with a lot of information.
Point number one, war in itself is not necessarily wrong, immoral or ungodly. War in itself is not necessarily wrong, immoral or ungodly. Now I know what the sixth commandment says and so do you, "You shall not murder," Exodus 20 verse 13. I also know that in Romans 12 verse 19 it says, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord." We are commanded not to take personal vengeance but to leave vengeance to God and God ordained institutions. It is also true in Numbers 35:33 the Bible says, "So you shall not pollute the land in which you are for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it except by the blood of him who shed it."
So while God says you should not murder and the Bible says you shall not take personal vengeance, it also says that when someone sheds blood that land is polluted until the person who shed that blood sheds his blood. In Genesis chapter 9 and verse 6 God Himself instituted capital punishment. He instituted capital punishment for the crime of murder. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. And later on in the Mosaic instruction we find there are at least 30 other immoral acts, crimes, for which God prescribed the death penalty.
So God Himself has established that we do not have the right to take a life in a act of murder or in an act of vengeance. But there is a place for just retribution and there are crimes, including murder, killing at any level, that require retaliation and retribution in the form of death. It is also true that not only has God established justice on an individual level through human government but He has also established war as a means of judgment on a national level. In fact, God Himself engages in war for His own purpose. God uses rulers and nations in His providence to bring death and destruction to people. And for sure, there are no people on the face of the earth who don't deserve to die because the wages of sin is death, the soul that sinneth it shall die, we all deserve to die. So when people die it isn't some aberration whether they die in an accident or from a disease or from a criminal act or war. That is part of sin. It's the wages, it's the payment. But there are times when God uses rulers and nations within His providence for His purpose to bring certain death and destruction to people because it's His will to do that.
I'm not here to tell you everything about God's will. I don't know that. I don't know why God does it in some circumstances and doesn't do it in other circumstances. God doesn't tell us that. But I trust that God always does what is right. In Joshua chapter 10 and verse 40 Joshua struck all the land, this is Joshua's conquest of Canaan and the children of Israel going into the land of Canaan which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the land that God wanted to give His people and they needed to go into the land and they needed to go in and make war against the idolatrous people of the land and destroy those people and then take that land which God had given them. So Joshua did that, struck all the land, the hill country, the Negeb, the desert in the south, the lowland, the slopes, all their kings. He left no survivor but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded. Amazing. And Joshua struck them from Kadesh-Barnea, even as far as Gaza and all the country of Goshen even as far as Gibeon and Joshua captured all these kings and their lands at one time because the Lord the God of Israel fought for Israel.
Now here is a simple illustration of the fact that God sent Joshua, the commander, and his army, the people of Israel, to go and to make war and utterly destroy all who breathed in the land around Canaan. In Psalm 18, and it's important that you see these passages so I'm going to take the time to point them out to you, in Psalm 18 verse 30, this is a psalm of David and in verse 30 he says, "As for God, His way is blameless." Don't ever forget that. Whatever God does is blameless. "The Word of the Lord is tried, it's proven. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him." You don't have to worry about what God does if you put your refuge in Him, right? Because no matter how you die, if your refuge is in Him even in a war you're going to into His glorious presence. Verse 31, "For who is God but the Lord, and who is a rock except our God, the God who girds me with strength and makes my way blameless. He sets my feet like hind's feet, mountain goat's feet, He sets me upon my high places." Then verse 34, "He trains my hands for battle so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze." David saw himself as a soldier for God that went to battle to kill in fulfillment of divine purpose.
In the fifth chapter of Jeremiah and verse 14 we read, "Therefore thus says the Lord the God of hosts because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire and this people wood and it will consume you. Behold--verse 15, and the Lord here is sending a message to Jerusalem--I am bringing a nation against you from afar." This is Babylon, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. "I'm bringing a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel, declares the Lord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation." And truly Babylon was. "It is a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. Their quiver is like an open grave, all of them are mighty men and they will devour your harvest and your food. They will devour your sons and your daughters. They will devour your flocks and your herds. They will devour your vines and your fig trees. They will demolish with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust. Yet even in those days, declares the Lord, I will not make you a complete destruction." Obviously He saved some of them to take them into captivity and then later to bring them back. "And it shall come about when they say why has the Lord our God done all these things to us, then you shall say to them, As you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours."
God sent the Babylonian army to come in with a massive slaughter to kill the people of Judah and Jerusalem, take a remnant captive and it was a punishment for their idolatry. In the fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah this too a very, very helpful passage of Scripture. Jeremiah chapter 51 verse 1, "Thus says the Lord...Behold I'm going to arouse," and here's an interesting turning of the tables. "I'm going to arouse against Babylon and against the inhabitants of Leb Kamai the spirit of a destroyer and I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may win over her and may devastate her land for on every side they will be opposed to her in the day of her calamity."
What's He talking about? He's talking about the Persians under the leadership of Cyrus who later came to destroy the Babylonian Empire. God used the Babylonian army to judge Israel. God used the Medo-Persian army, particularly Cyrus the Persian, to judge Babylon.
And drop down to verse 11, this continues. "Sharpen the arrows, He says to the Persians, sharpen the arrows, fill your quiver, the Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it, for it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for His temple." The Babylonians went in and they conquered the Jews and that was an act of judgment and they desecrated the temple. And God used them to chasten Israel. But later on God came right back and punished them for their idolatry and desecration of His temple.
Down in verse 15, "It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom and by His understanding He stretched out the heavens. When He utters His voice there's a tumult of waters in the heavens. He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain. He brings forth the wind from His storehouse. All mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols for his molten images are deceitful, there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of mockery. In the time of their punishment they will perish." Talking about the idols. "The portion of Jacob is not like these. Jacob doesn't have a God like these, for the maker of all is He," that is the God of Jacob is the true God, the creator. "Lord of hosts is His name."
And then notice verse 20, amazing. He says, "You are My war club, My battle axe, My weapon of war and with you I shatter nations and with you I destroy kingdoms. With you I shatter the horse and the rider, the chariot and the rider, man and woman, old man, youth, young man, virgin, the shepherd and his flock, the farmer and his team, governors and prefects." When God sends a force, a military force in, everybody feels the power and the deadliness of that force...not just the king, not just the military, not just those horse and riders and chariot and riders, those who represent the military but men and women, old and young, virgins and people working the farms, everybody all the way down through. And God is saying you, Cyrus really, the Persian who led the Medes and the Persians, you are My battle axe. You are My war club.
Backing up in the sixteenth chapter of Isaiah to further help you see this, Isaiah 16 verse 6, "We have heard of the pride of Moab and excessive pride even of his arrogance, pride and fury. His idle boasts are false. Therefore Moab shall wail, everyone of Moab shall wail. You shall moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth as those who are utterly stricken." You're going to long for the things you loved. And God here is talking about Assyrian armies who are going to come in a conquering fashion.
The thirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah, I won't read it, verses 26 and 27. God gives power to the Assyrian king Sennacherib to crush the fortified cities of Judah.
In Ezekiel 30 verse 22 to 26 God said that Nebuchadnezzar was His war weapon to break the power of Egypt. So God made war against Israel in the north. God made war against Judah in the south. God made war against Babylon. God made war against Egypt. The little prophecy of Habakkuk, I think, is very instructive as well. Habakkuk is toward the end of the Old Testament, chapter 1 verse 5. This is a judgment against Judah. God is going to bring the Chaldeans, it's the same prophecy we heard from Jeremiah that Babylonians or the Chaldeans are going to come and destroy Judah and Jerusalem.
Verse 5 of Habakkuk 1, "Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I'm doing something in your days. You would not believe if you were told. Behold I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places that are not theirs. They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves." That is they answer to nobody. "Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping, their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand. They mock at kings and rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their god."
God will use a worse nation than Judah, Babylon, the Chaldeans, to destroy Judah then hold them accountable for their desecration and later on have the Persians destroy them. God was involved in war. And God understands the devastation that war brings. Look for a moment at Psalm 37.
This is hard to hear, this little section, but needs to be read because it is the Word of God. Verse 9 of Psalm 37, "Evil doers will be cut off...evil doers will be