There is nothing in the life of Christ that support or proclaims violence as a legitimate end. His life, teaching and example was about another way. A way that rejects violence and passivity.
A way that embraces effecting positive change through the turned cheek, the second mile and the love of enemies.
This is problematic because it runs counter to our instincts. Loving enemies, praying for those who persecute you, and foregoing the opportunity to strike back are not natural to us.
But if Jesus touts a different way, what do we make of the Hebrew Scriptures?
Again this is problematic. The surface understanding of who God appears to be in the OT is not a God that illicits a bunch of warm fuzzy feelings. He seems too wrathful for that.
I step on tenuous ground here on at least two fronts: one is, ultimately, I cannot speak for God. His ways are not my ways. I don’t understand why He has done all the things He has done. And likely never will.
Second, is the seeming dismissal of the literary use of war metaphors and manipulations in the editing process in favor of pure literalism. But that’s a road I’m not fully prepared to go down.
The best I can do is lay out a series of thoughts:
–God has often employed a sort of progressive redemption (HT: William Webb). He took people where they were and moved them in the direction that He wanted them to go. He does not take us from A-Z in one fell swoop, but instead is patient with us. The OT is replete with things that God tolerated but was not necessarily fond of: polygamy, slavery, repression of women, etc. But He acknowledged where the people were primitively and moved them on from there. Would any of us doubt today that God despises slavery, although it happened through the NT times? Would any of us doubt that God hates the second class treatment of women, although it continues to this day? God may have utilized war but it was never His ideal. He created us to be in union with each other, not dis-union.
–Ultimately, if we take the stories of the Israelites conquest of Canaan and God’s instructions against the Amalekites then the OT example for us is not warfare, but genocide. Hopefully, none of us are that barbaric to think that should be the lesson we learn from the Hebrew Scriptures.
–The Ultimate Mover of these conquests in the OT was God, not man. His blessings were given upon those He commanded to act in such a way. I have never received a direct order from God to attack anyone. Without His bellowing from the Heavens to attack then we become far too presumptuous to go on the offensive.
–Israel wanted a king because they wanted to be like the other nations. God warned them that having a king would move them toward warfare, toward the establishment of armies.
–There is a strong sense that God is operating under the constructs of fallen man, not on the ideal. When the Perfect came, we see His intents and purposes come into full view. The stipulation against David building the temple because of his status as a warrior is not something to be glossed over. If war precludes building a temple and the Temple today is not made by human hands but is the individual believer, then it seems to reason that the Temple of the individual believer must not be given to violence.
–We have much to learn from the prophets. We see a systematic laying out of the ideal for the Kingdom. The visions were of swords being beaten into plowshares, of the lion laying down with the lamb. It was a vision of peace. God was emphatic that He detested people dying without a relationship with Him. Jonah is prime example of that: he was dispatched, not to condemn, but to proclaim a saving relationship.
–Ultimately, Israel was to be the avenue for all people to know God. Any failure in that regard was the fault of the nation-state, not of their God.
–The prophets proclaim the way to the peaceable kingdom. They point the way to the Messiah who would be both Suffering Servant and Victorious Warrior. (A fact that many Jews did not get because they were anticipating two distinct Messiah’s.)
–Again, the ultimate way to understand this progression is through the person of Jesus. He tells us in Matthew 5:17 that He had come to fulfill the law and the prophets. He was the culmination of what the Hebrew people were called to be and do. What was that? What was the true message of the Hebrew Scriptures? Very simple:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandment depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
The more I study both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament the more convinced I am that it all comes down to these two ideas: Love Him and love each other. All else is commentary.
Ultimately, what we have from the OT is this:
–We can trust in God and His might. Or our own. That’s idolatry.
–To view God as warrior in the OT is to look over the more plenteous aspects of His personality there: lover, Father, protector, merciful, shepherd, redeemer, kinsman, deliverer, and on and on.
There is nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures that gives us license to perpetrate violence on another. Especially when we see the Hebrew Scriptures through the one who fulfilled them: Jesus Christ. To understand the OT apart from Jesus, His life, teaching and example is to miss the God of grace and wonder.
Again, we are back to Christ.
Again, we are back to non-violence.
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