The Gospel and Strife

[Resource Manager]

 

The Gospel and Strife

 

 

CONTENTS

 

Foreword

Author’s Preface

The Problem

The Teaching of Christ

Wars of God in the Old Testament

Israel: a Theocratic State

The New Israel: a Pilgrim Nation

Obedience and Allegiance

When the Lord Jesus Christ returns

Scriptural Problems

Related Problems concerning the Christian and the State

Trade Unions and Related Organisations

Jury Service

Police Service

Why should we profit from service we will not join?

The Christian and this World

The Christian “off duty”

[Resource Manager]

Foreword

 

Throughout their history Christadelphians have consistently main­tained a conscientious objection to participation in warfare of any kind. Each member must, of course, make up his own mind on this as on many other matters of personal behaviour but in this case no other decision is possible for those who not only take Christ’s example and teaching for their moral guide but also wholeheartedly believe the full Christian Gospel with its sure promise of a coming “day of the Lord” when all human kingdoms shall give place to the Kingdom of God, with Christ enthroned in Jerusalem.

 

Earlier generations of believers have had the sincerity of their con­viction tested in times of civil or international strife. In the years that have passed since the Second World War very few have undergone such an experience and without the immediate prospect of a public defence of their position before authorities, some may have become less able to defend it than they should be; it would be surprising if a general decline in Bible study and serious reading had not contributed to that effect.

 

In an attempt to provide one remedy this booklet has been prepared with the kind co-operation of the Christadelphian Magazine and Publishing Association. It does not aim to replace earlier publications but is complementary to them. The broad scriptural principles are presented alike here and, for example, in Brother J. B. Norris’s The Christian and War, with the same message showing clear through their different styles, but whereas the latter also deals at some length and interestingly with the attitude of the church in the post-apostolic age Brother A. D. Norris devotes more attention to the wider implications of those principles for the disciple’s conduct in our own day, with its increasingly urgent social, economic and political pressures. We warmly commend his cogent treatment of these matters to the prayerful attention of all our members, and of those not yet baptized, who are earnestly seeking to understand what the duty of the believer is.

 

The precise nature of any future emergency is not at present known and therefore detailed practical advice about official procedures which may be used must await further developments and careful considera­tion. The author’s purpose, and that of the Committee, whose sugges­tions and criticisms have helped him in his work, has been to fill the more important and never changing need—the strengthening of the whole body of Christ in our “most holy faith”, so that, crisis or no crisis, each member may so live as to ‘‘adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things” and “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you” a reason of the hope that is in ‘‘you with meek­ness and fear”.

 

H. A. Twelves

(Chairman, The Christadelphian Military Service Committee) April 1981

[Resource Manager]

Authors Preface

 

In writing this booklet I have tried to act throughout as the servant of a Committee and a Community, while being true to my own personal convictions and opinions. On all fundamental matters this booklet expresses the views of the Christadelphian community on the interpretation of Holy Scripture on the subject in question. I have been greatly helped by the members of the Christadelphian Military Service Committee, and am deeply grateful for their assistance. But the final responsibility for the residual faults must rest with me and not with them.

 

Scripture-quotations are broadly from the Authorised or Revised Versions, but slight variations have been introduced occasionally in the interest of comprehension. At no point, however, has the transla­tion been adjusted to support particular points of view as to how Scripture should be understood.

 

Alfred Norris

 

THE PROBLEM

 

Twice already in the present century, the major nations of the world have been engaged in wars in which millions of lives have been lost, and cities and economies laid in ruins. With nuclear and biological weapons now available to the super-powers — and who knows to whom then — it is hard to imagine civilization as we know it surviving, should there be a third war, in which such weapons might be deployed. There can be no guarantee, for as long as the weapons are available, that they will not one day be used.

 

But should there be another such war, or should the country in which we live become involved in any lesser conflict, the believer has to face a pressing personal problem: should he allow himself to take part in it? The problem for him is the same whatever weapons might be employed. Modern warfare may be more destructive and more indiscriminate, but the question whether a believer in Christ should participate in it remains unchanged.

[Resource Manager]

THE TEACHING OF CHRIST

 

It is not a problem with easy answers, and we shall not attempt to treat it as though it were. Most of those for whom this booklet is written will be aware of great benefits they have enjoyed from the good order, the equitable justice, and the social provisions made available by the country in which they live; and all of us are taught by our Lord Jesus and his apostles to recognize these things, and requite them with willing obedience to the law, and grateful prayers for its rulers and its officers. Thus:

 

Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s (Matt 22:21).

 

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, inter­cessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty (1 Tim 2:1-2).

 

Put them in mind to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready unto every good work (Titus 3:1, R.V.).

 

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God ... Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God ... Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due: custom to whom custom: fear to whom fear: honour to whom honour (Rom 13:1-7).

 

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme: or to governors ... sent by him for punishment on evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well ... Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king (1 Pet 2:13-17).

 

It is true that Peter himself, who so compellingly - exhorts his fellow-believers to obedience, did make exceptions in his own life, when the Jewish authorities forbade [he apostles to preach the Gospel: for to them he replied:

 

Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Acts 4:19,20).

 

We must obey God rather than men (5:29, R.V.).

 

This is a situation which no doubt corresponded to the second part of the Lord’s command to his disciples: Render unto God the things that are God’s (Matt. 22:21).

 

That sets out the essence of the problem: Is the 37th Article of the Church of England right in saying that “It is lawful fur the Christian man at the commandment of the magistrate, to wear weapons, and to serve in the wars.” this being one of the “things that are Caesar’s”? Or is it something the believer must avoid because there is some overriding divine commandment, making this one of the “things which are God’s”?

 

Whatever the answer may turn out to be it must be accepted with a full and grateful recognition of our debt (in human terms) to the men and women of our own countries whose death has contributed to our own present peace and safety. It is only necessary to look around at the conditions in which many others are living under tyrannical governments to know what ground we have for gratitude, and to rid our hearts of any unworthy motives as we seek to know our duty before God.

 

The very title of this essay makes the Gospel “of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” our touchstone, It is true and important tint the Gospel was anticipated by men of God in Old Testament times, but it came to its full fruition in the Saviour himself, and we shall turn first of all therefore, to what he and his apostles had to say.

[Resource Manager]

The Prince of Peace

 

This is what the Bible calls him (Isaiah 9:6) and in his own behaviour, to go no further, the title was well earned. He Tough; no military battles and conducted no wars. Yet had his disciples had their way he could have been involved in such things. The angel Gabriel had told his mother-to-be that he should occupy “the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32) and his contemporaries plainly expected that he would take and maintain the kingdom by force as David himself had done:

 

They that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: blessed he the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest (Mark 11:9-10).

 

For his own good reasons the Lord Jesus disappointed their expectations and when they tried to “take him by force, to make him a king” (John 6:15) the Lord withdrew himself from them and the temptation they represented.

 

It is true that this refusal to establish a powerful kingdom on earth was only temporary, and the promises in Scripture of the return of the Lord in power are so abundant that the time will certainly come when the world will somehow be compelled to bow before his authority. But we should quite mistake the purpose of the Lord’s first coming if we supposed that he merely refrained from military force because it would have been untimely to exercise it at that time, as though in spirit he was yearning to confront and defeat his enemies, and was merely biding his time until he could unveil the true, the conquering Christ.

 

The way the Lord Jesus behaved during his earthly ministry was part of the preparation for his future exercise of kingly authority and it was an essential component of his conquest of sin that he might be our Saviour. The things he did and said, and the things he accepted and suffered, were not a mere passing phase, a skin to be sloughed off and forgotten when he moved into the maturity of kingship: they were part of the making of the Redeemer we now know; they were indispensable, and the Lord would not He what he now is without them, nor would he be fitted to he king.

 

The point is readily shown. The Lord Jesus now sits in priestly power at the right hand of his Father in heaven. How far does this priestly ministry depend on what he did and endured when first on earth? Here is the Bible’s answer:

 

It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Heb 2:10).

 

In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things per­taining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted (Heb 2:17-18).

 

We have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities: but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need (Heb 4:15-16 R.V.).

 

In the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salvation (Heb 5:7-9 R.V.).

 

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, counted it no: a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man. he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name (Phil 2:5-9 R.V.).

 

The character he displayed on earth was his real character. The nature he now bears is the perpetuation of that character as sealed and secured by his death, it was the true and real Christ who disclosed himself during the period of his weakness, and we turn to him now, not merely for an interim pattern of the kind of people we ought to be during the brief period of our own probation, but for the true image of how to become people who are well pleasing in God’s sight. We can consider the manner in which the Lord will in the future exercise his power when the right moment comes, but we shall not understand it rightly unless we understand this first.

[Resource Manager]

The Gentleness of the Lord

 

The Lord Jesus Christ never raised a finger to hurt any human being however great the provocation. So peaceful were his ways that the records have to be ransacked to find even the semblance of evidence that he ever used force at all. And then all we find is that he once by his word destroyed an unfruitful fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21), and that he once used a whip in clearing sinners out of the temple. The former will not bear examination, whatever it signifies, as an act of violence: it was designed to teach disciples the lessons of fruitfulness and faith, to shield them from harm rather than cause it. And as for the latter, it would be trivial and merely symbolic even if the whip did strike anyone’s person, but even this possibility is removed by the correct reading of the Revised Version:

 

He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and he made a scourge of cords, and cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers’ money and overturned their tables: and to them that sold the doves he said. Take these things hence (John 2:14-16 R.V.).

 

Tables were overturned, beasts were driven out; and birds, hobbled or in cages were removed by men who yielded to the Lord’s authority; but no one was touched by the Lord’s hands or injured by his power.

 

The provocations he received would have led a lesser man to kick back, and one possessed of the Lord’s powers to wreak havoc. If the Lord had heeded even his own disciples there would have been grievous casualties among those who failed to give him honour. When Samaritan villagers denied him hospitality, disciples spoke of summary vengeance:

 

Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them, and said. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them (Luke 9:54-56).

 

Again, when the officers of the High Priest, led by a treacherous disciple, came to arrest him, the Lord could at once reveal his power and still refused to take advantage of it:

 

Judas then, having received the band of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus therefore knowing all the things that were coming upon him, went forth, and saith unto them; Whom seek ye? They answered him; Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith to them. I am he ... They went backward, and fell to the ground (John 18:3-6 R.V.).

[Resource Manager]

He allowed his enemies to rise from the ground and arrest him, and when Peter sought to defend him with his courageous but misguided use of a sword he ought not to have possessed, the Lord withstood that temptation and rebuked his disciple:

 

Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup, which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? (John 18:11).

 

All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Matt 25:52)

 

Long before, he had withstood the temptation to accept kingship from the multitudes (John 6:15). Now at his trial before Pilate, he declares his resistance in principle to the thought.

 

My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence (John 18:36).

 

The Lord does not allow us to suppose that such meekness was merely a temporary expedient. His willing acceptance of shame and suffering arose from the settled frame of mind which he also commended to his disciples:

 

Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-29).

 

It was at the very time when they were crucifying him that the Lord Jesus revealed how deep and sincere was his desire that no-one should needlessly be made to suffer on his account, for in his terrible agony he could cry out:

 

Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34)

 

This was a prayer which certainly extended beyond the Roman soldiers who were merely doing their duty, to those Jews who had conspired to bring the crucifixion about, for Peter shortly afterwards offered just such forgiveness to them in his Master’s name:

 

Now brethren, I know that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers ... Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out (Acts 3:17-19 R.V.)

 

In fact Peter puts before us for our emulation the entire manner of life displayed by the Lord Jesus during the period before his death:

 

This is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do we’ll, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For to this were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you. leaving you an example, that ye should follow in his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:19-23)

[Resource Manager]

The Lord teaches his Disciples

 

What Jesus did and suffered in his own life, he commended to his disciples in theirs. In the Sermon on the Mount, for instance:

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit ... they that mourn ... the meek .., the merciful .., the peacemakers .., they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake ... ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake ... (Matt 5:3-12).

 

He took the Sixth Commandment. “Thou shall do no murder”, and extended it to cover hard words and unwarranted rage (Matt 5:21-26). He considered the Law, which allowed, under full legal safeguards, the exaction of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”, and in its place said to his disciples:

 

I say to you. Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two (Matt 5:39-41 R.V.).

 

And as to the common proverb, by which so many were and are guided (though it is not found anywhere in Scripture save here), “Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy”, the Lord offered instead:

 

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt 5:43-46).

[Resource Manager]

The Disciples instruct one another

 

The disciples certainly took the Lord Jesus’ words to heart, and under the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord they recalled for the instruction of the churches, in scarcely veiled quotations, what the Lord had said to them:

 

If ye suffer for righteousness sake, blessed are ye (1 Pet 3:14), If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye (4:14).

 

Bless them that persecute you: bless and curse not ... Render to no man evil for evil ... If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, he at peace with all men. Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath ... if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:14-22, R.V.).

 

Indeed, “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” become, in the teach­ing of the apostles, the very reason why disciples should show the same qualities among themselves (2 Cor 10:1). The charter of the Christian’s behaviour toward others was never more clearly laid down than in Paul’s words:

 

The Lord’s servant must not strive (with intent to wound), but be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting them that oppose themselves; if perhaps God may give them repent­ance unto the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 2:24-25 R.V.).

 

And, continuing words already quoted in part;

 

Put them in mind ... to speak evil of no man, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing all meekness to all men (Titus 3:1,2).

 

There is much more evidence of the same kind. The Lord’s sufferings, his restraint, his teaching of his disciples, and their own counsel to one another, all conspire to create an atmosphere in which anything savouring of war or bloodshed has no place, if we sum up the impres­sion created by the evidence thus far. it is that, on grounds of principle, the Christian is forbidden to participate in war and other acts of violence against others.

 

It is true that these examples refer in the main to the behaviour of individuals, in relation to other individuals, or to the persecuting State. This is far removed in practice from the question as to whether a believer can accept conscription, and do at the State’s behest what he is forbidden, to do on his own account. But it is impossible to contend that we may knowingly do as members of an army what the Lord would forbid us to do on our own account. We cannot disclaim our responsibilities for our actions on the ground that we performed them under orders as members of a company.

 

Nothing we may later find can upset this conclusion, but nevertheless we must now step back into history, so as to consider the formidable problem presented by the teaching and practice of the Old Testament in the matter of warfare.

[Resource Manager]

WARS OF GOD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

 

When we spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ as “the Prince of peace”, we took that title from the Old Testament; and it is, indeed, from that par; of the Bible that the picture of a world which will ultimately be filled with peace is first drawn:

 

Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor. Mighty God, Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever (Isa. 9:6-7, R.V.).

 

Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the King’s son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the hills, in righteousness ... In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace, till the moon be no more (Psa 72:1-3,7 RV)

 

Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment ... And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever (Isa 32:1,17).

 

And, though the waging of wars is constantly being reported in the Old Testament, there is no doubt that war is considered as an evil in itself, which must ultimately be abolished:

 

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth: he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire (Psa. 46:9).

 

He shall judge among the nations, and shall reprove many peoples: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall the} learn war any more (Isa 2:4).

 

Meantime, these wars must be admitted into our picture. Sometimes heathen nations are brought to punish the chosen people when they turn from God’s ways; sometimes (he chosen people themselves must wage war against other nations, even to the point of exterminating them when God determines that they are no longer fit to survive. Not every military adventure on Israel’s part could rightly claim Divine authorization, nor could their conduct always be acquitted of cruelty or savagery; but these were human faults, blemishing a people respond­ing imperfectly to a course of spiritual education which God had set in motion in and through them. Nevertheless, when Israel truly fought “the Lord’s battles”, the God of heaven Himself fought with them, even on occasion intervening miraculous!) to bring about their victory.

[Resource Manager]

God’s Judgements

 

This is not, however, the full picture. There are judgements described in the Old Testament, inflicted directly by God on sinners, which were far more destructive than those brought about by the sword of Israel. That it was indeed God who brought about the catastrophes at the Flood and to the Cities of the Plain is confirmed by no other than the Prince of Peace himself:

 

As it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded: but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all ... Remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17:26-32 R.V.; see also 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:7).

 

It is perhaps easier for us to accept that God has the right to carry out immediate judgement, using no human mediators, but from the divine point of view there is no moral difference between destroying human life by the hand of chosen avengers, and doing so by the direct exercise of divine power, and the Bible docs not attempt to make one. No distinction in this regard is to be drawn between the two Testaments, nor between the teaching of the Son of God himself and that of his apostles. The same acceptance of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom is also extended to the divinely authorized military activities of Israel:

 

Our fathers brought in the tabernacle with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations, which God thrust out before the lace of our lathers (Acts 7:45 R.V.).

 

When he had destroyed … even nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land for an inheritance (13:19).

 

Once we follow the New Testament in accepting that God did indeed operate in this way in Old Testament times, we have accepted, however reluctantly it may be, the principle that God may exercise the right to call on men to bring about the punishment of other men. Once this is granted, that it should operate in reverse, and when God’s people failed to carry out God’s instruction; they themselves should fail victim to the violence of those whom God permitted to punish them. Will be no less acceptable. Such things did happen when Israel spared the nations of Canaan which they were commanded to destroy, or when Achan stole some of the devoted spoils of Jericho, or King Saul kept alive the King of the Amalekites whom he had been commanded to slay (Jos 6:17-21; 7:1-26; 9:3-27; 1Sam 15:1-35).

[Resource Manager]

War is still an evil, even so. If there had not beer, sin on the earth there would have been no war, and God takes no pleasure either in the cause or in the effect. Misjudgements are sometimes expressed in terms which bring this out very clearly. At the time of the Flood, for example:

 

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that lie had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart (Genesis 6:5-6).

 

And subsequently:

 

All the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the heathen: and they polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messenger, rising up early and sending: because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: but they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, till there was no remedy Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans ... (2 Chron 36:14-17 R.V.).

 

The same painful acceptance of the fact that punishment must come, rut that both it and the circumstances which led to it are greatly to be deplored, is found in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ also:

 

O Jerusalem. Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and I say to you. Ye shall not see me until ye shall say; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord (Luke 13:34-35).

 

And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and offerings, Jesus said; As for these things which ye behold, the day; will come, in which there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down ... They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:5-6, 24 R.V.)

 

So we have been obliged to accept that the waging of war played its part in God’s dealings with His own nation, arid with others, in Old Testament times. We have seen, even so, that God took no pleasure in the condition which made such military action needful. But there are other reasons why the situation then required the toleration of means which would not be appropriate for believers to-day.

[Resource Manager]

Israel: A Theocratic State

 

Some time after the world as a whole turned aside from the ways of God after the Flood. God centred His purpose on a certain man and his descendants, from among whom ultimately the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, was to be born. The man was Abram, later renamed Abraham, and the race took the name of his grandson. Jacob, or Israel. This nation, in Jacob’s days, went to Egypt in time of famine, and some long time afterwards was delivered from bondage there under Moses, and then, in the Wilderness of Sinai, entered into a solemn treaty with its God:

 

If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall he a peculiar treasure unto me from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation ... And all the people answered together, and said; All that the Lord hath spoken we will do (Exodus 19:5-8 R.V.)

 

Ideally, had they kept this covenant faithfully, Israel would have had secure possession of territory stretching from Euphrates in the norm to the Mediterranean in the West and the borders of Egypt in the South. Such a state would require an army to conquer the inhabitants of the laud whom they were to dispossess, and to defend the land when it had been acquired. It would also require laws and an administration for its own subsequent government.

 

Once settled in Canaan, then Israel would have been born a nation requiring the ordinary institutions to keep it in being, and a special, covenanted nation pledged to uphold and display God’s nature and purpose to the world. If the nation had behaved ideally, even though surrounded by sinful neighbours, it would have performed God’s will, and would have been successful, and also just just, in its political and military dealings with those neighbours. Internally it would have been well governed, with a pattern of worship of the one true God which had it been faithfully observed, would have brought all the promised blessings in its train.

 

If thou shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God. to observe to do all his commandments ... the Lord thy Gou will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth: and all these blessings shall c«me upon thee. and overtake thee ... The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thee ... The Lord shall establish thee for an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee; if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord: and they shall be afraid of thee ... (Deut 28:1-10. R.V.)

[Resource Manager]

Judges and Kings

 

The treaty with God was never very well kept by the people, and had God enforced its terms strictly they would have been disinherited almost immediately, when they worshipped their golden calf within sight of Sinai itself (Exodus 32). For several hundred years subsequently, their experiences were marked by fluctuating fortunes, in which sub­jection to their enemies for their wickedness was temporarily relieved by the intervention of some godly deliverer or king. After long periods of forbearance God. having already divided the kingdom into two. allowed it to fall piecemeal into the hands of Assyria and Babylon, and by around 587 B.C. its political life had come to a temporary end. The long-continued line of David ceased to reign. It would not he restored for a long time to come:

 

Thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low and abase him that is high. I wilt overturn, over-Turn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is: and I will give it him (Ezek 21:25-27).

 

There was some measure of political restoration later in the same century under Cyrus of Persia (Ezra 1:1-4), and the restored nation persisted with varying fortunes until it fell under the effective control of Rome in the century before Jesus Christ was born. Even then Israel was still treated by God as His people, and their restored temple as His house of worship; hut everything now hung on how they would react to the Son of God himself when he presented his claims before them.

 

After some temporary popular support when, as we have said, the people would have made him King, in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons, the haired of their rulers prevailed against Jesus, their Christ (which means their anointed King), and he was crucified. We have already read his sad warnings to them as to what would happen to their statehood and their temple should they reject him, but nothing was quite so final as the lesson which the Lord drew from his Parable of the Husbandmen who refused to pay their tribute to the landowner, going to the lengths of murdering his son that they might claim the property for themselves:

 

Jesus said to them. Did ye never read in the scriptures. The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner ...? Therefore I say unto you. The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof ... And when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them (Matt 21:42-45).

[Resource Manager]

Politically Israel experienced the fulfilment of this when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and gutted and demolished its Temple, in 70 A.D. and their statehood was never restored until very recent times. In principle, though, they forfeited their privileges when they reached the decision predicted by the Lord in another parable: “We will not have this man to reign over us!” (Luke 19:14; John 19:15). A nation which rejected God’s chosen King could no longer he God’s favoured people for so long as that rejection persisted.

 

But the Lord spoke of a replacement for the fallen kingdom, in the shape of “a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof”. What is this new nation which was to supplant Israel as the people of God? This Peter leaves in no doubt:

 

Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy (1 Pet 2:9-10 R.V.).

 

The old political Israel, defined within its political boundaries promised to it by God, was now being replaced by a “nation” made up of people from all nations, living in any country whatsoever, for whom geographical boundaries no longer had any meaning. Christian believers, members of (he new, true Israel of God, might from now on be found anywhere on earth, on either side of any political boundary which might be drawn, so that the idea of a country to be defended, and local laws to be administered, was for such believers from now on utterly outmoded. Members of God’s kingdom-people now belonged to an international community, and ordinary political administration, and ordinary military defence, ceased to have any significance for them.

 

This was an entirely new situation, and required an entirely new attitude on the part of those implicated in it.

[Resource Manager]

The new Israel: A Pilgrim Nation

 

Peter described the new people of God in the very terms which God had used for the old nation at Sinai (“a royal priesthood, a chosen generation, a peculiar people”), but he also took over another term which the Jews of his day were accustomed to use of those Jews living outside the land of Judah and Galilee. They were the Diaspora, the “sojourners of the dispersion”, and it was to believers in this situation that Peter wrote his First Letter (1 Pet 1:1). For this is what God’s new people were and are, living in countries governed by other people; and what such people urgently need to know is how they are to look upon the governments which rule over them, and the non-Christian people among whom they dwell. Peter provides the answer:

 

Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul: having your behaviour seemly among the Gentiles: that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s, sake: whether it be to the king ...or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well (1 Pet 2:11-14 R.V.)

 

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus ... (Philippians 3:20).

 

What we mentioned earlier as firmly based on the teaching and practice of Jesus and his apostles, now appears as part and parcel of the status of the believer as a pilgrim in a world of unbelievers. Indeed, it is a very remarkable thing that though the Epistles of the New Testament freely give counsel to Christian masters as to how they should deal with their slaves. Christian slaves as to now to serve masters, Christian parents how to rear children and children how to honour parents, Christian husbands how to love wives and wives how to respect husbands, there is one pairing in which only one of the couple is given advice as to a Christian: and that is the subject in relation to the ruling powers.

[Resource Manager]

The Believer and those in Authority

 

The examples we have already given as to how believing subjects should obey the authorities are at no point matched with counsel to the authorities as to how they ought to treat their subjects. The reason is evident: it simply does not enter into the thinking of the Lord Jesus or of the writers in the New Testament that there might be such a thing at all as a Christian government, in which the ruling powers are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the service of that Lord their desire, it is not assumed at all that if the apostles were to address themselves to governments, the governments would be there to listen.

 

Once this is recognized, the Christian is seen to be in a totally different position in relation to the country in which he lives, as compared with the Israelite in the old nation before the dissolution of the kingdom. The believer is a resident in a country governed by those who do not share his faith, and his King is not at present on the scene. Out he has accepted the service of that King, and what that King asks of him he must do: this must take precedence over ail other claims on him.

 

It is the case, as we have seen, that his King requires him to take no personal advantage of the fact that he serves a higher Lord than the government of the country he lives in. Yet, high though the Lord’s servants stand, they are still to behave, as the Lord himself did when on earth before, with humility and submission on every matter where the world’s governments have the right to pronounce. As the Lord Jesus paid the temple-tribute, notwithstanding the fact that he was by birth and office the Lord of the temple himself “lest we should offend them” (Matt 17:24-27). so Peter advised the disciples to keep their liberty in their own hearts, and conform in their behaviour to the dictates of their Gentile overlords:

 

As free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God (1 Pet 2:16).

[Resource Manager]

Slaves and their Masters

 

Moreover, disciples were not to engage in agitation to secure what men might then, and men do now, suppose to be their political rights. There was slavery in the Roman empire, and slavery, though not always as evil as it is painted, is nevertheless not the highest calling to which a man might aspire. Yet nowhere are slaves encouraged to demand their freedom from their masters, and nowhere are Christian masters told that they must liberate their slaves. The Lord and his apostles did not meddle in politics, even on their own behalf, and they did not encourage any other servant of the Lord to do so either.

 

Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called. Wast thou called being a bondservant? Care not for it: but if thou canst become free, use it rather. For he that was called in the Lord, being a bondservant, is the Lord’s freedman: likewise he that was called, being free, is Christ’s bondservant. Ye were bought with a price: become not bondservants of men (1 Cor. 7:20-23).

 

So the disciple must never be disobedient to the state for his own ends. But in matters which concern his Lord and his brethren, the situation is by no means the same.

 

OBEDIENCE AND ALLEGIANCE

 

Let us sum up what we have so far arrived at as to the duty of the Christian in relation to the country in which he dwells:

1. He will shun violence against others, with the pattern of his Lord as his guide.
   
2. He will regard it as his duty to conform to the laws of the country in every matter in which the loyalty he owes to his Master is not at stake. He will never disobey those laws for purely selfish and personal ends.
   
3. Nevertheless, he does not regard himself as wholly integrated with the civilization in which he lives. He is a pilgrim, waiting for the time of his Lord’s return to reign in person, when his declared laws will govern all.
   
4. Because he is a member of a spiritual nation whose other members may be drawn from anywhere in the world, he does not seek to rule, administer, or fight for, any country in which he may be living: his prime loyalties lie outside and above those defined by the boundaries of his host country.
   
5. It is unthinkable that believers on the one side or the other of national boundaries should engage in fighting and killing each other because the countries in which they are living determine to go to war. If for this reason alone he would not be able to fight at the instance of a worldly power.
   
6. This would not be the situation were his Lord himself to call him to arms in pursuit of some righteous cause, for then his situation would be like that of Israel at its best, serving Jesus Christ as King in any way that King might command. Some consideration will be give later to this point.
   

[Resource Manager]

Render…to God

 

This takes us a significant stage further. We have found Peter urging submission to the civil authorities even when they are unjust to the believer. We have found the same apostle refusing submission when the question of whether or not he should bear witness to the Gospel was raised. What this amounts to is that the overriding, even the all-embracing duty of the believer is to the will of God as expressed by his Lord Jesus Christ. It is not so much that the state has its share of the believer’s loyalty, and God His own separate share: it is rather that God has a total claim on this loyalty, but that He require? His servants to accept obedience to the state as a part of that loyalty except when the state trespasses on preserves which God has not allocated to it. The composite quotation already offered in its separate parts:

 

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matt 22:21) does not really separate two distinct duties, which Peter, and Paul also (Rom 13:1-7) combine as one. A disciple is not expected to divide his life into two parts of which Caesar and God are respectively the masters, and even less may he in his own interests divide it into three, where God takes what is left when the just have helped themselves. Whatever liberties God grants His creatures, they arc all in fief to the fact that no created being, and especially no saint, belongs to himself:

 

Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honour and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created (Rev 4:11 R.V.).

 

Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s (1 Cor 6:20).

 

The conscience of the conscientious objector to military service should thus be that of one conscientiously desiring to do the will of his God and his Master. He wishes to be a worthy resident of his host-country, and he wishes to bear a worthy witness to his calling. In pursuit of this he will abide by the law gladly, but if that law tres­passes and requires him to violate his duty to God by fighting and killing his fellow-men against whom he can have and must have no quarrel, and whom he would be forbidden to hate even if he had, then he must say No. And in the same spirit he will decline to take an oath of allegiance, which goes beyond the obedience he has already promised in the name of his Lord, and will decline, too, to take on himself a uniform which signifies that allegiance. (*It is important to avoid nonsense about uniforms. Postmen and post-women do, or did, wear uniforms by which they can be distinguished by the public. So do, or did, railway employees, and so, certainly, do airline pilots and crews. Even when uniforms are not worn, badges often are, and there is no difference in principle. It is to be presumed that slaves, in Roman times, bore some mark of identification, and the Christian slave is not invited to obliterate it. The objectionable character off the military uniform is that this, like that of the policeman, is the mark of one committed to a service and allegiance which the Christian could not give, taking from him as it does his liberty to abstain from violence and from military and nationalistic causes).

[Resource Manager]

No Call to Martyrdom

 

The believer is not unnecessarily to court martyrdom in the event of his coming into conflict with the state on matters of conscience. For maintaining their faith believers should, said the Lord, sometimes fall foul of the authorities, in which event:

 

When they persecute you in this city, flee into the next (Matt 10:23).

 

There are clear examples of this in the Lord’s own life (Matt 12:15), and in the behaviour of the early disciples (Acts 8:1; 9:25; 14:16; 17:10). Only in the event of being cornered, either by the strategy of a persecuting state or, as in the case of the Lord Jesus himself, by the fact that to give himself to death was the fulcrum of his Gospel and must not he avoided when the appointed time came is the servant of God commanded to give away his life and liberty.

 

The Lord stakes his claims in the matter of the limitations of the right of the state to meddle in the disciple’s life, either in his own words, or in those of his apostles, in very plain terms:

 

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you (John 15:14).

 

My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence (John 15:36).

 

We have here no continuing city, but we seek after the city which is to come (Heb 13:14)

 

These verses should be added to those given on page 5. The disciple respects the king or government of the country, but truly one King only is his, to whom he has in principle totally committed himself. He abstains from prosecuting the military designs of the country where he lives in the same way, and for the same reasons, as he refrains from seeking to formulate its policies: his attitude to the country’s wars is the same as that towards its policies: they are not for him. It would be impossible for those holding this understanding of the status of the saint in the world to maintain their attitude to military service if they were not to have a similar one towards political involvement. (*See A. D. Norris: The Gospel and Politics in this series).

[Resource Manager]

When the Lord Jesus Christ Returns

 

The teaching of Jesus is plain. His followers should not resist evil, not engage in violence, or even entertain the thoughts that would lead them to wish to do so. He is himself their example, and we cannot allow the thought that the meekness which he showed was merely a temporary pose until power should be safely in his hands. His outlook remain and must remain the same — yesterday in the day of its forma­tion and perfecting, today in the days of waiting, and mediation, and forever, when ho returns to the earth to establish the kingdom of God

 

We have faced the fact that the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ did not, in Old Testament times, require the same pacific approach from His chosen race (in relation, say to the wicked nations of Canaan): nor did He Himself abstain from violent judgement on the enemies of His purpose (in the cases, which we have mentioned, of the sinners in Noah’s day, or in Lot’s, or His own impenitent people). We have seen mat the political framework within which God worked, made such forceful judgements unavoidable, and have seen reason to believe that they were painful to carry out; yet they did happen, and the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples knew and accepted that they did.

 

It is already quite clear, then, that the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ cannot, if he accepts the Lord’s teaching entire, be a pacifist in that sense of the term which says that it is always and in all circum­stances wrong to engage in war; or which hopes to influence political decisions about armament and disarmament, nuclear or conventional. Such expectations have no place in Christ’s realistic anticipation of intensified conflict just prior to his return.

[Resource Manager]

Conflict in the Earth

 

We must first face the evidence that it will be so. It is founded again in the Old Testament, where in such chapters as Joel 3, Ezekiel 38-39, Zechariah 12 and 14, and many another, we learn that nations will be gathered together to do battle against the power of God, and to suffer ‘heir inevitable defeat. A couple of quotations will serve:

 

In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (Dan 2:44).

 

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saving. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron: thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel (Psa 2:2-9).

 

These are fully matched in the New Testament. A few examples are:

 

Those mine enemies, which would not that J should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me (Luke 19:27).

 

It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you: and to you who are troubled rest with us. when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know no’ God. and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: they shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence or the Lord, and from the glory of his power: when he shall come to be glorified in his saints ... (2 Thess 1:6-10).

 

These (the kingdoms of the earth and the “Beast”) shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings (Rev 17:14).

 

These passages, and others like them, leave no doubt that the return of the Lord will invoke the mighty overthrow of the powers that oppose him. Wilful and impenitent rebellion can only finally be vanquished by force. The terms used for this overthrow are military terms, though the physical means whereby the divine judgement will be inflicted arc no doubt beyond our limited perceptions to understand. What cannot in any way be questioned is that presumptuous resistance and entrenched refusal of God’s claims and His loving appeals, must shrivel up in the face of His revealed power, a fact which applies to rebellious persons as well as to rebellious nations. It is the New Testament which reminds us that “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), and it is out of the mouth of His Son that the “sharp sword” of judgement proceeds (Rev. 19:15).

[Resource Manager]

What is less clear is the part which believers may play in the divine war against evil. The following appear to suggest such participation:

 

Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand: to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people: to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron: to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints (Psa. 149:5-9).

 

He that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end. to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule over them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of the potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my father (Rev. 2:26-27).

 

The armies which are in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure (Rev. 19:14).

 

Even so, it cannot be stressed too much that such saints will then, in their immortal blessedness, be beyond all human weakness, and all unworthy pleasure in vengeance for its own sake, and all carnal combativeness. Any part such saints may have to play will be simply as agents of God’s perfect will, under the selfless leadership of their Christ himself. Believers now, therefore, should neither look forward to such activities with bloodthirsty pleasure, nor yet view them with distress because of their apparent conflict with the doctrine of non-retaliation which it is their duty to adopt in sincerity and meekness.

 

The first of the passages cited dues not define who the “saints” are, and it would be possible to hold the view that the reference is to the holy angels. Careful examination of the use of the relevant word in the Old Testament does not, however, support this view, and even in this passage the evidence of Scripture is strongly in favour of believing that faithful men of our race will be involved in the activities referred to. But the second quotation, from the New Testament, leaves this in no doubt. One of the existing congregations of Asia is told that this privilege will be granted to those of its members who are faithful to the end. And there can be little doubt, in view of the reference immedi­ately beforehand to the “Bride of Christ” (19:17-10) that the promise refers to the saints who are incorporated in this “Bride”.

[Resource Manager]

The Work of the Saints

 

When we recall that the Lord Jesus Christ himself. when he comes to reign in power on the earth, will do so in a spirit so dedicated to the will of his Father that he will in the end hand over his completed work to Him without seeking any personal glory outside that of his Father, we can see how little room there is for any self-will an the part of his saints. When they are given “power over the nations”, it will only be because they will use it for no other purpose than to glorify their God and will have no desire to use it selfishly or possessively on their own account.

 

Summing up this section: the use of his divine power by the Lord Jesus Christ in quelling the rebellion of the nations when he returns is not open to doubt. The association of his saints with the work of subjugation is arguable, but possible or even probable. Their partici­pation in the subsequent government and discipline of the mortal peoples of the world is unquestionable. But the spirit in which both the Lord and his followers will carry out any punitive work will be that of performing a regrettable but unavoidable duty- doing this, moreover, with a view to fulfilling the will of their God and Father, and from loyalty and love for Him; there will be nothing of any vengeful or selfish spirit in what they do. Having spent their pilgrimage in earning from the Lord to put off all fallen human desires for power and revenge, the saints in their immortality will do whatever they are called upon to do without being stained by any such motives.

 

Neither the use of force in the future by God and His agents, nor each use in the past, can in any way weaken the spirit and practice of meekness and selflessness so plainly taught as our duty now, and as the preparation of our spirit for whatever duties the age to come will bring.

[Resource Manager]

SCRIPTURAL PROBLEMS

 

It would be disingenuous to pretend that there are no difficulties remaining in Scripture when once the present position has been established, it was important, though, to present the case positively before the problems were allowed to enter into discussion. Unless the principles laid down in the present work can be undermined, and clear!) the author does not believe that they can then what remain are isolated difficulties in reconciling those principles with certain passages of Scripture, or practical problems in applying the principles in concrete cases.

 

We deal with the former first of all. Many passages which are, to our knowledge, raised against the position adopted here have designedly been incorporated in the case presented, so that the remaining problems, in the New Testament at all events, are few. Some of these will now be considered.