Is there any Biblical basis for war? Is it “anti-Christian” somehow to go to war for the sake of defending our country?
There are those who say that Jesus was a pacifist (though they may not use that word), and that we should follow His example and just love everyone and never go to war with anyone else. After all, in Matthew 26:52, Jesus said: "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."
However, I believe it is in error to say that Jesus was a pacifist and was against all war. A few things have to be established first.
The context of Matthew 26:52 is very important. In this case, it was Jesus rebuking one of the men with Him because if He did not go with them to be crucified, then the Scriptures wouldn't be fulfilled (Matthew 26:50-54).
Jesus is always in agreement with the Father (John 10:30), so the positions of one of them on war is the position of both. Secondly, God does not change (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17), so it cannot be argued that God used to allow war, but no longer does. With that being said, let’s look at what God says about war…
Has God ever commanded people to sin? Absolutely not, it is against the very nature of God (I Peter 1:16 – 25, I John 1:5, Psalm 98:1, Psalm 145:17, I Samuel 2:2, Isaiah 6:3, John 17:11, Revelation 4:8)
If God commands it, then disobedience is sin, obedience is not.
The reason that I said that is that it is that keeping it in mind is essential for the following examples to be properly understood.
First, David's Mighty Men:
In the Bible we have the accounts of David's Mighty Men - mighty warriors who fought to protect
"These were the chiefs of David's mighty men—they, together with all
And they, once again, killed many, but are not called sinners. Instead, look at what the Bible calls the chief among them:
"Josheb-Basshebeth, a Tahkemonite, was chief of the Three; he raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter." - 2 Samuel 23:8
800 men at once! Now if all killing is sin - that's a whole lot of sin right there. But notice what the Bible calls him, not a sinner, but "a Tahkemonite." Look it up, in Hebrew it means
"One who possesses insight and practical wisdom"
Killing 800 men - yet still being one who has insight and is wise. Bear in mind, however, he was not a barbarian that just killed people. Rather, he killed in order to protect.
Let's look at other examples. How about Gideon? God commanded him to lead an army to war in order to protect those who could not otherwise protect themselves.
God also commanded war in many other places in the Bible (1 Samuel 15:3; Joshua 4:13 Numbers 31:2, Deuteronomy 20:16-17, Exodus 17:16, 1 Samuel 15:18, and many others.)
In those cases, war was justified because it was used to stop acts of evil and to protect.
How, then, is it different to fight those who want to kill Americans?
It’s not. The concept is the exact same, we are to protect those who cannot otherwise protect themselves, and while war is never a desirable thing, it is often the only way to stop evil from becoming even greater evil. For example, if Hitler had not been defeated, how many millions more Jews would have been killed?
As for preemptive strikes, it’s the exact same idea. The only difference is that if you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until after it has struck to crush it.
God Bless,
- Andy Hudson
2 comments:
Iraq wasn't a threat to us. There were no terroist connections. All the weapons that they had were given to them by us in the 80s so they would fight against Iran.
A war to defend is fine, but we premptively struck Iraq, when they were no real danger to us. There is so much information out there that shows this. Why do you continue to ignore the facts. There were no WMDs, Saddam offered to go into exile before we bombed them, they have no navy, airforce, they didn't have nukes, they weren't invading anyone, the 9/11 hijackers did not come from there, or meet there. They did not threaten us with violence. Saddam hated terroists, This was not a defensive war, and to say that God will okay this war because it was an act of defense is ridiculous.
We have real threats like China and Russia, but our troops are spread out all over the place trying to police the world. What if China decides they want to police the world. You know they have financial power over us, and they are building up their military. They are also allies with Russia. We need to build a strong defense, and not worry about empty threats, so when a real threat is there we can defend ourselves. The hijackers on 9/11 mostly came from Saudi Arabia, yet we just sold the Saudis 20 billion dollars worth of weapons. Hmm, weird. Sounds hypocritical.
Bin Laden is running around free as a bird, and we don't seem to want to go after him. Hmmm, but we'll go after Iraq who was no real threat. You are completely backwards, and cherry pick your information to fit your ideology. I was for the war at first, and then I learned of all the information, all the lies we were fed to go to this war. So I prayed and asked for forgiveness, and promised to speak out against this war which has killed 100s of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
There are plenty of ways to try and spin the war to make it sound okay. But is it really okay? Is it really out of defense? No, it was over lies, and deception. By ignoring that you are doing yourself a disservice. Its your soul to worry about. If you want to continue to support fighting a third world nation, when there are large nations who could pose a real threat, that is fine. Ever seen what China does to its people? Wake up.
Andy,
Most of the statements that Jesus made about violence were concerned with personal vengeance and how we should leave that up to God. Gods purpose for Government is to restrain evil and maintain order. Sometimes war is necessary to restrain the sons of disobedience.
David
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