War No More
by Jimmy Humphrey
This past week marked the end of the war in Iraq. The war has lasted almost a decade, cost almost 1 trillion dollars to fight, and has resulted in a death toll of an estimated 150,000 people. Of this war, the Church of Jesus Christ in America has had little to say.
Something is wrong with this picture.
There is a growing burden upon my heart in recent years at the relative silence coming from the Church in regard to war. When anything is said, the more liberal factions of the Church are generally found opposing war, and the more conservative factions of the Church are usually found to be supporting it. There’s usually some sort of argument between the two groups. But this generally amounts to nothing more than both sides rehashing where they stand in regard to the debate surrounding the thousand-year old Augustinian “Just War” theology. It’s mostly an abstract academic debate that does little to shape the consciousness of the Church, and worse, offers no prophetic witness to a world at war.
Lest anybody think I am taking any sort of self-righteous stance on the issue, let me say outright that I say all these things to my own shame. War has mostly been an abstract and ghostly issue to me. Apart from having a younger brother who spent some time in the military, my knowledge of war has been something I’ve only read about in history books, debated about in an ethics class, or watched on Fox News. Because I live in America, apart from such considerations, I’ve not really had to confront the issue head on. I’ve had more “important things” to think and talk about after all.
You are probably like me in this regard. The issue of war is something you’ve given little thought to. After all, you’ve been pursuing your best life now, advancing your career, raising your children, and trying to keep up with the Joneses. You attend a mid-week Bible study that helps you to become a better father, mother, or leader in the community. You battle to keep your finances in order, have a good self-esteem, and overcome some dirty habits. And praise God, Jesus Christ came to the world, died, and rose again, all so He could help you become a better you after all!
Our Christianity has become too self-absorbed. Our theology is too abstract. We are not Christ-centered in our thinking. And as a result, we have no clear word of God to give a lost and dying world that measures history by the wars she’s fought. It is a shameful thing that hundreds of millions of people created in the image of God can be destroyed from the face of the earth through violent bloodshed, and the Church of Jesus Christ can do nothing more in its witness than debate theological riddles and parrot cute truisms. We should be disturbed by this.
In this brief essay, I want to offer a rather unique and what I believe to be Biblical perspective on the topic of Christ and the response of the Church to war. And I want to do so without directly engaging important theologians and intellectual giants like St. Augustine or Stanley Hauerwas. I don’t want to talk much about “just war theory” or “pacifism.” I don’t want to talk about the proper role of government or the right of self-defense. I believe all of these abstract things just muddy the waters, and prevent us from seeing clearly. For these topics, as important as they are, fail to get to the heart of the issue. They are merely the branches of a much larger tree, whose roots we have long ignored.
It is my contention that if we want to adhere to a Biblical perspective on this topic, we must truly understand and grasp who Jesus Christ is, and the task with which God sent Him into the world to accomplish. In doing such, then not only will move away from the self-absorbed American Christian lifestyle familiar to so many of us, but we will move away from abstract theologians like Augustine or Hauerwas, and be able to speak a clear and definitive word from God to a world that is consumed with war. Such a word can only issue out of a revelation that comes from us understanding the “messianic task” that God had charged Christ with, and the relationship of the Church to that task.
The Messianic Task
In Genesis, we read of a perfect world created by God that has gone bad. Because of the rebellion of Adam in the garden of Eden, sin and death crept into this world. An all consuming curse was unleashed into creation, destroying every good thing God had created. A world that was at peace had suddenly become violent. To rectify the problem, God promised a solution. One day, a child would be born that would reverse the curse unleashed in the garden, and instead of death and destruction reigning, universal blessing would once again overtake the world. God would one day redeem all of creation, and restore everything to the state it was in prior to the fall.
In Genesis 12, God promised Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the earth would become blessed. By means of a miraculous birth, God set the wheels of redemptive history rolling. Abraham would give birth to Isaac, Isaac would give birth to Jacob, and one day through this lineage, the Messiah would be born into this world. As history progressed, God began to reveal more and more about the One that would be born King of the Jews.
From Moses to Malachi, the prophets began to paint a portrait of who the Messiah would be, and the age He would usher in with His coming. While all the prophets give witness to Christ in some measure, none write about Him more fully the prophet Isaiah.
Through his oracles, we understand how Christ would come into the world through the womb of a virgin. From Isaiah we know of the miraculous ministry that would accompany the life of Jesus. Through Isaiah we understand that the Messiah must be rejected, suffer, die, and be resurrected. And in these things, Isaiah revealed to us the ultimate significance of the Messiah, and the great things God would accomplish through Him, and the role He would play in the great redemption narrative. In Isaiah we have the greatest summary statements of Christ given by any of the prophets.
And in one of those greatest prophetic pronouncements regarding Christ from the prophet Isaiah, and a passage that really speaks to me and the topic at hand, is the oracle of Isaiah 2:1-4:
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war. - (Isaiah 2:1-4; NASB)
In this passage, Isaiah speaks of the establishment of the kingdom of God, the rule of the Messiah, the evangelization of the Gentile world, and the impact that the word of God would have on the nations that heard His word. After such a breathtaking vision, is it no wonder Isaiah would later call the Messiah the Prince of Peace, and say that the distant coastlands were eagerly awaiting Him and His law?
For through the establishment of the kingdom of God, Isaiah says that the teachings of Christ would be so powerful that they would cause men to beat the tools of their warfare into instruments fashioned for harvest. Through the word He speaks, transformed men would transform their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. As a result of receiving the teachings Christ, Isaiah says, men would never again learn war.
If this oracle can be understood to be a part of God’s redemptive plans promised through Abraham, about how the Messiah in His task would transform the world from a place that is dominated by the death and destruction unleashed upon this world because of man’s fall, into a world where blessing reigns, then I think we would do well to meditate on this passage of Scripture, and the ramifications of it.
For if I understand this passage correctly, I understand Isaiah to say that after the coming of Christ and the establishment of the kingdom of God, should men learn war, it will not be the result of anything they learned from Him. For Christ in His kingdom teaches men that they should make war no more. If men should learn war, it is because they are the disciple of somebody other than Jesus Christ. For Christ would never teach His disciples how to wage war, not even a “just” one.
For war is nothing more than the product of nations failing to realize that Jesus Christ is King, and yielding themselves to His reign. If the nations would but submit to His rule and His reign, then they would once and for all be done with war. For Christ in His death and resurrection destroyed every reason nations have to destroy one another. No longer do men have to kill or be killed, and fight to survive. For in Christ the cosmos were fundamentally changed, and death has been defeated by the One who died and rose again. The curse has now been reversed, and every blessing has now been made available to all who would but put their faith in Him.
Our Prophetic Announcement
As disciples of Jesus Christ and ambassadors of His kingdom, we are given the joyous task of announcing to the world that the long awaited Messiah has come, and that His rule and His reign have begun. We have tidings of great joy to announce to all nations. Something epic has occurred. A new age has begun. It is an age in which men should no longer slay one another in fights over land and resources. It is an age in which men should no longer slay one another to secure life or liberty. For Christ has provided us with all these blessings, and many more, as an extension of His grace towards all of who would believe.
But sadly, as individuals living between the times and amongst men who don’t know the blessings of Christ, we are quick to lose sight of all these things. We know little to nothing of the messianic task, nor of our role in the kingdom of God. Instead, we get caught up in our very earthly lives, and lose sight of the heavenly perspective. And instead of prophetically announcing to the nations the rule and reign of Christ, and instructing them in His ways, we are quick to adopt the mindsets of people who don’t know of God’s redemptive story.
Soon, instead of telling men the million justifications we have for peace found in Christ, we find ourselves helping them to think of a million justifications for war. Caught up in our own self interests, the Church finds itself in the odd place of baptizing the wars of the nations, and giving them the “blessing” they so desire. Not only that, but we often find ourselves swelling the ranks of the armed forces. But this blessing is not the blessing of Christ. For the blessing of Christ reverses the destruction that began in the garden, it does not further it by means of war.
For Christ would teach men that you reap what you sow. War never ends in peace. It only begets more war. And in whatever nation the “just war” theory is preached in, it is never long before all that nation knows is just war. And why? Because it is fundamental to the fallen and sinful nature of mankind.
Nations never fight wars because they “have” to. Nations fight wars because they “want” to. They fight wars because the corrupted hearts are men are hell bent on it. Like an apple that naturally falls to the ground because of gravity, so men naturally incline themselves to make war because of sin. It is no coincidence that the prophets predict that the end to this side of eternity will be marked by the greatest of all wars. Because of the human condition, war is something that all the nations of the world naturally lean towards.
That is why men are so resistant to the idea of peace. We are quick to want to justify war and why we should kill somebody else, because it is in keeping with our own sinful nature. Which is why we are often hostile to those who would say we should pursue peace instead of war. Peacemakers are often branded by society as not being patriotic, as not supporting the troops, or “the cause.” Such men are often treated as heretics, not only by the nations, but also by the Church! And why? Because we are the sons of Adam who know nothing of peace.
Peacemakers are often slandered as being “pacifists.” That is, they are considered men who are willing to do nothing in the light of whatever danger, real or imagined, that a nation may be facing. They are pictured to be men who would do nothing but sit by and watch the Hitler’s of the world kill another six-million Jews. But this could be further from the truth, and in reality, is yet another attempt at men to justify war instead of justifying peace, never mind how well meaning such arguments sound.
The truth of the matter is, when a nation is faced with the inevitability of war, we as the Church have been given a great opportunity. Far from being pacifists, we are called to be activists. For we are given the opportunity to act on behalf of Jesus Christ, and prophetically announce to the nations that God has established a King who teaches the nations to war no more. We are given the opportunity to announce to the nation we live in that we will not participate in her wars, no matter how “just” they seem, because something greater than justice is here. The cosmos have been changed by Christ. And because of such, men and nations should now submit themselves to Him.
As Christians, we have the opportunity to announce that the blessings of peace that a nation pursues under the guise of war are unattainable apart from the present rule of Christ, and that what they are looking for can only be found in Him. If a nation pursues peace by means of war, it will come away empty handed every single time. For war only begets more war. It never produces peace. Peace can only come to a world at war as the blessing of Christ that flows from participating in the life of the kingdom of God. But where the rule of Christ is unknown, there can never be peace, only war.
Conclusion
This essay is by no means complete. While I believe it has exposed the fundamental reason for war, namely, that men and nations choose to live their lives independently of the present rule and reign of Jesus Christ as the King of all creation, so much more needs to be said that is not addressed here. Lord willing and time permitting, in the future I hope to write additional reflections on this important topic. But for now I believe it is sufficient to say that we as disciples of Jesus Christ have been given an important task of great significance.
Instead of baptizing the wars of our nations as somehow being blessed by God, we are given a greater opportunity to tell men everywhere of a greater blessing that is available to them because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Instead of telling the nations of the world that there are justified reasons for waging war, we are given the opportunity to tell men that they no longer have to destroy one another in any war whatsoever. For a new age has begun, where Jesus Christ rules and reigns, and a kingdom that knows nothing but the peace of Christ is now being offered to the sons of Adam, as a viable alternative to the hell that can come through war. We can proclaim that the nations never have to learn war anymore.