Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

When you go to war
Numbers 10:9

"When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you..." (Numbers 10:9)

When, not if, that is the injunction of the book of Numbers. Ah, but that is the Old Testament, you say. Well Jesus was not a pacifist (see David Bivin’s Difficult Sayings column), "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword" (Matthew 10:34), though he was a little confusing in saying "get a sword" (Luke 22:36), "put away your sword" (Matthew 26:52; John 18:11), "two swords are enough" (Luke 22:38) - but those are for another Difficult Sayings column. Christ even wields a sharp double-edged sword (Revelation 19:15) before the final victory and before peace comes upon the earth.

We have already dealt in another Difficult Sayings column with the Old Testament commandment (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17) concerning killing, which prohibits causative murder rather than self defence. Wars involve killing but not all killing is deliberate sin. Crimes against the innocent or captives during war may well be murder, but these are distinguished biblically.

I was stirred to write this difficult article by several factors. Last week was Remembrance Sunday commemorating the sacrifice of those that died to preserve our freedom. Whilst there were many conscientious objectors in both wars (in Britain 16,000 officially during WWI and 61,000 during WWII with 72,354 in the USA), most still served in a non-combat capacity perhaps as stretcher-bearers, few went to prison for their stand. In both wars Britain and indeed the USA fought not to directly defend themselves but to support an ally or neutral country under threat or reality of hostile invasion. In World War I it was to help Belgium, in World War II, Poland. We will discover later that this is a biblical basis for going to war.

Equally in the news has been the statistic of 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties (although the earlier Human Rights Watch report may be more balanced even if an underestimate), the latest apparent atrocity by US Marines in Fallujah, ongoing animal rights and abortion activism and the ban on hunting in the UK. We are moving towards a society that even apart from any religious morals is becoming violently anti-violence. Pacifism is no longer mere conscientious objection on the part of Quakers and Jehovah Witnesses. Greenpeace and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament have moved on and the world has not seen such demonstrations of almost global unity as the various marches against the War in Iraq in cities around the globe.

Where does the Christian sit in all of this? There are Christians on those marches against war and also amongst those voicing support; Christians who hunt and those that object and protest; Christians in the armed forces and in the international aid agencies that pick up the pieces afterwards. There are Christians supporting both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What is the biblical basis for evaluating involvement in military action and has it changed between the two Testaments?

Making War / Jus ad Bellum
That wars can and did happen in the Old Testament is indisputable. God even used them in judgement on nations that followed idolatry. The first war was that between God and man brought about by listening to the serpent, the war between the sexes followed, and in the very next generation civil war between brothers. Man invented war, although one could argue that war in heaven between God, Michael and Satan is also spoken of. According to James 4:1 wars come from our hedonistic^F1 lusts and envy, when "want" rules over "need", going against "thou shalt not covet".

Wars that stem from these land grabs are sometimes falsely justified by the need for lebensraum (Nazism) or the bringing of Roman-Christian-Western values to heathen lands during late-Roman, 16th-19th century Christian colonial expansion, or 20th-21st century impositions of Western democracy by force. At other times wars are just empire-building without any attempt at justification such as the expansion of medieval Islam, although no doubt it thought it was bringing Islamic values to the West.

Just War
Legitimate modern wars and indeed historical Christian involvement in wars is meant to stem from the idea of a Just War, first propagated by St. Augustine in the 4th century as a Christian ideal in his The City of God. Contrary to Judaism’s law of self-defence he argued that an individual could not engage in killing even to protect himself but that a state could go to war to protect many individuals and that individual Christians should submit to the state’s military action unless it went against another biblical commandment. The purpose of war was protection or to right a wrong but not for greed or national expansion. He said, "we do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace", very much akin to Aristotle’s earlier dictum: "We make war that we may live in peace"^F2.

War and the State
Thomas Aquinas, during the 13th century, in his Summa Theologica extended Augustine’s theories in three areas: right authority, just cause and rightful intention. The first area effectively prohibited civil war, mercenary activity, revolution and terrorism and only allowed the state to declare war. The second argued that a sound and moral cause must be given. The third was that peace and improvement should be the outcome, either furthering good or avoiding evil.

To some extent St. Paul endorses this in Romans:

"For he [the authority mentioned in v3] is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." (Romans 13:4)

In the 16th and 17th centuries Vitoria and Suarez further extended these moral theories to argue that war should only be a last resort after all other alternatives had been exhausted and that civilian injuries should be minimised. In 1625 Grotius, sometimes called the father of international law, published his book De jure belli ac pacis libri tres, "Of laws of War and Peace", where he took his theory of just war, worked out in the crucible of the conflicts of the Thirty and Eighty Year European Wars, and argued that nations were bound by natural law principles.

Military ethics / Jus in Bello
Since wars can and do happen God gave instructions on their conduct much as the Geneva Convention (on POWs and on protecting civilians) and even the Koran does (prohibiting the death of civilians, for example, making 9/11 and other suicide bomb attacks un-Islamic, Koran Surat al-Baqara [2]:190 and Al-Ma'dah [5]:32, cf. http://www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com/the_pacifism_of_islam.html on Islamic pacificism). Exodus 23:4-5 instructs one to still give aid to a stray or injured donkey, even if it is your enemy’s livestock, but more importantly it continues to command one not to kill the innocent (v7).

Deuteronomy dictates how sieges should be conducted and how blitzkrieg destruction and carpet-bombing should be avoided:

"Now if the city will not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it… When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man’s food. Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build siege works against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued." (Deuteronomy 20:12,19-20)

God teaches at Sandhurst/West Point?
God himself is described as likened to a man of war (Isaiah 42:13^F3) and as teaching warfare:

"He teaches my hands to make war…" (2 Samuel 22:35)

He also raised up foreign powers to make war (Isaiah 45:1) and allowed enemies to remain to teach lessons through warfare with them:

"Now these are the nations which the LORD left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it" (Judges 3:1-2)

God hates war
Nonetheless, just as God hates the death of even the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11) so he hates war too and those that delight in waging it (1 Chronicles 22:8-9; Psalm 68:30).

Is Pacifism the Answer?
If every person in a country became a pacifist Christian and a neighbouring country became the innocent victim of aggression, terrorism or genocide, how would it go to its aid? Augustine’s theories would not allow for an individual’s defence of a neighbour but the Bible probably would. Proverbs 24:11 calls for us to "Rescue those being led away to death…", which would have dictated involvement in WWII to rescue Jews and Gypsies.

Similarly, and often forgotten when "love thy neighbour" is quoted, which itself is an Old Testament concept taken from Leviticus 19:18, are the preceding verses in Leviticus:

"Don't just stand by when your neighbor's life is in danger" (Leviticus 19:16, The Message)

Since the ethics of Leviticus 19, including not "hating your brother in your heart" (19:17), form the basis of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, it can be seen that there is no contradiction or change between Old and New Testament ethics on these matters.

Isaiah 32:17 says that "the work of righteousness shall be peace…", so peace follows justice and righteousness. Pacifism in a land of injustice, terrorism, or genocide, is merely the absence of resistance rather than the presence of peace and elsewhere the Bible tells us that in situations such as Sudan and Kosovo and Rwanda we need to stand up for those that have no voice (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Whilst the early Church was protected by the armies of Rome it did not need consider how to defend itself. In Acts 21:32,35; 23:10 we read of Paul being saved from a mob by the intervention of Roman soldiers.

The Christian life is, admittedly in metaphor, represented as warfare. We are told to put on the "armour of Christ" (Ephesians 6:11-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:8), to be a "good soldier" (2 Timothy 2:3,4), and Paul writes concerning his "fellow soldiers" (Philippians 2:25; Philemon 1:2).

There is no indication that the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:1ff.) gave up his military job upon becoming a Christian. Being a prostitute or an actor in an idolatrous play was enough for the early church to encourage new believers to leave their employment and to find them alternative support. However, military service was not entirely discouraged, although the jury is still out on this debate, and indeed Christ charged his followers with going the extra mile when obligated to carry the backpack of Roman soldiers (Matthew 5:41). Some soldiers had to stand up for their faith though when asked to practice idolatrous sacrifices within the practice of their military service. It seems that people in the military were not called to leave but to remain in service (1 Corinthians 7:24), however new Christians were unlikely to join.

Peace, a Future Hope, not a present reality
Until the millennial messianic promise of Micah is realised we must be prepared to occasionally take up arms in the self-defence of others and to promote justice:

"…They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more." (Micah 4:3 // Isaiah 2:4)

But eventually, amidst all the wars and rumours of wars (Matthew 24:6; Mark 13:7; Luke 21:9) the end will come and God will wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:4) and make wars to cease:

"He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;" (Psalm 46:9)

FOOTNOTES:
F1: The word for "desires for pleasure" used in this verse is ηδονη hêdonê (Strong’s #2237) from which we get hedonism.
F2: Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
F3: "The LXX was equally daring in taking each of the four texts in which Yahweh is described as "a man of war" and changing them to "one who destroys war" (Exod 15:3; Isa 42:13; Jdt 9:7; 16:3). In at least one LXX passage the "destruction of war" is added where it does not appear in the MT (Mic 2:8); and in some the hope is escalated from the destruction of instruments of war to the destruction of war itself (Hos 2:20). Apparently influential members of the Jewish community sought to minimize the bellicose depictions of Yahweh" Freedman, D. N., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (New York: Doubleday, 1996, c1992).

Copyright Statement
'Difficult Sayings' Copyright 2025© KJ Went. 'Difficult Sayings' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each article, along with a link to https://www.studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings.html  2) 'Difficult Sayings' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.