Excerpt from “Christ & Self-Defense”
When America was attacked on 9/11 by terrorists, those men responsible picked a fight with a military much too strong for it. They paid a terrible price for their initiation of force. Thus, a “nice” person goes to the eternal hell of punishment for their act of war, not because they ate an ethical cookie they shouldn’t have, but because they attacked God. Unbelief isn’t a neutral act, as we like to think. It’s an attempt to overrule God and reorder His world according to our own standards.
Sin is, therefore, a clash of authority. Either God is absolute and ultimate, or we are. Sin challenges God to a fight and the very fact that we’re still in one piece at all is proof of His mercy.
Furthermore, the fact that all die is proof of God’s verdict against sin. To walk by a graveyard is testimony that Jesus Christ is Lord for only He has risen and only He has provided the non-contradictory logic of the graves in the first place. All non-Christian philosophies accept death as a metaphysical given…a fact of life. The Scripture, on the other hand, provides the logical reason for it and its remedy in Christ.
But more on the clash of power.
If an average man were to step in the ring and challenge a great boxer in their prime, let’s say Mike Tyson since he’s recent enough in memory, he’d surely experience an epic beatdown. Sure, the beating would be temporal, which is to say that it would cease at some point (providing that Iron Mike didn’t knock the poor schlub’s noggin into orbit). Nevertheless, the reality of the challenge is that one or the other must prevail. Likewise, if a deranged soul were to charge the White House, determined to declare himself King, there would be a clash of arms. The Secret Service would protect the integrity of the President by bringing superior violence against the man.
All acts of rebellion are disputations of righteous authority. An argument doesn’t necessarily lead to violence in that people or groups who disagree over derivative ideas don’t logically need to come to blows. For me to say that Steve Perry is the greatest rock vocalist of all time is a matter of opinion. You might (and wrongly, of course) protest that the lofty distinction belongs to Freddie Mercury. All is well at the end, and we can certainly part as friends (demented and delusional though you are). But arguments over authority must always lead to violence or resignation. All violence in life, from domestic abuse, to crime, to war, stem from demands of and upon authority.
Thus, if we’re serious about peace, we must settle the issue of ultimacy first and foremost.
With this in our minds, we see the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden as the amazing and merciful thing it was. Not only did God take pity upon His rebellious creatures, but He clothed them and promised an ultimate solution to the horror they just unleashed (Genesis 3:15). The terrors and frustrations of life we all experience, especially death, are explained in Genesis 3. Not just that, but as Adam and Eve are booted from the Garden, to go work at this thing we call life, to both suffer and rejoice in it, to get money and lose money, to both succeed and fail, laugh and cry, God blocks the entrance back to His presence. With what? A barrier of some kind? Some traffic barrels and a stern sign? No.
God placed cherubim at the entrance. He placed war angels.
They had swords.
Flaming swords.
He wasn’t/isn’t messing around.
And Adam and Eve, with no weapons or training one assumes, weren’t so keen to join that fight. They rebelled and were mercifully booted from Eden. God’s response to their act of war was grace in the promise of Jesus Christ, which set off the entirety of the drama of the Old Testament – itself a dress rehearsal for the Messiah.
God’s authority and righteousness were intact still, despite the rebellion. No blows were landed upon Him. His throne wasn’t shaken. More still, His grace was displayed by virtue that not only were they still breathing, but He promised the Messiah would come (Genesis 3:15) so that this wasn’t man’s final state.
Later, when Peter pulls a sword and tries to cut off the head of a soldier there to arrest Jesus (though he missed and cut off an ear, which Jesus healed), Jesus told him to put his sword away (John 18:10). He said to Peter, put your sword into its sheath…” John 18:11). Many, ignorant of the context, have assumed wrongly that Jesus was preaching a doctrine of pacifism. He was not. Adam disobeyed in the garden; Jesus said, “not my will, but Yours be done,” in a garden. The passion of Christ plays out in that to enter back into the presence of God on our own terms is to demand that He acquiesce to our demands upon Him. Shall we try and storm the gates of Heaven? The war angels will cut us to shreds in that event. A toddler has a better chance against Mike Tyson. There is no way in…not through our own force, except in Christ, through faith alone. That’s what He means when he says to put your sword away. It’s what He means when He says “I am the Way…(John 14:6).”
Is it any wonder then that the rulers murdered Jesus Christ? The logical consequence of sin is a battle of arms with God. Isn’t this why the Jewish leaders said, “let His blood be upon us.” And “we have no king but Caesar.”
The declaration of war was then complete. It proved on that Friday in Jerusalem so long ago that if we could get our paws on God, we’d kill Him.
It’s in this context that we marvel at grace. The great King meekly conceding to our filthy hands, dirtied by arrogance and sin, beating Him, whipping Him, and nailing Him to the cross. And that cross isn’t arbitrary either, you know. No. It’s a tree! God sent His Son to die by torture on a dead tree! Adam and Eve, surrounded by all the wonderful bounty of the unspoiled Garden, started the whole process by taking from that one tree God had forbidden. That’s the glory and power of the gospel! God goes to that tree and dies for us…goes to the tomb…dead for the sins we committed.
And then He rose again on Sunday morning! Our Champion and Savior, undefeated by sin and death. Consider the beauty, wisdom, and majesty of Him defeating our violence and bloodlust, and all our deranged pride, by His meekness and love. This, and only this is what it means to say that love conquers all. To say it in any other way is the babbling of an insane man. To say it now, in Christ, is to say it in awe.
You see, none of this is happenstance. It’s full of life altering beauty and power. Ultimately, it’s the only thing that matters. The cross of Christ is where all must go to solve our real problem. We must lay down our arms against God and go there to Him or else we’ll go to judgment…and there’ll be no fight on that day. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, but no battle, no clash of arms because there simply can’t be. Unless we go to Him now in faith, repenting – that is, changing our mind about Him and reality – then we’ll be dragged there like the cowards we are…pretenders to the great Throne of Heaven. Once we see all this, and only then, can we make sense of violence and self-defense.
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