THE BIBLE AGAINST WAR

by Rev. Amos Dresser

Let us compare our commission
and the spirit of the gospel
with the soldier’s commission
and the spirit of war.

Lord Nelson,[18] the military lawgiver of England’s Midshipmen says, “There are three things which you are constantly to bear in mind.  1st. You must always implicitly obey orders without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety.  2nd. You must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king.  3rd. You must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.” – Peace Manual, p. 116.

Says Napoleon, “The worse the man, the better the soldier,” and Lieutenant Page,[19] in the agonies of death – his bloody tongue no longer able to blaspheme – in fiendish exultation writes, “We gave the Mexicans HELL.”  This is war.  And surely Lord Wellington[20] was right in saying, “Men who have nice notions about religion have no business to be soldiers.”  The early Christians were right in saying, “I am a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight.”

“Let us now put war and Christianity side by side, and see how far they agree.  Christianity saves men; war destroys them.  Christianity elevates men; war debases and degrades them.  Christianity purifies men; war corrupts and defiles them.  Christianity blesses men; war curses them.  The gospel says, thou shalt not kill; war says, thou shalt kill.  The gospel says, blessed are the peace-makers; war says, blessed are the war-makers.  The gospel says, love your enemies; war says, hate them.  The gospel says, forgive men their trespasses; war says, forgive them not.  The gospel enjoins forgiveness and forbids revenge; war scorns the former, and commands the latter.  The gospel says, resist not evil; war says, you may and must resist evil.  The gospel says, if any man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also; war says, turn not the other cheek, but knock the smiter down.  The gospel says, bless those who curse you; bless, and curse not; war says, curse those who curse you; curse, and bless not.  The gospel says, pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you; war says, pray against them, and seek their destruction.  The gospel says, see that none shall render evil for evil unto any man; war says, be sure to render evil for evil unto all that injure you.  The gospel says, overcome evil with good; war says, overcome evil with evil.  The gospel says, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; war says, if you supply your enemies with food and drink you will be shot as a traitor.  The gospel says, do good unto all men; war says, do as much evil as you can to your enemies.  The gospel says to all men, love one another; war says, hate and kill one another.  The gospel says, they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword; war says, they that take the sword, shall be saved by the sword.  The gospel says, blessed is he that trusteth in the Lord; war says, cursed is such a man, and blessed is he that trusteth in swords and guns.  God says, beat your swords into ploughshares, your spears into pruning hooks, and learn war no more; war says, make swords and spears still, and continue to learn war.

“War in its spirit, its principles, its legitimate results, is antagonistic to Christianity.  Peace was the song chanted over her cradle by angels fresh from the God of love.  Her Founder was the Prince of Peace; her gospel is the statute book of peace; the principles of peace are scattered throughout the New Testament, and most fully were they enforced by the example of Christ, his apostles, and all his early disciples.

“Glance at the general contrariety of war to the gospel.  Says Dr. Malcom,[21] ‘War contradicts the very genius and intention of Christianity.  Christianity, if it prevailed, would make the earth a paradise; war, wherever it prevails, makes it a slaughterhouse, a den of thieves, a brothel, a hell.  Christianity is the remedy for all human woes; war produces every woe known to man.  All the features, all the concomitants, all the results of war, are the opposite of the features, the concomitants, the results of Christianity.  The two systems conflict in every part, irreconcilably and eternally.’

 “The whole structure of any army is in violation of New Testament precepts.  What absolute despotism!

“‘Condescending to men of low estate,’ would spoil discipline.  ‘Esteeming others better than ourselves’ would degrade the officers.  Instead of humility, there must be gay trappings.  Instead of Christ’s law of love, there must be man’s rule of honor.  Instead of examining all things, the soldier must be like a trained bloodhound, ready to be let loose against any foe.  Instead of returning good for evil, the army is organized expressly to return injuries with interest.  The qualities required in the Christian spoil a soldier for the field.  He must then cast away meekness, and fight.  He must cast away honesty, and forage.  He must cast away forgiveness, and revenge his country.  He must return blow for blow, wound for wound.  Thus, when we take the common soldier individually, we find him compelled to violate every precept of his religion.

“Let us state a few points that will be conceded by all. 

“1.  The deeds of war, in themselves considered, are confessedly forbidden in the New Testament, and can be justified only on the supposition that government has a right, in war, to reverse or suspend the enactments of Heaven.

“2.  The spirit of war is acknowledged by all to be contrary to that of the gospel.  But can we have war without its spirit?  What is the spirit of any custom or act but the moral character of that custom or act?  Blasphemy without the spirit of blasphemy!  Perpetrate the deeds of war without the spirit of war, and destroy property, life, and happiness by wholesale, from motives of pure benevolence!  Kill men just for their own benefit!  Send them to perdition for their own good!!  Tremendous logic; yet the only sort of logic that ever attempts to reconcile war with the gospel; a logic that would require us to suppose that thousands of cut-throats by profession, generally unprincipled and reckless, fierce, irascible and vindictive, the tigers of society, will shoot, and stab, and trample one another down in the full exercise of Christian patience, forgiveness, and love!!

“3.  The qualities required of warriors, are the reverse of those which characterize the Christian.  Even Paley,[22] the ablest champion of war, avers that ‘no two things can be more different than the Heroic and the Christian characters,’ and then proceeds to exhibit the two in striking contrast as utterly irreconcilable.  Must not war itself be equally incompatible with Christianity?

“4.  The gospel enjoins no virtue which the soldier may not discard without losing his military rank or reputation; nor does it forbid a solitary vice which he may not practice without violating the principles of war.

“5.  While the gospel prescribes rules for every lawful relation and employment in life, it lays down not a single principle applicable to the soldier’s peculiar business, and evidently designed for his use.  If war is right, why this studious avoidance, this utter neglect of its agents?

“6.  The Old Testament predicts that the gospel will one day banish war from the earth forever.  But if consistent with Christianity, how will the gospel ever abolish it?  The gospel destroy what it sanctions and supports!

“7.  Christians, in the warmest glow of their love to God and man, shrink with instinctive horror from the deeds of cruelty and blood essential to war; nor can they, in such a state of mind, perpetrate them, without doing violence to their best feelings.

“8.  Converts from paganism, in the simplicity of their first faith, have uniformly understood the gospel as forbidding this custom.  Such was remarkably the case in the South Sea Islands; and the fact goes far to prove that no mind, not under the hereditary delusions of war, would ever find in the gospel any license for its manifold abominations.

“But let the New Testament speak for itself.  It may forbid war either by a direct condemnation of it, or by the prohibition of its moral elements, the things which go to constitute war; and we contend that the gospel does forbid it in both these ways.

“1.  Note first its express condemnation of war.  ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you?  Come they not hence, even of your lusts?’ – James 4:1.  We cannot well conceive a denunciation more direct or more decisive.  Our Savior before Pilate declared, ‘If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight; but now is my kingdom not from hence.’ – John 18:36.  A most unequivocal condemnation of war as inconsistent with Christianity.  ‘Follow peace with all men.’ – Hebrews 12:14.  Or, as it is in the original, ‘Seek earnestly, with all your might, after peace, not only with your own countrymen, but with foreigners; not with your friends alone, but with your enemies; with the whole human race.’  What language could, if these passages do not, condemn war as utterly un-Christian?

“2.  But look at the still more decisive mode of forbidding war by the condemnation of its moral elements.  The gospel puts them all under ban.  War contravenes the fundamental principle of Christianity.  This principle is, enmity subdued by love, evil overcome with good, injury requited by kindness.  It pervades the whole New Testament; it is the soul of the Christian system.  The peculiar precepts of the gospel all rest on this principle; nor can we take it away without subverting the entire fabric of Christianity.  But this principle is incompatible with war, because war always aims to overcome evil with evil, to return injury for injury, to subdue our enemies by making them wretched, to inflict on our assailants the very evils they meditate against us, to save our own life, property, and happiness by sacrificing theirs.  Such is war in its best form; but, if this be not a contradiction of the gospel, we know not what is, and challenge you to conceive a principle more directly opposed to that which lies at the foundation of Christianity.

“But the gospel condemns in detail the moral elements of war.  ‘Lay aside all malice; and let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger be put away.’  ‘Avenge not yourselves.’  ‘Recompense to no man evil for evil.’  ‘See that none render evil for evil to any man.’  ‘Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and division, are ye not carnal?’  ‘Now, the works of the flesh are these: hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, envyings, murders, revilings, and such like.’  Need any one be told that the things here denounced are inseparable from war, and constitute its very essence?  What!  War without bitterness, wrath, or anger, without variance, emulation, or murder!  Nations go to war without avenging themselves, and rendering evil for evil!

“The gospel, however, still more fully condemns war by enjoining what is inconsistent with it.  ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;’ and the parable of the Good Samaritan makes every human being our neighbor.  ‘Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.’  ‘Charity (love) suffereth long and is kind; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.’  ‘Do good unto all men.’  ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.’  ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’  ‘Have peace one with another.’  ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and forbearing one another.’  ‘Forgive one another, even as Christ forgave you.’  ‘The wisdom which is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.’  ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers.’  ‘Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’  ‘Overcome evil with good.’  ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.’” – Peace Manual, pp. 139,147-153.

Surely the Spirit of the New Testament is wholly opposed to war.  Therefore the spirit of the Old Testament must be opposed to war, as they each have the same Author, unchanged and unchangeable.

Christ was the angel
of the old covenant.

We see then that if Christ is our teacher, we “learn war no more.”  But Christ was the “Angel” of the old covenant also, whose “voice” they were to “obey.”  Jesus Christ was “that Prophet” to whom they were to “hearken.”  (See Deuteronomy 18:15 and Acts 3:22-23.)  And the promises relating to the “land” were all connected with promises relating to Christ.  (See Genesis 12:1-4, 28:13-14, and Galatians 3:14-16.)  And it was evidently God’s design that the Jews should, on entering Palestine, “enter into rest.”  (See Hebrews 3 and 4.)  “A rest” from all war – from the lusts of the flesh – a rest such as is found in Christ Jesus – such as results from obeying the gospel, so that if the Jews were men of war it was because they would not hearken to the “Prince of Peace.”  And the Jewish wars were no more in accordance with the will of God than are the wars of our day.  In each case they result from a love of war rather than peace.  I do not however mean that war was ever approved by the reason[23] or conscience of man.  Quite the contrary …

War is now and always has
been regarded as a curse.

Even General Taylor says, “I sincerely rejoice at the prospect of peace.  My life has been devoted to arms, yet I look upon war, at all times and under all circumstance, as a NATIONAL CALAMITY, to be avoided if compatible with national honor.” – Allison Letter.[24]

Hence, the Bible classes war with the “famine,” the “pestilence,” and other judgments of sin.  “I will send the sword, the pestilence, and the famine among them until they be consumed from off the land.” – Jeremiah 24:10.  So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus saith the Lord, choose thee either three years’ famine, or three years to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee, or else three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence in the land and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel.”[25]  - 1 Chronicles 21:11-12.

I repeat then, in the language of Cruden,[26] “War is threatened of God in scripture as one of the greatest judgments, and may justly be reckoned among the many miseries which sin has entailed on mankind.”  ►► War is a curse not simply to the aggressor, but to each party – to all engaged in it.

The bible speaks of peace
as a blessing – the result
of obedience and faith.

For example, “The Lord will bless his people with peace.” – Psalm 29:11.  “The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever; and my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting places.” – Isaiah 32:17-18.  “Because we have sought the Lord our God – we have sought and He has given us rest on every side.” – 2 Chronicles 14:7.  “I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto his people and his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.  Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land.  Mercy and truth are met together.  Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” – Psalm 85:8-10.  “The wisdom that is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy, and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who practice peace.” – James 3:17-18.  “But there is no peace saith my God to the wicked.” – Isaiah 48:22. 

The bible makes no distinction
between offensive and
defensive war.[27]

Yes, and what is more, the wars which the Bible is said to sustain were aggressive, such as no one now thinks of justifying.  President Polk and General Taylor did not fulfill to the letter the injunction, “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes,” – Deuteronomy 20:16, and yet I have heard no one complain of their mercy.[28]

The Canaanites were doomed
to destruction because of
their sin.

That God had a sacred right to destroy the inhabitants of the old world by a flood, and Sodom by fire and brimstone, all admit who regard Him as man’s righteous Sovereign and Creator.  Jehovah alone can give life, and it is his prerogative to take life.  If he has a right to do it in person, he has a right to select his own means and commission whom he will as executioners.  As to the antediluvian world, “God 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,” – Genesis 8:5, and benevolence demanded their destruction.  Of Sodom, the Lord said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which has come unto me; and if not I will know.” – Genesis 18:20-21, and when he found them perfectly steeped in licentiousness, beyond all hope of recovery, He commissioned his destroying angels to go forth upon their work of death, who said, “We will destroy this place because the cry of them is waxen great before the Lord: and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.” – Genesis 19:13.  It would be strange indeed to argue that because the angels had a commission to destroy Sodom, therefore, it was right to destroy mankind everywhere according to their discretion; and much more strange would be the logic that would urge that angels generally could destroy mankind anywhere and everywhere, because certain angels had been commissioned to a certain work of destruction for specific reasons.  But this would be no stranger than to urge that because the Jews had a divine commission to destroy the Canaanites, therefore, mankind in general can destroy one another at their discretion.

The very fact of a restrictive commission shows that the work was not lawful without a commission.

God saw the increasing iniquity of the Canaanites, and foreseeing that benevolence would eventually demand their extirpation, promised the land they then occupied to Abraham and his seed, interdicting his immediate possession because “the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.” – Genesis 15:16.  But when their cup became filled to the brim, so that their continued existence would but prove a curse to themselves and to all over whom they had influence, he gave the heirs to understand that they could take possession.

The work of destruction was entrusted to the Jews, not because there was any enmity between them, nor because their “national honor” was at stake.  It was because the Canaanites were the enemies of Jehovah, opposed to all good and given up to every abomination, that they were to be “consumed from off the land.”  This is evident from Deuteronomy 18:12.  “Because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.  (See the context.)  “And the land is defiled: therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.” – Leviticus 18:25.  See also Leviticus 20:22-23 and parallel passages.

Nor was it because the Jews were in a state of faith and acceptance with God, so that they were called to possess the land.  Jehovah again and again reiterated that it was not for the faith and righteousness of God’s people, but for the abominations of the Canaanites that He drove them out.  Hence He says, “Speak not thou in thy heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, ‘For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land,’ but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.  Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people.  Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord” – Deuteronomy 9:4-7.  More will be said of this later.

The Jews were to Experience
the same judgments if guilty
of the same abominations.

The Jews themselves were to share the same fate, if guilty of the same crimes.  “And it shall be that if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day, that ye shall surely perish.  As the nation which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so too shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God.” – Deuteronomy 8:19-20.  See also Deuteronomy 17:2-5, Leviticus 18:24-30, and 20:22-23.  Thus, when they had made and bowed down to the golden calf, Moses commanded the sons of Levi to “put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.  And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” – Exodus 32:27-28.  Was this war?!

There was NEITHER WAR
NOR fighting when the
Jews exercised faith in God.

Whenever they had faith in God as a “grain of mustard seed” there was no fighting.  The enemies of Jehovah, terror-stricken at his presence, submitted themselves, as in the case of the guilty Israelites before the sons of Levi; as did the inhabitants of Jericho to Joshua and his host, as they went forth in the stillness of death, bearing the ark of Jehovah, with no battering rams, nor implements of any kind for demolishing the city save the “seven trumpets of the jubilee.”  Day after day, for six successive days they encompassed the city, exposing themselves to the jeers of the idolaters, as though by the blowing of rams’ horns their strong walls were to crumble!  But their faith and patience did not fail.  They “waited upon God,” and seven times on the seventh day they went round about the city, still sounding their trumpets, till at the seventh time Joshua said to the people, “Shout, for the Lord hath given you the city.”  And it came to pass when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that “the wall fell down flat; so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him and took the city.” – Joshua 6.  Thus, “by faith,” not by force, the walls of Jericho fell.[29]  Here was no fighting – no “contest” – but the simple execution of divine law upon the wicked, as each man went in straight before him, and entered upon his mission of death.  It is altogether a misnomer to call this war.  Who ever heard of a war where the slain were all of one party, and the whole party slain?  Who ever heard of a war where the fighting (?) was all on one side?  ►► It takes two to fight.  Yet there is no evidence that a single Israelite was slain, nor that a single inhabitant of Jericho lifted his hand in resistance to the executioners.  Does this look like what we call war?!

The judgment of war was
inflicted on them for sin.

But, as at other times when God honored them, they were filled with pride and attempted the destruction of Ai in their own wisdom and strength.  And Joshua, contrary to the divine injunction (see Numbers 27:12), “asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord,” but sent out spies, who, self-confident, returned saying, “‘Let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; make not all the people to labor thither, for they are but few.’  So there went up of the people about three thousand men, and they fled before the men of Ai.  And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty-six men: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.  And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the even-tide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.”  Even Joshua had lost his former faith and began to repent that they had passed over the Jordan.  He penitently poured forth his prayer to God, and was heard.  “The Lord said unto Joshua, ‘Get thee up; wherefore liest thou upon thy face?  Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded…  Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed; neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.’” – Joshua 7.  The curse of war was upon them, because they had sinned, and remained upon them till the accursed were put away from among them, till thoroughly humbled they were again willing to look to God for instruction.

If war was what they expected, how can we account for their astonishment, that out of three thousand they “lost” thirty-six men?  ►► Those who obey and trust God are never obliged to fight.  Such are “saved by the Lord their God, and not by the sword.”

[18] Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) was a British admiral famous for his participation in the Napoleonic Wars, most notably in the Battle of Trafalgar, where he lost his life.

[19] Reference unknown.  Please contact us if you know who this was!

[20] Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the 1st Duke of Wellington, was a noted Anglo-Irish general and statesman.

[21] Howard Malcom (1799-1879) was a Baptist preacher and President of Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky.

[22] William Paley (1743-1805) was an apologist, philosopher, and author of Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy.

[23] M. Raymond de Sagra, the only advocate of war at the late Peace Congress at Brussels, urged the use of the sword, because “the age of faith had passed, but the age of reason has not arrived.”  So in speaking of the defense of their country, or their family, we often hear men say, “I would fight like a dog,” or, “I would fight like a tiger,” but never, “I would fight like a Christian.”

[24] From a letter by Zachary Taylor to Captain J. S. Allison, offering himself as a presidential candidate in 1848.

[25] Mark the wisdom of David’s choice.  He rightly considered the pestilence as the “least of the three evils.”  The pestilence is not so great a curse as war.  See Jeremiah 34:17-20, 14:12, 2 Chronicles 10:9, and Leviticus 26:23-37.

[26] This is probably Alexander Cruden (1699-1770), also called Alexander the Corrector, who authored a concordance to the Bible.

[27] This distinction, together with the idea of “organic sin,” is the offspring of our own age.

[28] Except for Senator Bagly (reference unknown).

[29] So began to be fulfilled Exodus 15:15-16 and Deuteronomy 2:25.