THE BIBLE AGAINST WAR
by Rev. Amos Dresser
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Section 5 |
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Then we may use it. But before placing our hand to the hilt, let us prayerfully examine our commission, lest while the “pound of flesh” is granted, we find ourselves forbidden to take “one drop of blood.”[37]
A key for the right
interpretation of the chapter
And first we need a standpoint from which we can “take our reckoning.” This we have in the context. “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good… Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, ‘Avenging is mine; I will repay,’ saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if the thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,” etc.
The apostle is urging the duty of nonresistance to evil, repeating the injunction of our blessed Lord to do good to our enemies and submit patiently to wrong-doing, leaving our cause in the hands of God. There can be no doubt but that this is the doctrine of the 12th chapter, and its separation from the 13th is one of the unfortunate arrangements of the chapter makers. Evidently, it is not Paul’s arrangement. The subject is one. “Avenge not yourselves.” “Overcome evil with good.” “Let every soul be subject,” etc.
But we are elevated still higher on our observatory if we mark the circumstances under which Paul wrote. He was writing to the Christians at Rome. They, of course, would understand his instructions as applying to them under the circumstances in which they were placed. They were at that time smarting under the lash of tyrannical power, and were keenly alive to the injustice of being compelled to pay taxes to the very government that was crushing them. The passage must be so construed as to meet their case. Hence, in chapter 12 he lays down great fundamental principles, thereby greatly to prepare the way for the humbling, unwelcome truth he presents in chapter 13. This is the pivot on which the interpretation of the passage turns. Let it be kept constantly in mind. The apostle is simply teaching Christian subjection. See Barnes’ Notes on this chapter.
The objector insists that in this chapter we are taught to obey and support government – governments sustained by the sword – but the construction necessary to give this idea is open to the following objections:
1. It assumes that submission is synonymous with obedience. The words, though sometimes synonymous, are not usually or necessarily so. According to Webster, “Submission is the act of yielding to power or authority. Surrender of the person and power to the control or government of another.” Obedience is “compliance with a command.” And whenever our duties to civil rulers are spoken of, the term “submit” or “be subject” is used in every case but one. That is Titus 3:1. There the term translated “obey magistrates” is “peitharkein,” which is “to yield submission to authority.” Neither the word “magistrates” nor “obey” is necessarily included in the original.
2. Using the term “be subject,” as synonymous with “obey,” exceptions must be made such as neither the text nor scripture in general admits. “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” – 1 Peter 2:13. Yet Barnes says, “there were cases in which it was right to resist the laws… When the laws interfered with the rights of conscience, when they commanded the worship of idols, or any moral wrong, then it was their duty to refuse submission… We are not to infer that it is our duty always to submit to them. Their requirements may be opposed to the laws of God, and then we are to obey God rather than man” (confounding submit with obey).
Again he thus explains “whosoever resisteth.” “They … who oppose the regular execution of the laws. It is implied, however, that those laws shall not be such as to violate the right of conscience, or oppose the laws of God.” Once more, in explaining the phrase “resisteth the ordinance of God,” he adds, “If the government is established, and if its decisions are not a manifest violation of the laws of God, we are to submit to them.” And then on the clause, “For rulers are not a terror,” he says, “The apostle here speaks of rulers in general. It may not be universally true that they are not a terror to good works, for may of them have persecuted the good.”
Thus on almost every point, an if, a but, an exception, or denial under certain circumstances, is necessary with his instruction, and so the required submission is virtually frittered away. The circumstances of the Christians at Rome brought them under the exceptions to the rule. Many of the Roman laws did “violate the rights of conscience, and oppose the laws of God.” Their “decisions” in reference to Christians were generally “a manifest violation of the laws of God,” so that indeed Paul is made to teach rebellion under cover of submission! Was this his design? Yes, and what is more, if resisting government is resisting God, Paul is thus made to teach rebellion against God, and to do it in face of threatened damnation! Can this construction be the right one?
The text
Let us now take each phrase separately and interpret it in the light of the context and parallel passages, and thus have the Bible explain itself.
We have seen from the context that the apostle was speaking of submission. The same subject is continued. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. No exceptions.
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. “Likewise ye younger submit yourselves to the elder, yea, all of you be subject one to another.” – 1 Peter 5:5. “Servants be subject to your own masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward.” – 1 Peter2:18. “I say unto you that ye resist not evil.” We are here taught, not the use of the sword, but simply submission to its use – but submission to authority or power does not necessarily imply the rightfulness of the authority any more than submission to the blow implies the rightfulness to smite, and yet the Savior says, “If a man smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also.” He also says, “Be subject,” etc. Submission without resistance is one thing – obedience is quite another thing.
The reason for submission
“Let every soul be subject to the higher powers … for there is no power but of God.” “If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter, for He that is higher than the highest regardeth.” – Ecclesiastes 5:8. “He will cause the wrath of man to praise Him and the remainder of wrath he will he restrain.” – Psalm 76:10. Hence, when Pilate said to Jesus, “Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee,” Jesus answered, “Thou couldst have no power against me except it were given thee from above.” – John 19:10-11. So “spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision. Be not afraid but speak and be not silent, because I am with thee and no one shall impose upon thee to hurt thee.” – Acts 19:9-10. So Christ said to his disciples, “Nothing shall by any means hurt you.” – Luke 10:19.
The case of Daniel
“O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? … My God hath sent his angel and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me, forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me, and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt… So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God.” – Daniel 6:20,23. There is no power to injure except permitted of God.
The case of SHadrach,
Meshach, and AbedNego
“And who is that God who shall deliver you out of my hands?” said the proud Nebuchadnezzar to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who answered to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it is best, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known to thee O king, that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.” The faithful nonresistants are indeed thrown into the “burning fiery furnace,” which is made so hot that their persecutors are consumed by its flames, but upon them “the fire had no power nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor had the smell of fire passed on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in Him, and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve or worship any god except their own God… There is no other God that can deliver after this sort.” – Daniel 3.
Here is submission, but not obedience; and one reason why they submit is, because they are conscious “there is no power but of God.”
“The powers that be
are ordained of God.”
That is, it is said:
“God hath appointed human governments as a part of the moral government of God, and as such they are to be sustained by Christians, whatever form they may assume. Consequently, in certain states of society, it would be a Christian duty to pray for and sustain even a military despotism; in a certain other state of society to pray for and sustain a monarchy; and in other states to pray for and sustain a republic; and in a still more advanced stage of virtue and intelligence, to pray for and sustain a democracy; if indeed a democracy is the most wholesome form of self-government, which may admit a doubt.” – Sk. Lec. On Theol. p. 247.
With Professor Finney, I agree that human governments are “a necessity of human nature,” that “this necessity will continue as long as human beings exist in this world,” and that human legislation imposes moral obligation: 1. not when it requires what is inconsistent with moral law, 2. not when it is arbitrary or not founded in right reason, 3. but it always imposes moral obligation when it is in accordance with moral law.”
“It follows that no government is lawful or innocent that does not recognize the moral law as the only universal law, and God as the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge to whom nations in their national capacity, as well as all individuals, are amenable. The moral law of God is the law of individuals and of nations, and nothing can be rightful government but such as is founded and administered in its support. – Sk. Theol. 235, 238 and Sys. Theol. 435.
To all this I heartily say, “AMEN,” and therefore I do not admit that Christians are to sustain a military despotism, because it is “arbitrary and not founded in right reason,” and because it is “inconsistent with the moral law.” The very idea of despotism excludes God from the throne, and his law from the statute book. Faith in God and faith in a military despot are as opposite as heaven and hell. The Bible everywhere recognizes God as the “Supreme Lawgiver,” and his will, not a despot’s, as law. But more will be said of this later.
It is admitted that government according to God’s plan is an appointment of God. But in what sense have the governments of this world been ordained of God, and in what sense have the rulers of the government of this world been appointed of God?
The powers that be at least include the Roman power, and to the Roman Christians, Paul was understood to mean no other. (See Gibbon.[38]) How was that government “ordained by God,” and its rulers originally appointed?
History tells us that the city was built by the marauding shepherds Romulus and Remus, who consulted the heathen oracle, not the Lord, as to who was to have the direction in building it. When built, it was opened “as a sanctuary for all malefactors, slaves, etc.,” who constituted the main part of the inhabitants. They chose Romulus “as their king, who was accordingly acknowledged chief of their religion, sovereign magistrate of Rome, and general of the army. Besides a guard to attend his person, it was determined that he should always be preceded, wherever he went, by another of twelve men, armed with axes tied up in a bundle of rods, who were to execute the laws and impress his new subjects with a high idea of his authority. The principal religion of that age consisted in a firm reliance on the soothsayers, who pretended, from observations on the flight of birds and the entrails of beasts, to direct the present and dive into the future. Romulus, by an express law, commanded that no election should be made, no enterprise undertaken, without first consulting them.” – Grimshaw’s Rome, p. 13-14.[39]
Is this the mode of God’s establishing government? Is this the way He commissions his agents? Then surely the government of hell is appointed of God, and therefore we are to pray for and sustain Satan as the prince of the power of the air. No, no! Such governments are not the creatures of God’s approval. We are not to pray that they may be sustained, but that they may be broken to pieces by the “stone cut out without hands, and the righteous kingdom of Jesus Christ established on their ruins, “that the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and that He may reign forever and ever,” that the thrones may be cast down, and the ancient of days may sit. When thus the kingdom is given to Christ and his saints, then, as his faithful subjects we will sustain it. But in Paul’s day the kingdoms of this world belonged to Satan. Jesus Christ did not accede to the condition on which the arch deceiver, the devil, proffered them to Him. And O, that all of his professed followers, when on the same condition they have been offered preferment, had with the Savior said, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”
The governments appointed of God are such as acknowledge God’s right to appoint – such as acknowledge Him as the Lawgiver. But none will contend that the Roman government can be included under this head. Of course, therefore, Paul could not have meant that they were appointed of God, and to give the passage that interpretation does violence alike to common sense and the original text. Says Barnes, “this word ‘ordained’ denotes the ordering or arrangement which subsists in a military company or army. God sets them in order, assigns them their location, and changes and directs them as He pleases. He directs and controls,” etc. He arranges them so as best to serve his purposes. Then the simple import of the text is this. The existing powers are under God’s control. Your oppressors, even, are so controlled of God that He will accomplish his own purposes, and make all work together for good, and so the clause is simply intensive or explanatory of the preceding.
Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.
The powers that be are
controlled of God.
“He removeth kings and setteth up kings. The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” – Daniel 2:21, 4:17. “I have strength… By me kings reign.” – Proverbs 8:15-16. O blessed thought! Our God is an Almighty Sovereign. He has the same control of nations that He has of individuals, and no one has any power to hurt us. If God places us in circumstances of great trial, he thereby designs either to bring us to repentance for our sins, or give us an opportunity to magnify his power and the riches of his grace, as in the cases of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and the whole list who have been counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. He does all things well, but frequently “his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts.” They are as far above ours, as heaven is above the earth. How wonderful is the history of Joseph! How mysterious to Jacob, at the time, were God’s dealings with him. But Joseph, in consoling his conscience-stricken brethren after their father’s death, said, “as for you, ye though evil against me. God meant it for good.” So God ever has his own plans for good, and frequently, as in the case of Joseph, uses rulers, wicked rulers, to accomplish his purposes. And the powers that be are so controlled of God, and He is so accomplishing his purposes by them, that …
“Whosoever therefore
resisteth the power resisteth
the arrangement of God.”
“They who resist, by themselves shall receive the punishment.” That is, the punishment is self-inflicted by the very act of opposition, this is the exact meaning of the original, and the facts of universal history attest the truth of it. As an illustration in point, see the history of the Jewish captivity, found in Jeremiah 24-32.
Our own revolutionary struggle affords another striking illustration of the truth that they who resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
Our fathers left the mother country to escape religious tyranny, but had hardly breathed the air of freedom before they in turn began to lay the same oppressive yokes on the necks of the Baptists and Quakers. They also persecuted to the death many innocent ones accused of witchcraft. They invaded the rights of the red man of the forest, and when incensed, instead of winning him by the gospel, as did William Penn, drove him to a distance from which he could not return by cruelty and revenge; and so in various ways provoked the God of heaven to say, “Shall I not visit for these things, and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” – Jeremiah 5:9-29, 9:9.
When God, as a punishment for our sins, began to give us a moiety of the dregs of oppression, had we repented, and by fasting, supplication and prayer, sought the Lord, the curse might evidently have been averted. Then, having put away our transgressions, in “returning and rest,” we might have been “saved.” Had every soul been subject to the then existing powers, and “by meekness instructed those who opposed” us, our fathers and brothers who were in the British soldiery could never have engaged in the fratricidal butchery as they did. We not only violated this plain injunction of heaven, but also even provoked hostilities by revenge for minor wrongs; dared them to fire, and then resisted to the point of bloodshed, striving against military power. They resisted, and received the consequent damnation. The withering curse of war was permitted to sweep over the land, desolating the whole country, and poisoning the whole atmosphere. Saying nothing of the human gore that moistened our soil – nothing of the millions of property destroyed and money expended – nothing of the thousands upon thousands of valuable lives sacrificed to Moloch – what havoc of virtue was made – what a floodgate of vice was opened! Says General Washington,
“Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man could wish. The measure of our iniquity is not yet full; for speculation, peculation, engrossing, and forestalling, with all their concomitants, afford too many proofs of the decay of public virtue, and too glaring instances of its being the interest and desire of too many, who would be thought friends, to continue the war! ‘Such a spirit of avarice and peculation,’ says one of our own historians, ‘had crept into the public departments, and taken a deep hold of the majority of the people, as Americans a few years before were thought incapable of.’ This was the effect of the war. ‘There sprang up during the war,’ says another, ‘a race of men who sought to make private advantage out of the public distress. This public pest spread wider every day, and finally gangrened the very heart of the state.’
“The Christians of that day took a still more serious view of the case. A Presbytery in New England, all friends of the war itself, published a volume to illustrate and arrest its malign influences upon the moral character of the community. They specify the vices and sins that had become most prevalent. ‘The profanest language,’ say they, ‘is become the fashionable dialect. The youth, who was bred in innocence, and was never heard to defile his tongue with one profane oath in his life, no sooner gets on board a privateer, or has spent a few days in a camp, than we find him learned in all the language of hell.’
“Corruption, fraud, and cruelty grew apace. ‘Benevolence to our fellow-men’, they say, ‘was perhaps never less cultivated in any country, than of late among us. Hard-hearted indifference to the distress of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, has risen up, and seized her throne. The base-born spirit of selfishness never had so unrestrained sway in this land. This has cut out work for all the passions, and kept them in constant employ. Pride and false honor have disgraced our armies with the barbarous practice of dueling, and friends have imbued their hands in the blood of friends, while the connivance of superiors has given sanction to the crime. Avarice stalks in the streets, or lurks in the corners, and has stained the public roads with inhuman murders. Avarice and extortion were never carried here to such lengths. Fraud and oppression sweep all before them, while debauchery and vice fill both town and country. Glaring instances of peculation, and breach of public trust, are sheltered and uncensored; and private robbery, thefts, and burglaries abound more and more.’
“‘Intemperance, also, has become sadly common among us men, and this monster, not content with human sacrifices among men, and with making shipwreck of many professors of religion too, has begun to ravage and destroy even the gentler sex!’ It is well known that the war of our revolution was the starting point, the great fountain of our national intemperance.
“Licentiousness, however, was perhaps the foulest offshoot of the war. ‘It is well known that this period never had its parallel in America for the prevalence of all the vices of sensuality. Uncleanness is awfully increased; ante-nuptial fornications are so frequent and so slightly censured that it has almost ceased to be regarded as a crime; adulteries are excused under the name of gallantries; books utterly unfit for the modest eye are published avowedly on purpose to teach intrigue as a science; and the poisonous letters of a British noblemen are eagerly bought up, read, and commended as a standard of politeness and true taste, though the direct tendency is to patronize lewdness, and make the world forget that chastity is a virtue.’” – Peace Manual, pp. 174-176.
At the time of the revolutionary war there were but few slaves, and slavery was fast withering away under the scorching light of advancing truth, as proclaimed by a little faithful band of reformers with Benjamin Franklin at their head. It would soon have died had it not been watered by the blood of freemen poured forth upon the roots of the great upas tree of war, of which slavery is only a branch. The spirits of war and slavery are one. The spirit of despotism has been eating out the vitality of our republican government – which until now has declared the fact that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, in defense of which our fathers pledged their lives and sacred honor – and is pronounced a “rhetorical flourish.” One-sixth of the inhabitants of the land are reduced to the most abject bondage that ever cursed the earth – free born sons of God sold in the shambles like oxen, and the capital of our republic noted for nothing more than for its slave prisons and slave auctions. True, the echo of “Liberty” is heard in the Hall of Congress from a Giddings[40] or a Hale,[41] but “Going, going!” in a sepulchral tone, is at the same time heard from the auctioneer as he raises his hammer over the head of his fellow man, and tears him from his wife and children and home forever!
Yes, and the angel of Providence would have us listen to this, her warning voice. It is indeed “liberty going,” rapidly going, and already so far gone that now no one can be a successful candidate for the Presidency who has not been trained in the despotic school of war – while at the same time a martyr to humanity is incarcerated in the cold cell of the prison at our capital for attempting to place the cup of liberty to the lips of the famished. Such is the public disregard to law, to order, to honor, to the rights of man, to justice, to liberty, or even to life itself, that if a citizen of the United States would pass from one state to another to visit his relations and friends, his aged parents even, to collect his debts, or more especially to “preach the gospel to the poor,” he must leave his manhood and his conscience behind him, or be lashed to the whipping post, imprisoned, stationed in the pillory and then pelted with rotten eggs and branded with the red hot iron, or shot.
Yes, and what is more, the ambassador of a sovereign state is obliged to flee for his life when the legislature of the state to which he is sent comes to understand that his mission is justice and humanity. Surely there is burning eloquence and truth in the remark of J. C. Calhoun,[42] “If by war we become great, we cannot be free.” O that our eyes as a nation might be opened to our real condition and its cause. This lawless spirit of despotism and disregard to right was born in our revolutionary war, and has been nursed in our military code ever since. By the report of the Secretary of our navy, it appears that:
“A stream of living blood is flowing from the backs of American sailors from the first day of January to the last day of December. We have, on the lowest estimate, an average of three hundred lashes of the cat o’ nine tails, (2700 stripes) for every day in the year, on the backs of American seamen.”
This blood-sucker, I repeat, is the child of despotism, born in our revolutionary war. It began to suck the veins of our republic as soon as it came into existence, and has been fattening on her life-blood ever since. Yes, this is what occasions her pallid and ghastly countenance as lately seen in secret conclave, concocting plans for self-dissolution, and afterwards in the drunken revels and bacchanalian fights in which our last session of Congress closed. Indeed, such is the influence of despotic power, that at the close of our revolutionary struggle (having been even for so short a time under its sway), right in the face of the declaration that man can govern himself, the crown was offered to the commander in chief of our army! And had not that Commander-in-chief been George Washington, our now boasted form of a Republic would never have had even a form.
O, how can we close our eyes to the fact that we are receiving the damnation consequent upon our “resisting the arrangement of God,” for not obeying the holy mandate, “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers”? How different might have been our condition had we humbled ourselves before God, and then, in the manner appointed of heaven, sought the redress of our grievances; putting our trust in the Lord and taking for our mottos, “Truth is mighty and will prevail,” “Agitate, agitate,” “There is no revolution but what is bought too dear if it cost one drop of human blood,” and “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
Then might we have had a government whose “officers” should have been “Peace,” and whose “exactors,” “Righteousness.” But now, I repeat, the bitter fruits of our resisting have been seen in the form of licentiousness, intemperance, Sabbath breaking, profanity, despotism, and lawlessness. “They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” O when shall we learn that God is true to his word? “He is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent,” and He has said, “The fruit of Righteousness is sown in Peace by those who practice Peace.” – James 6:17-18. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” – Galatians 6:7. “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and every corrupt tree bringeth forth corrupt fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” O, how strange then, that from age to age, this great, ugly, pestiferous, cragged war tree has been reared and cultured with so much expense and care (watered with the tears of widows and orphans, mingled with the heart’s blood of husbands, fathers, and sons) as if expecting righteousness would grow upon it! Vain expectation! Even Republicanism, when engrafted into it, brings forth only “vile figs – so vile that they cannot be eaten. Let it be hewn down and cast into the fire.”
[37] This is from William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
[38] Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), arguably the most influential historian to write in English, wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
[39] Goldsmith's Roman History was revised and corrected by William Grimshaw (1782-1852).
[40] Joshua Reed Giddings (1795-1864) was an American statesman prominent in the anti-slavery conflict.
[41] John Parker Hale (1806-1873) of New Hampshire was a strong anti-slavery voice in the House of Representatives.
[42] Although he died a decade before the Civil War broke out, John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850) was the primary intellectual architect of what would become the short-lived Confederate States of America.