In this first episode of a three-part series that aims to help Christians think biblically about war, Pastors Derek and Cliff discuss its definition and origin.
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to the With All Wisdom podcast where we are applying biblical truth to everyday life. My name is Derek Brown and I’m here today with Cliff McManis. We are both pastors and elders at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California, and professors of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in the North Bay, Vallejo, California. And today we want to discuss the topic of war and the Christian. We want to ask and answer the question, is war always evil? Or is there such a thing as a just war? Can Christians serve in the military? And many more. But before we get to our topic, I want to encourage you to check out withallwisdom.org, where you will find a large and growing selection of resources, articles, books, podcasts, and videos that are all rooted in God’s Word that cover a variety of important theological, social, and practical topics. Now back to our topic for this podcast—war. It’s not the most pleasant of topics, we would probably all agree, but it’s something that’s been around since the beginning of history and a reality that continues to this day. One website that tracks armed conflicts throughout the world says that they are currently 110 military conflicts in progress within or between countries, some of which have been going on for the last 50 years.
The conflicts that most people in America are aware of right now are the battles going on between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East and Russia and Ukraine in Europe, but there are many others that most people don’t even know are occurring. Jesus himself said that there will be wars and rumors of wars until he returns. Nevertheless, there is disagreement among Christians about how we should think about and participate in war. We want to address those differences today, search the Scripture, and come to some solid biblical conclusions about this important topic. We may not be able to answer every question, but we will be able to establish some solid biblical foundations on which to build our understanding of this tough but really vital issue. So, Cliff, just to be clear from the beginning, what are we talking about when we are talking about war? What’s a definition we might be able to start with?
Cliff: Yeah, I’ve got a couple definitions that I wrote down from theological dictionaries. And just again, I wanted to comment on this topic. Why are we even talking about war? And again, for me and you, Derek, it always comes back to our role as pastors in the local church. I was thinking this would be a good topic because I had people asking me about it in light of the fact of the two wars that you mentioned that are ongoing, and the question I’m getting is, How as a Christian should I view the war between Russia and Ukraine? Because Christians don’t even agree on that. Even people in our church don’t agree on that war and who’s the aggressor, right? And then also the war with Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas and even some Christians are confused by that or have the wrong view. And so again, this comes out of a practical need to ask the question, does the Bible address these things? And you and I, we just keep hammering away at the sufficiency of Scripture. God, his truth, and the Bible address everything in life that we need to know. And it does on this issue. And I guess a tangential issue of “what does the Bible say about war?” is also [related to] guns. Is it okay for a Christian to own a gun? I mean, that’s kind of related to even capital punishment.
So they all kind of intersect. So if we deal with the issue of “what does the Bible say about war?”, I think we’ll be able to inform those other two issues that Christians might ask. But here are the definitions that I got out of a couple dictionaries. The Oxford English Dictionary had a sentence that said, by definition, a war is a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. Armed conflict. So it’s not just nation against nation because, I mean, we had the Civil War, which was the United States against itself. So that was pretty good. Then they added a couple of other things.
So it’s at a corporate level. Individuals, carried on by arms, meaning weapons that kill. Which can be recognized as a legal conflict. So that’s their definition. And then I found one in another theological dictionary that I thought was a little better, because I think those definitions are more descriptions rather than complete definitions. I think those two definitions are actually missing an important element that this theological dictionary added. Strong’s Encyclopedia defines war this way: an attempt to decide a contest between princes, states, or large bodies of people by resorting to excessive acts of violence, as in killing.
And here’s the additional component they have: and compelling claims to be conceded by force. And that last phrase—compelling claims to be conceded by force—meaning, you go to war, you engage in war with an end goal in mind, and you’re going to stay at war until you get what you want, until you get the enemy to concede, and you’re going to make them concede by force until they wave the white flag and surrender, or until you have utterly obliterated them as your enemy. And then you get your ultimate goal. So that was the element that I thought was helpful in that definition. In other words, in every war, one of the warring parties has an ultimate goal, whether it’s we want to protect our land or we want to eradicate you from the face of the earth, like Hamas, right? Or a lot of Muslim groups, what they think of Israel is, we will go to war against you (or radical Islam) and we will kill every last Jew until they don’t exist anymore. That’s their ultimate goal. So those are some of the key components there, and, like you said as we were talking, Cain and Abel were fighting, but that was just individual. That’s not war. There’s a root of war. It’s hatred and killing. So the key components in a definition of war, I think, are there’s exertion of force through weaponry. Killing and death, I think, has to be a key component. I was trying to think, has there ever been a real war that didn’t entail killing somebody? And then it has to be on a corporate level. Meaning it’s not personal individuals, but it’s at a corporate or national level where you have homogeneous groups that have an identity engaged in warring against one another. There’s an ultimate goal to be achieved, whether it’s a worthy goal or an illegitimate goal. I think it also has to be an extended campaign over time. Usually wars are not just one day or a one-time event kind of thing. That’s not a war. And then I think a key ingredient also is there’s always an aggressor in any war. So those are kind of the ways I broke it up. And then I was thinking about it from a biblical point of view, to add to this definition of war. And I came up with this. I didn’t find this in a dictionary. I came up with it. So I don’t even know if it’s right or not. But I was thinking that war is actually a form of capital punishment. Because God instituted capital punishment in Genesis nine, in the days of Noah, after he got off the ark, where he actually delegated some authority to Noah and the state to protect human life by exacting the death penalty. And then that even carries over into the Mosaic Law, right? And also into the New Testament in the days of Jesus and even in Romans 13, in the era of the church.
So God invented capital punishment. What is capital punishment? It’s killing someone who deserves to die because of their sin. But that’s on an individual level. That’s called the sword in Romans 13. But if you extend that at a national level, that’s war, right? So with that as a baseline, then I said that war is capital punishment on a corporate or national scale or level from one perspective. And then even extending that further, eternal hell is capital punishment on a spiritual and eternal scale or level, if you think about it. Because at the end of the age when everybody goes to heaven, we don’t have just peace for everybody. There’s a whole bunch of people in eternal hell suffering as God’s enemies, forever being tortured or punished by him, who have been killed because hell is called death, and death is the goal of war. So I think the Bible has a lot to say about it, but those are my definitions of war.
Derek: With regard to war being a form of capital punishment (and maybe this will come out as we talk about what constitutes a just war), but war being capital punishment. Would you say, then, that in that particular war, you would have to have someone who has the proper motive for conducting that war? For example, you have a country who is trying to protect itself or protect another nation from another nation that’s the aggressor. They have evil intentions, they want to conquer and pillage and so on, and you’re engaging them in war. And you have a good, noble reason. They have an ignoble reason in that case. Is war equally capital punishment, or is war from one side capital punishment? Does that make sense?
Cliff: Yeah. And it’s complicated.
Derek: Okay. But I was going to say it probably will get teased out as we go along.
Cliff: But just one comment on that. I mean, I don’t know what you would say to this, Derek, but do you think capital punishment is biblical?
Derek: Yes.
Cliff: Yeah, I agree, totally. I think it’s pretty clear. And then would you also agree that capital punishment can be abused and misused?
Derek: Yes.
Cliff: Yeah. So you’ve got evil people—people in Iran or even Putin today—who will wield capital punishment. Capital punishment in and of itself is a good thing from God. But they’ll pervert it and distort it and use it for evil ends. It’s the same thing with war. It can be used for good or ill, depending upon the motive of the person.
Derek: And we’ll try to draw that out as we go along, because we want to answer specifically that question at some point. We want to ask, is war always evil? And we’re asking it that way because some people, some Christians, have argued that it is. So we need to address that directly. So those are helpful definitions. Cliff, thank you for bringing that all together. I had a definition here that matched your first one. We’re talking about military conflict between two or more nations or two or more groups within a nation. And I like your point about certain claims that need to be brought to a certain end—a concession—as you mentioned. I think that was the right element to bring in that those other ones weren’t. So that’s very helpful and clarifying for me. So then let’s go to the very bottom of this topic and ask, why is there war in the first place? So we’re kind of backing all the way up before we even talk about just wars or pacifism or anything like that. Let’s first now ask, why is there war in the first place? Where did it come from? And Christians know why war exists. It’s not a mystery to us and even those who take different positions on whether or not Christians can engage in war would agree that, for the most part, I think that we know where it came from. War is the result of sin. Now, I need to nuance this carefully, because that doesn’t mean that war is always sinful, as we’ll see. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that war would not be a reality if it were not for sin.
That’s what I’m saying. Prior to Adam and Eve and sin, there were no armed conflicts between anyone on earth. Adam and Eve lived in perfect peace with each other and with God. But when sin entered the world, the seeds of war immediately entered the picture. And you see this in Genesis four, where Cain took up arms against his brother. Although this wasn’t war in the technical sense of the word, because I think we’re defining war as a corporate reality, primarily with regard to nations or corporate groups within nations. There was, nevertheless, an armed conflict between two parties where one wanted to conquer the other. Cain’s motives were evil, but they nevertheless led to an armed conflict, and then from that point onward, the seeds of war were present in man’s heart. And it wasn’t until Genesis 10 through 11, however, that you see the formation of distinct nations—and there would have been all kinds of armed conflict among people at this point, even prior to the formation of the nations in Genesis 10-11, because God himself even said this in Genesis 6:5. He says, now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight. This is God’s perception of what was going on now. The earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And so that would have included the fighting between people, and between groups. But the reality of war between separate, distinct sovereign nations would not have occurred until God scattered people at the Tower of Babel, and families and clans established themselves in specific geographical locations. And then from that point onward, the conflict that occurred at a personal tribal level would now occur at a national level.
And then from that point onward, Scripture records many, many armed conflicts. Although he wasn’t a distinct nation yet, Abraham had to take up arms against some kings in order to rescue his nephew, Lot. You see that in Genesis 14. And then you fast forward about 600 years, and once Israel was established as its own nation under God with its own charter after they came out of the Exodus, they were tasked by God to conquer the land of Canaan and take it for themselves. And throughout its history, Israel would engage in many military conflicts—some offensive and many defensive, some national, some civil, some ordered by God, some conducted out of defensive prudence or foolish presumption without any instruction from God. And then in the New Testament, Jesus recognized the reality of war and even said that it would last until he came back. And then, beyond Scripture, we can’t even begin to recount the many wars that have occurred throughout history. You know, as I was preparing for this podcast, just reading even brief accounts of all the wars that have occurred, all the major wars, not to mention all the smaller skirmishes, but all the major wars that have occurred throughout history, it’s quite remarkable in terms of the amount. It’s just constantly happening. There doesn’t seem a time where there is ever world peace. There’s always a war going on somewhere. So, Cliff, any thoughts on where war came from? Anything you’d want to add to what I’ve said so far?
Cliff: Well, you said a lot of actually fundamental good stuff. I like your reference to Genesis 6:5. That’s one of the most explicit diagnoses of the human heart in the Bible. Because it’s got so many dimensions to it. The human heart is just wicked and corrupt all the time, continually to the core in the very soul and in the thought life. And that ushers in all kinds of sin, including murder that really flows from the heart. So I would agree that the initial answer to, “why does war exist?” is it is because of sin and the sinfulness and evil wickedness of man. That’s not a shallow or superficial answer. That’s actually right out of the Bible. James chapter four. I mean it literally. James asked that question, why do wars exist? He literally says that. Why do wars exist among you? He uses the word war, and I like your reference to Adam or Cain and Abel in Genesis four as really the seeds of war among humans. Because that was the first murder in the New Testament, which says that war is a result of murder in the heart. That’s what James chapter four says. Where did wars come from? Is it not lust in your soul because you want something and you covet something from somebody else, and then you fight for it, and you go to war for it, and you kill and murder for it?
So that was the seeds of war at a corporate level, first being manifest with Cain killing his own brother, just showing and illustrating how wicked the heart is. So, why does war exist? Because of sin. That’s James four. And then to complement that answer, apparently, from the Bible, God engages in war and God’s people engage in war. So if war is the result of sin, why is that happening? And so that’s why you said appropriately, this needs to be nuanced according to Scripture, because God does engage in war. And so part two of that answer is, I think God allows war to exist to restrain that sin, to restrain evil. God uses war to restrain evil. That’s why war, on a broader level, is a manifestation of Romans 13, where God gave the state the sword to restrain evil, to kill evildoers, and to protect the innocent. And on a corporate, national, group level, that’s what war is from God’s point of view. So there are evil and unjust wars, and then there are legitimate good wars, and ones that God even engaged in. And so I’ve got five reasons in Scripture, or five good kinds of war in Scripture.
War can be used by God to restrain evil. War can be a good thing in terms of being used for retaliation. That’s in first Samuel 15, where God led Israel to retaliate against Amalek and the Amalekites for their wickedness, robbing and kidnapping women and babies. So God can use war to restrain evil and to retaliate. God uses war for self-defense. Like you mentioned Abraham in Genesis 14. That evil prince invaded that area and took Lot, Abraham’s nephew, prisoner—along with others. And then Abraham had a standing army of whatever it was—300 men. And he went to war for self-defense. That’s number three. Number four, legitimate war, for deserved consequences against nations that deserve war. You see that all over the Old Testament. And then war can be legitimate for chastening from God’s point of view, because God actually brought war against Israel, his own people. I mean, literally there are passages where he’s warning them through his own prophets—I’m coming to wage war against you. And he did it through sometimes using other wicked countries, bringing Babylon in there or Assyria or whatever to chasten them. So there’s five legitimate reasons that God can use to wage war.
Derek: And that’s helpful, too, because as we address the pacifist objection, you have to be able to point out the legitimate uses of war. And I don’t want to jump ahead too far, but one of the arguments is you can’t use violence. Violence will just create more violence, when in fact the opposite is true. You said it in the first point, that actually wars can be effectively waged to restrain evil, to stop evil, to save more people than otherwise would have happened had the evil been allowed to increase and continue. So we have to recognize that there are, biblically speaking, true, good reasons to wage war, and God even uses it and commands his people in the Old Testament to engage in it for good reasons.
Cliff: Derek, I was going to make a comment just as we’re heading into some of these more complex questions. Just to be clear, where you and I are always coming from because, you know, you and I were doing a little reading and research on this topic of war and looking at Christian resources, and they’re all over the map on their views of war. You know, and then you read about what Christians thought about war all throughout church history. And that’s all over the map.
Derek: Yeah.
Cliff: And the theme was, I kept seeing the question posed as, what is the Christian view of war? What is the Christian view of war? And according to history, the Christian view of war keeps changing. And Christians don’t agree. But so that’s why I thought it was important for us to say we’re not talking about the Christian view of war today. We’re talking about the biblical view of war. Because the Bible is clear and the Bible is consistent on this issue from Genesis to Revelation. The Christian view—that just convolutes the matter because, well, what Christians are you talking about? Are you talking about the Catholic Church? You’re talking about what denomination? There are pacifist denominations. There are Reformation denominations that totally disagreed with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has flip flopped and changed its position on war all throughout history. So, we are dealing with the biblical view of war, and God doesn’t change his mind.
Derek: Yeah, I appreciate that distinction, too, because you do have, within Christian church history and Christian tradition, it was even surprising to me to find out who was saying certain things. I believe Tertullian, as an example, was a total pacifist and was pretty vocal about it. And then others, as you move along, actually articulated, I think, a more clear biblical position. But then you have, even beyond that, you have changes and ebbs and flows as to how people argued. So I think that’s a helpful distinction. We want to go to Scripture, and that’s what we always are trying to do. We want to go to Scripture to establish. And I think you even said Scripture is clear at this point. That may sound a little audacious to some of our listeners because, on the one hand, there is complexity to it. The church hasn’t always agreed. Christians haven’t always agreed on this topic. Yet you’re able to say, Cliff, that Scripture is pretty clear. What gives you such strong confidence? Because I do believe that I agree with you, actually. So how can you say that so definitively?
Cliff: Just from reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament. I just finished teaching an Old Testament survey class, and had to read the whole Old Testament and just was reminded. The world history and Old Testament history is just riddled with ongoing war. You already alluded to it earlier. Ever since Cain and Abel. That’s just the way it is. And the Bible doesn’t hide. That Bible is clear about it; it’s honest and explains why there’s war and then very clearly, we’ll talk about a few passages here in answering some of your upcoming questions. But this is a topic in which Scripture is clear from God’s point of view.
Derek: Let me ask this before we go, because I think what we’re going to do is we’re going to go into our next question, is war always evil? We’re going to do that in our next episode. But let me ask you this, Cliff, I want you to back up a little bit to what you were saying earlier. Can we talk just briefly before we close this one out? Can we brainstorm a little bit? You’ve already done it, but a little bit more. Why does war occur? So what I mean by that is, what are the scenarios? What are the circumstances in which war can occur? So one of the things that I think is most common is that it occurs when or can occur when one nation seeks to conquer another nation. So and I would say that that’s probably often the case and that you see that throughout history. You don’t have a predominance of just wars. You have a predominance of conquering nations who want more land, more power, or more resources. And so they conquer. So that’s one reason why wars occur. But that’s not the only reason. What are some other reasons that wars occur?
Cliff: Yeah. And again, going back to James, where do wars come from? And he diagnoses it from the ultimate origin, which is the human heart. You lust—that’s the words that he uses you. You lust, you covet, you want, you desire. And if people won’t give it to him willingly, then you’re going to get it by coercion, force and violence and death if necessary. That is just in the fallen, wicked, evil human heart. And then it’s going to manifest itself at every level, whether it’s the sixth grade bully at the elementary school. Why do we have bullies? It’s like Jesus said, you always will. The poor will always be with you. Bullies will always be with you in fifth grade. That’s just the way it is. When I was growing up in fifth grade, you had bullies, and today you’ve got fifth grade bullies because human beings don’t change in terms of their wickedness and sinfulness. And Scripture says that. Can a leopard change his spots? Talking about the sinfulness of man. No. He can’t. He’s always going to be that way. So he’s always going to selfishly pursue his desires to the point of even exercising war at a personal level and also at a corporate level. So, as you said there, that’s why we’re always going to have it. And then there’s always going to be war on the positive side, because God isn’t going to let this world go to pot because he’s a God of justice as well.
And he will protect people. He will only let the sinner get away with his sins so far. He will bring in a flood if he has to, like he did in history, or he will bring in other nations to keep others in check who wanted to try to take over the world like Adolf Hitler. God has a plan for world history. It’s going somewhere. Since the time of Jesus Christ, for 2,000 years, nations of the world have been trying to eradicate the Jews through war and everything else. They’re not going to. God has laid out his plan. He’s going to protect them. But wars will continue, and people will continue to try to erase the Jews from planet Earth. But like I said, God has a plan. And so everything is fulfilling God’s plan, working towards his perfect end, toward the final war that’s going to take place. And that’s how the world is going to culminate. The Prince of Peace is going to come at the end of the age. Jesus in Revelation 19 and Matthew 24 is the Prince of Peace. And yet when he does come at the Second Coming to usher in peace, how is he going to do it? He’s going to do it by making warfare. That’s what he does.
Derek: I mean, I think that is such an important statement that really gives insight into how you should think about nations and especially, specifically, America. Because we want peace. But Jesus proves in his Second Coming that final and total peace can only be accomplished through war.
Cliff: We need to say that again. Final peace can only be accomplished through war, through a just war.
Derek: That’s right.
Cliff: And that goes that just flies in the face of what the world believes. So I’ve got to say this about all those hypocritical peace mongers out there in Hollywood and famous people who have a big megaphone, who pass themselves off as peace-loving people and unity and world peace. And they argue for that and are crusaders for that. And the irony of all those people who say that they’re peace lovers is that they’re pro-abortion. Every one of them. So, I mean, just pick your Hollywood star that’s got a big mouth that says they’re for peace and unity and whatever, and yet they hate Christians. And they’re pro-abortion, which is the murder of babies. And just since 1973, over 70 million babies have been murdered by abortion. That’s a war, and that’s war on children. It’s war on children in the womb. 70 million babies is more deaths through slaughter than any war we’ve had in history. World War II, they say anywhere from 50 to 70 million people. We’ve exceeded that now through abortion. So that is a form of war because it’s against a specific demographic by a specific demographic of people.
Derek: Yeah.And your point about the wealthy and the rich and the famous who decry war and cry for peace, interestingly, they’re doing that from the comfort of their own massive homes through money that they’ve accumulated in this country that has been protected and guarded by military force for years, and that has gone through major wars in order to defend and protect its peace. So these people who are decrying war and calling for peace and all these kinds of things, don’t even realize that their very livelihood is protected and secured because this country has gone to war and preserved its freedoms through just wars and through preserving its military and bolstering its military. So I think you’re right to use the word hypocrisy in that regard, because it is a form of hypocrisy. It’s a form of naivete. It’s not understanding at all the nature of sin, the reality of sin, the pervasiveness of sin. And that’s why I said at the beginning, war is a result of sin. But that doesn’t mean that war is always sinful, because God is holy. And if sin enters the picture, he’s going to go to war with sin. So we have to keep that in mind, too, as we consider just war. So that’s what we’re going to come back to do.
Cliff: One more. Because you said it’s naivete and I agree, but it’s also ignorance. Because these people like Richard Dawkins or whatever, it’s ignorance of Scripture. They don’t know the Bible and what it says about war. And they will often say the Old Testament is full of a God who is committed to war. And in the New Testament, Jesus, who’s all about peace and Jesus is a pacifist and he’s against war. And that’s just simply not true.
Derek: Right? So we are going to come back in the next episode and ask specifically the question, is war always evil? So you’ll want to tune in for that episode and again, if you haven’t before, check out withallwisdom.org, where you’ll find all of our resources. That’s where we host our podcasts. We have multiple different articles, new articles, multiple times every week. There is always something new that you can check out that we trust will be helpful to you. And until next time, keep seeking the Lord and His word.
