Should Christians Go to War?
Text: (No single text; topical — drawn from the spirit and teaching of the New Testament)
Series: Restoration Sermons
Date:
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Topical
Learning Objectives
By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:
- State precisely what question this sermon is asking — and what three questions it is NOT asking.
- Explain the logical burden of proof as it applies to the war question for Christians.
- Identify at least five arguments made for Christian military service and explain why each fails to prove the affirmative proposition.
- Name at least three New Testament passages that form the basis of the negative position and state what each teaches.
- State how the practice of Christians is to differ from the practice of nations at war, using at least two specific examples from Christ's own conduct and teaching.
Thesis
The question is not whether some wars are justified, or whether Old Testament figures fought, or whether soldiers appear in the New Testament without being condemned. The question is whether Christ permits his followers to take human life in war. The answer found in the spirit and teaching of the New Testament is the negative: the Christian who follows Christ's example and obeys the specific instructions of the New Testament cannot participate in war as a soldier. This is not a popular position; it is the position the texts require.
Burden
This subject is neglected from the pulpit precisely because it is uncomfortable. Christians live in nations, nations go to war, and the pull of patriotism is powerful. The burden is not to produce guilt but to press the question the text requires pressing: not what nations do, not what governments demand, not what the majority of church members have always assumed, but what Christ permits and what the New Testament teaches. The Christian accepts no other standard of evidence.
Introduction
This is a subject that Christians ought to understand — not to be contentious but to know how to act when the question becomes personal. Two things must be established before the argument begins.
First: what the question is not. It is not whether some wars have been just by the reckoning of human history. It is not how many of the hundreds of wars recorded in history were prosecuted for defensible causes. It is not whether Moses, Joshua, and David fought — they did, and what God commanded or sanctioned for Israel under the old covenant is a separate question from what Christ commands or permits under the new. It is not whether being a soldier is admirable by human standards. The question is one thing: Should a person who is a Christian become a soldier? Should they fight, destroy, and kill? May they? Should they?
Second: who has the burden of proof. Those who affirm that a Christian may fight, kill, and destroy in war have the burden of finding clear, positive permission in the New Testament for doing so. The negative position — that no such permission exists — does not need to prove a universal prohibition; it needs only to show that the affirmative has not produced its required evidence. That is the logical position the argument will sustain.
I. The Question Defined
The question is not what the law of Moses permitted or what God commanded Israel to do in the conquest of Canaan. The entire framework of the old covenant — its holy wars, its commanded exterminations, its provisions for military service — belongs to a covenant that Christ took out of the way (Col. 2:14). The conduct of Joshua's army tells us nothing about what Christ permits his followers to do, any more than the Levitical priesthood tells us whether we may ordain priests today.
The question is not what human governments authorize or require. The Christian acknowledges civil authority in its legitimate sphere (Rom. 13:1-7), but the Christian's final standard is Christ, not the state. "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29) is the principle that applies when the state's requirement conflicts with Christ's teaching. The question is whether Christ permits — not whether the government requires.
The question is specifically whether Christ binds his followers to take human life in war. The answer to that question comes from the New Testament alone. The Christian accepts no other source of proof.
II. The Arguments for Christian Military Service — and Their Failure
Those who affirm that a Christian may go to war have produced several arguments. Each fails to prove the proposition.
The centurion who came to Jesus (Matt. 8:5-13). Jesus commended his faith, not his occupation. The fact that Christ healed the centurion's servant without instructing him to leave the military does not constitute permission for Christians to become soldiers. Christ's silence on the centurion's occupation is not approval; it is the silence of a teacher who has not yet given the commission that would define the terms of discipleship for all nations.
Christ paid taxes to the Roman government, which supported war (Matt. 17:24-27). The logic of this argument proves too much: if paying taxes to a government that funds military activity constitutes permission for Christians to participate in war, then Christians would be permitted to participate in anything the government funds. The tax does not equal endorsement of every use to which it is put.
Christ commanded the apostles to buy swords (Luke 22:36). The context of this instruction and its outcome settle its meaning: when the disciples said "Lord, look, here are two swords," he said "It is enough" (Luke 22:38). Two swords were not sufficient for military defense; they were sufficient to fulfill the prophecy that he would be numbered with transgressors. And when Peter used a sword in the garden, Jesus healed the wound and said "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword" (Matt. 26:52). The only military use of a sword in the Gospel narratives was rejected by Christ himself.
Cornelius was a Roman soldier and was not commanded to leave the military when he was baptized (Acts 10). This argument proves nothing about what Christ permits all Christians to do. The text records what Peter preached and what Cornelius obeyed; it does not record whether Cornelius remained a soldier after his baptism. Silence in the narrative is not biblical authorization.
God commands us to obey the governing authorities (Rom. 13:1-7). Romans 13 establishes that civil government is a legitimate institution ordained by God for the punishment of evil — but the passage describes what government does, not what Christians in government must do. The Christian who occupies a governmental role still governs by the law of Christ, not the law of warfare.
The wars of the Old Testament. This has been answered: the old covenant is taken out of the way. What God commanded Israel to do under the covenant that has been fulfilled and superseded is not evidence for what Christ permits his followers to do under the new.
None of these arguments provides the clear, positive New Testament permission that the affirmative position requires.
III. War Contrary to the Spirit and Teaching of Christ
What is war? It is the organized, systematic training of human beings to kill other human beings as efficiently as possible. World War I cost ten million lives and left twenty million disabled and nine million widows and orphans. Whatever political justification may be offered for the conflicts that produce these numbers, the activity itself — the killing of human beings — must be evaluated against the teaching of the one who said "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:39) and "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44).
The prophetic vision of Christianity is a vision of peace. Isaiah foresaw the day when "they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war" (Isa. 2:4). The church of Christ is the instrument through which this transformation happens — through the gospel changing individuals, not through political arrangements. If the church approves war, it has abandoned the instrument by which war is eventually to be extirpated.
The specific teaching of the New Testament, assembled: "Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God" (Rom. 12:19). "If your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink" (Rom. 12:20). "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12:21). "Be at peace with all men" (Rom. 12:18). "Do not be quarrelsome" (II Tim. 2:24). "Pursue peace with all men" (Heb. 12:14). "Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead" (I Pet. 3:9). The cumulative weight of these instructions is the description of a person whose response to hostility is consistently non-violent.
IV. The Practice of Christians
What does the practice shaped by this teaching look like?
Christ healed the only wound his apostles made with the sword. When Peter struck Malchus and cut off his ear, Jesus said "Stop! No more of this" and healed him (Luke 22:51). The instinct of Peter — to defend by violence — was corrected by the one who is the pattern for Christian conduct.
Do good for evil (Rom. 12:21). Pray for enemies (Matt. 5:44). Do good to those who persecute. These are not exceptional instructions for exceptional circumstances; they describe the normal orientation of the Christian toward those who are hostile.
God holds individuals responsible — not armies, not nations. The Christian who goes to war is not absolved of personal moral responsibility by the fact that a government issued the order. The accounting at the last day is individual: "each one of us will give an account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:12). "I was following orders" is not a defense before the judgment seat of Christ.
The Golden Rule: "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you" (Matt. 7:12). Applied without exception, this is the complete and sufficient statement of why the Christian cannot aim a weapon at another human being.
Application
This sermon does not leave the hearer in a position of comfort — on any side of the question. The person who has assumed without examination that Christian faith and military service are naturally compatible has been asked to examine that assumption from the New Testament up. The person who reaches the conclusion this sermon supports will find that conclusion costly: it puts the Christian at odds with patriotic expectation, family pressure, and much of church tradition.
The burden is not being placed on the hearer to reach any particular conclusion. The burden is to reason from the text rather than from sentiment, tradition, or social expectation. What does Christ say? What does the New Testament teach? The Christian accepts no other source of proof.
Conclusion
The second World War had not yet begun when this outline was written. Writing from the carnage of the first world war, ten million dead, twenty million disabled, nine million orphans and widows. His conclusion — stated without apology: I HATE WAR — was not the conclusion of a man who did not understand what war was. It was the conclusion of a man who understood both what war was and what Christ taught.
The question "Should Christians go to war?" has been asked and answered in every generation. The answer the New Testament supports is the answer that requires the most from those who hold it: to love enemies, to overcome evil with good, to live peaceably with all, and to leave vengeance to God. These are not merely difficult instructions. They are the distinguishing marks of the people who bear the name of the one who, when he could have called twelve legions of angels (Matt. 26:53), chose the cross instead.
Invitation
The one who died without raising a sword against those who killed him is the one whose death is the ground of the gospel. He died for enemies (Rom. 5:10). He rose for them. He invites them to be reconciled to God through his blood. Believe. Repent. Confess his name. Be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). And receive the life that does not answer violence with violence but overcomes evil with good.
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vengeance / Revenge | ekdikēsis | The execution of justice — from ek (out) + dikē (justice). The carrying out of what justice requires. | Used in Rom. 12:19: "Never take your own revenge (ekdikountes), but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay." | The instruction is not that vengeance is wrong in principle — God reserves it as his own — but that it is not the Christian's domain to execute. The Christian who takes up arms to avenge wrongs has removed vengeance from God's hands and placed it in their own. | Rom. 12:19 |
| Overcome | nikaō | To conquer, to be victorious. | Used in Rom. 12:21: "Do not be overcome (nikaō) by evil, but overcome (nikaō) evil with good." | The person who returns evil for evil has been overcome by the evil they are responding to. The person who responds to evil with good has overcome it. The warfare Paul describes is real — but its weapons and its victories are not military. | Rom. 12:21 |
| Peace / Peacemakers | eirēnē / eirēnopoios | Cessation of hostility; the positive state of wholeness and right relationship. | Used in Matt. 5:9 for the beatitude of the peacemakers, and throughout the NT instructions about the Christian's relationship to enemies and adversaries. | The Christian's calling is not the elimination of enemies by force but their transformation by the gospel. The peacemaker is not the person who ends conflict by winning; it is the person who replaces hostility with the conditions of genuine peace. | Matt. 5:9; Rom. 12:18 |
| Sword | machaira | A short sword or large knife — a weapon for close combat. | Used in Matt. 26:52 for Christ's instruction: "all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword." | The principle is not merely prudential (fighting back leads to being killed) but moral: the sword is the instrument of a logic that the gospel contradicts. The person who lives by the sword has chosen a way of resolving conflict that the new covenant replaces with a better one. | Matt. 26:52 |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| Old covenant taken out of the way — OT wars not governing | II | Col. 2:14 |
| "Obey God rather than men" — final standard | II | Acts 5:29 |
| Peter's sword rejected; wound healed | IV | Matt. 26:52; Luke 22:51 |
| "Never take your own revenge" | III | Rom. 12:19 |
| "Overcome evil with good" | IV | Rom. 12:21 |
| "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" | III/IV | Matt. 5:44 |
| Peaceful nature of the kingdom prophesied | III | Isa. 2:4; 11:9 |
| Golden Rule as governing principle | IV | Matt. 7:12 |
| "Each will give account of himself to God" | IV | Rom. 14:12 |
| Baptism for remission — entry into the way of the cross | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 180. Primary text: none stated; topical. OCR corrections: "lll." → "III."; "PR ACT lCE" → "PRACTICE"; "CHRISTlANS" → "CHRISTIANS". Historical note: this outline reflects the pacifist position held by H. Leo Boles and associated with David Lipscomb's influence in the non-institutional Churches of Christ tradition. The position is presented as Boles argued it — from the spirit and teaching of the New Testament — without editorial endorsement or dismissal. Doctrinal audit: the argument is stated as a logical burden-of-proof case (those who affirm Christian military service must find New Testament permission; no such permission has been produced); the counterarguments are addressed and shown insufficient; the positive NT teaching on non-retaliation and peacemaking is developed from the texts; no Calvinizing; no denominationalizing; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
