…even which covenant they are under on a case-by-case basis.
For instance, while heartfelt giving is encouraged in the New Testament, legalistic tithing requires going back to the Old Testament and the OLD covenant.
Likewise prosperity doctrine, while doing its best to put some pretty weird twists on the New Testament, gets its best ammunition from the Old Testament – in other words from the OLD covenant.
The matter of war goes even further down this path, since to date I’ve NEVER heard a New Testament justification for war. When the issue comes up it’s like we just forget which covenant we are under and leap back in time to God’s dealing with a physical earthly nation (Israel).
Not only do we as Christians have the teachings of Jesus on loving one’s enemies, but we have two other powerful witnesses of the true Christian way.• The epistles in the New Testament
• And the records of the early, pre-Constantine, church.
To start with the epistles. Let me be clear that they contain NOT A SINGLE MENTION of Christians supporting any of the empires military endeavors or political power struggles, or even of supporting the patriotic movements of the Jews themselves.
Can you imagine Paul toting an AK47?Of course not, that’s a Russian rifle. Surely if Paul was around today he’d use a good western rifle. Maybe something more like an American M14 or M16…. I’m being facetious. You see how stupid it all sounds. How do you both shoot the gentiles and be the apostle to the gentiles? Does it make any more sense to divide the role? To have some Christians shooting them while others preach to them? Such thinking belongs to the Catholic crusades, NOT the true body of Christ.
The only hint of tacit acceptance of Christians going to war in the whole of the New Testament is that when soldiers asked what they should do in their situation Jesus didn’t command them to resign, but told them to not intimidate anyone for money but to be content with their wages.
It may be relevant to understand that these soldiers often weren’t in a position to be able to resign, and in Israel were largely in a policing role, however I accept that this may not be a completely answer.
Still, if the New Testament says nothing to ACTIVELY support Christians going to war, the history and actions of the early church sound out resolutely against it.Let’s look at just a few representative quotes from early church writers:
Justin Martyr wrote:
“We who formerly murdered one another now refrain from making war against our enemies”
Tertullian wrote:
“Can it be lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that ‘he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword’? And shall the son of peace take part in battle when it does not even become him to sue at the law?”
Arnobius, an apologist in the third century wrote:“We have learned from His teaching and His laws that evil should not be repaid with evil. That it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it. And that our own blood should be shed rather than to stain our hands and our conscience with that of another.”
The following excerpt is from a collective response to Roman pressure for Christians to take part in the empires wars:The more anyone excels in holiness, the more effective in his help to kings, even more than is given by soldiers who go out to fight and slay as many of the enemy as they can. To those enemies of our faith who would require us to bear arms for the empire and to slay men, we reply, “Do not the priests who attend [your gods] …keep their hands free from blood… If, then that is a praise-worthy custom, Christians too should engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their hands pure… By our prayers we vanquish the demons who stir up war… In this way we are more helpful to the kings than those who go into field to fight for them.
And here’s an excerpt from the book entitled “Will the real Heretics please stand up” on how the early church handled the matter of being soldiers:Generally speaking, the church did not permit a Christian to join the army after his conversion. However, if a man as already a soldier when he became a Christian, the church did not require him to resign. He was only required to agree never to use the sword against anyone. One reason for this flexibility was that the Romans did not normally allow a soldier to leave the army until his time of service was completed.
Of course history is complex and it’s hard to verify how universal or localized this judgment was. As we saw earlier Jesus only commands soldiers not to shake people down for money, but didn’t comment on the issue of them going to war.