"My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world."

John 18:36

Jesus is not asking us to fight physical battles on his behalf. The days of ethnic Israel marching into battle with a trumpet blast, the Ark of the Covenant carried by the Levites at the vanguard and the tribe of Dan serving as the rearguard, are long gone. God's people, followers of Jesus, Jews and Gentiles alike, are no longer a political entity. All the guns and ammo on the planet will not usher in the consummation of the kingdom of God on earth. We know this because Jesus said it plainly. There has never been an ethnic group on this planet more zealously committed to their way of life and the God they believed established it than the people of Israel. Some of that zealousness remains to this very day. Jesus grew up in that atmosphere; he was steeped in Judaism and the bitterness that almost every Jew in his day felt about the occupation of the Promised Land by pagan Rome. One of his own disciples had been a "Zealot," and was known by that moniker.

However, in the upper room on Passover, when he warned his disciples that now would be the time for them to carry their sword for protection, his disciples over-zealously produced two swords, to which Jesus quickly replied, "It is enough." He did not prohibit the carrying and use of the sword for defense, but he would not allow it to be used to advance his kingdom or to thwart the fulfillment of his mission as the Lamb of God. At his arrest, his disciples asked him hastily, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" Peter then followed through, striking a blow at the high priest's servant and severing his ear, a blow Peter obviously intended to be fatal. Jesus quickly put an end to the violence, commanding Peter to put the sword away and healing the wound of the battered and bloodied man (cf. Luke 22:51; John 18:10-11).

Last Sunday we looked at Romans 15:8-13. One of the concepts we were reminded about there is that God’s kingdom purpose had always extended to the Gentile nations. That purpose was not fulfilled until the arrival of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, and not fully realized until his work was completed at Calvary and confirmed on Resurrection Sunday. Peter, the one who was willing to fight and die for an earthly kingdom at one stage in his life, reminds us in his first letter that now, almost three decades after his time with Jesus, he has come to view things differently. We are strangers and aliens here, Peter exhorts us to believe, and aliens do not fight physical battles for what is now a spiritual kingdom.

When our government legitimately calls us to take up arms in defense of our nation, or when we serve under the authority of the government as peacekeepers, we may serve and fight. I would go so far as to say we can do so with confidence and “gusto.” Self-defense is acceptable as Christians, including offensive actions intended to bring ultimate peace. But as citizens of God's eternal kingdom, we are commanded to be at peace. We dare not coerce others to our beliefs with the sword—that has never been a part of God’s plan. On the contrary, when the gospel message is at stake, we must be willing to suffer for Christ at all costs. A long line of faithful martyrs awaits us in heaven. Most of these men and women laid down their lives in obedience to Christ's command to refrain from physical battles on behalf of God's kingdom. Peter will be one of them. For now, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and freedmen work to advance God’s kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel while living lives of obedience to Christ.

As we observe from afar the brutal destruction raining down on the people of Ukraine, the continued back and forth in the Middle East, the rattling of sabers in the Pacific, and the threats of violence in every quarter of our world, we must remember that such acts have been a consistent pattern of life since the Fall. The church of Jesus Christ is under attack both physically and spiritually in many parts of our world. Innocent people (mostly women and children) suffer from the ravages of war every single day. We must pray that God will bring such brutality to an end. The day is coming when he will do so decisively, when “He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth (Psalm 46).

Let us offer peace to one another. We serve a God/Man who would not fight physically for his kingdom but now sits on an eternal throne nevertheless.  As citizens of heaven, be at peace as much as it depends on you. It is, after all, the command of your king.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Jym

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