08 December 2021
Pacifism is a false idol.
Peace with God inevitably brings conflict with fallen mankind. There's nothing wrong with realizing that your convictions call for trying to make peace where possible. There is something very wrong with demanding that others walk by your convictions.
The issue in Scripture is not that violence is always a sin. The issue is that violence must be a result of seeking divine justice. Yes, there are people in this world who should be killed. The Code of Noah flatly declares as much. The Old Testament is filled with warnings about sins that warrant execution. If you take the time to analyze them, you'll realize that the issue under the Covenant of Moses was threats to shalom. It is silly to define "peace" as some objective philosophical absolute, when God flatly commanded His people to execute certain sinners under the Covenant, and to make war on certain people who threaten the Covenant.
Granted, under Christ we don't execute sinners. Our death sentence is now ostracism, or perhaps you'd prefer the fancy term "excommunication". That's because we no longer have a covenant nation in the sense of a political entity. But by the same token, that throws the issue of violence back upon the human level of operations under the law code portion of the Covenant. The prohibition against revolt does not apply outside of a valid biblical covenant. Thus, armed resistance is simply a matter of tactics and individual conviction.
Instead, we have Paul's rather long discussion of how to deal with an evil human government in Romans 13. Be sure you read all the way down to verse 10, because starting in verse 8 the summation of the matter is that your sacrificial compassion on your neighbor is the fulfillment of any obligation you have to God regarding human laws. Just as in the Old Testament, the word "neighbor" refers to covenant community members. Paul chose a Greek word based on the concept of nearness, which can be either physical or moral proximity. Your covenant duty to someone living near you in terms of location depends on how closely they identify with your moral commitments. In the Kingdom of Heaven, you'll identify family, allies, bystanders and enemies.
It is inevitable that a human government will degrade to the point that it compels you to bow the knee to idolatry. For that, you have the teachings about facing persecution. But when government is simply oppressive to everyone, then it's a matter of human policy, not covenant duty. In our case here in the US, the founding documents themselves recommend armed insurrection against evil officials. What do you suppose the 2nd Amendment is all about? The founding of the US was a revolution against an oppressive government. So, the US government today is in no position to object to armed resistance against its own evil policies.
Again, this is not a matter of covenant doctrine when believers are not targeted specifically for their faith. It throws the issue back into the court of your personal convictions. When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, there was a matter of official Roman antipathy toward Christians specifically for their faith. We aren't facing that in the US today.
What we are facing is political turmoil on a very human level. The Bible makes a clear distinction between people and situations inside the Covenant versus outside. Outside the Covenant, war is a vital necessity because God will not grant peace on any terms other than the Covenant. So we need to get used to the idea that conflict is not just highly likely, but that any apparent peace on a human level is just a lie. Without fail, it will come at the cost of harsh oppression. That sort of thing is just warfare with a different face; "peace" is combat against a government's own citizens. There is nothing you can do to make peace without the Covenant.
This does not prevent you from working hard to ensure that conflict is valid and honest. There are a vast array of things for which humans fight on false pretenses. Much of it has to do with human confusion over what is a morally valid point of conflict. Peacemaking outside of the Covenant can only hope to clarify the real issues, not to end all conflict. Pacification outside the Covenant is merely a cover for demonic oppression.
Clarification in biblical terms will tell us that right now the US government is run by people who seek a demonic pacification. It's not persecution that targets believers, but oppression of everyone who isn't among the elite. The current policies are dominated by those committed to mass medical murder and destruction of everything that characterizes America. It's an attempt at massively remaking the country into something else entirely. For some, that's the whole problem. For Covenant people, the problem is the blood-guilt for unjustified mass slaughter. It defiles the soil and us. Quite a substantial number of us are led by convictions to resist.
There is no call to the Covenant community to join in a revolt. There is only the explanation that Scripture does not forbid resistance because this is not a Covenant issue. Rather, the Covenant informs our resistance in terms of how we might go about it. If the call in your soul is to fight, then do it right.
Stand on your convictions. You don't need a reason; you owe the oppressors no explanation at all. If you must say something, preach about the blood-guilt. Those around you who counsel bowing the knee also deserve no explanation. You cannot reason with people who reject heart-borne obedience to conviction. You do not reason with demons, and these people are under demonic control. Those who seek to stand in your way can be cut down as enemy troops when that day comes, because I guarantee you the elite consider them canon fodder for their agenda. They have been mobilized as enemy combatants using a different range of weapons. It's still combat. Have no mercy; their lives are forfeited.
The issue is not success, but obedience. Don't fear scorching the earth, as it were; the whole land is already defiled. The natural world won't complain about cleansing that way. In just a few years into the future, God Himself is going to do things even more shocking, so don't get too wrapped up in worrying about destroying natural resources occupied by your enemies, and certainly not man-made resources. It's all defiled. I am utterly convinced that this is one of those times when a scorched earth policy is appropriate.
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