Biblical Theses on Violence

1. Life between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one and loyalty-love-harmony (1 Jn. 4:8; 1 Cor. 13), always sacrificial, death-and-resurrection life (Mt. 20:28; Jn. 5:19-21).

2. Specifically, Otherness (the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit), Opposedness in the Godhead is real, loved, and esteemed (Jn. 17:24,25), not unreal and negated.

3. Nonsacrificial, disloyal violence entered creation as a denial of the reality or legitimacy of the other (Gen. 4), an anti-Trinitarian act, and the Lord, as the owner of violence, granted man the authority (a loyalty to God) to destroy the life of those guilty of taking life selfishly - murderers (Gen. 9:6).

4. Throughout history, God uses great violence in nature and oppression (Is. 45:7; Amos 3:6) to chastise, punish, and shape His people and their enemies (Dt. 28-30; Rom. 8:18ff; Rev. 6-21).

5. As God’s kingdom grew within one, elect nation in the Old Covenant, permission to take the life of criminally guilty persons continued (Ex. 21:12ff), and the Lord commanded them to take criminally innocent life only under His direct, special revelation (Dt. 7:17ff; 20:16ff), since He knew all hearts and consequences (Dt. 29:29). Thus, throughout this Old Covenant era, the people were called to live in loyalty and love within the covenant but not outside, i.e. to imitate Trinitarian love within the community boundaries.

6. And yet, God gave hints along the way that direct, special revelation violence by His people was not normal and would not continue unchanged. Even in the Old Covenant, God hated violence (Ps. 11:5; 73:6; Prov. 10:11; Eccl. 9:18; 1 Chr. 28:3).

7. But the Old Covenant was, after all, a period of immaturity and a ministry of death (2 Cor. 3), living the law in a largely external, tutorial manner (Gal. 3:24), without the internalized virtues of the Holy Spirit (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:7ff); childhood will always remain a time for the pain of chastisement (Heb. 12:7-9), with the play-violence of sports important at this period (Eph. 6:10ff).

8. The Old Covenant prophets pictured the forthcoming New Covenant as especially characterized by the absence of violence and natural animosities (Is. 2:1-4; 11:6).

9. Finally, the Old Covenant runs its course, and the New Covenant arrives, revealing more explicitly and gloriously the fullness of Trinitarian life in the coming of the Son (Jn. 1:1) and the Spirit (Jn. 16:13; Acts 2). By contrast, the Old Covenant, though always covenantal and, thus, implicitly Trinitarian, now appears relatively unitarian by contrast to the greatness of the New World (2 Cor. 3).

10. With the “explosion” of Trinitarian glory through Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:1ff), we see the Trinitarian relations of Otherness expand from one nation to the whole world (Lk. 2:32; Jn. 3:16; 10:16; Acts 2; 10:44; Eph. 2:11ff), in contrast to the ethnic boundaries of the old community. In the New Covenant, God’s people are called to treat even their guilty enemies as each member of the Trinity treats His Other (Mt. 5:43ff; Lk. 6:27; Rom. 12:20). This revelation and expansion marks the greatest shift away from violence to overcoming by grace (Mt. 5:1ff; Rom. 12:21), with the nonviolent refrain “do not return evil for evil” shaping the New Covenant’s ethic (Rom. 12:17,21; 1 Thess. 5:15; 1 Pet. 3:9).

11. At heart of the New Covenant stands the violence of Christ’s cross. The historical violence of the Father against the Son on the cross (Is. 53:5) was an expression of loyalty and death-and-resurrection love (Prov. 27:6; Heb. 12:7-9; cf. Jer. 30:14) which was voluntarily embraced by the Son (Jn. 10:17,18) to rescue God’s people (Jn. 10:15).

12. As the Kingdom of Christ, led by the Church, grows and expands (Dan. 2:44; Mt. 13:33; Mt. 16:18), it will regularly come into conflict with the dying kingdoms of violence (Lk. 6:22; 21:12; Jn. 15:18; 1 Cor. 15:25), but the weapons of Christ’s kingdom are not physical or violent (Mt. 26:52; Jn. 18:36; 2 Cor. 10:4; 2 Cor. 12:9; Eph. 6:12).

13. Christ calls His people to nobility and kingship (Mt. 28:18ff; 1 Cor. 6:3; Eph. 2:6; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6), and the absence of direct, special revelation precludes Old Covenant offensive warfare, forces the royal priesthood to grow in wisdom and grace (1 Cor. 1:18ff; Gal. 6:14; Heb. 5:12ff), thus maturing beyond the pagan world of violence (Mt. 20:25; Eph. 6:12).

14. But the Kingdom of God is still maturing and in transition, and it has not mastered the power of overcoming all violence by love, and so defensive violence against individuals guilty of high crimes has some place (Acts 25:11; Heb. 2:2). Such violence, though, is always an admission of communal failure (1 Kings 1:6; Mal. 4:6; 1 Cor. 15:33), not a triumph of justice.

15. The Church Herself, though, never ought to wield the sword, even against criminals (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 12:12ff; James 1:27); the Church wields the more powerful, spiritual weapon of ultimate discipline, excommunication (Mt. 18:15ff; 1 Cor. 5).

16. As the Kingdom and Church increasingly overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21), refusing to return evil (1 Thess. 5:15), and aim to eliminate all the “Pentagons” throughout the world and any need for academies of violence - “Neither shall they learn war anymore” (Is. 2:4) - even the tired, immature, compromised, and grossly abused standards of just wars show their inherent anti-Trinitarianism and fade away (Is. 2; 1 Cor. 15:25).

17. From the start, however, the Church finds herself struggling against all who hold violence as normal, practical, redemptive, or ideal (Mt. 26:52; Jn. 18:36). And thus the Church should normally find Herself at odds with the State (Ex. 1:22; Mt. 2:16; Jn. 19:15), which naturally lives by the anti-Trinitarian mechanics of violence and coercion. And, yet, the Church may not take up arms and revolt against the State (Rom. 13:1ff; 1 Pet. 2:17).

18. To read Romans 13 as more than just a prohibition of revolutionary zealotry against the State, to read it as granting perpetuity to the State as a legitimate institution of Christian violence creates numerous conflicts within the New Testament, such as, Christians may and may not fight by means of carnal weapons (e.g., Rom. 13 vs. 2 Cor. 10:4), may and may not use violence against political injustice (Rom. 13 vs. Jn. 18:36), may and may not dominate (Rom. 13 vs. Mt. 20:25), may and may not live by the sword (Rom. 13 vs. Mt. 26:52). That the State can be God’s minister (Rom. 13:4) is no high compliment, given that pagan kings served that task in the Old Covenant (Is. 44:28).

19. The Church’s goal is to create a community of peace and grace (Mt. 5:1ff; Rom. 12:1ff; 1 Cor. 13), an enticing city on a hill (Mt. 5:14) with Trinitarian relations incarnated in an international society (Rev. 5:9ff) that shames and replaces the cultures of violence, expressed historically and supremely by the State (Mt. 4:1; 12:25-28; Lk. 10:18; Rom. 12). The City of God overcomes the City of Man by power of the Holy Spirit, by beauty, by doing justice and loving mercy (Mic. 6:8; Rev. 21).

Doug Jones

[Always revising: Version 2.1]