To Kill or not to Kill, that is the Question
by Pastor Emeritus Maurice R. Gordon, Lovingway United Pentecostal Church
Finally, after easing out of bed in the middle of the night, I, a klutzy, surrogate “mommy” got our fussing baby daughter, back to sleep.
Sure I admit that all neophyte daddies are, shall we say, challenged, when it comes to caring for newborns, especially girls. But as I laid her back in her fancy bassinet, I was rather proud of my efforts.
My sleeping wife had just been up to feed her but since our bundle of joy had interrupted my visit to the dream world, I had taken her down the hall into the living room, gently bouncing her in my brawny arms, until she burped and dozed off.
So easing back into the “Land of counterpane” I relaxed contentedly, and almost made it back to La La Land when the unmistakable sound of glass breaking in the living room shocked me into wide-eyed action!
I reached behind the headboard, and excitedly grabbed my loaded handgun. I had my thumb on the safety, just in case. The intruder came slowly toward our bedroom. I sat bolt upright staring intently through the bedroom doorway, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. There was a dim light in the hallway, but our room was dark. He crept, in slow motion toward our door, obviously hearing my snoring wife and thinking he was undetected and that no one had heard the breaking glass.
Should I play the hero and leap out of bed, yelling to frighten him away? After all, I had a loaded gun, with the safety now off.
I had only a few seconds to decide. I remembered that in our state, we have the newly-enacted “make my day” law. And yes, I had a permit to carry a weapon. I have heard all my life that, “self preservation is the first law of nature” but I was a born-again Christian, and I’d never intentionally harmed anyone – let alone shot anyone in my life.
Then I saw his gun...
The testimony of a bona-fide conscientious objector
The frighteningly realistic – but hypothetical – melodrama aboveis only one example of a possible scenario where killing in self-defense is considered legal. And for two long years, during my “forced” army service, I was subjected to a verbal inquisition.
For those two years of my United States Army service, as a new convert, I fasted, prayed, and searched the Bible. And finally, at least on this controversial matter, I was able to do a reasonable job of fulfilling I Peter 3:15: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”
So I have divided this essay into three vastly different time frames:
1) Before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
2) During the Church Age.
3) After the Rapture.
PART 1
BEFORE THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS
In Numbers 21:14, we find a single, enigmatic reference to: “the book of the wars of the Lord.” And since the fall of mankind in Eden, beginning with the brutal fratricide that shed Abel’s innocent blood, until the prophecy in 1 Corinthians 15:26, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” is finally fulfilled in Revelation 21:4, “and there shall be no more death,” bloodshed will not cease.
Why did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s God, ordain and bless Jihad, Holocaust, and Genocide?
Though these words were unheard of in scripture, even when casually reading the Old Testament, you will come to the sobering conclusion that they definitely describe how untold millions of Israel’s enemies perished at the hands of Israel’s armies. Jehovah Nissi, [their military banner] was Commander-in-Chief!
Ironically, Joseph told his aged father, Israel, what to say to Pharaoh, when asked about his occupation. Read it carefully: “that ye shall say, thy servant’s trade hath been about cattle, even from our youth until now” (Genesis 46:34). For some reason, Joseph neglected to mention a number of things that surely would have piqued Pharaoh’s attention:
1) That Jacob’s grandfather fought and won the first war recorded in history (Genesis 14).
2) What Joseph’s harsh brothers, Levi and Simeon, did to the Shemites because their sister Dinah had been raped and kidnapped by their ruler’s son (Genesis 34).
3) That Jacob was an accomplished wrestler, which is why he walked with a limp (Genesis 32).
4) That Jacob’s name meant “supplanter” or “heel-grabber” (Genesis 25:26).
5) The story of how Joseph ended up in Egypt.
Like the story Jacob was to tell Pharaoh, David also was a shepherd, but he also killed his ten thousands (See 1 Samuel 18:8).
“The Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3, Revelation 19:11)
“The Lord is a man of war,” is a significant statement from the song of Moses that he sang after the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 15). And that was only the Egyptian army. How about what Jehovah Nissi did in Genesis 6 and 7? He drowned a whole world, with floodwaters that were 15 feet above the highest mountain (Genesis 6:17)! The only humans left alive were the eight righteous souls safely in the ark with the animals.
“...An example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7)
Then there was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This horrific eradication of perverse humans pre-figures hell fire. Four of the five cities in the valley of Siddim were incinerated in a cataclysmic explosion of fire and brimstone (Genesis 14:3). The vengeance came upon the homosexuals who inhabited these cities, and all others who did not heed the warning of the angels. And it came from our vengeful God, who “is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24).
Could this be a contradiction?
God Himself commanded it. He also wrote it in stone with his finger, and it has never been erased (Deuteronomy 5:17, Exodus 20:13). How then, are we to understand the words of this commandment: “Thou shalt not kill,” written by He who was both creator and destroyer of the world?
What about this?
In Numbers 31:1, the Lord commands Moses to execute vengeance on his wife’s people, the Midianites. They were descendants of Abraham, too. Moses, in obedience to God, sent Israel’s army to kill all of them. Instead they killed only the men and the rulers. This disobedience angered both God and Moses who then commanded the army to: “kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him” (Numbers 31:17). Thousands died without mercy!
In Deuteronomy 3, Moses recounts just one of their military conquests in the wilderness before they cross the Jordan. They wiped out 60 cities, some fenced, and some with high walls, because “the Lord our God delivered them into our hands” (Verse 3). “And we utterly destroyed...the men, women, and children of every cit.” (Verse 6). “But of the cities of this people...thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy...the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: As the Lord thy God hath commanded thee” (Deuteronomy 20:16-17).
Our Sunday School heroes
“Joshua ‘fit’ the battle of Jericho... and the walls came tumbling down.” We sang that as kids. But what happened then? “They utterly destroyed all... in the city, both man and woman, young and old” (Joshua 6:21). Only Rahab the harlot, and those in her house lived.
And then there’s a song I heard the 4 year-old son of an evangelist sing:
David lay down your harp, this ain’t no time to sing,
David lay down your harp, it’s time to git yer sling,
For you ain’t out there tending sheep,
And you cain’t sing the giant to sleep ,
So David lay down yer harp,
It’s time to git yer sling!
So, he went down by the water brook,
And five stones is all he took,
And he said to the Lord, “I need you now,
Guide this stone to the giant’s brow.”
So what did our hero do when the giant fell? “Threfore David ran and stood on the Philistine,.and took his sword...cut off his head... and brought it to Jerusalem” (I Samuel 17:51-54).
David, a man after God’s own heart, had a desire to build a house for the Lord. He spent his latter years making preparations to do so. God sent the prophet to him to let him know that his son Solomon would build it. Here’s why: “...thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build... because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight” (I Chronicles 22:8).
“To me, belongeth vengeance and recompense” Deuteronomy 32:35
One vital and compelling reason I am writing this paper is to focus on the inestimable uniqueness and value of a human life. By no means should anyone infer that I am questioning the righteous judgments of God against His enemies. I cannot overemphasize that fact. But I am afraid that we, as saints of God, tend to be rather cavalier about war in general, and the loss of a solitary life in particular. Unless, or course, it’s someone close to us.
I am ashamed to admit that if I read about any disaster, small or great, where there is a loss of life, and its “them” and not “us,” I have just shrugged and breathed a sigh of relief. Or if a church gets bad press, and it is not one of ours, I find myself wondering if just maybe, they deserved it. And obviously, that is not saintly!
Sin, without equivocation, is the root-cause of war in general, and death in particular. Because when Satan is bound for a millennium (Revelation 20:3) there will be peace on earth. But I guess it’s a macho, “guy thing” to read and hear preachers herald the heroic exploits of our soldiers. We are intrigued by all the clever military tactics, and the weapons deployed in any given battle. And yes, I have studied – like war buffs do – wars, ancient wars and the current wars, including our nation’s disgraceful and deadly Civil War (The classic oxymoron). But none in Old Testament history can compare with the following account. Lest we forget, war should not be a game to fascinate. It never was, nor ever shall be!
Read all about it! (In the book of Jasher)
In ancient times, when I was a kid, the Sunday school teacher, standing beside her flannel graph, regaled us with Bible stories about Old Testament miracles. Old “Joshua,” seemed to be in a class all by himself, especially when she told us the awesome story of the sun standing still. This unique historical event was apparently recorded in “the book of Jasher” (Joshua 10:13). And it literally speaks volumes!
I don’t remember any of my Sunday school teachers explaining the fact that this single chapter, excluding Noah’s flood, inarguably, is the bloodiest chapter in the Old Testament. We were taught only about what the Lord did for Joshua on that day, and maybe, about the fact that God killed more people on that occasion, with huge hail stones, than Israel did with swords. (See Joshua 10:11).
But what about the 6th commandment?
Until this point, I have focused primarily on Israel’s warfare, commanded, and fully-supported by God, against God’s enemies. So it was God’s perfect will to kill. Now we shall briefly examine God’s law against premeditated murder, and its mandated consequences. And one need not be a “Juris Doctorate,” to understand it. Even little children can easily understand it.
The words of an old song will clearly define the synoptic version of the Old Testament criminal code: “O you will reap just what you sow, because the things you plant, are the things that grow.” Deuteronomy 19:21, should dissolve any doubt. “And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Cities of refuge were strategically located so that a person who accidentally killed someone could flee to one of them, so that the “the avenger of blood” could not harm him (Deuteronomy 19:1-13). To further safeguard the accused innocent person, two or three credible accusing witnesses needed to be present for any allegations to be proven (Deuteronomy 19:15).
A “parting shot,” awfully close to home!
The Nation of Israel was unlike any other nation on the earth. It began as a delegated theocracy. (Later they desired to be like other nations. [I Samuel 8:4-9]). The Lord ordained priests and the elders to govern the people. The laws of God were the basis for their government. Consequently, their fair, impartial, but summary judgment effectively caused most people to hear and fear, and to refrain from committing evils against another (Deuteronomy 19:20).
Since God hates sin, He at times commanded that people be executed, sometimes even their own disobedient family members. Deuteronomy 21:18-21: “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”
So should people kill or not? According to the Old Testament, there were only two instances, based on God’s divinely righteous law that made killing permissible:
1) They were to kill if and only if God commanded them to kill. God must be obeyed.
2) If, for any reason, someone intentionally killed another, the person committing the crime was guilty of premeditated murder, according to the sixth commandment, and was to be put to death.
These were, of course, the law of God until the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Part II
WHAT MEANETH THIS? ACTS 2:12
Even a poorly choreographed slapstick comedy can be amusing, but this was too much! For centuries a marginalized and subjugated Israel, now a Roman vassal, yearned for their promised Messiah. But the crude caricature of the triumphal entry of their anticipated Redeemer was an unfunny insult. And to add injury to insult, this interloping-imposter would not silence his disciples and the children of his rag-tag followers. They were exuberantly proclaiming: “Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the Highest” (Matthew 21:9).
Israel’s elite intellectuals, especially the scribes and doctors of the law, knew the scriptures, since they read them in the synagogue every Sabbath day. So when Jesus was born, the wise men came, seeking the “King of the Jews” (Matthew 2:1-6). Herod was told that, according to Micah 5:2, the Messiah would be born just six miles away, in Bethlehem! The nation of Israel, including Jesus’ disciples, were expecting a mighty monarch like David to come and “Restore again the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6). But the only kingdom that Jesus emphasized was the kingdom of heaven, which is of course “the kingdom of God,” described in Romans 14:17.
The poor son of the carpenter, formally uneducated, amazed the Jews, who questioned his knowledge of the scripture: “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned” (John 7:15)? He taught the adoring multitudes, but the Jewish leaders were envious and tried to discredit Him. Their best efforts, however boomeranged, when Jesus confounded them with His ability to know their thoughts. Even their motives were revealed to Him. The leaders erroneously concluded that the only way to silence Him was to kill Him. But because “they feared the multitude,” they didn’t kill Him (Mathew 21:46).
Not surprisingly, Jesus gave them the alibi to justify His murder – on more than one occasion. They obstinately refused to believe what He said in Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” It was statements like this one, blatantly implying that Jesus was changing the law of Moses, that they used against Him: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”(Matthew 5:43-44).