Hey Mike,

I really appreciate the depth of Scripture you bring with your attention. I saw you are against war, and I feel similarly. But I also saw that you give your support for those who fight– this I disagree with. I believe we are called to correct those in error, not encourage them. We shouldn’t support those who kill others in the name of our God– it’s a perversion of what it means to be a Christian. It is their fallacy of logic and failure of faith to see God’s love as the Bible portrays it, and giving them your support makes it look like we agree with it. We don’t so we shouldn’t give them our support. And if they come back with something about the necessity of defending our freedom, please eviscerate their position with an argument stemming from the sovereignty of God. I know you are capable of doing that. Please consider this, and tell me what you think. Finally, I have composed an essay for some of my friends about a scriptural anti- war stance. I hope you will read and critique it.
I just read a piece by a Christian saying that God is pro- war. How tragic.
Lord Jesus, grant us your grace.
J____

Hi J____,

Thank you for taking the time to write me. You won’t find anything in my writings which even remotely indicates that I support the use of force on the part of humans to bring about the will of God. I think instead all you will find is: “Resist not evil”. You asked for my critique of your message below. First, I want to tell you how grateful I am that the Lord has opened your eyes to see that vengeance is His, and we are never under any circumstances to take up arms, whether for the support and defense of our own country or in self defense. We can and should take the bullet for another, and place ourselves between a murderer or a rapist and their victim, but we are never to resist evil. Take the consequences of evil for others, as Christ did for His own carnal apostles who had just resisted evil, but we are never to resist evil.
There are two things that could be misunderstood in you letter. Here is the first:

There is a direct connection between the fleshly life of Jesus and the fleshly life of His Body, or faithful believers. Just as Jesus was a spirit that incarnated as a human, so are the members of His Body (Heb 2:14 reads “Since therefore the children partook of flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook of the same”).

This statement could lead one to think that you believe in the false doctrine of ‘circularity’ which teaches that we were all immortal spirits before we were placed by God into physical bodies, and that we are simply to return to what we were to begin with. That of course flies in the face of God’s question to Job:

Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Job 38:5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Job 38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
Job 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

If indeed we pre- existed as spirits, we could answer, ‘Why I was right there beside you.’ But alas, Job was speechless because he was not there.

Job 40:3 Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
Job 40:4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.

God is not only the heavenly Father of all men, He is also the “Father of spirits”, and that is the particular “sons of God” being mentioned here. These “sons of God are foreshadowed by the fowls which fly in the heavens” and which were created on the day before Adam and all other beasts:

Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

It is Christ Himself who tells us that these “fowls of the heaven” typify “the evil one” as well as the holy spirit in the form of a dove:

Mat 13:3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
Mat 13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

Now here is how Christ interprets His own parable:

Mat 13:18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
Mat 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

The second point may be something you already see, but you need to know that “the indignation of the Lord” IS His judgment upon the kingdom of our old man.
You quote Micah:

Mic 7:8-9 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon His vindication.

So what is so little understood is that God’s “judgment” IS His indignation.

1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

When those two points are cleared up, your paper will not mislead anyone to believe that you support the false doctrine of circularity, as something I wrote misled you to think that I believe we should support those who live by the sword.
I hope you find this all edifying.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike