Definition of PACIFIST

2: strongly and actively opposed to conflict and especially war

Does that definition describe Jesus? No! Although He never engaged in or even defended Himself against violence, and charged His followers to do the same, He did not strongly and actively oppose conflict or war by unbelieving nations or people. On the contrary the Bible declares that it is God who establishes kings and kingdoms to do His will to punish and judge, and Paul states in Romans that these kings and kingdoms bare not the sword in vain, and is it not Jesus who will return and smite the nations, and tread out the winepress of God's wrath? Jesus did not disapprove of war, only that His followers should not participate in it; or violence of any kind.

As we move toward the end of the age, with all of what that means in terms of violence and war, what should the Christian position be? Should Christians support, oppose, or remain neutral as to war and military service? The position of Jesus must be the position of every follower of His if we claim to be Christians.

In America, as it is in most other countries I suppose, patriotism and national allegiance are honorable positions, but are they “Christian” positions? Most of the Christian denominations are considered to be “warring” denominations, by the Government, when the question of conscientious objector status is brought up. This is not surprising considering that it is very often Christians who lead the charge in the debate of “just war.” They are the first to stand, and recite with the loudest voices, the Pledge of Allegiance, and in singing the National Anthem.  What is the Biblical position that Christians should follow? And, if they are following a contrary position, why are they following it, and where did that position come from?

The question of whether or not Jesus was a Pacifist is not a fair question. Since we know God never changes, being “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” and we know that Jesus will return to tread the winepress of the wrath of God, then we can say with confidence that Jesus was not, and is not, a Pacifist. Did Jesus come to show us a new way to run the earth by ridding it of war? No! He came to show us a way out, by following His example of faith and trust in a supernatural God. He came to save us from the evil that rules the earth, not to establish a new theocratic world government of men based on the faulty idea that all mankind can be convinced to live peaceably. 

I really don’t like the word “pacifist” much, it has been hijacked by the liberals, who are for the most part pacifist, but for a worldly kingdom, and not the Kingdom of God. They are really humanist who use pacifism as a political tool to engineer a man made peace on earth, which is impossible, if you believe the Bible. If we say yes, Jesus was a Pacifist, then we protest, picket, and run off to join Jim Wallis and his band of liberal Christian humanist, exploiting politics and theology for an ecumenical one world government.

But, if we say that Jesus was not a Pacifist, we join the ranks of the “just war” advocates and ally ourselves with the evil of mass destruction, and to the government that promotes it, and drape the cross in red, white, and blue.

Jesus was neither for or against war, as far as the question pertains to the world. Both of the arguments above have their roots in the flesh of men. They both start in the minds of men and reason their way to a presupposed conclusion. They both get what they want at the expense of truth.

The words pacifist and pacifism are worldly terms that conjure up images that are packed with worldly ideals, none of which reveal the mind of Jesus. We cannot force Jesus to conform to our definitions and to model Himself as a hippie or a warlord; Jesus will not follow us, we must follow Him. Neither ignoring His plain words, like the mass of conservative nationalistic evangelicalism does, or contorting His meanings, like the old school liberal camp and the more resent emerging Christianity, will work. Disobedience and rebellion are a malignant cancer in both camps.

As practicing Christians we must impose this limitation in our search for facts, are those facts true, according to Scripture. On the surface this statement may seem obvious. You may say, “well of course, the Bible is the final word on any subject, so why state something so apparent?” Because, although, the truth is apparent it always seems to have the habit of disappearing in a cloud of human reasoning. The Bible warns us in both the Old and the New Testaments to not trust human reasoning, but we cannot resist the temptation to take a position founded on what we conclude to be a very rational thought process. 

Prov. 14:12, 16:25 "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

Prov. 3:5 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." 

1 Cor. 1:20-21 "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."

1Cor. 3:18-20 “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS’; and again, ‘THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.’”

Why is the Lord so adamant about not trusting our ability to reason through a problem and coming to, what we might consider, a logical conclusion? The answer is, that we do not have the ability to reason properly since those days in the Garden of Eden, and that apple thing. Satan was right about having our eyes opened to both good and evil. Only now all of our cherished opinions and decisions are tainted with error. Every little task we now undertake has to be run through the infected database of our minds and heart. We rightly question whether or not we have made right choices. We ask our friends, search it out on the internet, and run it by the pastor, and are still deluded because we have not believed the plain written words of our Lord; the only one who can think straight and who has the power to discern correctly between good and evil; He says, "trust Me." 

Did Jesus exhibit the characteristics of a "pacifist" while He walked upon this earth? Yes, He appeared to be a pacifist. But, He was not. When Jesus comes the second time He will be no pacifist, but a roaring Lion, to tread out the winepress of the wrath of His Father, and to present a deed, that was purchased on Calvary. He will come as the conquering King, not a sacrificial Lamb, and declare war on all evil and unbelief.

It is Jesus’ first appearance, as the Paschal Lamb that we are to emulate. It is His cross that we are to likewise bear; it is His life that we are to present to the world, over and over again, as we follow the Master. The Lamb is our life, the humble Lamb, the meek Lamb, the weak and lowly Lamb. The life of Jesus should be the life of His followers.

This sounds all very simple, as it should be, yet there are those who disagree and argue that God supports and even promotes “just war.” In other words God approves and blesses Christians who fight as individuals, or in league with national allegiance, to suppress evil or defend the weak. 

Is this true? The truth is more important than any pet doctrine or allegiance to a flag. 

It seems that every little fragment of truth that we gather puts us more and more outside the circle of the general opinion or the consensus of Christian belief, either on the one side or the other.  Is it possible that truth is so rare that those who find it also find that they rarely agree with others who profess to follow the same Jesus you follow? The simplicity of Jesus, seems to be itself, veiled in complicated darkness and hidden from the sight of those who follow from a distance. They are more concerned with the pretty stones along the seashore than the mighty rolling glory of the Sea itself. But, many there are who look for pretty stones, and miss out on the preciousness, power, and cruelty of the sea. To follow Jesus will drive a wedge between what could be, lasting relationships, if the simplicity of Jesus becomes a reality in your life. 

If you were to ask the average person what Jesus preached – even the mediocre Christian – you'd no doubt hear something about love: "Jesus taught about love. He said we should all love each other." This perception of Jesus' teaching isn't wrong. Jesus did talk a lot about love. In fact he said that loving God is the greatest commandment and loving our neighbors is next (Mark 12:29-31). So, love figured prominently in the message of Jesus.

But love was not the core of Jesus' message. And, his preaching about love didn't get Him hung on a cross. Neither the Romans nor the Jews would have been particularly bothered by a Jewish prophet who ran around telling people to love God and people. A lot of Jews would not have appreciated His love of their enemies, but the Romans  wouldn't have crucified someone whose main crime was telling Jews to love them and turn the other cheek. The bone of contention with Jesus' message must have been more abrasive, indeed, more disgraceful, than a call to love your enemies.

Jesus' message was anything but pacifistic. He says of Himself that He, "came not to bring peace, but a sword." Jesus came to declare war against evil, using the tools of meekness, and obedience to the will of the Father, as a weapon of mass destruction to all who reject Him. What He doesn't win over with His immense, pure, complete, and everlasting display of love will be forever vanquished from His presence in a place the polar opposite of love, which can only be called pure Hell.  

Jesus spoke many times of the Kingdom of Heaven come to earth as a conquering force. He gave parables about the Kingdom and its King and His intentions.

Lk. 14:31 "Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?"

Lk. 13:6-9 "He also spoke this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’"

Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom was not a message of a pacifist; He was delivering a stern warning, and it was understood as such by those who killed Him.

The kingdom of God has been equated with all sorts of things in the last two millennia. Some have claimed that it is heaven, and that Jesus was saying, in so many words, "Now you can go to heaven when you die." Others have understood "the kingdom of God" as referring to the Church. From their perspective, Jesus announced the beginning of the age of the Church. Still others have seen the kingdom of God as a world infused by divine justice. They have taken Jesus' announcement as a call to social action. In recent times, New Agers have reduced the kingdom of God to inner awareness of one's divinity. Like the ancient Gnostics, they understand the good news of the kingdom to mean "You are divine."

Jesus was unleashing the power of God into the world through His sacrificial act and that it would be carried on by the sacrificial acts of all His followers.

His message is; The Kingdom of God is coming, God is establishing His direct rule or government in the earth, and this government will be manifested through Messiah (Jesus) (Psalms 2), and His warning is, repent or perish, that is the terms for peace. The government of the whole world will "rest on His shoulders." Human self-determination will end, and "every knee will bow."

All the false dreams of nationalism, patriotism, and pacifism will be extinguished, and then we will come face-to-face with reality, because God is the God of reality.

As we make our way through our tour of duty on planet Earth, should we think God is satisfied with our level of “Christian” participation? I think it could be safely said that God is not yet satisfied.

What I understand from God’s written message regarding His followers is that there have been, in the past, and are presently, many more supposed followers exiting from service (through various means), or stalling-out, in their service to God, than there are those eagerly enlisting and volunteering for what the Bible suitably portrays as hazardous duty. To be more explicit, no sooner has a man gotten a glimpse of some genuine truth than he is off on some rabbit trail of his own reasoning looking for justification to validate his own conclusions, and surrounding, and protecting his discovery with a whole troop of toy soldiers, believing he has soundly thought through his faith, and is safe in his own little citadel. Many others have deliberately thrown in with the enemy on a promise of security, and others are snared and held comfortably captive in the world of “Vanity Fair.” We are especially warned to NOT be deceived in these last days. Even we in the “watchman” camp have to be careful and continually re-examine our position as new light is revealed. Now that the “Church” has come under a microscope through current events, we simply cannot assume that old traditions and creeds will suffice; only the Bible is able to unravel the web of confusion that the Church has gotten into. It is easy to get mired down in external events: politics, heresies, statistics, organizations, and structures, and lose focus of God’s workings to effect the inner man.

The Preciousness of the Bride

The seemingly new discovery and realization that the Bride of Christ is much more precious than previously thought, due to the nearness of the Groom, has motivated some to come to the defense of her honor. What we must do now is come to the conclusion, God’s conclusion, that there is much more truth to be learned concerning the Church, and that God is not satisfied with a single discovery, or to prop-up old Church traditions and organizations, regardless that men hold them to be sacred. To fight a battle on a single front or a single issue does not constitute a war, or to believe that our Father wishes us to re-fight the battle of the Reformation and stop there is wrong; the Church must be more precious than even Luther or Calvin realized. To return to the Reformation, when you have been commanded to “do your first works over again,” is to stop short of understanding and complete victory. We are not told to return to the revivals of Wesley, Edwards, or Finney. We are not told to re-play the Reformation, or re-examine the “creeds” or the ecumenical councils of Constantine. We are not told to stop abortion, or build hospitals, or universities, or march on Washington, or to focus on the family, but we are told to be holy even as the Father is Holy, and to come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing. We are not to stop short of returning to the very foundation of our faith, which is the Prophets, and the Apostles, and Jesus Christ as the chief Corner Stone. To stop the advance of the Church, by getting involved in the battles of this world, is to be disobedient to Christ’s command and to fall short of true glory and the victory He intended. To re-discover the true preciousness of the Bride is to discover a foundation that has been covered over with many false structures and unsafe buildings that spell doom for them who depend too much on their offer of shelter. All these structures must be cleared from the foundation and a new Spiritual structure erected. The structure may be small and not have the outward glory remembered by the elders, but it will be the building that God builds and approves. Many things must go that we cling to for safety, thinking they will suffice in a day of severe trial, but only one thing is required, a return to the foundation and a rebuilding as per God’s instructions. The Bride is precious in God’s sight and she must be purified and the spots that spoil her appearance removed. Those spots are all the adornments with which she has clothed herself through the centuries, (creeds, councils, colleges, churches, and choirs) all the administrations of men and not the Lord.

What we have really discovered, concerning the Church, as the result of those who have paraded the Bride around as a prostitute, are obvious things that have served as a wake-up call to the Elect; it has only just gotten our attention. The truth that the Church is precious has been forced to the surface and demands a spiritual response. This present conflict should serve as a test of our resolve to fully finish our Lord’s desire of having His Church in a pure state and un-spotted by the world of men and Satan, and ready for His soon return. This foundational truth is a basic principal, which for the most part has laid dormant, but now is demanding that there be a forward movement into greater depths of Spiritual awareness. Purification has always come through crisis and it will be no different now.

The Threshing Floor

This initial conflict can be viewed as just the beginning of a threshing floor experience. Like David and the threshing floor of Ornan, the ground on which the Temple was to be erected, came at great cost, and would not be had for nothing. David well knew the cost and the lessons of the threshing floor, at the hand of God Himself. Mount Moriah forever symbolizes the place of testing. Is it a coincident that the Temple of Solomon (a picture of Christ) was to be built on a threshing floor? David would provide the raw material of which the Temple would be built. David was not the builder of the Temple, and could not be, he was a bloody man, proven and proven and proven again, over, and over, till the dross was driven from him, and made fit for the Masters use, as a living stone in the Temple of Christ. You see, this present process is but the beginning, there is much of man and the flesh that pollutes the Church, and it must be driven out. God is not satisfied with the Church yet, there is more threshing to come, more separating to take place, more chaff to be removed; it is the cleansing of the Bride.

It is no coincident that Solomon’s Temple was constructed on the threshing floor of Ornan. When David made the declaration to Ornan the Jebusite that he would not present something to God that has cost him nothing, he was speaking, not only of his immediate circumstance, but also to you and I, that the cost involved in the preparation of the materials must be paid at the threshing floor. What we see in the life of David is a picture of the Church, which is the building material that is tested repeatedly, and proven by many trials of faith and loyalty in God’s ability to purify and keep him. Our Father is calling out the Church, and this calling has much to do with purging, that is part and parcel of what goes on at the threshing floor. And so, we understand the calling of the Church to persevere, to maintain vigilance, and to not only start the race, but to finish.

Vain Imaginations

We must not allow ourselves the liberty of imaging that this present argument or disagreement is the war to end all wars. As bad as it may appear, and as eager as we are to respond, it may be nothing more than the wiles of Satan to draw the saints of God into the open and appeal to their flesh in retaliation; a temptation to resort to our minds and our muscle, and to fight a battle of the Devil’s choosing and on his terms.

We must not allow ourselves the liberty to imagine that this present battle is the main focus of God. It is important, without question, but don’t entertain the thought that it is about the battle. It is not the battle that matters, the victory is already decided, it is about the Church and separation, and testing, and purification. God will have His victory, with or without us. The true Church must look and see the falseness of what is happening, and know that the Spirit is winnowing out the chaff, that a separation and narrowing is taking place, a refining and purification process of the Bride of Christ. If we look too hard at the battle and allow the battle to become a thing in and of itself, and not a process of preparation, we will miss something priceless. It is not about the battle or the circumstances in which we find ourselves; it is about the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, and about understanding spiritual things. Personal and corporate holiness is the chief aim now, as it was with David. Maintaining faith in a loving God while being prepared, sometimes harshly, and being found worthy to supply the raw, living material, for the construction of a Tabernacle, a dwelling place for God, fit to be called the inheritance of the Father, is no minor calling.

This present battle can easily be used by the enemy as a diversion, and used by men for self-promotion. We have discovered some faults, discrepancies, and flaws already in the Church, and we must not stop looking. The process of separation and sanctification must continue. The Church is still not prepared, and, I do believe that the threshing has begun in earnest. Many in the organized Church who profess to be watchman must do the hard work of self-examination then continue with the exposing of error and falsehood in the body. The Church needs to look inward and find other battles to wage, and in faith, allow God to destroy those idols that hinder the Church from moving in all of its glory, as magnified by a relentless belief in the sufficiency of Him who calls us. It is the Church that supplies the raw materials, as exemplified by David himself. It is Christ who builds the Temple, as exemplified by Solomon in all his glory of unlimited riches, wisdom, and grace. David was the warrior covered in blood, representing the many battles he waged, but in all of his obedience, purging, and purifying he was not adequate for the task of building a Dwelling place for God, that had to be left to another, even Christ.

The Real War is in the Heavenlies

The Church is re-discovering the real necessity of spiritual warfare, it is no longer an imagined thing or hypothetical, it is real, and it is a “clear and present danger” to those who do not understand Scripture. If the Church stalls-out here, which it appears to be doing, there will be many casualties. Not all watchman or followers will survive the coming conflicts. When Moses and Joshua led the people into battle sometimes there were few loses, sometimes there were many, but when fighters went out to battle the timid and weak, and those who had conflicts of loyalty, like newly married men, or those who had doubts or divisions in their own or other’s abilities were better left in the camp. And, so it is with the saints of God today; a lack of faith and trust, through improper understanding and preparation, spells casualties for those who think this is a war against flesh and blood. To speak of true Biblical holiness and separation will put you at odds with those who profess a more limited separation and still hold to traditional man-made Church values and organizational hierarchies. “Deep calls unto deep” in these matters and God is always, in all ways, calling His Church to greater measures of faith and into waters that require absolute trust and loyalty; this too is the threshing floor. Our preparation does not stop at the “new birth,” and sanctification does not stop with regeneration, but is a continually advancing experience of deeper trust in God. What we see going on in the Blogosphere is saber rattling; it is a faceless conflict of words, and at best is but a training ground for something more real, at a real time in the future, when our real adversary will bring real men, face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, and test our resolve of loyalty. The war is not about Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, or Todd Bentley, it is about purging, preparation, and purification of the Temple building materials, it is about a bride fully awake, it is about the Church of the Living God, the Body of Christ.

If our desire is to dominate our enemy then we are deceived and no better off than the one we fight, because their goal is also to dominate the earth. Dominion on the other hand is spiritual. Dominion is the province of God, an area in which one has special knowledge, interest, or responsibility, and a wholly different way to govern. The dominion of God operates as usual, and is still in operation for the Christian by complete and total trust through faith. Our adversary wants nothing more than to wage war on his terms. If we expose error for the sole purpose of making our enemy angry, or as an insult to gain some advantage in the flesh we are failing the test and not serving Christ. To have dominion on the other hand is to present the truth boldly, for the benefit of the saints; to reach out to those who the Spirit of God has called, and to make their paths straight. When the conflict comes, and it will come, it is to NOT respond in like manner as our adversary, or to throw our hands up in defense, but to lower our arms and our tone, and turn the other cheek, and to portray Jesus all over again, and fill-up in ourselves what is lacking. There is no defense against dominion. Having dominion is God’s way of ruling, and purifying the Bride.