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"Commandments
for Combatants" March
30, 2003 The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower This is second in a series of expositional messages that I am
offering up to try to clear up some of the confusion that we've heard about as
we hear comment about--editorials, and commentaries, and protest marches, and in
just all sorts of venues that we hear things said about the war, and in
particular, when attempts are made (sometimes more wisely, sometimes less
wisely) when attempts are made to draw lessons from the Christian faith and
apply those to the current situation with Iraq, the war against Iraq.
And just for instance, for starters, I remember before the war
began, there was a newspaper editorial where the columnist was sort of
chastising President George Bush and saying that he, as someone who on the
campaign trail when he was asked about the person that had the most influence on
his life, his favorite philosopher, right away in the debate he said,
"Jesus Christ." The
columnist was saying, "Well, given that you said that, and given that you
are making a great deal about your Christian faith, you should be asking, 'What
would Jesus do?' and, the newspaper person went on to say, "and of course
Jesus taught 'Turn the other cheek,' and therefore would never be allowing
troops to be mobilized for war." "There's
something deficient about your Christian faith," this newspaper person
said, "because if you really were a follower of Jesus, you couldn't
possibly lead your nation into war." Now, let's just let that sort of take one position and allow me to
put as a counterweight to that--this is going to be kind of fun--let me put as a
counterweight to that, this little incident.
Long ago I went to be the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in
Hollister, California. Shortly
after I arrived, I learned that this church--Presbyterian Church in
Hollister--had previously had a very famous (in one way) pastor--that shortly
after World War II, they had had as their pastor someone who during that war had
been a chaplain in the military. And,
yes, this actually was the man who in a combat situation (I believe it was in
the Pacific)--he was a chaplain and was seen by a fellow soldier, rifle in hand,
to be shooting at the enemy. The fellow soldier said, "Chaplain! You're shooting at the enemy!" And some of us remember that very famous response:
"Praise the Lord and . . ." [congregation:] "
. . . pass the ammunition!" Now, that's kind of a different take on the relationship between
faith and warfare. I don't cite it
inviting us all to end up right there, but I simply cite it as a way of saying
this chaplain in the Army, this Presbyterian pastor--this may have been someone
who knew at least as much about the teachings of Scripture as that newspaper
columnist did! And it is interesting sometimes how people in the newspaper columns
quote the only verse of Scripture that they happen to know, which is unwise
because all of these teachings come together and form a whole, they form a
package. And you can't really
understand the one taken out of context of all of the others.
So I'm going to ask us to look at Galatians chapter 3--you may want to
read along with me. And I ask that
we take teachings like the "Turn the other cheek" saying of Jesus and
one that is oftentimes paired with it (although this is an entirely different
mistake). Sometimes if a columnist
in a newspaper knows two Scriptures, they know "Turn the other cheek"
and "Thou shalt not kill." Even
though "Thou shalt not kill" really means "Thou shalt do no
murder," and it is not taken in Scripture as referring to soldiers in
battle at all, but simply one individual taking the life of another.
But sometimes those two things are put together as a means of saying
"No Christian should ever go to war" and "No Christian President
should ever order troops to war." Well, I'm going to ask us to look at teachings just like that and
in Galatians chapter 3 beginning with verse 19, our New Revised Standard version
is very helpful. It has a section
head there, "The purpose of the law."
We're going to be asking, "What is the purpose of the commandments
that God gives us, the divine imperatives?"
"What purpose do they serve?"
And you can't understand this particular command or that one, this
particular imperative or that one, unless you understand what's the purpose of
all of those commandments. And
we're going to see that when Paul says in Galatians chapter 3, beginning right
there at verse 19: Why then the law? It was added because of
transgressions, until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been
made; and it was ordained through angels by a mediator.
Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one.
Is the law then opposed to the promises of God?
Certainly not! For if a law
had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come
through the law. But the Scripture
has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised
through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and
guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. [verse 24] Therefore the law was our disciplinarian
[we're going to look at that word] until Christ came, so that we might be
justified by faith. But now that
faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ
Jesus you are all children of God through faith Now, let's start with that word "disciplinarian."
That Greek word is paidagogos.
There are two words that make up that, the word for "lead" and
the word for "child." We
get our terms "pedagogue," "pedagogical"--those English
terms come directly from the word Paul uses right here, paidagogos. And
if you compare translations, this is one of those marvelous places where nearly
every translation has a different term. The
New Revised Standard translates paidagogos as "disciplinarian."
Now, if you remember the King James translation--King James translated
this as "schoolmaster." And
that may be misleading even though with the pedagogy association you can see why
it would be translated like that. "Schoolmaster"
meaning "one who teaches us" so it's somewhat in line with the King
James. The New American Standard
translates it "tutor." Other
translations use words like "guardian," or "custodian," or
"overseer." And the reason that we have so many different words used to
translate that single thing is that in the first century a paidagogos
actually performed a lot of different functions, all having to do with
supervising a child or children. This
would be the person who oversaw the care of a child in a household, but he would
also take the child down to the school, and in school--now this is sort of a
marvelous thing--the custom at the time in Greek culture was that the teacher
was not the disciplinarian in the classroom. The teacher simply taught, and if a kid got out of line, then
their particular paidagogos would come right up and serve the
disciplinary function. So there is
a sense in which "disciplinarian" is exactly an appropriate
translation, though it narrows our focus. It
sort of keeps the classroom idea, but not the teacher--the
"disciplinarian." But
take all of those together and we really don't have an English equivalent.
You'd have to go for something like "nanny."
Really. I mean, I think the
closest thing that we've got to an English term in one term would be
"nanny"--sort of the guardian, the custodian, the tutor, the
disciplinarian. All of those are
somewhat appropriate. But the context tells us what we really need to know, which is
we're talking about something that has a say for a while, but leads us
ultimately to Jesus Christ. And
it's this relationship with Jesus Christ that is the really appropriate one, the
one that really counts. The
relationship that the nanny, or the disciplinarian, or tutor, has is
provisional. It's provisional. And that's what Paul's saying.
He said, "Why then the law? It
was added because of transgression." Because of the sin that existed, God's standard was made
very, very clear and that standard, "the law," all of the divine
imperatives that we have in Scripture, are there, in a way, to supervise us, to
hold us in check. Not because we
can find life therein. It's not
because the relationship I have with the custodian is the ultimate one.
And Paul says if it were possible to find life through the law, then
righteousness would come by our obedience to it.
But he's saying it is not possible to earn a relationship with God by
obeying God's standards. And, in
fact, God's standards are not given to us so that we would find our way to God
thereby. No. They were
given to oversee us for a time until we come to Christ.
And because of faith in Christ, we have a relationship with God that is
not based on human effort. It's
based on divine gift. Now we apply this to the subject of our sermon series, the
relationship of Christian faith to international conflict.
If we apply that, we have to understand that taking all the divine
imperatives, there are only three positions, really, that can be taken on these
things. They're the classic ones.
They're the ones that were spelled out, that were adopted at the time of
the Protestant Reformation, way back in the early 1500s.
This is going to be a review for some of us, but let's just review that.
At the time of the Reformation, there was the Roman Catholic
position, and this is still one of the ways that you can look at the "Turn
the other cheek" passages. The
official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was that those teachings of
perfection from Jesus do not apply to the run of the mill Christian, to the
typical Roman Catholic churchgoer. Those
were for the priests, and for the nuns. Those were for the special ones who were specially set aside.
They would be exempted from normal responsibilities.
They were the ones who would take special vows and say, "I want to
live at this higher level where I obey these things."
And so you have the priests and the various members of the orders living
at a higher level of morality, and then there was the level that everyone else
has. Now, another option made available at that period was (and you can
associate it with the Mennonites and other radical groups--they were radical at
the time, although if some of you grew up in a Mennonite Church, understand I'm
not saying anything bad about your upbringing). I'm just saying at the time of the Protestant Reformation
there was a radical reaction that said, "Absolutely not!
All of these hard sayings of Jesus apply to every single believer--not
just priests, not just nuns. And if
you are a follower of Jesus"--so the Mennonites believe--"you have to
be in touch with this. You cannot
be a policeman, a soldier, a judge. You
can't have anything to do with executing criminals.
In fact, you really can't participate in society very much." And how much that would turn out to be, there was some
difference there, but certainly you cannot participate as far as joining the
army or joining the police force. And
why may you not? It's because of
these sayings of Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church had said, "Well, that's just for the
priests and nuns" and the Mennonites and other radical Reformation-era
groups said, "No." And
they understood that this was going to keep the church rather small.
You know, if you start a church right next to a Naval base, and none of
your members can join the military, you're going to have a very small church!
Now, all of the mainline Protestant groups were neither there [with
the Roman Catholics] nor there [with the Mennonites].
We need to understand this. If
we forget this, we get into the confusion we seem to be in today.
Calvinists, and Lutherans, and you could just say all of the mainline
Protestants (anything that isn't either of the previous views) agree that there
are some functions of the law, there are some purposes of the law.
And it began when Martin Luther was preaching on this text.
Martin Luther opened up the possibility that Protestants have always
endorsed, and it has meant that you can be a member of a Presbyterian Church and
be on the police force. Or, you can be a member of a Presbyterian Church and be in
the military. What was the door that was opened for the Protestant understanding
so that the mainline churches have been able to fully participate in civil
society? Well, Martin Luther said
there are two purposes of the law (and we're not going to get into the
disagreements that Protestants have on this because Presbyterians--we really
like the law so we say there's really three--but ignoring the fact that
Presbyterians add their own wrinkle to this, we're just going to go with what
everybody agrees with--that there are at least two).
And what are those? Well, the first purpose is: To
restrain the godless, the unrighteous, the wicked, God gives His standards, as
in "Thou shalt not kill" so we will recognize godlessness when it
occurs and so that society will be able to impose punishment where it is
actually deserved. Is punishing
murderers an arbitrary thing that certain societies just happened to cook up
because they like it? No. God says,
"Murder is wrong," and God says that the state is ordained (and this
is actually taught in Scripture--this is not an arbitrary thing that somebody
dreamed up at some time)--the state exists in part to punish those who violate
God's standards, just like this. So there was a purpose to the Bible's "Thou shalt" and
"Thou shalt not" teachings. And
one is to give us warrant for restraining all of those who want to violate God's
standards. We have a right to
protect ourselves from evildoers because the law was given and one of the
purposes of the law was to say, "Here's a line that may not be crossed and
people who cross that will need to be punished by the state."
Right now because of the disagreements on capital punishment I'm not
going to try to defend or oppose capital punishment, but suffice it to say in
the Bible murderers are to be executed by the state and the Bible does not
see that as "two killings equally in the wrong"--that "the
murderer kills somebody and the state kills that person, and both of those are
equally morally wrong." Absolutely
not. That's not the way that the Bible sees that at all.
God wants the state to function in a protective way.
(Now, again, if for various reasons of fairness you want to oppose
capital punishment, I'm not arguing that point now.)
I'm just trying to say this is what we're talking about: Restraining evildoers. Martin Luther said there is a second purpose to the law, and when
you see a commandment like, "Turn the other cheek," it becomes very,
very obvious what we're talking about. The
second purpose of the law does not have to do with the wicked, but it has to do
with the ones who are trying their best to be good, OK?
It does not have to do with the godless, who will violate God's standards
every chance they get, but now one asks, "OK.
What's the function of the biblical commandments in the life of good and
respected Presbyterians?" (Those
decent enough to actually show up for the early service, which is hard, you
know!). Well, there is a
"casting down" purpose of the law.
And some of us know this, so this is a review.
There is a "casting down" purpose where God's standards are
held out to me not so I'll go, "Oh! That's
all I have to do? Good!"
But rather, I look at myself in the reflection the Bible gives me and
I'll say, "I'm not good enough. I'm
not being obedient enough. I'm not
living up to God's standards enough. I'm
not living like Jesus." So if
you have a WWJD bracelet on, I'm not going to criticize you.
But there's something a little misleading about that.
WWJD. (Have you ever heard
of that? The choir hasn't, but the
rest of you have!) "What Would Jesus Do?"
It is not the case that Jesus came to be just one more teacher of
morality like so many other teachers of morality and that His teachings are
simply for us to kind of comfortably shoulder and kind of walk along and say,
"OK, I'm doing what Jesus would do."
Far from it! The purpose of
the divine imperatives is so I would realize I can't obey, anything like
the Bible tells me I should. I can't
do what Jesus would do. I've tried.
I've tried for a long time. I've
tried to be righteous according to my own effort.
And what the biblical injunctions are there for is to make very, very
clear to me I can't get to heaven that way.
I can't clean myself up that way. I
can't find life by living up to the code that Scripture presents.
Therefore it is the purpose of the law to bring me to despair, to the
point where I can finally be able to say, "There's got to be another way.
If I'm ever going to get into a relationship with God, there's got to be
some way other than it-all-depends-on-me, shouldering me with
requirements." And that's what
this passage is all about. It's
about the fact that there's the restraining function, the disciplinary function,
the tutoring, the custodial function of the law that is very, very important,
but only as it leads us to Christ because we finally despair of ever finding
life that way and we receive life as a free gift from God.
Do you understand what we're saying? What we're saying is that taking "Turn the other
cheek" and applying it as if it were instructions for a head of state about
how to conduct international affairs is dreadfully misguided.
And the misguided character of it starts with the fact that biblical
injunctions were never there for us to successfully obey, but were given
originally so we would see we can't successfully obey them and in desperation
would go to God and say, "God, I need another way.
Have you got one for me?" And
God says, "I do. And as a
matter of fact, my second plan was really my first plan.
This was my design all along. My
design all along was to make very, very clear what the expectations were so that
you would understand you can't climb up. My
Son Jesus Christ has to climb down." Now, let me put it like this:
You and I, in our efforts to clean ourselves up, to straighten ourselves
up, to make ourselves better--we're kind of like a vacuum cleaner that I used to
have when I was single. You know,
these kind of second-hand vacuum cleaners that are really third- or fourth- or
fifth-hand vacuum cleaners? The
first time I plugged it in and I went, "Hmmm.
There's a black streak on the carpet right there where I just vacuumed.
I don't think it was there when I started vacuuming . . .
Well, maybe I need to vacuum harder."
So I went like this and each time I noticed that the dark streaks are
increasing. And I'm going,
"Hmmm. Wow, this carpet is
dirtier than I thought it was!" And
after a while I realized there's something wrong with this vacuum cleaner. Do you understand? The--what
is it? It's not the fan belt.
Or is it the fan belt? The
belt that turns the bristles would not stay in its little groove and would
forever sort of slip out and make new burnt rubber marks on the carpet.
The harder that I tried to vacuum them away, the more burnt rubber marks
I was making. Now, there's a point
where you come along and say, "I'm not going to use this vacuum cleaner any
more." Let's pray. Dear
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, that you make it clear that we can't clean
ourselves up and we don't have to. Lord,
we thank you that your Word says that the purpose of your standards is so that
we would understand we need your Son Jesus.
We thank you that by your mercy you have given us your Son Jesus, and
it's in His strong name that we pray. Amen. The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the
worship service on March 30, 2003.] |
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