Commands against Violence
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Commands Against Violence
Commands Against Violence
Last week we entered into the commandments that have to do with human relationships. We looked at the fact that while all of the ten Commandments have to do with our relationship with God, We honor God, we show our love for God, in the keeping of all His commands. And how we treat others says something about how we normally treat God. Or perhaps we could say that our reverence for God is seen in our reverence for people. To put it yet another way, our love of God is reflected in our love for others.
Of course, in the New Testament, we learn that we are to love the church. There are many passages we could choose, but let us look for a moment at something Paul said that indicates that we are to be good to everyone, but especially good to those in the church:
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Do good to everyone, but especially to those who are of the household of faith. We are supposed to be extra good to one another. And we see that this love for one another is a reflection of our love for God. If we would love God better, we would keep the commands better. And if we would show our love to the community at large, and especially to those who are of the household of faith, then we would keep the commands better.
All of us at times look around at others and notice where we think they could be doing a better job at something. It is human nature to do this. But we are warned by the Lord that in our efforts to help someone else do a better job as a Christian, we had better take note of our own big failures. Before we remove the speck from someone’s eye, we had better remove the log in our own eye.
Again and again I have mentioned church unity, and I will continue to do so without apology. You see, what makes a particular church a great church is not the eloquence of its preacher, or the talent of the worship team, or the well maintained property it meets at. What makes a church a great church is biblical living as reflected in the unity of the saints, and this happens best when those saints begin to realize that they demonstrate love for one another in the family of God through the keeping of the commandments of God; the commandments of Christ. He said if you love me, you will keep my commands. And many of His commands are very direct about how we are supposed to treat follow humans, and especially those in the household of faith.
Last week, we looked at the fifth commandment: Honor your father and mother. I hope we all have seen the value in this, and how the keeping of this command demonstrates the love of God in us, and demonstrates the love of God to others who see how we honor our father and mother. This morning, we look at the next two commands, that may seem unrelated; but as we wrap up the ten commandments next week, Lord willing, I hope you will have the eyes of your hearts enlightened to see how the keeping of all of these commands contributes to a healthy community, especially in the household of faith.
“ ‘You shall not murder.
“ ‘And you shall not commit adultery.
It is hard to get much more direct than the 6-9th commandments. You shall not murder. No caveats, no exceptions, no maybes, not what ifs. And you shall not commit adultery. No caveats, no exceptions, no maybes, no what ifs. You shall not. Let us look first at the command to not murder. Some translations of the Bible, including the KJV, have translated this to say “You shall not kill.” And unfortunately, over time, many have wrongly used this passage to say that therefore there should be no death penalty, or that a Christian can not go to war, or if he must, he must not carry a weapon, because of the commandment not to kill.
But the word translated here from Hebrew is not so broad as the word kill suggests in English. For if we were to take this completely literally, that is the translation, you shall not kill, then we would have a conflict in scripture. Actually more than one conflict. For one, God often commanded His people to kill when He sent them to war against His enemies. Joshua was commanded to kill 5 kings; When Israel came into the promised land, they came in as conquerers, commanded by God to kill off entire populations. If God never changes, then we would have a major problem if we took you shall not kill to be a contradiction to this command.
However, we need not fear that there is a contradiction, because there is not. I need not remind most of you that the Old Testament is translated from the ancient Hebrew language, and in their language, just as in ours, they had words that may be similar but these words had a specific meaning. And the word translated to murder in most translations, and translated into kill in a few, has a specific meaning in the original Hebrew that means you shall not kill on a personal level.
What does that mean, to kill on a personal level? Well, it means you killed based on your own judgment, either for revenge, or from anger, or even if you perceived that someone was committing a sin that deserved the death penalty. You could not, on your own, act as judge, jury, and executioner. For those sins that required the death penalty, it was up to the community, not the individual, to punish. And this was through courts or a decision of the elders of the community. And remember, from my sermon on the cities of refuge back in May, that there were strict rules regarding the proof needed, namely there had to be two or more eyewitnesses to the crime, and there had to be examination and cross examination of those witnesses. But clearly God mandated the death penalty in cases of proven murder.
“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
Yet even in a terrible case, you and others witnessed your neighbor commit murder, it was not up to you as an individual, or even you and your friends, to put him to death. There has to be a trial, just like Wyatt Earp holding off the lynch mob, and they shouted “he just killed a man”, to which Wyatt Earp answered, “And he’ll stand trial for it!”. You see, Israel was not to be like the wild west, nor was it to be like the Hatfields and the McCoys, where families more or less sent assassins out, each revenge killing ramping up the war. The people of Israel were to have an ordered community, and this is in part why the book of Deuteronomy exists. It sets down the rules for the people to live by, which are also found in the other books of the Pentateuch.
You were not to commit any personal killing. No taking the law into your own hands. However, if a crime was committed, there were crimes for which there was a death penalty. The two commands we are looking at this morning both were death penalty commandments. If you violated either one, you were subject to the death penalty. But let me stress again that the standards of proof were high, and the charge to the community to get justice right is also high. And next week we will look at the commandment about bearing false witness, which ties into these commands as well.
You shall not murder does not apply to someone who, in the act of defending himself or others from violence, killed someone. The Bible is very clear about the right of people not only to defend themselves from violence, but actually lays out the obligation to defend others. If someone came into this church to commit violence, I hope every man in here would stand to defend the family of God. I certainly would not stand by and let someone commit violence to my family, which all of you are part of.
So self-defense or defending others from violence is not violating this command. But some Christians have pointed out that Jesus, in commanding our love for our enemies, also said to turn the other cheek. But does this mean we are not to defend ourselves or others?
Just a few weeks ago, Focus on the family had a brief blog about this, and in part they said: “Christ is telling His followers that they need to let go of the desire to “get back” at others who have wronged them in some way. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other great thinkers in the history of Christian theology have explained this verse as follows. Disciples of Jesus should be willing to suffer personal injustices (see 1 Corinthians 6:6, 7). But they should also realize that loving one’s neighbor sometimes implies a willingness to use force. In other words, we should always be prepared to defend others who are being abused and mistreated in some way. Complete non-resistance, then, is not necessarily an absolute standard for the Christian life.”
Others have pointed out that when you stand by and allow the abuse of others, that you are guilty of the abuse, since you did nothing to stop it. We all have a responsibility to stand up to abuse, violence, bullying, and other cruel crimes. We do not tell a woman in an abusive relationship to turn the other cheek. We don’t tell a kid being bullied that he is a missionary in his school, so he should think about the mission over his personal safety or well-being. This sort of false piety has no place among believers. We must not be complicit in the mistreatment of others because we are going to take scripture to mean that Christians are supposed to be the type who just stand around letting themselves and others be mistreated.
It is also not a violation of this command for the soldier, who serves under proper authority, in a time of war, who must kill an enemy. However, it is incumbent on those who are sending the soldiers to war to be sure that the cause is just that they would send others to way for. Certainly world leaders at many times in human history have stood guilty of murder for conducting a war or battle that was unjust. But soldiers they commanded do not bear that same guilt, so long as they were following lawfully given orders. This can get messy, though. What does a private do when his captain tells him to leave none alive when there are unarmed civilians in the line of fire? And this is in part why the military has its own court system, to try and ensure that those fighting obey not only the law and conventions of war, but their code of conduct as well.
Remember that these commandments, and the keeping of them, reflect our love for God as well as our love for people. The vast majority of people are not guilty of actually murdering someone. Not only that, this is not only a biblical command, it is enshrined in the laws of just about every human civilization. Murder is not only against God’s law, it is against the law of the land as well. So at this point, it is possible that you may be thinking, then get on with it pastor, we know we are not supposed to kill people, this is hardly worth a sermon about it. And probably there were Jewish people in the days when Jesus was preaching who did not spend much time reflecting on this commandment, since it was so clear and so universal, and the vast majority of the population would certainly be able to say, “Of course, I never have, and never will, murder someone.”
So when Jesus came onto the scene he skipped over this commandment because it was already so well known and understood that it would have been a waste of time for him to talk about it, right? Well, no, that isn’t the case. In fact, what Jesus did, was he took a command that most people probably thought they had nothing to worry about, and he made it something we all had to worry about.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
I’m sure many people listening to the sermon on the mount were taken aback by this statement. Anger equals murder? Yet where does murder start? Usually with anger. Wrapped up with that anger can be jealousy, greed, coveting. Look at what James says about what causes fights:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
I have often opened up this passage when I have been dealing with children who have allowed themselves to get into a shouting match because no one wants to share. This is a great lesson to talk about with people who are in a bitter disagreement. I would argue that almost all division in the church could be explained by James 4. Sometimes it isn’t and actual object that is being coveted, it may be simply that you didn’t get things your way, and others did. It is sad to say, but many church divisions have not been over doctrine or interpretation of scripture, but about where a plant should go, or what types of seating we should have, or the color of the curtains, or temperature the thermostat is set to.
I wish I were only joking. I actually had a guy tell me about how he and someone else in a particular church had a cold war over the thermostat. So he would try to be to church early to get the seat closest to the thermostat so that he would have control. I sat and listened to him telling me this with shock, but he was pretty serious about it. He had a passion for the church being at the temperature he wanted it at.
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
Now, let’s go back to what Jesus said there in the sermon on the mount again for a moment. If I were to paraphrase what Jesus said, it is something like this. If you hold anger in your heart towards someone, even though you may not actually physically murder them, you are just as guilty in your heart as if you had. And when you speak of someone with derision, calling them a fool or something like that, you are deserving of hell. This is so important that if you bring a gift to God, it will be stained by your anger towards another. You need to forgive, and before you bring a gift to God, you need to seek that person out and make it right, and forgive them, and then you can come to God.
Now, it is no coincidence that just after rocking everyone’s world about what the sixth commandment, not to murder, is really about, Jesus went on to the next command. Now he makes all the people who thought they were safe because they had never physically committed murder or adultery even more uncomfortable as he deals with the issue of lust:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
The commandment is you shall not commit adultery. This needed no further explanation in most Jewish people’s eyes. The word had only one meaning; Adultery is when a married person has sexual intercourse with someone other than their spouse. Since this commandment potentially could lead to the guilty parties being put to death, it is safe to say that Jesus was speaking to people who mostly did not worry about this commandment, because most people would not have committed this sin.
In fact in the ancient near east, this was referred to as the Great Sin. It was associated with anarchy. In other words, it was a sin against society itself. This sin carried with it a lot of guilt and shame. Adultery was also something God used as an illustration for those who worshiped other gods, or idols. So it shouldn’t surprise us that idolatry was also referred to as the Great sin. Israel’s disloyalty to Yahweh was compared to adultery by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea. It is one of the ugliest sins. When I have counseled couples preparing to get married, I always start the first session by reading from Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
I read this and then I tell the couple that throughout scripture, God uses marriage as an illustration. It is at times an illustration of the Trinity. Marriage gives us a picture of the Trinity. In the Trinity, there is perfect unity, and that is what our ideal for marriage should be. But also scripture uses marriage as an illustration for our relationship with God, and of course, Christ and his church. So Paul is saying to women in Ephesus that her husband is to be to her as Christ is to the church, and likewise to the husband, that He is to be a representative of Christ to his wife.
Now, I know that verse 22 offends many today, who would say that a woman should not be expected to submit to her husband. Well, sometimes it may be helpful to reframe the idea. So I would ask a woman who may object to this teaching about submission this question: If your husband were perfectly like Christ, would you have and problem submitting to him as head of the household? And every Christian woman would answer, “No, I would not have a problem submitting if he were perfectly like Christ, but he aint!”
And to the husband, who may like to take this verse to get his wife to do his bidding, I would ask an even tougher question. “Do you love your wife as Christ loves his church?” None of can say we have done this perfectly, or at times even very well. So then I could ask the husband, “How do you expect her to submit to you if you are not modeling Christ?”
Now, if we were focused more on the fact that marriage is to be likened to Christ and his church, we will find ourselves less tempted towards the sin of adultery, even the expanded way Jesus described it. We would do well to bring together once and for all in our minds this concept, that marriage on earth is an illustration of God’s love and desire for relationship to us. And God considers the sin of adultery to be particularly heinous.
And this is why, through those prophets, God often used the language of sexual sin in describing apostate Israel. In fact, the language gets pretty colorful. Those who sin against God, especially in the area of idol worship, are called whores, prostitutes, adulterers. So I think that we can conclude that our proper reaction to these sexual sins and perversions all around us should be disgust. However, rather than just shake our heads at the sexual perversions in our society, we ought to reflect on ourselves and our relationship with our holy God.
You see, he considers the violation of marriage vows to be violence: Malachi2.15-16
Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
We may not consider sexual sin to be violence, but God does. And let us not be like the many in Jesus’ day, who probably thought themselves safe from accusation that they had violated the command against adultery because they never completed the physical act of it, for as Jesus pointed out, that sin begins in our mind.
If God considers it violence, then we ought to as well, for what does it all lead to? Broken families, lifelong hurt, confused children who deal with the fallout of divorce. And the violence sexual sin does to our society is visible everywhere we look. So I challenge you, based upon the case I have made this morning from scripture, to make a connection in your mind of these sins with the idolatry that God associates it with.
The thrice holy God sees violations to these commands as violence. Certainly they are violence to people, in the sense that people are ripped apart emotionally and spiritually by these sins. However, the greater violence is against God Himself.
A holy God, who has given good gifts to his creatures, and has proven himself to be trustworthy and just and righteous, expects that those creatures will honor him in the keeping of his commands. And really, the breaking of any of his commands does violence against God himself. Any sin, no matter how lightly we may take it, is cosmic treason against God the creator, God the perfect judge, the thrice holy God of all.
Jesus makes this clear to us in making an unequivocal statement about the judgement, when God will evaluate people’s attitude towards him based on their demonstrated attitude towards others: “Truly I say to you, as you did or did not do to one of the least of these, you did or did not do to me.” We would be unable to find a more direct connection between how our treatment of those created in God’s image reflects our love or lack of love for God himself.
“Which commandment is the most important of all?”, Jesus was asked. His answer:
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
We have looked at two commands this morning that indeed are to be taken seriously. As we have seen, these commandments are an indication of our heart more than the actual actions, as Jesus stated in the Sermon. Which tells us that really we must concern ourselves with not only our actions, but our thoughts,
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
How do we discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect? By reading the word of God.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
We have all fallen short of the standard. But what do we do, when we realize that we have messed up? What do we do, when we are face to face with God’s word, and it discerns the thoughts and intentions of our heart, and our thoughts and intentions have been opposed to the will of God? Repent, and believe the gospel.
May we all reflect on our own hearts and attitudes, and may we have the humility to repent whenever God’s Word shows us our own faults, and may we believe the truth of the gospel, that he saves us despite ourselves, and will always forgive the one who sincerely confesses their sin to him.