Thoughts on Islam

By Kerry Duke

03/09/2005
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Questions About Islamic Jihad and Biblical Teaching
On The Use of Physical Force

1. Do the Quran’s words “Fight those who believe not in Allah”  (Surah 9:29) describe a spiritual conflict similar to Paul’s command “Fight the good fight of faith” (I Tim. 6:12)?

Paul said nothing about using physical coercion against unbelievers for the simple reason that they are unbelievers.  In fact, when he warned Timothy earlier in this chapter of perverse and unreasonable men, he didn’t tell the younger preacher to cut off their heads; he told him “from such withdraw thyself” (I Tim. 6:5).  The “good fight of faith” is a struggle against the love of money and other evils (I Tim. 6:6-11).

The Bible clarifies the nature of this fight by denying that it is a physical battle.  Paul explained, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:4-5).  When he said to put on the armor of God, he added, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).

Jesus denied that His kingdom is to be extended by the sword.  “My kingdom is not of this world,” He told Pilate, adding, “If my kingdom were of this world, then would not my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36).  Kingdoms of the earth use physical force to enforce their laws and protect their land.  But what these kingdoms do is the very thing the kingdom of Christ is not to do.

2. Does Jesus teach pacifism?  Does the New Testament forbid self-defense?  Can a Christian serve as a policeman or a soldier?

Christian responses to the viciousness of Islamic jihad can go too far in the opposite direction.  While the good fight of faith is a spiritual conflict and the gospel converts men by persuasion instead of force, it is a misconception to say that Jesus forbids all physical force.

Jesus told the disciples, “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one” (Luke 22:36).  This is like telling someone today to sell enough clothes to buy a gun.  Why would his disciples need swords?  For self-protection.  The ancient world had dangerous places and some very mean people.  A sword had a definite purpose: to kill.  The pacifist view cannot be harmonized with Jesus’ words.  The Lord did tell Peter later, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt. 26:52).  There are legitimate times to use the sword, but this was not one of them. Jesus cannot mean that all uses of the sword are wrong, else why would He tell the disciples to buy one, and why would Peter even be carrying one?

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is greatly misused to teach pacifism, especially Matthew 5:38-42. In this section (Matthew 5:21-48), Jesus is not contrasting the Old Testament with the New Testament; He is contrasting God’s original will about these matters with what the scribes and Pharisees taught.  The scribes and Pharisees taught those parts of the law that benefited them and ignored passages that condemned them.  They taught against murder (and rightly so – Exod. 20:13), but they ignored verses against hate (e.g., Lev. 19:17-18) – Matthew 5:21-26.  They forbade adultery (and rightly so – Exod. 20:14), but they ignored verses on lust (Prov. 6:25; Job 31:1) – Matthew 5:27-28.  In Matthew 5:38-42, Jesus continues this contrast.  The scribes and Pharisees taught civil justice (Exod. 21:23; Lev. 24:20), but they did not practice mercy, which was also taught in the Old Testament (Hos. 6:6).  In fact, one of the themes of Matthew is mercy (Matt. 5:6, 5:38-42: 9:10-13; 12:1-8; 18:23-35; 23:23; 25:31-46).  The Jews were often unmerciful in their dealings with each other.  If anyone owed them or wronged them in the slightest way – regardless of intention or mitigating circumstances – the Jews went “for blood.”  And they would cite Exodus 21:23 or Leviticus 24:20 for justification.

Matthew 5:38-42 contains some figurative expressions.  Specifically, it contains hyperbole – an exaggerated statement for emphasis.  Jesus had already used this figure just verses earlier (Matt. 5:29-30).  Jesus Himself did not literally turn the other cheek in John 18:22-23.  He rebuked the men who struck Him, as Paul rebuked the high priest in Acts 23:1-3.  To read Jesus’ words without the qualifications placed upon them by other passages leads to absurdity.  For instance, what if someone wrongfully sues you?  Does Matthew 5:40 apply?  What if a drunkard asks you for money to buy liquor?  Does Matthew 5:42 demand that you “give to him that asketh thee”?  Jesus is talking to people who were extreme in their misapplication of the words quoted in Matthew 5:38, and He uses extreme language (hyperbole) to pull them back to the center, so to speak, that is, to the real meaning of these passages in the Old Testament.

3. What about the Israelite wars in the Old Testament?  Didn’t God command the killing of men, women, and children, and isn’t it true that some of these wars were unprovoked?

Muslims and their liberal friends in the media love to bring up the subject of war in the Old Testament.  Radio and television interviews only give you a few seconds to answer questions like these, and hosts know this is not enough time.  A scriptural response can be made, but some questions, like these, take more than ten seconds to explain.

It is true that God commanded the Israelites to kill “the men, women, and children” of numerous heathen nations (Deut. 3:6). When the army of Israel went into Jericho, “they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword” (John 6:21).  The Israelites fought against these cities until “there was not any left to breathe” (Josh. 11:11).

Before the Israelites entered Canaan, God told them why they were to put these people to death: “for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee” (Deut. 9:6).  How bad was the wickedness of the Canaanites? Leviticus 18-20 tells us.  The land was full of abominations: human sacrifice, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality were some of the perversions common in Canaan.  In this section of Leviticus God warns the Israelites that if they commit these sins, they are to be executed themselves.  To show them how serious He was, God ordered the Israelites to put the Canaanites to death for these very things.  The wars in Joshua were a wide scale case of capital punishment.

The extent of the killing in these wars has sometimes shocked readers of the Old Testament.  We can see the execution of adult perpetrators of these vile acts better than we can understand why the children were killed.  This difficulty has been leveraged by atheists and skeptics for centuries.  Robert Ingersoll and other enemies of the Bible have asked, “If God was the commander of these wars, what would the devil have done if he had been in charge?”

Ultimately this question is a matter of addressing more fundamental questions: does the God of the Bible exist, and, is the Bible the inspired Word of God?  If God exists, and if the Bible is true, then the Christian religion stands and Islam is false.  While I cannot offer evidence for these truths here, we have entire courses on these issues and a great deal of literature which discusses them.  However, I do want to make a few observations on this alleged moral problem in the Old Testament.

As far as atheistic uses of this criticism are concerned, the charge of atheists that these wars were morally wrong contradicts atheism itself.  If there is no God, then morality is a subjective human opinion, and no atheist can say these wars were objectively wrong.

God has the right to take life as well as to give it.  Babies as well as adults died in the flood.  If God can take innocent lives without human intervention, then He has the right to take those lives through human instruments.  But only God can exercise that right by a direct act or by a command.  So the whole question gets back to whether the Bible is inspired of God or the Quran is inspired of God.

The nation of Israel was unique.  The Israelite nation was a theocracy, a kingdom with no separation of civil and religious rule.  This nation had a privileged status which no other nation before or since has ever enjoyed.  Israel was the chosen nation of God, and the whole world has benefited from God’s protection and preservation of this nation because the Messiah came through Israel. But that preservation was made possible in part by war.

The Israelite people forfeited this chosen position as God’s people when they rejected Jesus (Matt. 21:43).  They lost God’s favor as a nation because of their sins.  Today the true Israel is the church of Christ, a spiritual kingdom made up of Jews and Gentiles (Gal. 6:16).

Muslims prove nothing by attempting to draw a parallel between jihad and Israelite wars in the Old Testament.  Their god is different from the God of the Bible.  Their book is different from the Bible.   And their motivation and tactics of bloodshed are certainly not the same as those we read in Scripture.