Verse: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:43-45
Can I love someone and shoot them in the face? This is one of the first questions that as a grunt who is a Christian you must face. Even if you were saved after your service you must wrestle with, “was this ok or acceptable what I did? Or do I just chalk it up to sin that I committed by being in the service?” It is a hard thing to wrestle with.
At a very bare bones and basic level the answer is yes. You can love someone as Christ loves them and kill them. It is hard to think about, but it is true, and we must wrestle with it so that we can share this truth with others and have more confidence doing our job.
Why can we kill and love the way Jesus does? Because Jesus does it. Revelation 19:11-16 there is a description given by John of Christ’s return to earth. “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sits on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; having a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself, and being clothed with a garment dipped in blood, His name is also called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the wrath of the rage of God, the Almighty. And He has on His garment and on His thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
When the Lord returns, he will bring forth the final judgement on all those have rejected Him. He will pour out His perfect and divine wrath upon all unrighteousness. As Isaiah 2:12 says, “For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low” That is what He will do when he returns to earth. Has He stopped to love people? Did He shift to somehow hating them?
The answer obviously no. 1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love” I think it is an often misconception in the Christian community as to what love is. We should define love as God, period. He tells us in His word how to act on that, but that is how a believer in Christ should define love. When we let the world define love for us, that is when we enter murky water. To the world love is just a cultural and emotional drive. If we depend on that and know that Satan is the god of the world (2 Corinthians 4:4) we can be easily misled.
So, we establish that God is Love. And God has waged war and killed people himself in the past and will again in the future. This is to pour out His perfect and holy wrath on the unjust. As Christians, we strive to be like Christ and love like He did. Does that mean that the Church should take Godly Grunts Ministry and turn it into the armed wing of Christ Kingdom?
Before Jesus is betrayed, He tells His disciples to buy swords. Luke 22:26, “And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword should sell his garment and buy one” Jesus tells his disciples here to arm themselves because he knows that they will be facing danger and He will no longer be here in the flesh.
So, when Jesus and the disciples are betrayed by Judas, Peter says, “ok time to act” and swings. As he aims for the head, he cuts off a man’s ear and Jesus stops him. Why? Didn’t Jesus just tell them to get the swords? Jesus tells Peter that “whoever lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” This is not how Christ plans to proclaim and bring about His kingdom. He is saying what Paul will say later in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds.”
So, to answer the question, no Godly Grunts ministry will not and should not be turned in a paramilitary organization to kill sinners. But as we have discussed in previous posts, God has a designated ministry via the governments of this world to pour out his wrath on the evil doers (Romans 13:4).
This may seem like a long way around answering this question, but it is important to not only wrestle with this but understand how God works in this world. So, we see that God commands us to love our enemy, yet we are in a job that requires us to kill them. We looked at the fact that God is the definition of love and killed people in the past, present, and future to accomplish his perfect and holy justice. The Church is not called to be the ones who enact this on earth but rather to proclaim the truth of the Gospel and call sinners to repent and live forever in God’s grace and mercy. But we also see that God has a ministry of the sword here on earth that is called to do this ministry through governments that strive to please Him.
How does this look practically? It is kind of easy to look at the theological truth and say, “Cool ok” and go on with the grunt life never changing the way we view the enemy. But we must not hate them, rather love them, and pray for them.
When I got my orders to Afghanistan and the whole time I was there, I prayed everyday for the Taliban. It was a simple part of my prayers that is rooted deeply in scripture. “Lord I pray also for the Taliban, ISIS, and any other person that declares themselves our enemy (Matt 5:44). Lord let the Gospel be proclaimed to them that they might be saved and repent of their wickedness (Rom. 1:16). If they do not Father, train my hands for war that I might be an instrument for your justice. Guide my rounds that I may put them down in a fast and efficient way so that you may deal with them (Psalm 144:1).
We love our enemies, but we also love those whom they terrorize. And because we love God, we carryout the mission and purposes He has for us on this earth. We need to search deeply and change our hearts if needed to not hate these people, but also to want to give them the Gospel if possible. But if not, we need to know that by killing them we are not only carrying out God’s ordained purpose for us, but we are also stopping them from doing anymore evil on this earth which would increase their eternal damnation. Pray for our enemy and the Gospel to flourish in their camp, but if not do your job with the confidence that God approves.
By, John Cooper
Godly Grunt 6
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