Q. 63. What are the special privileges of the visible church? A. The visible church hath the privilege of being under God’s special care and government; of being protected and preserved in all ages, notwithstanding the opposition of all enemies; and of enjoying the communion of saints, the ordinary means of salvation, and offers of grace by Christ to all the members of it in the ministry of the gospel, testifying, that whosoever believes in him shall be saved, and excluding none that will come unto him.
Ps. 115:1-2 Isa 31:4-5 Zech 12:2-9 – The visible church is protected and preserved by God in all ages, in spite of the opposition of enemies.
Commentary by Johannes G. Vos
What is meant by saying that the visible church is “under God’s special care and government”? By this we mean that in addition to God’s ordinary providence whereby he controls all things that come to pass, God provides for the safety and welfare of his church in a special way, making various circumstances and acts of men work together for the benefit of his church.
“Admittedly Christianity has always had a wimp problem. The kind of guy who can only jaw-jaw because he can’t war-war has always been with us, and one of the few acceptable employments he could find was in the Church. But this is an entirely different order of weak. If you actually go back and read the Bible — and I question how many of these “pastors” with “ministry” degrees actually have — the Jesus you see is a rough-and-ready character. He talks a lot about peace, love, and understanding… but He also orders His followers to arm themselves. He absolutely puts beatdowns on people. You get the full spectrum of human behavior with the Biblical Jesus.”
Nehemiah’s Wall serves as both metaphor and inspiration at Kingdom Defense.
The Book of Nehemiah tells the story of how Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem so that followers might once again worship God in safety. Nehemiah accomplishes this daunting task in a remarkably brief period of time using common folks who built with one hand while defending their actions from enemy attack with a weapon in their other hand.
The biblical account of “Nehemiah’s wall” is well known. Nehemiah was a Jew in Persian captivity. He was the cupbearer to the Persian King Artaxerxes. In 444 b.c, Nehemiah was granted permission to return to Judah and rebuild the dilapidated walls and gates of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed during the Babylonian invasions in the early sixth century.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he toured the city walls to assess the damage. He faced opposition as he made plans and directed the people in rebuilding the city walls. He was threatened as he persisted. Nehemiah had opposition from enemies and opposition from the people he was leading(1).
The Bible says that the threat was so great from outside the city Nehemiah posted armed guards along the walls to protect the city until the building was done. Men were armed and ready to fight while they worked daily to build the wall. The book of Nehemiah shows that Judah at the time was surrounded by enemies and under constant threat of attack. Nehemiah and his crew worked with great urgency and astonishing speed in order to rebuild the wall.
9 But we prayed to our God, and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night.
10 And so in Judah it was said: “The strength of the burden bearers is failing, Yet there is much rubble; And we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall.”
11 And our enemies said, “They will not know or see until we come among them, kill them, and put a stop to the work.”
12 When the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times, “They will come up against us from every place where you may turn,”
13 then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows.
14 When I saw their fear, I stood and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: “Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.”
15 Now when our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that God had frustrated their plan, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his work.
16 And from that day on, half of my servants carried on the work while half of them kept hold of the spears, the shields, the bows, and the coats of mail; and the captains were behind all the house of Judah.
17 Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens carried with one hand doing the work, and the other keeping hold of a weapon.
18 As for the builders, each wore his sword strapped to his waist as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me.
19 And I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “The work is great and extensive, and we are separated on the wall far from one another.
20 At whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, assemble to us there. Our God will fight for us.”
21 So we carried on the work with half of them holding spears from dawn until the stars appeared.
22 At that time I also said to the people, “Each man with his servant shall spend the night within Jerusalem, so that they may be a guard for us by night and a laborer by day.”
23 So neither I, my brothers, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me—none of us removed our clothes; each took his weapon even to the water.
(New American Standard Bible (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 2020), Ne 4:9–23.)
Nehemiah’s Wall as a metaphor.
Nehemiah’s Wall
As metaphor, one might say that Nehemiah’s Wall illustrates the current state of Christianity. Declining (2) participation shows no sign of abating, while attacks against Christians, both physically and spiritually, accelerate. The wall that needs rebuilding is both spiritual and physical, spiritual from the standpoint of rebuilding our relationship with Christ, and physical from the standpoint of defense against those who would harm followers of Christ.
For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer (verse 4). The power of the sword is the exercise of force by government which is given to it by God. Paul, in the next breath, says the ruler is the servant of God. Of course, force is to be used only for righteousness, but that force is a legitimate dimension of ruling authority which this servant of God is given. The church has not been given the power of the sword, but the state has been given this authority.
Problem of war
Several theories concerning the Christian involvement in war have been postulated throughout church history and the debate continues even to our day.
There are those who take a pacifist position which says that under no circumstances is a Christian ever allowed to bear arms, and it is the duty of the Christian always to remain a conscientious objector, to refuse to participate in warfare. The second position is one which we hear, sadly, from time to time: ‘My country right or wrong, my country.’ There are Christians who believe that any time a nation enters into war and conscripts its own citizens, it is the duty of the Christian to serve his civil government in whatever warfare it is engaged in. There were Christians in Germany who appealed to that principle of civil obedience to the magistrate, to justify their involvement in the Holocaust.
The third view, which I believe to be the biblical view, is what is called the ‘just war’ theory. The basic principle of this theory is that all wars are evil, but not everyone’s involvement in war is evil. It presupposes that in warfare, which is a dreadful thing, there are aggressors and there are innocent victims. There are those who take the offence, and those who are on the defence. The just war theory says that it is unjust for someone to wage war aggressively by attacking other nations’ borders and subjecting them to murder on a grand scale. And so the theory sees a war of aggression as a violation of the prohibition against murder. If an individual wilfully and with malice aforethought kills another individual, we call that murder and all of the negative sanctions of Scripture are called into play there. Well, if a nation, as a group, imposes murder on another group from another nation, that is equally murder and the sanctions of murder apply.
But the question arises, Does the civil magistrate, within the geographical boundaries of his own domain, have the right or the responsibility to use force to resist an aggressor and to protect his own people from being victims to hostile and aggressive acts? Again, if we look at an individual level we ask, Does the policeman have the right to use force to stop a murderer from committing his act of murder against a private citizen? And generally the answer to that question is yes. Again, by way of analogy, warfare in a defensive posture is then seen as self-defence or protection on a grand scale. The just war theory says that it is perfectly just for the government of a nation to wage defensive war.
But what is the Christian’s responsibility herein? He is to remember the principles we have learned already from this section of Scripture: (1) that it is his duty to be as submissive to the government as he possibly can without violating the laws of God; (2) that the government does have a God-given right to bear the sword, and not only a right to bear the sword but a responsibility to bear the sword, because one of the primary tasks of government is to preserve, maintain, defend and promote life. If these principles are sound, then it would seem clear that the Christian’s responsibility is to obey and to serve. Therefore the just war theory advocates that Christians who are called to serve in the armed forces in a righteous cause have a moral obligation to serve. They are not exempt from participation in a just action perpetrated by the state. What happens if the state is itself the aggressor, and is involved in an unjust, unjustifiable act of warfare? If the state calls me to help it commit murder on a grand scale then, as a Christian, it is my duty to refuse to serve, no matter what the consequences may be.
Notice that in verse 4, the use of the sword is not only for restraint, but also as an instrument of vengeance. The civil magistrate, who holds an office that is enforced by instruments of violence, carries out a task of vengeance. This raises another difficult question with respect to biblical teaching because the Bible says clearly, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.’ Christians are clearly prohibited from being private, personal agents of revenge. But God, who has the right to vengeance, also has the right to delegate instruments of vengeance. This is precisely what we learn in this verse, that God delegates to the civil magistrate a certain measure of vengeance, making the civil magistrate a minister of vengeance on God’s behalf. So it is within the province of the civil magistrate to seek retributive justice. It is within the province of the state to punish the evil doer.
R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 216–218.
Jesus advising the disciples to buy a sword in Luke 22:36: “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
First, let’s look at a Gospel setting in which Christ absolutely endorses self-defense. “But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into (Luke 12:39). ” Isn’t Jesus saying here that violence – or certainly the threat of violence – is not just the reasonable, but even the responsible, option to take in protecting one’s property, never mind one’s person or one’s family?
Then, we have this next quotation from the Gospel of Mark: “But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man (3:27).” Now, why would the bad guy have to bind the strong man? Obviously, because the strong man would otherwise do all he could to keep the bad guy out! And again, that’s just to protect property.
As if to confirm Mark’s Gospel, we find these additional words of Christ in the Gospel of Luke: “When the strong man, fully armed, guards his courtyard, his property is undisturbed (11:21).” In case anyone still doesn’t get the point, it is not enough simply to defend yourself when the situation arises; you should be armed and ready to defend even your property. And this, of course, is what Jesus told his disciples to do shortly before he was taken prisoner when he told them to make sure they had swords: arm yourselves and be ready.
Read the complete post by Lars Larsen here: 0riginal post https://www.ktsa.com/does-jesus-christ-support-self-defense/
Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. NEH 4:17
The Wall is part blog, part journal, part bulletin board, and part archive I set up in order to further the discussion about the use of force in defense of church and community. Learn MORE ABOUT THE WALL.
