Peacebuilding and the Divine Warrior
By Al Wolters

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to peacemaking and peacebuilding. But how does that fit with the fact that the Bible often depicts God as someone who commands war, and who himself often engages in warfare? The picture of God as a warrior, literally "a man of war", is not restricted to the account of the Exodus or the conquest of the Promised Land, nor to the Old Testament. This point is made clear in the excellent book by biblical scholars Tremper Longman III and Daniel G. Reid entitled God is a Warrior (Zondervan, 1995).

In order to get a handle on this issue, it is important to look at the Bible as telling a single story which runs from Genesis to Revelation, and which projects a view of world history in which we today still find our place. Taking my cue from Longman and Reid, I distinguish five roughly chronological phases of the divine warrior theme in the unfolding revelation of the Bible.

Phase 1. God Fights the Flesh-and-Blood Enemies of Israel

This is the phase of so-called herem warfare, such as we find described in the Israelite conquest of the promised land. In reflecting on this, we should remember that the conquest was limited. Not all wars by Israelites are approved. Furthermore, the Old Testament itself puts the conquest in an ethical context. It is consistently described as an act of God's justice and punishment on a morally degraded society. Thirdly, God punishes both the Canaanites and the Israelites for the same behaviour. Israel in the long run suffered more punishment than the Canaanites of the conquest generation. And finally, the conquest anticipated the final judgment. It is a prototypical narrative which teaches that the wicked will face the awful reality of God's wrath.

Phase 2. God Fights Israel

In his covenant with Israel, Yahweh promises to be their God and protect them, and Israel promises to be his people and obey the laws he has given them. In the covenant treaty, the law is backed up by sanctions: Blessings flow from obedience and curses from disobedience. The history of Israel is full of examples of God punishing his own people for their covenant disobedience, culminating in the Babylonian Exile.

Phase 3. God Will Come in the Future as Warrior

But God did not give up on his people. One of the dominant themes in the post-exilic prophets is the future appearance of the divine warrior who would free his people.

Phase 4: Jesus Christ Fights the Spiritual Powers and Authorities

John the Baptist announces the coming Divine Warrior. When he hears about Jesus' healing ministry, he begins to doubt that this is really the One he had predicted. In Jesus' reply to John's doubts, he shows that he is the Divine Warrior, but he has intensified the battle. No longer is the battle a physical battle against flesh-and-blood enemies, but now it is directed toward the spiritual powers and authorities, and is fought with nonphysical weapons.

The climax of this phase is found, ironically, in the crucifixion. The seeming defeat is really a victory: "Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Col 2:15). This language of military victory is continued for the Ascension, as in Eph 4:8, citing the holy-war hymn Psalm 68.

Phase 5: The Final Battle

Yet John the Baptist was not wrong in expecting a violent Divine Warrior—but it would be at his second (not his first) coming. He will ultimately complete the victory assured by his death on the cross. This victory is described in many of the apocalyptic portions of the New Testament, for example Rev 19:11-21. It is a symbolic picture of the final judgment, bringing comfort to persecuted believers.

What can we learn from these five phases? There is obviously continuity between Old Testament and New in its stress on the Divine Warrior. But the way Jesus fulfills the Old Testament is surprising, as we see from the reaction of John the Baptist to Jesus' healing ministry.

The God of the Old Testament is not a different God from the God we encounter in the New. The war against the Canaanites was simply an earlier phase of the battle that comes to its climax on the cross and its completion at the final judgment. The object of warfare moves from the Canaanites, who are punished for their sin, to the spiritual powers and principalities, and then finally to the utter destruction of all evil, human and spiritual.

We return now to our initial question. How can we reconcile the call to peacemaking and peacebuilding with the biblical picture of the Divine Warrior?

The basic point to make is that Phase 4, the phase of the biblical drama in which we live, is an unexpected interlude, characterized by mission and peacebuilding. As we saw with John the Baptist, it was unexpected. Jesus breaks the mold of the expected Messiah as warrior-king.

In the New Testament it turns out that "the great and terrible Day of the Lord" which the Old Testament had predicted, is spread over two different comings of the Messiah. Jesus' first coming opens up an interim period, a postponement of the final judgment. But that final judgment will come at his second coming.

The interim period which Jesus introduced was initially expected to be short. But now it's turned out to be at least two millennia. However, as 2 Peter 3 reminds us, God is not slow. Rather, he is patient, and wants to introduce a period of mission.

Coinciding with this period of mission: the time of peacemaking and peacebuilding.

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