What does the Bible say about fighting?

(Vv. 1-3). The Apostle has spoken of disorder and strife amongst the professing people of God. Now he asks, “From whence come wars and fightings among you?” He traces the wars amongst the people of God to the lusts of the heart finding expression in the members of the body. To gratify lust the flesh is prepared to kill and fight. In a literal sense this is true of the world and its wars. In a moral sense, if we are bent on carrying out our own wills, the flesh will ruthlessly belittle and override everyone that hinders the fulfilment of our desires.

If our desires are legitimate, there is no need to fight amongst ourselves to obtain them; we can ask of God. It is true, however, that we may not obtain an answer to our prayers, because we may ask with the wrong motive of gratifying some lust.

Whence come wars and whence fightings among you? asks James the Just. Is it not thence — from your pleasures which war in your members? Ye lust and have not; ye kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may spend it in your pleasures. How truly a furious man stirs up contentions! Whereas one slow to anger not only gives no occasion to strife, but appeases it. Peacemaking begins in the heart bowing to God in Christ through grace, and characterizes the spirit and walk.

The world has been from the beginning, as all history attests, a scene of unceasing strife; but its strife has been very generally a hopeless contest of evil with evil; for evil has no internal unity nor peace. Its elements may compact, but cannot concord. "Corruption is in the world through lust," lust is its essential feature, and we have had this already traced to its beginning in paradise itself; but lust means strife, means war, the conflict of jarring interests, each pursuing his own: "Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts, which war in your members?" In such a collision there can be no true victory any where. Such history may fill men's chronicles; with God it is a mere unmeaning blank.

Where did that “HELL” that everyone who has been at the front in Flanders says he has seen spring from? It did not spring up out of the ground, neither did it fall down out of heaven. Where, then, had it its origin? It had its origin in the corrupt, selfish, covetous heart of man. James says, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain” (4:1-2). This is the secret of all contention, such as is going on in this war, and in the heart of man this “Hell” has most surely originated, and on some head, or heads, will the hand of God fall with terrific force some day. But that day has net come yet, and that is one reason why He has not shown His hand in connection with it, on one side or on the other.

"Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even from your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war" (Jas. 4).

Strife and contention in the churches could not originate with God, for He is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints" (1 Cor. 14:33). It is from the flesh that these things spring, for we read: "From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?" (Jas. 4:1). The devil, the malignant and untiring enemy of God, is behind the flesh. He can work upon it; he could have no foothold amongst the saints of God apart from it.

There was much strife and contention amongst them. Whence come wars and fightings? Certainly not from the wisdom which is above, which is first pure and then peaceable. But wars and fightings are the fruits of the old nature, the flesh. They come from the pleasures which war in the members. The gratification of the lusts of the natural man produces fightings and not the new nature, that which is from above; this includes all forms of lusts, not only those of the flesh, but the lust for power, the lust for preeminence and leadership, the lusts of the mind. "Ye lust and have not"; there is nothing that can satisfy the heart of man; any kind of lust will end in disappointment and remorse. "Ye kill and covet and cannot obtain." This is the way of the world in sin and away from God; it shows that James speaks to the unbelieving of the twelve tribes, and pictures their condition. "Ye fight and war. Ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it in your pleasures." The natural man is also religious and as such prays. But their prayers sprang from the old nature, the desires of the flesh; they received not because they asked amiss. They prayed for selfish things, incited by selfish motives, so that they might gratify their sinful natures. Even true believers often ask and receive not, because they ask amiss, out of selfish reasons, to minister to their own pleasures and gratification. If the Lord would answer such prayers He would minister to that which is evil.

Having commended the spirit of peace in the Christian's ways, James now asks, "From whence come wars and fightings among you." But here we must inquire what is meant by "among you." It is not necessarily among Christians. Meekness of wisdom, wisdom that is gentle and easy to be entreated, became them. But, as we have seen, they found themselves still in the midst of the twelve tribes, who are, I doubt not, included in this "among you." And the Christians might find themselves implicated in these disputes, so that the exhortation is addressed to them also. These fightings came from their pleasures; the will was unbroken, lust distracted their hearts; they desired to have what they did not possess; conscience was silent, overpowered by lust, and the desires (unchecked by the will) gave the rein to the passions: "Ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, and yet ye have not."

Next the proximate cause is stated. "[Are they] not hence, from your pleasures that combat in your members?" It was the gratification of fallen nature. The members of the body in this case play their part, unchecked by the will or fear of God: the throat, an open sepulchre; the tongue, deceitful; the lips, with poison underneath; the mouth, full of bitterness; the eyes, full of adultery; the hands, ready for rapine; the heart, prone to covetousness; the feet, swift to shed blood. How hopelessly evil, if grace had not given another nature through and according to the word of truth (which is indeed, as the apostle calls it, Christ our life)! And the new has its pleasures after its source, hating what God hates, and delighting in what pleases' Him. His word is then the law of liberty.

War is the natural consequence of sin being in the world, and men and nations coveting the possessions of others. James 4:1-3. The principal wars recorded in scripture are, however, different: they are those of Israel in taking possession of Canaan for Jehovah as the Lord's host, and in maintaining their position in His land, for which they had divine instruction. Their warfare is typical of the conflict of Christians against principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies. Eph. 6:12. There are also the wars against Israel, when God used other nations to punish them. But God always maintained His rights in His own people and in His own land.

When Jehovah destroyed the army of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, He was called 'a man of war,' and this and other victories were recorded in "the book of the wars of Jehovah." Ex. 15:3; Num. 21:14. David could say of God, "He teacheth my hands to war." 2 Sam. 22:35; Ps. 18:34.

There are still wars on the earth, for sin is here, and nation rises against nation; and Israel again in the land will be persecuted by their enemies. The kings of the habitable world will be gathered at Armageddon to the battle of that great day of God the Almighty. Rev. 16:14, 16. The Lord must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet. This will be followed by a time when they "shall learn war no more," when warlike weapons will be beaten into agricultural instruments, and the Prince of Peace will reign over the whole earth.