Does the Bible say anything about holy war?

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.

To the believer it ought not to be a question whether Israel was justified in the conquest of Canaan; and the endeavours to soften the matter, whether by Jews or by Christians, are vain. It was righteous vengeance on earth, not wrath from heaven, still less grace reigning by righteousness as in the gospel. It is not well founded, if Scripture be our authority, that Joshua proposed flight or peace, with war as the unwilling alternative; nor is there any ground to suppose that the Canaanites would have been spared in case of surrender, whatever the mercy to individuals exceptionally. The Canaanites were devoted, in the most stringent and solemn manner, to utter destruction. It was not vengeance on the part of Israel, but of God, who was pleased to make His people executors of judgment.

Israel were called to fight the Lord's battles. The moment they put their foot upon the land of it was war to the knife with the doomed inhabitants. "Of the cities of these people which the Lord God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes." This was distinct and emphatic. The seed of Abraham were not only to possess the land of Canaan, but they were to be God's instruments in executing His just judgement upon the guilty inhabitants, whose sins had risen up to heaven, and become absolutely intolerable.

Does any one feel called upon to apologise for the divine actings towards the seven nations of Canaan. If so, let him be well assured of this that his labour is perfectly gratuitous, entirely uncalled for. What folly for any poor worm of the earth to think of entering upon such work! And what folly, too, for any one to require an apology or an explanation. It was a high honour put upon Israel to exterminate those guilty nations — an honour of which they proved themselves utterly unworthy, inasmuch as they failed to do as they were commanded. They left alive many of those who ought to have been utterly destroyed; they spared them to be the wretched instruments of their own ultimate ruin, by leading them into the self-same sins which had so loudly called for divine judgement.

233 Having given this general view of the connection of the whole subject, I return to the conquest of Canaan. The scriptures are express in presenting it as an example of God's positive judgment after all patience had already been shewn to be useless (as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha); of His power against the enemies of His nature, purposes, and people; and of His faithfulness to these last. Abraham was told that his descendants must go down and dwell in Egypt for a long period, for the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full; and this took place. Israel was clearly informed of the cause why they were thus judged: "Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, but for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord doth drive them out before thee," Deut. 9:5; Deut. 18:12. This truth is expressed in the strongest possible manner (Lev. 18) in warning Israel not to fall into the like abominations. "And the land is defiled, therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes … that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." Thus a people, allowed to ripen up to their full height of wickedness, are taken as the occasion of shewing God's righteous wrath and power. Israel is fully warned and apprised of the principle on which it was done. It is a great public sample of God's full judgment in the earth. They were to be destroyed by the judicial power of God. It was also (as the case of Achan fully shews) the occasion of shewing God's power and faithfulness, but His strict judgment of evil in the midst of His people.

So far as to Israel, simply looked at as from within: a sterner duty awaited them as to the land into which Jehovah was about to bring them. They were completely to destroy out of it the Canaanite inhabitants, showing them no mercy, making no covenant or alliance with them. Over and over again the cause of this has been explained. They were a people whose iniquity was now full, as in Abraham's time it yet was not. (Gen. 15.) The land itself was spuing them out for their abominations, and Israel was in this respect but the executioner of divine judgment, not of their own passion or lust of acquisition. Instead of destroying them, as He might, by plague or famine, He chose Israel to perform this office, and thus gave His people themselves the most solemn lesson that could be given them, in the holiness of His own nature, and in what sin is before Him. They themselves would incur similar awful judgments if they followed them in their sin, of which their loathsome gods of lust and murder were the full outcome and expression. There must be no dalliance with this evil, no league of any kind with those infected with it. Axe and fire must deal with all its symbols, and Israel must be wholly devoted to Him who had set His love upon them in all their insignificance, and in that love, and faithful to His promise to their fathers, had now redeemed them to Himself. Thus they knew God, this true and faithful God, — faithful in holy judgment as in loving mercy.

It is a day of judgment on these nations, as the day of Noah had been on the world before the flood, or the day of Lot on the cities of the plain, or the day of Moses on the land of Egypt. Joshua's sword, as we have already said, is to be interpreted as that of a judge, rather than that of a conqueror. The giving of their inheritance to the children of Abraham may appear to be the principal cause of this great action, but it is really grounded on the fact that the iniquity of the Amorites was now full. The sword of conquest for Israel is the sword of judgment on the Canaanites — and the people of the Lord had to wait on the ripening of the nation's sin and the judgment of the Lord, ere they could attain their inheritance (see Gen. 15:16).

Already in Gen. 15:16 God had said to Abraham: "For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." The Amorites were one of the main nations of Canaan. The idolatry of the Canaanites with their idols Baal ("Lord"), Moloch ("King") and Astaroth ("Spouse") was linked with dreadful moral excesses such as child offering and prostitution. And yet God showed grace towards these nations for more than 400 years. But once Israel came to live in Canaan the extermination of these idolatrous nations was a necessary spiritual task. On the one hand God used Israel to punish the ungodliness of these nations. On the other hand this was the only way to preserve the people of God from defilement and from taking over these sinful customs. Israel became God's instrument so to say to fulfil His moral goals (Sodom and Gomorra likewise had been exterminated by God for the same reason - but without human intervention). The disobedience of Israel in this respect unfortunately let idolatry creep in amongst the people of God. -

How wonderful to think of the Lord as a Man of war! Think of His fighting against people! Some find it very hard to take in the idea — to understand how a benevolent Being could act in such a character. But the difficulty arises mainly from not distinguishing between the different dispensations. It was just as consistent with the character of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to fight against His enemies, as it is with the character of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to forgive them. And inasmuch as it is the revealed character of God that furnishes the model on which His people are to be found — the standard by which they are to act, it was quite as consistent for Israel to cut their enemies in pieces, as it is for us to love them, pray for them, and do them good.

If this very simple principle were borne in mind, it would remove a quantity of misunderstanding, and save a vast amount of unintelligent discussion. No doubt it is thoroughly wrong for the church of God to go to war. No one can read the New Testament, with a mind free from bias, and not see this. We are positively commanded to love our enemies, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them that despitefully use us. "Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword." And again, in another gospel, "Then said Jesus to Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" Again, our Lord says to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight" — it would be perfectly consistent for them so to do — … "But now is my kingdom not from hence" — and therefore it would be wholly out of character utterly inconsistent, thoroughly wrong for them to fight.

Dean Milman may be right in saying that the Amalekites were the most harassing of Israel's foes; but he was scarcely so in adding, "It was a cruel but inevitable policy to carry a war of extermination into their country." Saul lost his kingdom and was rejected of the Lord, not because of a mistaken policy in sparing Agag and the best of the spoil from destruction, but for disobedience to an express command. "Now go," said the Lord of hosts, "and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

No truth is more clearly revealed in scripture than that the Lord put the sword of judgment into the hands of Israel and commanded them to use it with unrelenting severity in certain cases (Deut. 20:10-18). It was an honour conferred on them to execute the judgment written, and this will yet be true of them again, strange as it may sound in our ears (Zech. 9; 10; Ps. 149:6-9, and col. freq.). How different now! Those who have been led to discover in Jesus a Saviour, to know the ransom of their souls by His blood, and to receive in Hint risen and glorified the free gifts of righteousness and eternal life, are made God's ministers of love, of mercy, and of grace to a rebellious world. The same Divine Lawgiver who, in perfect harmony with the dispensation of the law, said to Saul, "Utterly destroy, and spare them not," now, in the day of salvation, says to His redeemed, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you" (Matt. 5: see also Rom. 12:17 — 20, 1 Thess. 5:15, 1 Peter 3:9). This is the superlative honour put upon those that are Christ's, and to hear these sayings of the Lord and not to do them is to be like unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Rejection of any of the words of the Lord will assuredly entail loss. The path of obedience in every dispensation is not only the safe path, but the path of present blessing and future glory. The believer is saved, for he has received the word of the truth of the gospel; but let him not stop there. Having life, he is to live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. He may lose his crown, though not his soul. To receive Christ is everything now; and as Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord, so the Holy Spirit by the word deals unsparingly with all that is of the flesh in Christians (Gal. 5:17).

In this final test of Saul it is important to observe that there were no difficulties in the path of obedience. The resources at his command were abundant, and the victory was an easy one. The temptation to disobey came wholly from within. The commandment tested his heart, and it is the heart that the word of God lays bare. As for actions, how many in Saul wore a fair appearance! At first he was modest and humble, little in his own sight, and he ascribed his victory over the Ammonites to the Lord. When "the sons of Belial" insultingly opposed his elevation to the throne, he controlled his feelings and "held his peace"; and afterwards, when he was urged to use his power and put them to death, he refused, "For," said he, "today the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel."

In Deuteronomy 20 provision is made to reconcile any war that might arise with the enjoyment of the land and the blessing of God, either individually or in case of conquest; and directions are given to secure the presence of the power of God, and to shew how the enemies were to be treated according to the mind of God; all mercy towards the nations of Canaan being prohibited, in order that Israel might not learn the abominations they were guilty of.