Bible verses, songs, and publications are in abundance to showcase the peaceful nature of the Biblical Jesus. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”, “the Dove”, “Whoever is sinless should first cast the stone”, “he fixed the ear of the Roman soldier”, and more are what Christians cite when they tell us Jesus is full of Love, Peace and Mercy.
On this account, an average non-Christian who does not believe in Biblical Jesus see him, like Christians, as a pacifist when they view him through a Biblical lens.
What is worthy of note is that, for Jesus to be the Pacifist they want us to believe, they had to sacrifice Yahweh, Jehovah, or say the alleged God the Father by disassociating Jesus’ personality from him. Anyone who has read the Bible knows the Military system of things and the thousands of murders sanctioned by Yahweh.
To these Christians, Jesus is not like that. He will never hurt a fly to have asked Saul to destroy the Amalekites. So peaceful is he that he would not have killed the Firstborns of the Egyptians for the crimes of Pharaoh, or to have asked the Israelites to kill one another as per “who is on the Lord’s side?”
The paradox begins when Jesus is now paraded as God himself à la John 1:1. Whether Jesus is God or not God but with God from the the beginning, this begs the question of pacifist nature of Jesus.
In Hebrew 13:8, we read, “Jesus is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow”. However, in Jesus yesterday, whether he was God or just with God, these are what he did (as God) or enjoyed (If he was a mere spectator):
He killed Uzzah
He killed over 70,000 people in 2Samuel
He sent a bear to kill 42 children.
He killed the firstborns of Egypt.
He didn’t love his enemies. He commanded Saul to wage war against his enemies in 2 second 15:3.
Approval of death for disbelieve and apostasy (2 Chronicles 15:13)
Turns out that the Jesus of yesterday (Old testament) was consistent in his ways. It is only Christians who pick out a few romantic verses to paint him as a pacifist to unsuspecting non-christians. We read in the New Testament:
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” – Matthew 19:32-34
Luke 12:51,” Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division“
John 2:14-15, “And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep…”
To agree that Jesus is God but had no hand in the murders in the Old testament is a Paradox. Yet, if he was just a mere spectator, a careful study of Jesus in the New Testament shows us he is more of a Consequentialist than Pacifist
– Bashir Lucas Samson Lukman
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