Remembrance Sunday carries an even more poignant significance this November.
This year we mark the centenary of the outbreak of what is rightly called the Great War. Its causes were complex, still argued over by historians, and its results were profound, still experienced in the development of world alliances and patterns of power in its aftermath. But where should our focus be, as Christians, in the avalanche of books, articles and TV programmes reaching us this year?
First, it must be right to recall that conflict is inevitable in a fallen world of sinful human beings. While we long for peace and pray for it, we have to recognise that sin always produces division and with it conflict and hostility, which can easily escalate into all-out war between power groupings and nations. That is as true at the individual level of our personal relationships as it is at the level of international interactions. This neither excuses nor glorifies conflict – quite the opposite – but it is realistic about the terrifying capacities of our sinful human hearts.
War in the Bible
When we open our Bibles, we find that war was a frequent, even normal, context for God’s people throughout the Old Testament. That would also be true for many parts of the world where inter-tribal conflicts are a given part of everyday life, in every period of history. But what is distinctive is that frequently the Lord (Yahweh) is portrayed as fighting for his people. For example, in Psalm 24.7-10, the King of glory is portrayed as ‘strong and mighty in battle’. He is the Lord of hosts, which may refer primarily to his sovereign rule over the supernatural beings in the heavens, but sometimes points as well to the armies of Israel. So Joshua, at the end of his life, reviewing the victories of the conquest of Canaan, reminds the elders of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake: it was the Lord your God who fought for you’ (Joshua 23.3). The morality of this, which some question, is sustained when we see Israel as the instrument of God’s judgment against the ‘full measure’ of the sins of the Amorites (see Genesis 15.16), and when we realise the extraordinary circumstances and strict rules which governed these conflicts.
God’s conflict
Moreover, in its wider perspective, the whole Bible narrative is set in the context of God’s continuing conflict with all the hostile powers which oppose his will and seek to usurp his sovereign rule. The end of the Bible reveals to us the ultimate triumph of Yahweh the Warrior King over all his enemies, as he brings in his everlasting kingdom of peace. But all this is also on behalf of his people, since all who turn to him in faith and bow to him as Lord will share for ever in the blessings of that eternal kingdom. That is when Isaiah’s vision will finally come to its fulfilment: ‘They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more’ ( Isaiah 2.4). The battles of the book of Revelation point to and culminate in the ultimate victory of the rider on the white horse whose name is ‘Faithful and True’, the one who is ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ (Revelation 19.11-16). Only when the devil and all his hordes are at last cast into the lake of fire does the eternal kingdom come to its fulfilment for all whose names are written in the book of life.
Largely Christian country
While we can understand and respect those believers who take a pacifist view regarding wars in the present age, at the same time we should neither glorify such conflicts nor be naïve about their inevitability. We do not have to defend the taking up of arms to fight against powerful and monstrous manifestations of evil in any and every generation. Because Britain was still, at least outwardly, largely Christian in its religious practice during WWI, it was not difficult to invoke God ‘on our side’. But of course God was never narrowly on anyone’s side. Even within the Old Testament, when Israel rebelled against God, he turned to fight against them since they had made him their enemy. His righteousness must always consume the evil of idolatry. The army that conquered Jericho was defeated at Ai due to Achan’s sin (Joshua 7). In the end even the law itself was lost to the Babylonian army, at the time of exile (2 Kings 25). God’s concern is for righteousness to prevail, which can only be the case when his sovereign rule is acknowledged.
Remembering is a valuable activity. We can thank God for providential deliverances and hopefully learn from past mistakes. We can admire great human courage and take encouragement from the extraordinary selfless sacrifices made by many whom we now recognise as ‘the glorious dead.’ But our true hope centres on a king who conquered through a cross, on an empty tomb and an ascended and glorified saviour, a universal sovereign who will yet come to bring in his kingdom of justice and peace.
