WAR & PEACE

What is wrong with everyone? Why can’t we all just get along with each other? Why do people argue with others? Why are there wars? Well, the Bible says it’s all to do with enmity. My dictionary says enmity is deep-seated unfriendliness, hostility.

“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war among your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” James 4:1&2. Thus enmity comes from deep within, and it has to do with coveting.

To covet is to break the 10th Commandment. That Commandment slew the Christ-hating and Christian-hating Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1; Rom. 7:7-11) who, by God’s grace alone, became Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ. The Pharisees kept up an outward appearance of keeping the 10 Commandments. But how does one keep “You shall not covet…” outwardly? God’s Moral Law is spiritual. Therefore it goes straight to the heart and shows you that you are a sinner! The covetous lusts deep within us prove that we are not content with our lot. Wars are the extension of our inner wars.

The war began with the rebellion in a garden some six thousand years ago. It was then that mankind sided with Satan against God the Creator. Satan used a serpent to deceive Eve into eating the fruit God had forbidden her and her husband Adam. Listening to the befriending Devil, Eve began to covet that fruit. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:6.

Enter the LORD God into His garden to deal with the rebellion. In the course of His address to Adam, Eve, and the serpent, He made a wonderful promise. Speaking directly to the serpent He said: “…And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

Man brought enmity into God’s creation by listening to the Devil and thereby declaring war on God. But God, by His gracious promise, as it were, beat Adam’s pruning hook into a spear to be used against that serpent, the Devil. There was to be enmity between those who love God and His Moral Law, and those who don’t.

The summary of God’s Moral Law is the Ten Commandments. These are summed up again in the words, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” Mark 12:30&31. The Son of God, Jesus Christ was nailed to a tree on account of His perfect love for God and His neighbour. It turns out that He is the promised ‘Seed of the woman’ (Gal. 3:16). His cross was a mortal blow to Satan’s head.

It is through His life, death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven that all wars begin to cease. He is the Prince of Peace. “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end…” Isaiah 9:7a. And “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Isaiah 2:4.

He reconciles to God all who trust in Him alone for salvation. In Him we have peace with God – the peace that transcends all understanding (Phil. 1:7).

HUMAN NATURE

Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to see and enter the kingdom of God one must to be ‘born again.’ (John 3:3). Yet even when born anew by the Spirit of God, residual sin remains in the Christian until glory (Phil. 3:12; Heb. 12:23). Converted man carries with him the rotten remains of his pre-conversion man. (Rom. 7:20&25). The Christian is taught to count his ‘old man’ as having been crucified with Christ. (Rom. 6:6). Therefore, for the Christian, the ‘old man’ has been put off and the ‘new man’ put on. (Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:9&10). The ‘old man’ for the Christian is his pre-conversion sinful nature. He is now a new creation. (Gal. 6:15).

The non-Christian too has an ‘old man’ ‘new man’ aspect to him/her. However, for the non-Christian the ‘old man’ is the residue of his/her pre-Fall or Adamic nature. And his/her ‘new man’ is his/her fallen nature. Thus the ‘new man’ for the Christian is the restoration of the non-Christian’s ‘old man.’ Thus the non-Christian and the Christian have at least one thing in common: Each suppresses his ‘old man.’

This has startling implications for Christian evangelism. For the Christian knows the non-Christian ‘knows’ the triune God - the Creator of the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that is in them - but is simply suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. (Rom. 1:18-21). Thus the Christian ‘new man’ appeals to the ‘old man’ in the non-Christian. He does so with the confidence that the non-Christian will experience pangs of guilty conviction because he/she knows deep down that the Christian is telling the truth about his sinful condition.

In dialogue the Christian is able to use the Law and the Gospel of God to convict and save the non-Christian. For example, the Christian may ask the non-Christian if he has ever told a lie. Deep down the non-Christian knows that it is wrong to tell lies and that he has indeed lied on occasion. Thus God’s Law convicts as the non-Christian’s Adamic ‘old man’ inwardly admits the truth and thus his sin is exposed. The Christian then tells the non-Christian about the gracious provision that God has supplied to save sinners from the punishment their sins are due.

Jesus Christ is God’s provision for sinners. He is the Word, i.e., the 2nd Person in the Trinity, become also fully human forever. He is THE ‘new man.’ Unlike the rest of mankind Jesus Christ never had a fallen nature. Since becoming also a Man His human nature has always been pre-Fall Adamic. He alone is without sin. Therefore He was able to take away the sin of the world. This He did by living a perfect life and dying an atoning death on a cross. He perfectly kept the Law of God in its entirety as representative of all who have or will put on the ‘new man.’ His death on the cross was to pay the price owed for their sins.

Dear reader, deep down you know that you are a sinner. This you will see even more clearly if you would simply stop comparing yourself to the axe-murderer, and instead compare yourself to the perfect Man Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the good news that God, by His grace alone, forgives sinners in Jesus Christ.

May the Lord be pleased to renew and release in you that perfect Adamic nature, that ‘old man’, every non-Christian tries so hard to keep shackled in solitary confinement.