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borg
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324
| Posted 4/30/2003 1:25 PM (GMT -6) |   | I guess something that strikes me as off within some Christians view of spritiual warfare, is that it seems as though some believe today that God is at war. i guess i don't really see this. C.H. Spurgeon in his sermons on spriritual warfare, "Spritual Warfare in the Life of a Believer," painted a good picture of the crucifixion from the Spritiual side. and i guess i would agree with him in that Satan was defeated by God on the cross. The cross defeated Satan from God's standpoint, and is it not God who is at war with Satan, but it is us Christians who are at war with the world. what do people think of this?
grace and peace,
borg
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 4/30/2003 1:51 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I guess something that strikes me as off within some Christians view of spritiual warfare, is that it seems as though some believe today that God is at war. i guess i don't really see this. C.H. Spurgeon in his sermons on spriritual warfare, "Spritual Warfare in the Life of a Believer," painted a good picture of the crucifixion from the Spritiual side. and i guess i would agree with him in that Satan was defeated by God on the cross. The cross defeated Satan from God's standpoint, and is it not God who is at war with Satan, but it is us Christians who are at war with the world. what do people think of this?
grace and peace,
borg
In many ways, one can describe our relation to the world as having some similarities to war. The biggest aspect of this is conflict and uncertainty and gratuitous evil.
Also, while Satan is defeated, apparently he still is kicking some.
Having said that, I think there are severe limitations to the warfare metaphor for our relation to the world. In many conflicts, we are called to love our enemy and to win them over to our side. That usually isn't the case with war. Also, we see, in many cases, Christians who end up doing more damage to Christianity than any non-believer could ever do and, of course, that potential is inherent in all of us. Now you could call this friendly-fire, but it really does tend to rest in what I call the problem of ecclesiastical order. I.e., the need for us to work out what sorts of ministries we as Christians should have to the world.
In military analogies, the end-goal is given and intermediary tasks are determined within the hierarchy of the military. While the end goal may be given for us, I think much of what we do in the here and now is quite open for debate and experimentation.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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borg
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324
| Posted 4/30/2003 4:10 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW i guess i failed to pick up on your reasons why God is or isn't at war. What i was attempting to alude is the idea that maybe God isn't at war. I believe that Christ defeated Satan on the cross and while Satan is still kicking, he can't do anything against God in that he can't really fight God, but can only fight His servants, we as Christians.
another question that stems off of your "love your enemy" is how are we suppose to love our enemies? does the Bible truly describe to us how we are to love our enemies? are we to have a different love for them than that of our brothers and sisters in Christ? if we read the Bible we get quite the vivid idea throughout the entire Bible, that God "hates" his enemies. isn' this common in war? can't we hate our enemies while still having a "love" to some degree for them? tell me what you think if you dont' mind.
grace and peace,
borg
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 5/1/2003 5:40 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
DLW i guess i failed to pick up on your reasons why God is or isn't at war. What i was attempting to alude is the idea that maybe God isn't at war. I believe that Christ defeated Satan on the cross and while Satan is still kicking, he can't do anything against God in that he can't really fight God, but can only fight His servants, we as Christians.
Yes, as one would say D-Day is over and the number of days in which Satan/Hitler still has power over earth/Europe are limited, but that doesn't mean there still aren't forces to fight.
My point of view is that, while I accept that there are cosmic battles being fought, I don't perceive many of the spiritual warfare mantras as being terribly helpful in resolving the conflicts within the church that impair our witness. They also tend to be manicheistic and not helpful when it comes to participating in politics, whereby manicheistic dualisms tend to be misleading as to what is going on...
quote:
another question that stems off of your "love your enemy" is how are we suppose to love our enemies? does the Bible truly describe to us how we are to love our enemies? are we to have a different love for them than that of our brothers and sisters in Christ? if we read the Bible we get quite the vivid idea throughout the entire Bible, that God "hates" his enemies. isn' this common in war? can't we hate our enemies while still having a "love" to some degree for them? tell me what you think if you dont' mind.
I don't think the Bible spells out how we should love our enemies, but it gives some very good examples that should provide us inspiration. I think of turning the other cheek, I think of when someone commands your labor for a certain distance, helping them even more than they command, I think of the parable of the good samaritan who helped the Jew that chose the long, dangerous path mainly to avoid contact with Samaritans, I think of how Jesus told the people to render unto Cesar what is Cesars and to God what is Gods(i.e., Jesus had the right to condemn how the Romans mistreated the Jews, but chose to acknowledge the good they had done in maintaining the peace, freedom of travel and what-not), Jesus healing the person whose ear was chopped off, Jesus rebuking his disciples when they asked him if they should call down fire from heaven on the cities that had just put them out, and so on... .
God hates sinfulness and the wicked ways of men. Jesus displayed anger at how the Pharisees through their rules were making it impossible for anyone but the well-to-do to follow the law and be clean/holy. He expressed rage at how the money-makers were taking up the sole space in the temple where gentiles were permitted to enter so that they could profit off of Jewish people's religiousness.
There is conflict and evil here, but our enemies are not to be viewed as objects that need to be neutralized as they are viewed in war, but rather wayward people that need to be saved.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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