Most of us, at one time or another, have found ourselves embarrassed by God. He who has all perfections perfectly doesn’t always fit into our scheme of things. The Holy One doesn’t always do things the way we who are altogether imperfect think they should be done.
We weep with Aaron as God destroys his two sons for merely toying with strange fire. Then we, who have been given a glimpse into the heavenly conversation between the devil and God, still sympathize with Job’s wife, cheering her on as she encourages her husband toward blasphemy. Many of us even shed a tear for the soldiers of Pharaoh as we watch the Red Sea crash down upon them. We nurse a secret grudge as we watch God destroy Uzzah, for touching the Ark of the Covenant.
Nothing, however, assaults our sensibilities more than the execution of God’s holy war against the people of Canaan. We tell our children about Joshua’s march around Jericho. We don’t tell them that every person in the city, men, women, and children, with the exception of Rahab’s family, were put to death. That is the pattern for the taking of the Promised Land, to kill every person there, to burn the cities to the ground. Joshua made Sherman’s march look like a picnic.
In Judges the sword of the Lord turns on the children of Israel. As the Benjamites shelter and defend the men of Gibeah, they in turn become as the Canaanites, and their city, and all that are in it, is burned to heaven. God judges swiftly, and He judges severely in this time of conquest.
Our temptation is to focus our attention on the New Testament. There we see no mass executions. There we see He who would not harm a bruised reed. We find a kinder, gentler vision of the Almighty in the tender grace of Jesus. Not a list of rules a mile long covering how we are to wash, what we may and may not eat, nor a detailed exposition of just how the stoning of the unfaithful is supposed to look.
Instead we find Jesus preaching to the multitudes, casting aside the “You have heard it saids…” and giving in its place an ethic of love. There we see His call that we be not mighty warriors like Joshua or Samson, but those who are poor in spirit. We are to be merciful, peacemakers. To be pure in heart. We summarize the message of Joshua as this, that we are to be warmongers, mean spirited and bloodthirsty. Now Jesus tells us we not only may, but must be nice.
He tells us if we succeed we’ll have heaven’s kingdom. If we stop boasting and instead mourn, we’ll be comforted. Should we hunger and thirst after righteousness, our desires will be met. If we will stop destroying the wicked, and show them mercy, we’ll receive mercy. Keep a pure heart, and we will see God. If we promise that we’re not going to learn war no more, and become peacemakers instead, we will be called the Sons of God. And if our unconditional love is rejected by men, and we are instead persecuted, again, we inherit the kingdom of heaven.
I skipped one. Jesus also calls us to be meek, hardly the picture we have of Joshua as he leads his troops into battle. But if we are meek, what do we receive? The meek shall inherit the earth. Here is perhaps the biggest change, and the greatest similarity. The similarity is that like the children of Israel, we too have a promise of a promised land. The difference is that our promise is not limited to a small strip of land in the Middle East. We’re going to inherit that entire world. All of it has been promised to us.
Of course this too has changed, that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The only sword we carry into battle is the sword of the Word, the gospel of the kingdom. But this too is the more shocking. We are not merely cutting down the bodies of pagans; we are, in the Holy Spirit, ripping their hearts of stone out of their chests, and replacing them with hearts of flesh. We are not merely removing the pagans; we are remaking them, just as we have been remade.
What hasn’t changed is that we are at war. It began in Genesis 3. There God promised He would put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. That was His declaration of war, the institution of God’s regenerative draft. He put the enmity there, moving the woman, and her seed from the forces of darkness to the forces of light, enlisting them through His effectual call. The war will continue until our Captain, the true Joshua, puts all things under His feet.
That is the greatest change. We are no longer fighting in ourselves. If we were, there would be nothing but defeat. But in Christ we are poor in Spirit. In Him we are rich in the Spirit, who indwells us. In Christ we do mourn. In Him we rejoice, for He has overcome the world. In Christ we are meek, and in His meekness we inherit His reward, the entire world. In Christ we are bold and strong, for He is with us wherever we go. And when that great and final day comes, in Christ we will be pure in heart, and so we shall see God.
Today He sees us. We live our lives in this context of warfare, coram Deo, before the face of God. He is watching us, guiding us, directing us. And so we are called to be more than conquerors, greater than Joshua. We are not looking for a place at the world’s table. Nor are we looking to merely keep the world from crashing down around us. We are fighting for our God given right to the world.
Our calling is to total world conquest, beneath His gaze, under His authority, and unto His glory. And we, in Him, shall have it, for the King has come, and He will come again.