Did Jesus Teach An Ethic Of Pacifism?

Some claim Jesus taught a pacifist ethic, thereby suggesting that Christians must be pacifists, too. But while Jesus was no warmonger, he also was no pacifist. And he never taught an ethic of pacifism.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace (Is 9:6; Lk 1:79). But the peace he offers is the kind that reconciles sinners to God: this is very different than the idea of civil nonviolence. Jesus did not come to rid a fallen, sinful world of war; he did not call his disciples to pursue nonviolence. Pacifists, however, read nonviolence into every New Testament use of the word peace.

In the only place in which Jesus addressed the concept in the pacifist sense of nonaggression, he denied teaching a pacifist ethic. Instead he said, “Don’t assume that I came to bring peace (nonviolence) on the earth. I did not come to bring peace (nonviolence), but a sword” (Mt 10:34). Jesus also assumed that kings must sometimes go to war, and he taught that those who do are wise to first consider whether they can win (Lk 14:31-32). Jesus also did not himself practice an ethic of nonaggression when he drove moneychangers from the temple with a whip (Jn 2:15).

Christian pacifists make much of Jesus rebuking Peter’s use of the sword and of going to the cross without resisting. But they misinterpret these events in ways that contradict instructions Jesus gave his disciples earlier that evening, and they wrongly formulate a new ethic based on a single unique circumstance. Just a few hours before rebuking Peter, Jesus instructed his disciples to go buy swords for use in defending themselves when needed after he left (Lk 22:36). So, in rebuking Peter, Jesus was not renouncing violence but rather was stopping Peter from interfering with his mission to save sinners. Jesus then went to the cross without resisting, not because he was introducing a new pacifist ethic, but rather because he was “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29) in a manner the prophets foretold.

Finally, we must not forget Jesus in the New Testament is the same as God in the Old Testament (Jn 10:30; 14:9,11). Ethics in the Bible come from revealing the character of God who never changes (Ps 102:27; Mal 3:6; Jas 1:17). This means the character and ethics of Jesus cannot be different from the established character and ethics of God. God in the Old Testament held that war is sometimes necessary so Jesus did too, which is what Hebrews means by saying, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8).

Jesus came to save sinners, not to introduce an ethic of pacifism that in a sinful world destroys the role God assigns government to fulfill (Rm 13:4).