The defence of the faith
The apostle Peter sought to defend Christ with a sword, injuring a slave in the process. He merited another rebuke from Christ; ‘Put the sword away. Never use a sword in defending me. All who draw the sword will die by the sword.’ A stroke of the sword which is independent of justice will wound and destroy whoever wields it. It creates resentment and retaliation.
There is, of course, a place for the sword. The powers that be in the government can use an army and its state-of-the-art weapons fighting a just war. The police, courts and prisons are designed to punish criminals. That is their place; keep the sword there, in Caesar's hands, but the sword and instruments of man’s power are not to be used for the defence of the gospel or the spread of the kingdom.
How does the little story tell the big story? The Son of God deplores worldly and carnal means of defending the gospel and furthering God’s Kingdom. Using them contradicts all we say about the livingness and nearness of God and the power of his grace. The methods we employ in serving the Lord must reflect his message.
You understand what Jesus was teaching Peter by rejecting the sword and embracing the cross? Not only the substance of what we tell the world but the style in which we bring it to the world has been defined for us by God. The message and the method must be harmonious. The way we worship God, and the way the minister leads the services has nothing to do with the fact that he might prefer a more traditional style of ministry. He was probably raised in dead traditionalism; we won’t speak a word defending traditionalism as such. The issue is not being ‘contemporary’. Earnest, prayerful, loving Christianity will always be contemporary. The issue is this; we’ve been given a message by God and its heart is a bloody cross on which is hanging the Lamb of God making atonement for our sins. Only by the dying of Jesus Christ can we be saved.
So there must be a radical discontinuity between a martial, or sentimental, or sophisticated presentation and this given, divine message of our Saviour being crucified to save us. Our number one priority is not to attract unbelievers to our meetings but to attract the Son of God. We don’t want him outside, knocking on the door for access, but here in the centre, working and saving and sanctifying. So all we are and all we do must reflect his love and righteousness and truth, lest we grieve him and he stays away. There is nothing more powerless than a church without Christ. There is nothing sadder than a church that thinks it is full of him when all the time he is outside knocking, but his knocks can’t be heard because of the noise within.
Peter, put your sword back in its place. Peter, surrender your weapon. There was a time when Yehudi Menuhin was asked what was musical genius. He said, ‘Surrender’. The musician surrenders to the music, to the composition, to the conductor and to his instrument. The Christian surrenders to Christ’s Lordship over the message and the method and the means which God gives us. All of that must be enfleshed in those of us who are servants of Christ, in our living and in our words and our entire approach to ministry. Not by the sword; never by the sword; if we use the sword we are displaying the triumph of unbelief. We have far more effective weapons to do God’s work than swords, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
If my task as a teacher was to instruct men and women in the alphabet then it wouldn’t be out of keeping me for me to dress up as Mr Alphabet Clown and chant the 26 letters to them, and we’d learn to sing the ‘ABC’ song together. If we were in the business of selling more hamburgers we might wear a hamburger costume, give out free hamburgers and sing a hamburger song. There’s no incongruity between that message and the methods used to promote it. However, there are some methods that are radically inappropriate for our message. Think for example of a teenager who has been assaulted and murdered. Her parents make an appeal to the community for people to come forward with information. It would be utterly unacceptable and self-defeating for them to dress up in costumes and sing some songs about a little girl lost. How mawkish! They would actually be building a barrier between their hearers and the killing of their daughter. What they bring to their fellow citizens in their naked grief and the broken earnestness of their appeal is immensely more powerful than any such embellishments. I am saying that to dress up, or entertain, or issue threats in the presentation of God’s word to mankind, would be wretched 'communication.' It would erect a wall of disparity between the message and the people whom we wanted to win.
We bring good news to the world which is the very testimony of God. It centres on the Son of God humbling himself even to the death of the cross for our redemption. That is the only way we can be saved. If we turn to methods which reflect the wizardry of men to communicate that message - man’s mood-creating music, psychological devices, physical or mental intimidation, the threat of a sword, the humour of clowns - then that will eviscerate the gospel of its own content and power. Men may become religious through such devices but they won’t become Christians. The Saviour went to the cross and that fact dictates the way his kingdom is going to spread. John Flavel once said, ‘A crucified style best suits the preachers of a crucified Christ.’ The defence of the faith demands a holy correspondence between message and method. Let me ask myself whether what I am saying, and how I am worshipping, and how I live my life is in keeping with the essence of the gospel? Let us all do that.
God has disclosed himself supremely in the cross, and if following Jesus Christ means dying daily then to adopt a style of ministry which is militaristic, or triumphalistic, or designed to impress and calculated to win acclaim is utterly inappropriate. Peter, put away your sword.
‘When telling Thy salvation free
Let all absorbing thoughts of Thee
My heart and soul engross:
And when all hearts are bowed and stirred
Beneath the influence of Thy word,
Hide me behind Thy cross.’