This Article: (3 Pages)
- 1. Luke 22:36 Peace & Taking the... Sword
- 2. Fate of those who take the sword
- 3. Taking the sword: The future
2) Fate of those who take the sword
There are a few precedents for this statement from the scriptures Yahshua knew well where people are killed with their own swords.
Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women. Samuel cut Agag in pieces before Yahweh in Gilgal. (1Samuel 15:33)
Then David ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of its sheath, and killed him, and cut off his head therewith. (1Samuel 17:51)
You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house (2Samuel 12:9-10)
The trouble he causes shall return to his own head. (Psalm 7:16)
The wicked have drawn out the sword,... Their sword shall enter into their own heart. (Psalm 37:14-15)
All these incidents encapsulate the principle that taking the sword to occasion another's death may result in one's own death.
So why might Yahshua tell his disciples to buy a sword due to the danger they stand in and then, when they have a chance to use a sword, tell them that taking the sword will result in their own death by sword? Firstly it must be realised that the two are not contradictory pieces of advice, but rather statements of a complex two sided reality. Yahshua is not so much telling his disciples to buy a sword, rather he is telling them they are in the type of danger where one would normally need a sword. The danger was real, for James was killed with the sword not long after this (Acts 12:2). He then tells them they should only use this sword if they desire to die by the sword. In other words others will be out to kill you, and you may need to carry a defensive weapon but you shouldn't take hold of it.
To most people this would seem to be rotten advice. But there is a factor that Yahshua believed that makes all the difference. He believed that Yahweh has the ultimate control of life and death. David did not need a sword. Goliath died by his own sword. With some thought the disciples could work out that in this situation they would need to trust in Yahweh. It is a paradox like the one that says that those that save their life may lose it, where the wisdom is in understanding that death now may mean eternal life later.
Yahshua points out to Peter that the real power is with Yahweh. That he is doing his Father's will in submitting to death is a persistent belief, for when Yahshua concludes his comments to those arresting him he points out to them it is “their hour”, which implies he believes they have only temporary power. He also tells them they are the power of darkness, again pointing out that they have only limited time. John records Yahshua saying at his trial before Pilate,
My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. (John 18:36)
In this statement he was playing with Pilate's expectations as he twisted the norm of that era, where there were many armed gangs, to make Pilate understand that his kingdom was extraordinary. It also showed Yahshua's view that the servants of Christ weren't to fight then because his kingdom is not to be won then with mere earthly armed might. But Yahshua did not say his servants would never fight and in this there is the implication that there may be a time when his servants may fight.
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