This is a time of war. There are wars and rumors of wars everywhere. The so called super power is waging a war on terrorism. It wants to go to war with Iraq, which whilst it has redefined the term ?defensive? in the new American doublespeak , is an offensive. Their task is to destroy a potential threat to the USA in the regime of President Saddam Hussein. In this article we want to consider the true nature of war as the antithesis of creation. God is the maker of heaven and earth and so we begin with verse one of the book of Genesis. This first statement of the Bible, ten words, tell us something very essential about God and about ourselves ? it tells us that: God is creative and we are created. In the beginning we had creature relationships with God. In the next verses we see what kind of creatures we were created to be.


Gen1:26-28 ?Then God said ?let us make human kind in our own image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion ? So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply upon the earth and fill the earth and subdue it?? (RSV)


The kind of creatures we are appears to be clear from the creation discussion of God. We are created in His image and are like Him. God is Spirit and although we have a body we are also spirit. The kind of spirits we are, follows from God?s statements ?in our own image? ?according to our likeness?. We are the same kind of spirit which God is. God?s own nature and character was passed on to us and so we ought to be a mirror image of God on earth. We must now ask what kind of Spirit is God? The answer is God is a ?creative? spirit. We read elsewhere that God is love. And so we might say safely that the spirit of love is creative. Love creates and we can add: it is against the nature of love to destroy. The character of the Spirit of God then is creative love. We might say a creative love force, but we would be better to say a creative love Person. God is ?the? Person who creates in and through absolute and infinite love. His power is creative love.

If this is so then we can make an amazing statement. It is fundamentally impossible for God to destroy. And now I hear a thousand voices crying out ?What about Judgment??. Surely when God Judges sinful and evil nations and sinful and evil societies and sinful individuals he condemns them, separates them and so destroys them? Let me quickly agree that all of these sinful and evil categories exist and are indeed the backdrop to our lives in the world. But then let me ask if it is a creative or an evil act to destroy an evil destroyer. I pose that to destroy that which is destructive and the source and means of evil destruction is a creative act! A double negative logically produces a positive. I will go further the cross itself was the most evil destructive act in all of history. The death of God on the cross was absolute and infinite evil. But this death was the solution to human death. This death was we believe the death of death. Therefore this death was the superlative creative act.

I say again the nature of God?s Spirit is that of a loving Creator ? and so it follows that human beings, created with the same nature of spirit as God, ought also to be loving creators indeed it is given to human beings to continue the creative process of God ? We have to continue to exercise the nature of God as a Creator. Human beings therefore are also creators. From our text we see that they had to ?be fruitful and multiply? and they had to ?subdue the earth?. They had to be multipliers and subduers and so their creativity was two fold.


1) They had to, and do, procreate and regenerate themselves ? they are equipped to bring forth the fruit of other human beings. God created the first ones now we are responsible for the ones who are to follow. This is what God means by ?Multiply? So all human beings ought to be multipliers of life and so creators of human life on earth.

In this declaration we are also saying something about another aspect of human life and that is that it is essential for all males and females to be married. Those who are two must become ?one flesh? in order to continue the fruitful creation of God in filling the earth with human life.


2) We have to have dominion over all of the other creation and we have to subdue it. We have to use our creative gift in bringing and laying order on what we find ? we can do with nature what we wish in terms of continuing to create. And so trees and stone are re ordered to become houses and furniture ? great buildings and the infrastructure of cities - Even as fallen human beings with fallen human nature we are still creative - we discovered and ordered means of energy. Electricity, for example, and we used that energy in the creative process. Before that we ordered combustible materials and set them alight to give heat and we used the heat to heat water giving steam power. Now we have discovered and are creating the means to fully utalise nuclear energy. Human beings have re-ordered God?s creation to make sea ships, motor cars, aeroplanes, telephones, television, computers, spaceships the list goes on and on.

Certainly we are the multipliers of human beings and we are orderers and the creators of all other things in the world. So mankind is a creator and further-creator of what is. This is the image of God in mankind. In both aspects we are continuing the creative process of God; and we have the means to do this we develop our gifts and become skilled in the creative process. But our reason to create must be the same as that of God. The reason to create is love. It is always love that creates. We must be willing to love and so create, whether human children or the children of invention. In love we have to fill the earth with human beings and human inventions.

We must be involved in God?s great task of bringing an uncountable multitude of human beings into life in the World. We are the multipliers of humanity in the Universe. This is the primal call of God to every man and woman to be a father and a mother. To fill the earth with new human beings and so to fill it with joy unbounded. All of the new human beings along with the old ones are unique and as such are different expressions of the image of God. Every single one therefore is of infinite value and irreplaceable. In the great multitude of human beings God?s image and likeness are seen on earth. In this multitude and in all of their inventions and what they bring forth as their own creative works out of the earth, God?s glory is seen on earth. The multiplication is glorious it shows and shares in the amazing and wonderful glory of God.



The Tragedy


From Genesis chapter 3 we read that the first parents lost this vision and led those who would follow into sin and evil. The image and likeness of God became corrupted ? it could no longer be seen. The glory of God on earth was lost and in its place corrupt and polluted human glory. We have said that the glory of God is seen in multiplication and creation but the glory of man is seen in subtraction and destruction.

Cain murdered his brother - Cain subtracted and destroyed

This human tragedy of turning from God to self, of turning from multipliers to subtractors, from creators to destroyers had begun. Cain?s murder of Abel was the birth of war on earth. God?s statement of the human tragedy is clearly seen in the Decalogue (the ten commandments Ex 20). The law against murder, ?You shall not kill?. The human race beginning with Cain became a race of murderers. God also gave laws concerning property: ?You shall not steal?, and of relational honesty : ?You shall not bear false witness against your brother?. The human race became a race of thief?s and of liars against their neighbours. Indeed the human race became a race of destroyers of each other and all things in the world. They had become haters of God and lovers of self. Self love and hatred of others destroys. And, of course the one word which sums up the full scale destruction is ? war ? . War is the product of mankind?s turn away from God and God?s Creative glory to self and self-glory. Indeed war is the pinnacle of fallen human glory - It is the only ultimate glory that fallen humanity can produce. Yet:

?There is nothing glorious about war it is the wanton destroyer of human life and resources. In war there are no winners.? (The words of a soldier who fought in the second world war)

My contention is that since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin and their disobedience and rebellion against God mankind has been in a state of war. There always has been and always will be war, it is the destiny of human glory. The background and environment of the history of the world is wars and rumors of wars. Today the most powerful democratic and so called free nation is at war with terrorism wherever it appears in the world. The focus is on Iraq but the question is, who next? The world is full of war why should the most powerful nation not be the leader of war?

Mankind is a destroyer like a child who builds a castle in the sand and then destroys in seconds that which took hours to make. We create and then destroy what we have created. I am convinced that it is the devil?s task to bring mankind to war. War is the devils work. Full scale world war is the satan agenda. He is sworn in his utterly corrupt and absolutely black heart to destroy God?s creation. His is the spirit of accusation and the spirit of accusation is the spirit of war. The satan agenda is the great subtraction. Of course he must be resisted his false power must be seen to be what it is, a power of lies and of false promises of human greatness and human self-glory. To resist satan at whatever cost is to stand for justice and truth. And so we have the concept of the ?defensive? Just War. Theologians and philosophers over the centuries have worked out conditions for a just war. The great American superpower which recognises no such bounds appears to be stating its own conditions but this rework is highly suspect and in my view cannot bear the weight of an ethical analysis of integrity. Is America becoming the new Cain? They claim to be Christian and whilst being gracious to other world religions especially Islam, they are convinced that they are working out the Christian imperative for justice and freedom. Well let us look to Jesus and not to the USA for the lead.



The Jesus Agenda


I think that it is safe to claim that it is revealed in the first letter of John chapter 3 from verse 8 to 12 that Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of satan. The text reads: ?The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil? 1Jn3: The message in the text which refers to Cain and Abel is that humankind should not be like Cain. This means that we should not kill, with malice (murder), human beings. Going further than this anyone who hates human beings in their heart is in an essential sense a murderer already.

We see in Jesus coming the great double negative of History ? the destruction of destruction?. This is definitively the death of death. Jesus came to destroy death to put death to death. So that now, in the kingdom of God, there is no death but only eternal life. It is not death but eternal life which is planned for the human race; those who will accept Christ as Lord. The opposite of war is eternal life. This is the import of the almost universal statement of John 3:16 ? ? God gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.? Jesus stood for justice, of that there can be no doubt. And I want to say that Jesus waged a just war on satan and his armies; including those in the institutions of religion. The question is how did he do it? How did Jesus wage war on the forces of darkness, captivity and corruption of the evil regime of the Prince of Evil himself? Surely for those who raise high the Christian banner these questions are vitally important; from the Crusaders in the 12th century to the United States of America in the 21st Century. The answer begins in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah chapter 53 ? Jesus we believe is the suffering servant ? he is the lamb of God ? who did not open his mouth. He fought a just war by sacrificing Himself on the Cross of Calvary. He defeated the enemy through taking the awful cost of fully satisfying Justice, by paying the full price Himself. He paid the infinite cost of sin and evil, great and small, through His own death. The death of a perfect sinless man and an infinite and omnipotent God. This is the greatest expression of a just war and it is the most effective in terms of achieving the just cause. At no time did Jesus take up a sword; although He did take up a whip. His kingdom is not of this world.

A just war should be fought by those who will be angry but not sin. I believe that history demonstrates again and again that taking up a sword and waging war perpetuates death it does not stop it. Jesus died Himself. He did not accuse and condemn and then wage war - because war never ends war. War perpetuates itself ? it is self generating. It is explosive destroying all in its wake but worse throwing and spreading wide the seeds of future wars. In the Person of Jesus and through self sacrificial love war implodes, it is absorbed and ceases to be in the grace antithesis. Jesus took the accusation and the condemnation upon himself ? and this is Recreative Love. Recreative love is the basis of a new world order which is effectively the translation of the old world order into the kingdom of heaven on earth.

The attack and collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York Manhattan with the loss of thousands of human lives was and remains a great tragedy which is and should be mourned by every country and every person in the world. Our hearts go out to our dear American friends. The towers themselves, as among the highest buildings in the world, were a profound symbol of American greatness and American Identity. They were the expression of the land of the free reaching out to the international communities of the World. The buildings were raised up monuments of American pride as they drew all nations to them. But there was another more essential tower once raised up in Israel which was, and is, the cross of Christ. ?If I am raised up I will draw all men to me? This tower underwent also an awful attack with the cost of not thousands of lives but only one. The only Son of God. We can contrast the terrible tragedy of these three towers, two in one place and one in another, by the reactive words of the two kings involved. One king, George Bush, made the statement with conviction ?We will hunt down these Killers?. The other King ? King Jesus also made the statement with conviction ?Forgive them for they no not what they do?

It is my considered conviction that had George Bush reacted with the words of Jesus ? and if the Government of the USA made the international statement that they would take no action, other than immediate defence, and that they forgive the attackers for truly they do not know what they have done, then never again would there have been a terrorist attack on America. The shame of any future attacker would be to great to contemplate. If such an approach, and essential Christian determination, is to much for weak human beings and therefore is somewhat na?ve, other than as an Ideal, then let the USA engage in a war which is as just as possible. Let their campaign, both explicitly and implicitly, meet all of the conditions as set out through the centuries by a consensus of great creative minds. Let them at least submit to the doctrine of an un-coerced United Nations and be subject to international law. Otherwise they will be seen to be uncivilised and, in reality, of the nature of the beast.

Rev. Dr. J Bryson Arthur
Galilee, Israel