Up to this point, we’ve seen that self defense is allowed by Christians, and that there is no real difference between active and passive defense systems. All self defense systems are ultimately active, because the person using them must choose to put them in place. The next question is: Is a Christian allowed to injure another person in the course of defending himself? In other words, is force allowed in self defense, or are only those things which would never cause injury to another person allowed?
The most common argument against using force, specifically lethal force, is based on a short statement taken from an incident described in Matthew 26:50.
Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” Matthew 26:50
“Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,” is the primary text people refer to here, since it appears to state that anyone who defends themselves with deadly force (lives by the sword) will die through deadly force (die by the sword). This is, of course, the strongest possible meaning you can attribute to this single statement, taken out of the surrounding context.
There are two possible arguments against this view. The first is that this applies to those who make their living by the sword—in other words, soldiers. This isn’t supportable, however, since we know of at least one Centurion who converted to Christianity, and we have no record of him leaving his profession because of any understanding that Christianity was opposed to his profession as a soldier. This story is recounted in Acts 10, with Peter’s encounter with Cornelius. However, if this view is not correct, then the view that you should not defend yourself with deadly force (live by the sword) also fails with it, for a soldier, in Roman society, was also the modern day policeman. The military was commonly used to pursue and arrest criminals, as we see in Jesus’ arrest, here in Matthew 26. We don’t often remark on this common practice of ancient times, but the entire concept of a police force is a relatively modern invention, designed to separate keeping internal order from national defense.
The second argument against this reading simply places the verse in its context. There are two specific contexts we must consider when reading this verse.
The first context is the actual situation being described, the arrest of Jesus. In the Scripture, Jesus argues that if He defends Himself, the Scriptures will not be fulfilled, that self-defense, at this specific point in time, is not the appropriate reaction. This does not argue against self-defense in general, only against self-defense at this specific point in time.
The second context is that of the Jewish culture in which the statement is made. If we examine the Old Testament carefully, we will find there are many instances of people becoming fixated on “living” by a specific thing. For one instance of this, lets turn to the story of Samson.
Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.” Judges 14:1 (ESV)
And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. Judges 16:21 (ESV)
Samson lived by his eyes, and he died by his eyes. He trusted in his eyes to lead him correctly, and he found that his eyes only led him to death. This is a common principle throughout the entire Bible: if you trust in something other than God, God will use what you trust in to discipline you, possibly to the point of destruction. This leads us to another question about Christians and self defense: “Shouldn’t you trust God, rather than a lethal weapon, to defend you?” I won’t deal with this specific objection here, though, since it is a tangent to the original question. I will deal with it in a different section, below.
The general concept we should take away from Jesus’ statement during His arrest is that we should not trust in what we think is right, or the right path, but rather, we should trust in God. Here, rather than trying to defend Jesus from death, Peter should realize that Jesus’ death is required by the prophecies, and trust that God will do what is the right and proper thing. John 18:1, which recounts this event as well, places the emphasis on the fulfillment of Jesus’ mission, rather than on the use of the sword, which shows us this line of reasoning, in context, is the correct one.
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