Finding peace in the Old Testament [Peace and the Bible #19]

Ted Grimsrud—September 23, 2024

One of the first things that came up for me back nearly fifty years ago when I first thought of myself as a Christian pacifist was the question of the Old Testament. How can we reconcile all the violence of the Old Testament with the idea that Jesus calls us to be peacemakers? The first step for me at the time, and I think the first step for many, is to acknowledge that this is a problem but to emphasize the clarity of Jesus’s message for me. I’m not sure what the OT says, but I do know what Jesus says. The effect of this step, though, can easily be simply to set the Old Testament aside as being mainly a problem and not a good guide. I always felt uneasy about such a move.

So, one of my interests has been to work at reading the Old Testament as a positive resource for my peace convictions. I have done some recent thinking that has provided a sense of clarity about one particular angle that I want to outline in this post. I have long believed, and still do, that my pacifism does not depend on the Old Testament. However, I think pacifism is compatible with the Old Testament—and even benefits greatly from taking the Old Testament seriously.

Benefits from losing the promised land?

Lately I have read several helpful books about the Old Testament and Christian theology. At one point, I paused and thought about something I had read over and over. That was that it was such a terrible thing when the ancient Hebrews were driven from their territorial kingdom, having their temple destroyed and king dethroned. The entire story, it seems, revolves around that loss and an accompanying, long-lasting desire to restore this territorial kingdom and get their king back.

I was struck, though, with a sense that these assumptions might not be the best way to read the story. One of the books I read noted that the faith of the ancient Hebrews was established in a normative way before the people entered the promised land and established a territorial kingdom. The core elements of the faith—as found in the creation story, the exodus story, and the gift of Torah—existed independently of the territorial kingdom. As the story continues, the people enter the promised land, seek to embody Torah, establish a territorial kingdom, and, in time, lose that kingdom. Yet the peoplehood continued, based on that earlier foundation. And in the thousands of years since, the peoplehood has continued without (until very recently) a territorial kingdom. So, was losing that kingdom actually such a bad thing? In fact, might it be part of the story that territorial kingdoms are inherently problematic? Maybe the peace message of the Bible has a lot to do with precisely the point that faithful living is best pursued apart from taking responsibility for territorial kingdoms or nation-states.

Maybe what is to be learned from the Old Testament (and, perhaps, confirmed by the New Testament) is that the lesson from the territorial kingdom experience is not so much about the kingdom’s failure and loss (and longing for its return) but rather about the clarification borne out of that experience. What is learned is that territorial kingdoms by their nature are in tension with the task of what we could call “Torah humanization”—to embody the healing justice of the blueprint for social life that is provided in the revelation of the Old Testament law. To say it more strongly, perhaps the message of the Bible is that trusting in territorial kingdoms as the center of life and giving them ultimate loyalty are in fact incompatible with Torah humanization. When we recognize that noting the inherently problematic character of kingdoms and states is central to the Bible, we will recognize that the failure of ancient Israel’s territorial kingdom was actually a positive step forward in the story of the people’s history with God.

What was central in God’s promise?

In light of the story the Bible as a whole tells and in light of what we have learned from the history of Christianity and Judaism over the past 2,000 years, I believe it is a mistake to interpret the promises of the Old Testament—most importantly the key, overarching promises of Genesis 12:1-8—as being promises about some kind of territorial kingdom. In Genesis 12, Abraham (at that point still known as Abram) was promised by God that God will make of Abram “a great nation” (12:1) and that in Abram “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (12:2). Then, Abram is shown the land of Canaan and told, “to your offspring I will give this land” (12:7). Especially because of the specificity of the promise of the land of Canaan, this promise is linked with the territorial kingdom that was established in that territory following Joshua’s conquest. However, I want to suggest that such a linkage may be misleading for how we should interpret the promises.

What was the point of the gift of the land? I believe it was to serve the core element of the promises here: that Abraham’s descendants would “bless all the families of the earth.” The gift of the land was not an end in itself. It was not an unconditional promise that the people would be permanently ensconced in the land of Canaan for all time (and if they lost the land, they would eventually get it back). And it was not a statement that territorial kingdoms (or territorial nation-states) would be God’s main channel of social involvement throughout history. If we see the call to be a blessing for all people on earth as the core meaning here, we will learn from the biblical (and historical) story that territorial kingdoms and nation-states in fact prove to be God’s rivals in relation to blessing, not God’s channels. The story of the ancient Hebrews’ failed territorial kingdom then becomes a clarifying story, helping us to understand the actual intent of the promises—to bless all the families of the earth not to refer to possession of territory.

With this understanding of the Genesis 12 promises, we are helped to read the rest of the Bible differently. The Old Testament may better be seen as a peaceable story that educates its readers in how the people of the promise may be a blessing for all the families of the earth apart from existing as a territorial kingdom. The New Testament, of course, may be read in the same way. And when the two testaments are read together (which is what a Jesus-centric reading should lead to), we may better recognize the Old Testament story as being about an alternative kind of politics, where the embodiment of Torah points toward blessing all the families of the earth—a blessing that by definition must operate apart from the dominance of territorial kingdoms. As well, we then may also recognize that the New Testament, obviously telling a story that understands the blessing as being separate from territorial kingdoms, nonetheless is telling a political story, a story of an embodied community of faith that blesses all the families of the earth. That is, biblical politics involves important elements from both testaments.

The failure of territoriality to channel blessing

To simplify greatly the Bible’s message, I suggest that the original blessing that God offers humanity finds embodiment in the Hebrew community. This blessing is based on God’s work of liberating the people from slavery and providing them a social blueprint for justice with Torah. This community does need to live a landed existence, to have a concrete context for embodying Torah’s humanizing message in real life. However, this landed existence does not need to be a faith-community-led territorial kingdom (nor does it need to have a physical temple). The embodiment starts in the wilderness after the exodus long before the people possess the promised land and continues hundreds of years later after the kingdom of Judah is destroyed by the Babylonians. The orientation of this embodiment is stated concisely in Jeremiah 29:7 when the prophet cites the words of the Lord to the peoplehood in exile: “Seek the peace of the city where you are.” The shalom of the promise and the blessing of all the families of the earth will arise in “the cit[ies] where you are.”  

From the start in the time of Joshua and every step of the way thereafter, the people are told that their presence in the land of promise is contingent upon them actually embodying Torah—and that a failure to embody Torah would drive them from the land. They do fail, and the territorial kingdom does end (seemingly for all time, no more to be the designated channel for the promise). Crucially, though, the peoplehood (and the core element of the original promise) does not end. The promise, thus, both predates and postdates the territorial kingdom. It began in the wilderness, and it continued in exile. Thus, the need to be in a specific locale and to possess it as a territorial kingdom or nation state is relativized. The fulfillment of the promise included a territorial kingdom at one point—but then never again. The biblical story means to tell us, I believe, that the territorial kingdom strategy is a permanent failure. For people of the promise to give loyalty to kingdoms and states always runs the danger of turning toward idolatry.

The story of Jesus continues this theme. His life and teaching make it clear that neither the Roman Empire nor some sort of nationalistic Jewish state ala the Maccabees could possibly serve as channels of the promise. Both offer an idolatrous lure for many people, but the alternative Jesus presents poses a different kind political reality. Jesus points to a politics that seeks to embody the justice of Torah, that echoes the concerns of the prophets, and that reflects the Old Testament’s lesson that human kings with standing armies and hierarchical religious institutions are God’s rivals, not God’s agents.

How the New Testament links with the Old

Let me conclude by briefly suggesting how key New Testament themes link with the reading I am giving the Old Testament—all showing ways to find peace in the Bible. The gospels do present Jesus in “royal” terms implying a connection with the kingly elements of ancient Israel’s territorial kingdom (e.g., he is called “Messiah” and “Christ” [terms used of kings], and he preached the “kingdom of God”). However, Jesus identifies with the prophets who critiqued the territorial kingdom. Thus, the “kingly” aspect of Jesus’s identity is meant as a counter-witness to the politics of domination. Domination characterizes the great empires of the world (see Mark 10:42) and, inevitably it turns out, it characterizes even the territorial kingdoms of the people of the promise throughout history.

Jesus presents a different kind of politics—compassion, care for the vulnerable, focus on human needs not the enhancement of the wealth and power of the elite. Jesus is appropriately viewed in a kingly sense because he means for his political agenda to be normative, for all times and places. In this sense, he echoes the intentions of Torah in its original form. What Jesus is clear about, though, following from the story of failure of the ancient Hebrews’ territorial kingdom, is that the locus for embodying the humanizing politics of Torah is not the territorial kingdom but small, face-to-face communities who seek the peace of whatever city they find themselves within.

So, the story the Bible tells is ultimately about the failure of territoriality as a means to provide for the blessing promised in Genesis 12. This failure is so profound that the story concludes that it is inherently in the nature of territorial kingdoms that they are rivals to the God who initiates Torah’s humanizing politics. Thus, no territorial kingdom or nation-state should be given the kind of loyalty that would lead to justifying violence and injustice. People of faith should always be suspicious of states asking for this kind of loyalty.

Now, we do have one famous New Testament text that has traditionally been seen as a counter-testimony to a Jesus-centered suspicion of territorial kingdoms and nation-states. Romans 13, as commonly understood, does seem to place the state more highly. However, if we read it carefully, we will see that it can be read in a way that is compatible with Jesus’s peace teaching. Read in the context of the overall biblical story, of the meaning of Torah, of the message of Jesus, and of the thought of Paul as a whole, we may understand that Romans 13 mainly offers a statement about the inevitability of states and the valid (in terms of biblical morality) role that states play in the ordering of human life.

Romans 13 acknowledges the inevitable existence of states and teaches that followers of Jesus should recognize that states have a necessary function in providing for the framework for human social existence. That function should be respected. However, to respect its ordering function is not to give states the role of determining life and death matters—or of receiving the kind of loyalty that would cause citizens to violate the core biblical command of love of neighbor. Even for Romans 13, states are seen as always potential rivals to God’s political agenda. The person of faith should always remember that the call to love the neighbor is one’s ultimate priority even while respecting that states do play an important role in human social life. But states should be relativized and never given ultimate loyalty.

The final image of territorial kingdoms in the Bible comes in the book of Revelation and balances the emphases of Romans 13. The book of Revelation links the kingdoms of the world with the spiritual Powers of evil, the Dragon and the Beast. They become idols and are revealed as rebellious agents of the politics of death. Even so, Revelation holds out hope for the healing of the human agents who lead the nations—the kings enter New Jerusalem after they are freed from their idolatry of the Dragon and Beast. This healing follows from the Lamb and his comrades witnessing to the path of love and compassion even to the point of death. God’s victory is due to the faithful nonviolence of the Lamb and the Lamb’s followers. The key is trust in the efficacy of the embodied Torah that the Lamb practices and taught. Such trust empowers distrust in the power politics of empires, states, and kingdoms.

The Bible as a whole (including the Old Testament) provides a guide for how such trust in the way of embodied Torah might be cultivated. We do well to read the entire Bible carefully and in light of the message of Jesus in hopes of gaining insights and empowerment for this work of peacemaking.

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