The Cross and the Sword

Commentaries on Matthew’s Gospel were a common place to locate scattered theological foundations to political reflection among the earliest Reformed theologians. The passage about the arrest of Jesus in 26:47-56 forms a kind of last piece of that puzzle. The doctrine that emerges from this text is either much neglected or else cherry-picked by this or that group. But I would summarize the true teaching here in this way:

In the kingdom of Christ, grace subordinates justice, and vengeance belongs to the Lord.

The Cross and the Sword Diversely Confused

There are three basic ways that the truth here is either neglected or distorted. 

First, there is the sword seized and cross neglected. This is the error of political zealotry in every age—as in the words here ‘all who take the sword will perish by the sword’ (v. 52). This “taking,” or usurpation, belonged first to Peter (Jn. 18:10). This was already previewed at Caesarea Philippi, when “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you’” (16:22). But this isn’t about the sword, as an instrument in itself—after all, it is just an inanimate object. Something deeper is at work in the heart of the one grasping the sword. It is more like a fire inside which kindles a vengeance that spreads beyond our control and consumes us (Isa. 50:11). In addition to being an ambush that turns back on us (Prov. 1:18), such a usurpation turns a blind eye to the cross. 

Second, there is the sword and the cross both domesticated. This is the error of liberal theology—promising its young converts that it is turning all swords into plowshares here and now (Isa. 2:4), but they are not told that the cross is being demythologized together with the sword. Go deeper into the life of liberal churches and its theology and what you will find is not merely an abhorrence to the violence of man, but to the violence of God. So all of the sharp edges of reality are smoothed over, and divine justice itself is defanged by something more humane than either the cross or the sword. For the liberal, what can this seizing of Jesus be but the unfolding of a tragedy?

Third, there is the sword abdicated and cross conflated. This is the error of pietistic evangelicalism that uses the “gospel-brand” to drown out the sound of the civil use of the law. But if the gospel is not a license to sin in any other area of life, it also isn’t a license for us to excuse the sins of the sword by pretending that we’ll have nothing to do with it. Notice the words of Jesus here, ‘Put your sword back into its place’ (v. 52). The sword had a place. Jesus was not surprised that Peter had a sword. Indeed, in Luke’s account Jesus makes owning a sword as much a necessity for going on a trip as having a bag or a belt or a cloak.

So why is Jesus’ non-resistance here not a legitimate ground for a doctrine of either pacifism (i.e., All use of physical force is unlawful) or at least pietism (i.e., No use of physical force by Christians would be consistent with the gospel)? Perhaps many reasons could be given, but let mention only two:

First, Jesus is not acting here as an agent of the civil sphere in our age, and thus this activity by Jesus cannot be used as an example for a civil officer, Christian or otherwise, without some other scriptural reasoning. The burden of proof is on the pacifist and pietist to produce such additional reasoning. It simply begs the question to leave it at that.

Second, the achievement of Peter’s ends here would have prevented Jesus from going to the cross. But that raises two more dissimilarities: (1) This going to the cross was a unique, unrepeatable event of the gospel; and (2) Jesus went voluntarily, not as a victim. So to assume up front that Peter’s actions and ends here are the same as any or all uses of force in the civil sphere is guilty of the fallacies of begging the question and of the false analogy.

The Cross and the Sword Properly Related

Contrary to these false readings, the cross and sword are related in a fourfold way: in terms of (i) proper sphere, (ii) proper agent, (iii) proper time, and (iv) proper motive. In all of these we will see that grace subordinates justice. Notice that the exercise of justice is not eradicated, but rather subordinated, and that in four ways: 

First, as to proper sphere. We may think that there is no sphere into which God has delegated a sword to man. Perhaps to Christ alone—figuratively about the sword of His truth that divides in Matthew 10:34; and literally about that “sharp sword with which to strike down the nations” at the Last Day, in Revelation 19:15. But otherwise, never! However, we would be wrong. Justice has a final and perfect sphere on the Last Day, but it also has an ordained, even if imperfected, sphere in the present age. God has designed the civil magistrate in such a way, as Paul says: “he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:4).

Second, as to proper agent. Jesus replies to Peter’s false zeal: ‘Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?’ (v. 53). These LEGIONS of angels are the ultimate military force that, if summoned by God, would be wiping out anything in their path. We have heard from passages that speak of “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance” (2 Thess. 1:7-8). But why speak of the angels when He Himself was the most proper Agent of vengeance? The answer is discovered in our two final points.

Third, as to proper time. Even Jesus subordinated His own agency. With respect to Judas, He did not take on the exalted stance from the Judge’s bench that it will one day. He says here, ‘Friend, do what you came to do’ (v. 50). The enemy of Christ is still allowed a measure of his evil agency in the meantime, so as to add to his judgment (Rom. 2:5). Matthew Henry sees this as a supreme act of meekness, and that, “under the greatest provocation to forebear bitterness and evil-speaking.”[1] Certainly it becomes an example for us; but it requires a greater end to explain this subordination of justice.

Fourth and finally, as to that motive, it is signaled by the contrasting words: ‘But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?’ (v. 54) In other words, though full execution of justice would have been righteous from the start, yet there would have been no mercy. That is the usual application both at Caesarea Philippi and here in Gethsemane; and rightly so. If Peter had his way—no cross, no salvation, no you in Christ’s kingdom to debate the wrong and right ways of its justice! But there is actually more to this motive that Jesus possessed.

More than the securing of mercy, the particular glory of God’s justice is at stake. Paul says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19). To “leave it to” God’s wrath is to know that God’s wrath is infinitely more powerful and more pure than ours. And if that doesn’t help, listen to how Peter describes the motive of Jesus here—specifically as an example for us—“when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet. 2:23).

What Jesus set forth in the way of justice was a far more magnificent execution of it. Yet we are prevented from the ditches of zealotry on one side and pietism on the other. It is the future, final, unqualified and invincible justice to come that informs our participation in the form of justice that He has ordained in time. 

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1. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), 1758.