There are many wars mentioned in the
Bible. Wars of conquest ( Joshua 1:6 ), civil wars
( 2 Samuel 3:1 ), and even a war in heaven
( Revelation 12:7 ). Of course, wars involve killing;
there is no way around it. We know that murder
is sin ( Exodus 20:13 ). But what about the killing
of an enemy combatant during wartime?
First, we know that not all killing in wartime is a
sin because there have been times when God
Himself commanded battles to be fought. God
told the ancient Israelites to possess the
Promised Land; in fact, just before the conquest,
the Lord appeared to Joshua as “commander of
the army of the Lord”—a man of war ( Joshua
5:14 ). God laid out the battle plans for the fight
against Ai ( Joshua 8:1–2 ). God told King Saul to
“go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all
that belongs to them” ( 1 Samuel 15:3 ). King
David defeated the Philistines by following God’s
strategy concerning the battle ( 2 Samuel 5:23–
25). God never tells people to sin, so the
Israelites who followed God’s commands to wage
war were not sinning. Killing in war cannot be
equated with murder.
This is not to say that killing in war has no
effects. David wanted badly to build the temple in
Jerusalem, but God did not let him. The Lord
wanted a man of peace to build the temple, and
David’s history had been anything but peaceful.
God said to David, “You are not to build a house
for my Name, because you are a warrior and have
shed blood” ( 1 Chronicles 28:3 ).
There is no theocracy today. No nation has a
command from God to wage war, and God is not
handing out battle plans as He did to Joshua,
Saul, and David. Yet wars continue to be fought.
It is part a fallen world’s existence. The Bible
never condemns the actions of a soldier following
orders on a battlefield. In fact, the New
Testament has examples of soldiers who had
faith in God—Jesus commended a centurion’s
faith in Matthew 8:10 ; and another centurion,
Cornelius, was saved in Acts 10. These men of
war were not rebuked for performing the duties of
a centurion, nor were they told they must change
professions.
Most tellingly, some soldiers came to John the
Baptist as he was baptizing in the Jordan River.
The soldiers asked John, “What should we do?”
This would have been the perfect opportunity for
John to tell them to stop engaging in warfare,
stop killing, or stop being soldiers. Instead, John
replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse
people falsely—be content with your pay” ( Luke
3:14 ). Being a soldier is not inherently sinful.
Paul uses the soldier life as an illustration of
spiritual truth (see 1 Corinthians 9:7 and 2
Timothy 2:3 ). Other references mention battles
and warfare (see 2 Corinthians 10:4 and 1
Timothy 1:18 ). Ephesians 6 contains an extended
comparison of the Christian life and warfare
(verses 10–17). If being a soldier (and doing the
things soldiers are required to do) were sinful, it
is unlikely the Holy Spirit would have used
soldiering as a metaphor for anything good.
Throughout the Bible, warfare is presented as a
grim reality in a cursed world. There are forces of
evil that must be stopped, and bloodshed is
sometimes the result. Whether a Christian should
serve in the military is a matter of one’s own
conscience, but killing an armed combatant in the
context of warfare is not sinful in itself. There is a
time and season for everything, including war
( Ecclesiastes 3:8 ).