Bible Contradiction? Is God warlike or peaceful?

For today’s post will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Is God warlike or peaceful?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

God is warlike

““The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name” (Exodus 15:3)

“He trains my hands for battle, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” (Psalm 18:34)

“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1)

God is peaceful

“Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” (Romans 15:33)

“Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord,” (Hebrews 13:20)

“for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” (1 Corinthians 14:33)

“Finally, brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2 Corinthians 13:11)

“Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!” (2 Thessalonians 3:16)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. The three passages the skeptic quoted to demonstrate that God is warlike (Exodus 15:3, Psalm 18:34 and Psalm 144:1) do support the point that God is warlike in the specific sense that He is a warrior and that He help His people in times of war.  But its not just warlike for the sake of being warlike; specifically these verses shows us that God is a protector.  There’s no dispute about it from those passages so the remainder of this post we will examine more carefully the topic of God as a God of peace.  A closer examination on peace would reveal that we do not have a Bible contradiction here.
3. There are different shade of meaning to the word “peace” that we must consider.
   1. The Greek word for peace is εἰρήνη.  As one can gleam from Strong or even more technical lexicons, there are different shade of meanings the term has.
   2. While the term peace both in the English and the Greek can mean the absence of war, nevertheless we see that in the Greek the word εἰρήνη doesn’t always carry the meaning of absence of war.  In fact all the verses the skeptic cited to demonstrate that God is peaceful have nothing in the context that suggests absence of war as the focus  and that is an important observation to make since these verses are not trying to say something about war or lack of war concerning the attribute of God.  It would be irrational to make this out to be a Bible contradiction concerning the topic of being war-like or not being war-like when there’s one entire set of verses that aren’t even about war.
   3. Also the skeptic cited 1 Corinthians 14:33 as proof that God is a God of peace.  Contextually 1 Corinthians 14:33 contrasts “confusion” with “peace” and  the subject matter is how church service ought to be conducted in a manner that reflect God’s nature and desire.  Thus “peace” in this context has the sense of orderly.  But orderly worship and God being a physical protector of His people from physical harm are not logically incompatible.  We must not use 1 Corinthians 14:33 as a verse that proves a Bible contradiction.
   4. We must also not forget that in Christianity there is a different kind of peace that is in view.  The night before Jesus Christ was crucified He explicitly stated that this peace from Him is different than anything else previously: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27).  Later in Colossians 1:20 Paul explained further the relationship of Christ and this spiritual peace: “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”  This idea of spiritual peace seems to be the more likely sense that is used when God is called a God of peace because of the spiritual emphasis of all the epistles and the lack of war with the Pax Romana of the time.  So we do not have a Bible contradiction here because the set of verses that the skeptic gathered that talk about God being warlike is focusing on God as physical protector of His people from their enemies while the verses on God being peaceable is about spiritual peace.  These verses are not Bible contradictions because they are talking about two different domains.
4. Even if the Bible does talk about God being a God of peace in the sense of the absence of literal war, we still do not have a Bible contradiction.
   1. Don’t forget Ecclesiastes 3:1 which teaches us “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven” which includes “a time for war and a time for peace” (v.8b).  So even if there are times when God is  warlike while other times He is not warlike technically we don’t have a Bible contradiction because they are not two mutually exclusive truths being held simultaneously true at the same time.
   2. Also God being warlike and peaceful are not mutually exclusive since one can be victorious in war in order to bring about peace which is the end of war.
      1. This is what we see God will do as prophesied in Zechariah 9:10= “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the [a]River to the ends of the earth.“
      2. As a human example in 2 Samuel 10:19 we see God’s Word record the making of peace after Israel’s military victory over her enemies.
      3. Consider Melchizedek in Hebrews 7:1-2.  Verse 1 certainly describes his warlike side for among other things it tells us of his “slaughter of the kings.”  Yet verse 2 tells us he was “king of peace.”  Melchizedek is an exemplar of the King being warlike in order to attain peace.  We also know Melchizedek is a type for Christ.  Why wouldn’t we expect Christ as our Triune God to be able to be a God of peace and a warlike God in the same manner that’s not contradictory?

There’s no Bible contradictions here.  It’s time the skeptics say “Peace out!” to this so-called Bible Contradiction.

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