Salvation and the Destruction of Enemies (in Joel/Obadiah/Micah)
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Understanding the Problem and Its Roots
Joel, Obadiah, and Micah all envision that Israel’s deliverance requires the defeat or destruction of its enemies (Joel 3:1-15, 19-21; Obad 1-21; Mic 4:11-13; 5:5-9, 15; 7:10, 13, 16-17). Contemporary Christians should find such a vision deeply troubling, but respect for Scripture should encourage us to be sympathetic because of the suffering and loss from which the vision comes. All three books reached their final form in the postexilic era, after Judah experienced centuries of defeat and domination by a succession of empires, and probably harassment by neighboring peoples who took advantage of Judah’s weakness. The faith community experienced a level of suffering at the hands of enemies that is unimaginable to most of us today. From a psychological perspective, it is completely understandable that a victimized people would long to see their enemies defeated and destroyed. Most persons have an innate sense of justice, according to which people should get what they deserve. Did Judah’s enemies not deserve something like what they had inflicted on Judah?
Early readers of Joel, Obadiah, and Micah belonged to a defeated and colonized remnant. They were a tiny community, aware of their vulnerability in a neighborhood of peoples who were not always friendly. They would have heard promises of God’s destruction of their enemies as a powerful word of defiance against the empire and against other enemies responsible for their suffering, who were perhaps still threatening. They would have felt validated by God’s attention to their plight and God’s outrage at the injustices and atrocities that enemies had inflicted on them. Their God was committed to the underdogs and losers of history and would intervene in powerful ways to deliver them and ensure their well-being.
One purpose of all three books is to provide comfort and hope to a community that was physically, psychologically, and spiritually traumatized, especially by the death, destruction, and exile brought by the Babylonian defeat of Judah in 586 BCE. The most important way these three books provide hope is by reassuring the faith community that God has not forgotten them in their suffering but is committed to their restoration. The Old Testament consistently claims that God’s salvation involves physical benefits in this present life. There is a deep realism about prophetic visions involving destruction of Judah’s enemies. Given the nasty political and military realities of the time, God’s physical restoration of Judah’s fortunes could not happen without defeat of its enemies. The Old Testament is not naive about the kind of world we live in and about what is necessary to ensure Israel’s security and well-being.
The harsh attitude toward enemies expressed by Joel, Obadiah, and Micah was probably not particularly dangerous in a community that did not have the political or military clout to do much about its desire for revenge. The venting of the community’s anger by the prophets may have served as a spiritual and psychological escape valve for releasing intense feelings rather than inspiring concrete actions against real enemies. By projecting its outrage and hatred of enemies onto God, the community left at least some of the responsibility for dealing with enemies in God’s hands, rather than taking such matters into its own hands (cf. Zenger: 28, 48, 79, 92).
Grappling with the Problem
Explaining why Joel, Obadiah, and Micah portray the destruction of enemies as essential for the salvation of God’s people is not the same as defending this vision. The vision is extremely dangerous in ways that should be named and confronted.
It is worth realizing that to say the same thing to two different groups of people is not to say the same thing at all. What the prophets announced to a disempowered remnant may have a very different impact on faith communities living centuries later in very different circumstances. For marginalized and oppressed peoples today, the venting of anger and outrage at enemies may still serve a useful validating and empowering function (Claassens: 340–41, 344). However, for Christians living near seats of power, such venting may inspire anger, outrage, and real violence against real enemies (335, 344–45). Micah encourages a weak remnant to imagine itself as a vicious lion ravaging its enemies (5:7-9), and as harvesters threshing the peoples whom God has gathered for destruction (4:11-13). Originally, such encouragement probably produced little harm, but when Christians living in powerful nations embrace such visions, they may imagine themselves mandated by God to destroy their nation’s enemies. During the last two millennia, Western nations have waged many crusades and wars against their enemies in God’s name, convinced that they were God’s people, that their cause was righteous, and that therefore God would grant them success.
Joel, Obadiah, and Micah all envision God as a nationalistic deity committed to defending Israel at the expense of other peoples. While Israel may experience judgment, God will ultimately deliver Israel, with foreign peoples paying a high price. If we today envision our salvation as depending on the destruction of our human enemies, then we will arrogantly assume that we are at the center of God’s purposes for the world. If we believe that our well-being is more important than the well-being of other peoples, we may assume that our nation’s political, military, and economic interests represent the interests of God and are worth defending through violence and military might. The prophetic vision can inspire a dangerous and blind nationalism if it is not challenged.
It is important to acknowledge the existence of enemies in our world, and the existence of powers and entities opposed to God’s good purposes. However, the “us versus them” mentality promoted by some prophets encourages us to imagine that the bulk of evil and opposition to God’s saving purposes lies with enemies who stand in the way of our well-being. Such a mentality can poison our attitudes toward other peoples and can discourage us from using nonviolent forms of resolving conflict. Demonization of enemies is common in times of national conflict and war, serving as a way to legitimize violence against them (cf. Hedges: 144–46). As Obadiah illustrates, this “us versus them” mentality can also create a self-righteous inability to admit one’s own national faults.
The “us versus them” mentality is also harmful because it encourages selfishness rather than cooperation. It is striking how Micah 4:1-5 presents a vision of salvation in which all peoples are included. Instead of using destructive power to force the nations to acknowledge God’s sovereignty, God transforms Zion into a magnet that draws the nations to come and learn God’s ways and hear God’s word. Instead of making one people dominant over others, God enacts justice and arbitrates disputes among all. God’s justice and peacemaking allow the nations to disarm and repurpose their military technology into life-enhancing tools of food production. The result is security and well-being for ordinary people. Such a vision of God’s salvation, uniting the nations in a common peaceful future, will inspire a different Christian lifestyle than do visions in which our salvation depends on the destruction of enemies.
The way the prophets foretell the destruction of Israel’s enemies obscures the massive human tragedy of such destruction. Hearing them speak in abstract ways about the devastation of enemies is similar to watching American bombing campaigns and drone strikes play out as images on a computer screen. We hear about the glorious outcome, but we do not see human flesh ripped apart, mothers cradling the lifeless bodies of their children, elderly persons in despair because their homes are gone, or desperate families grieving the loss of their livelihoods. The glorification of the enemy’s destruction as the solution to the problems of our nation or ethnic group overlooks the enormous human tragedy of such conflict and entrenches our moral insensitivity (Hedges: 13–14, 26–32). Prophetic announcements of the destruction of enemies desensitize us to how war is the brutal destroyer of persons, families, communities, and creation.
In the Old Testament, the formation of the Israelite people into a nation is a central feature of God’s saving work. Given the realities of the postexilic context, it was difficult to envision Israel existing as a people and nation without the defeat of its enemies. The New Testament portrayal of God’s saving work through Jesus Christ reveals a significant change in how God deals with enemies. God’s agenda becomes much bigger than one chosen people living as a nation-state. God’s agenda becomes the renewal of all creation through the inauguration of the universal kingdom/reign of God on earth (Rom 8:19-23; Rev 21:1-5). Through Jesus Christ, God fulfills the divine plan for creation by reconciling every element of the cosmos to himself (Col 1:15-20). God invites everyone to receive the divine love and grace made available through Jesus; to become part of the renewed people of God, joined together in the church; and to get on board with the mission of building for God’s worldwide reign. God’s goal is not the destruction of the nations but their evangelization. Salvation in Christ involves the creation of one new humanity in which human groups once alienated from each other and God are reconciled both to each other and to God (Eph 2:11-22). The prophetic hope that God will ensure peace and security by destroying enemies is transposed into the hope that the peace of Jesus will turn enemies into siblings in Christ.
Because salvation in Christ does not involve the formation of a nation-state, our security and well-being do not depend on the destruction of our human enemies. Jesus warns us to expect to encounter enemies in the form of opposition and persecution (Matt 5:11-12; 16:24-26; 24:9; Mark 8:34-38; 13:9-13; Luke 9:23-26; 21:12-17). God does not eliminate these enemies but gives us strength to withstand them. In Romans 8:35-39, Paul considers a long list of human and cosmic enemies that could potentially overwhelm us. He asserts that in Christ, we are more than conquerors (8:37). He concludes by insisting that there is nothing in all of creation that “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:39). In Matthew, the closing assurance that Jesus gives his disciples is “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20). A key source of security in Christ is the promise that beyond this present life is resurrection and eternal life in God’s new age. Jesus assures us that our lives always remain in God’s tender care, in both this world and the next.
A core feature of biblical faith is the hope that someday God will intervene decisively to right the wrongs of history, deal with evil and evildoers, deliver the faithful, and establish God’s reign. How we envision the means and outcome of God’s rectification project will shape Christian life in profound ways. If the defeat of enemy nations is central to our vision, then our lives will be channeled in some of the harmful directions discussed above. Our lives will move in other directions if our hopes are transposed by Jesus’ ministry of establishing God’s kingdom through healing the sick, casting out life-destroying demons, proclaiming the good news of God’s love and grace, welcoming outcasts, inviting repentance, and defeating the powers of sin and death by dying on the cross and rising on Easter morning.
Our human imagination often assumes that enemies must be dealt with through defeat and destruction. That is not how God responds to the crucifixion of Jesus, which represents the ultimate human enmity and opposition to God’s saving purposes. God turns the cross into the means of reconciling human groups to each other and reconciling all of humanity and creation to God (Eph 2:12-22; Col 1:15-20; cf. 2 Cor 5:18-21). While hanging on the cross, Jesus prays that God will forgive the persons who are torturing him to death (Luke 23:34). We cannot be certain how God will deal with enemies who oppose God’s saving purposes to the very end. However, God responds to the enmity that nailed Jesus to the cross in a way which suggests that there may ultimately be more healing and renewal than defeat and destruction in God’s purposes.
Bibliography
- Claassens, L. Juliana. “God and Violence in the Prophets.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets, edited by Carolyn J. Sharp, 334–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
- Hedges, Chris. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor, 2003.
- Zenger, Erich. A God of Vengeance? Understsanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath. Translated by Linda M. Maloney. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996.
| —Dan Epp-Tiessen |
