Whenever the war drums start banging, Christians come up with a whole slew of arguments in order to justify killing people they don’t know half a world away. I put together a top-10 list of Christian justifications for war and intend to address each of them is separate articles. In this one, I’ll look at the common refrain, “Well, Jesus told the disciples to buy a sword.”

Luke records an exchange with the disciples where he does, in fact, urge them to “buy a sword.”

He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.” “That’s enough!” he replied. (Luke 22:36)

Does this passage offer the Christian a biblical justification to support their country’s wars?

I don’t believe it does.

In the first place, even if we can interpret this passage as a call to prepare for violent self-defense, it would be quite a stretch to say it justifies Christian participation in national wars in foreign lands. As I have written previously, moral arguments for defensive violence break down when you put them in a collectivist context –  particularly when you start talking about nations fighting other nations.

And we still need to wrestle with a bigger question: is Jesus’ call to “buy a sword” really about self-defense?

I don’t think it is.

Jesus ends the discourse saying, “That’s enough.”

Translators have interpreted this declaration in two ways, and neither reading leads one to the conclusion that Jesus was talking about buying swords for self-defense. Jesus was either saying, “That’s enough!” as in, “That’s the end of this conversation because y’all clearly don’t get what I’m trying to say.” In other words, he was frustrated because they were taking the admonition to buy swords literally, as so many people take the command today.

The second possibility was that he was speaking literally and he actually meant two swords were enough. But that raises a question as well. In what world are two swords an adequate arsenal to defend 13 people? If this was about self-defense, shouldn’t each individual have a sword?

Either way you slice it (pun intended), it seems pretty clear Jesus was getting at something deeper and more significant than carrying a sword to protect yourself. And if you read the following verses, this becomes even more apparent.

Jesus follows up his command to buy a sword with a quote from Isaiah 53:12.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many,  and made intercession for the transgressors.

This verse makes up part of a larger passage that prophetically refers to the Messiah. Read the preceding two verses.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Jesus immediately followed up his command to buy a sword with a prophetic passage describing how he would have to suffer and die as a sin offering. It logically follows that carrying swords has some connection to the prophecy.

Fast-forward to the Garden of Gethsemane.

While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.” (Luke 22:47-53)

This was the point where Jesus was “numbered with the transgressors.” This actually had political overtones. The expectation was that the Messiah would lead a rebellion to overthrow Rome and reestablish the greatness of Israel by military means. This explains why Peter drew his sword and went on the attack when the mob came to arrest Jesus.

But Jesus’ reaction reveals he was quite displeased with this turn of events.

“No more of this!” he said.

No more violence.

No more conquest.

No more swords.

Matthew records Jesus saying, “Put your sword back in its place; for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

This is hardly a ringing endorsement for war.

As an article on the Cantus Firmus website explains:

“Jesus wanted His disciples to have swords so that a prophecy would be fulfilled—that He would be seen as being a transgressor, a violent rebel, thus justifying in the minds of those arresting Him their perception of Him as a threat. His followers carrying swords like common criminals would justify this perception. Jesus was not saying that His followers should buy a deadly weapon and be prepared to use it, but that this is what sinners do. Thus, the swords served a very specific purpose. In fact, He goes on to chastise one of His followers for using a sword for another purpose.”

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ arrest, Christ goes on to tell Peter, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

The option of war was open to Jesus. He could have fulfilled Jewish messianic expectations and backed up Peter’s impulsive attack with legions of angels. He could have obliterated Rome and reestablished Israel as a mighty worldly empire. But Jesus rejected this option — just as he rejected Satan in the desert when the Devil offered “all the kingdoms of the world if you will just bow down and worship me.”

The Garden of Gethsemane represented a dramatic shift in paradigms. Jesus was numbered with the transgressors, but he was not a transgressor. He was innocent. They killed him. And Jesus went to his death not with a sword in his hand but with a cross on his back.

This is about God’s kingdom, not the worldly kingdoms. Worldly kingdoms are rooted in violence. They are sustained and expanded by the sword. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword because he had no intention of founding another kingdom on violence. As Tertullian wrote, “Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.”