By Leonard Jayawardena –

Leonard Jayawardena

Recently, I heard the presenter of a morning TV program in which the day’s newspapers are read cite Jesus’ famous saying “All Who Take the Sword Will Die by the Sword” in one of its two Sinhalese forms while commenting on a newspaper report he had just read about an underworld character who had been gunned down by a rival underworld gang. These two forms are kadu ganno kaduwen nasithi (literally, “Those who take the sword will die by the sword”) and awi gattho awiyen nasithi (literally, “Those who take up arms will die by arms”).

The original source for this saying is the Gospel according to Matthew in the New Testament, which reports that when a great crowd armed with swords and clubs came to arrest Jesus at the behest of the chief priests and the elders of the Jews, Peter, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. But Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who take the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).

This saying of Jesus is often popularly cited in instances where a violent person is thought to have got his just deserts by meeting a violent end himself. Like many other expressions of the Bible, for example, “the eleventh hour” and “fallen by the wayside,” this saying of Jesus has got a life of its own and used even by people who know nothing about the original source and its biblical context.

An examination of commentaries on the Bible reveal a variety of interpretations of this saying of Jesus, four of which are mentioned below:

1. It is a proverbial observation on the tendency of violence to recoil on those who perpetrate it. This, as stated above, is also the popular understanding of this saying of Jesus.

2. Jesus’ loyal followers formed relatively only a small band at this time and so any forceful resistance to the authorities under the present circumstances would be suicidal. Taking the sword at this time would mean certain destruction. Thus this saying has application only to this particular context, that is the arrest of Jesus, and is not a general pacifist rule binding on Christians in all circumstances.

3. Some ancient exegetes interpreted these words of Jesus as a prophecy of the Jews perishing by the Roman sword as a judgement. Prior to this Jesus had indeed predicted a divine judgement upon the Jews at the hands of the Romans on a number of occasions, especially in the Olivet Discourse reported in the first three Gospels. The Jews rebelled against Roman rule in Judea in AD 66 and the Roman response to it resulted in the deaths of a very large number of Jews and culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

4. All who take the sword will die by the sword of God. This is the view I had arrived at independently. The Catholic theologian Jerome (born c. AD 347, died 419/420) and Hilary of Poitiers (born c. AD 315-died c. 367) held this view, with the latter understanding “all who take the sword” in this context to refer to the persecutors of Jesus. Interestingly, none of the modern commentaries on Matthew I consulted advocated this view.

An objection to interpretation (1) above is that the universal language used by Jesus (“ALL who take sword”) points to the statement of an absolute law rather than a general tendency of those who recourse to violence to “die by the sword,” whatever he meant by the latter words. This is not borne out by empirical observation, for not all who resort to violence actually perish violently. There are murderers who die a natural death. Not all soldiers that go to war fall in battle. Not all who rise up in insurrection against the powers that be perish. Such advanced and destructive weapons of war now exist as enable their possessors to inflict vast damage and casualties to their enemies while suffering comparatively little damage to themselves, so that there are occasions when one cannot even speak of a general tendency of those who recourse to violence to perish violently. This objection also applies to interpretations (2) and (3).

Another objection to interpretation (3) above is that, according to the fourth Gospel (John), the crowd that came to arrest Jesus consisted not only of Jews but also Roman soldiers, who assisted in the arrest (John 18:3, 12).

According to the Gospels, Jesus clearly enjoined non-violence and pacifism as a precept on his disciples (Matthew 5:38-46), and his injunction to Peter to put away the sword naturally dovetails with those teachings, which also enable one to make the best sense out of his saying under discussion as explained below. Jesus’ teachings of non-violence and pacifism expose interpretations 1 and 2 to the objection that they make his opposition to Peter using the sword based on expediency rather than principle. They have Jesus forbidding the use of violence to Peter on this occasion not because violence by a disciple of his is wrong in principle but is imprudent for practical reasons. Furthermore, with interpretation 2 Jesus is also effectively saying that there can be other circumstances when taking up arms in resistance might not be injudicious. In the case of interpretation 3 future divine retribution against Jesus’ persecutors renders Peter’s intervention superfluous.

The interpretation listed fourth above is the correct one. Christian ethics exclude violence and all who resort to it will be killed by the sword of God, that is, meet divine condemnation.

In the New Testament the sword is a familiar symbol for the Christian Gospel (e.g., Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). The Gospel is the good news of the imminence of the kingdom of God (Greek basileia tou theou) in the abstract sense of the reign of God (Matthew 4:17). Earthly kings reign through possession of earthly riches, authority and power (political, military, economic, etc.) but in the kingdom inaugurated through Christ God reigns through perfect justice and moral uprightness, which is his moral glory and power. This reign is exercised through Christ and the Church. This is so because God’s moral glory, which was first present in its plenitude in Jesus, then indwelt his Church.

While this reign is a present reality throughout the life of the Church, its eschatological culmination is expressed as the “coming” of the kingdom with power (e.g., Mark 9:1), which is the same as “the son of man [Christ] coming in his kingdom” (compare Mark 9:1 with Matthew 16:28). It is also described as the “coming of the son of man in the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 24:30). This kingdom (=reign) comes in power when God’s glory fills the Church (Revelation 15:8), which is the kingdom of God in the concrete sense.

This manifestation of God’s moral glory has twofold effects: It simultaneously results in the salvation (from sins) of the Church and the judgement of the unbelievers. The other side of the coin, as it were, of the salvation of the believers is the condemnation of the unbelievers. The unbelievers are judged against the benchmark of the life and glory of Christ manifested in the Church and found to fall short. In the face of the righteousness (actual, not imputed) of the believers the unrighteous are destroyed and obliterated metaphorically. This is the true nature of the eschatological judgement described in the Bible and the language used to describe judgement such as “the lake of fire and sulphur” (Revelation 14:10; 19:20) and “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12) is just metaphorical with its roots in certain Old Testament passages and does not refer to anything with a literal existence. Biblical prophecy requires the fulfillment of this eschatological judgement during the persecution of Christians in the reign of Domitian (AD 81-96), the eleventh Roman emperor, when Christ’s glory filled the Church.

A sword, an offensive weapon used in war to slay and destroy, is used as a symbol of the Gospel in the Bible in part because of the effect it (the Gospel) has on the unredeemed. The Church is said to be engaged in a spiritual battle with the forces of darkness with every true believer being a soldier of Christ arrayed in the full panoply of war (Ephesians 6:11-17). They wrestle not with flesh and blood for the unbelievers are but the proxies of the forces of darkness (v. 12). Among other things, having girded his loins with truth and put on the breastplate of righteousness and helmet of salvation, the soldier of Christ takes the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Gospel).

In the Apocalypse, John the seer sees the heaven open and a rider on a white horse with a sharp sword proceeding from his mouth (Revelation 19:11ff). His name is the word of God and with his sword strikes the nations in judgement. A heavenly army follows him wearing pure white linen. The rider is none other than Christ and the sword he wields in his mouth is the Gospel. The heavenly army who follow him are his believers whose pure white linen garments represent their righteous deeds (19:8). Their foes are the Beast (Domitian, the eleventh Roman emperor, representing Imperial Rome) and the kings of the earth who, together with their armies, are gathered to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army (vs. 19). These are the unbelievers whose fate is being thrown into a lake of fire or being slain by the sword that proceeds from the mouth of the rider (vss. 20-21). Both the lake of fire and the sword are but two metaphors representing the same judgement.

In addition to traditional deities, Romans accorded divine honours to their rulers during their lifetime starting from Julius Caesar with Roman temples containing an image of the ruler (called emperor starting from Augustus Caesar) along with those of other traditional deities. The rulers were officially deified posthumously by the Roman Senate subject to some exceptions. Domitian, one of the exceptions due to his falling out of favour with the Senate, styled himself “Lord and God” (Latin Dominus et Deus) and was the first emperor to demand worship of himself on pain of death. Those who disobeyed, including Christians, paid with their lives for it and it is that impending persecution which forms a key focus in the New Testament book of Revelation, written during the reign of Vespasian (AD 69-79). Christians are warned of the consequences of the wrong responses to this persecution in the following words:

If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints. (Revelation 13:10)

These admonitory words allude to Jeremiah 15:2 (in the Old Testament) and form a part quotation thereof with a twist.

Jeremiah was a prophet who ministered to Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, during the period leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. to the Babylonians as a divine judgement. In warning the people of Judah against the impending event, Jeremiah predicts four types of calamities to which they are appointed.

One of them is, “those destined for captivity, to captivity [they go], ” referring to those who were to be exiled to Babylon after the fall of the kingdom. In the book of Revelation, the captivity assumes a metaphorical sense and means captivity to sin of those Christians who will bow down before an image of Domitian and live rather than refuse to do so and die for God. In the New Testament the ancient Israelites’ captivity in Babylon is seen as a type of spiritual captivity in Imperial Rome.

Another, “those destined for the sword, to the sword [they go],” becomes in Revelation, “If anyone shall kill with the sword, he must with the sword be killed,” echoing Jesus’ words to Peter that form the subject of this article. [Note] Christians are warned that any that offer armed resistance to the enforcement of Domitian’s edict of emperor worship in violation of Christ’s precept of non-violence will be killed by the sword of God. Thus to the Christians addressed in the book of Revelation, when confronted by the authorities for failing to worship the emperor, the only course of action acceptable to God is to passively submit to martyrdom if necessary. Revelation 13:10 calls for Christians to remain steadfast in their faith and patient in their suffering for God even unto death, trusting that their faith will be rewarded.

There are a number of references to this sword of God in the Old Testament. The first is found in Genesis 3:24, where the flaming sword that barred the way to the tree of life for Adam and Eve foreshadowed the Gospel. Comparison of the Revelation 19 passage referred to above with Judges 3:16-22 suggests an allusion to the latter passage in certain details in the former. Ehud’s message to Eglon (“word of God” [Gr. logos theou] in the Septuagint, the old Greek translation of the Old Testament), the king of Moab, is a thrust from his word two-edged sword into the fat belly of the king (vss. 20-21). In a technical sense the expression ho logos tou theou (“the word of God”) in the New Testament refers to the Gospel. Note that where Ehud hid his sword, his thigh, Christ has the name “king of kings and lord of lords” written and the sword is now wielded in his mouth (Judges 3:16; Revelation 19:15-16). There are further references to this sword in Isaiah 27:1; 34:5f and Psalm 149:6.

A possible objection that can be urged against the interpretation of Matthew 26:52 advocated in this article is that it involves taking the word “sword” in two different senses in the same sentence: one earthly, the other heavenly. In answer, the use of words in a dual sense within the same sentence is not unparalleled in the reported sayings of Jesus as demonstrated by Luke 9:59-60: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God,” that is, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own physically dead.” The spiritually dead are those who are dead in their sins.

It is outside the scope of this article to respond to the possible objection, though not exegetical, that the absolute non-violence which this saying of Jesus thus interpreted demands is unrealistic and impractical in practice. My purpose has been to show that the interpretation of the subject passage advocated in this article is the most sound exegetically and hermeneutically and not to commend non-violence to the reader. Suffice it to say that Jesus’ ethical teachings are addressed to his disciples (of the true variety) and any attempt at practising absolute non-violence by non-disciples (not to mention purely nominal or cultural Christians) would be foolish in the extreme.

Note: Many ancient Greek manuscripts have the reading I have used: “if anyone will kill with the sword, it is necessary for him to be killed with the sword.” Other manuscripts are similar except that they read a present tense “kills” in this sentence. On the other hand, the Alexandrian Manuscript (Codex A) reads, “if anyone is to be killed by the sword, he is to be killed by the sword,” which reflects Jeremiah’s original words. A defense of the originality of the reading I have used lies outside the compass of this article.