Christian spiritual viewpoint about war

 

At Christmas, a Christian spiritual viewpoint about war

Christmas is a season that may not have much joy or optimism for some.  There seems to be war everywhere.  But our angst and internal turmoil over present wars is a spiritual issue.  Let us consider the big picture.

God created the universe and then gradually began creating Earth as a special place for his ultimate creation, the human race.  Humanity was made to have some God-like qualities in His image, of free choice and morality, created right in front of God’s adversary.

The fallen Lucifer has always been against God’s beauty and His creation, especially living souls.

After the sinful choice made by humanity through disobedience, there came human awareness of good and evil — blessing and calamity.  Then God’s eventual plan of restoration was foretold in Genesis 3:15. “Her Seed; He shall fatally bruise your head and you shall only bruise His heel.”

This was the Christmas announcement, the prophecy about the Messiah Jesus, who through His birth, death, and resurrection would ultimately defeat Satan, the power behind the serpent, with a death blow.  Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a Child shall be born, to us a Son shall be given; And the government shall be upon His shoulder, And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

The selection of Jews as God’s reconnection pathway with His human creation was an affront to Lucifer.  Consequently, the eternal spiritual battle and wars of retaliation arose from evil to smear and destroy the living souls of God’s creation, especially the Jews.  The story of the power of darkness and negativity, warring against the God of light, optimism, and grace, has existed from the very beginning as described in the Tora.

Along the way, Lucifer was against the eternal plan of redemption of the human race that his evil had temporarily wounded, by trying to kill Christ the Redeemer.  King Herod’s murder of children was one failed attempt.  The resurrection of Jesus was evil’s final spiritual defeat.

Consequently, the spiritual war was then to deceive as many as possible to keep them away from joining God’s family through Christ, by using imposters.  Lucifer has used many agent usurpers to keep souls spiritually blind and away from God, sometimes appearing as fake pretenders.  False religions were invented by Lucifer using willing human agents, to prevent souls from re-joining God’s family.  The spiritual war has been played out down through the centuries. The murderous evil of Islamic Hamas is just the latest. 

But persecution against God’s children is also being significantly perpetrated right now in India, China, Russia, as well as anywhere that Islam has political control.  Even in regions where God's own has some dominance — Canada being an example — evil is perpetuated by false agents to divide and divert away from the redemption of truth.  If organizations are not authentically Christian, and some falsely pretend that they are, they have nothing to do with God and are just mere social organizations, such as Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, United Church of Canada, New Age, Unification Church, Christian Science, Scientology, Transcendental Meditation, etc. 

Although Canada has seen dark Christmas days in the past — such as during the two world wars of the last century — Canada is now experiencing something different — an internal cultural war. 

Observe, for example, the complaints about the discriminatory meaning of Christmas and the varied and subtle ways that the Christ of Christmas will be maligned, diverted, and subverted.  The evil walking about in society is especially noticeable since the invention of social media.

A basic understanding comes when one retrospectively appreciates at a deeper level, that war, and especially the battle against Hitler and the USSR was a spiritual one.

One can have moral clarity.  Much of what happens has a spiritual force behind it, for both good and evil.  This is the Christian understanding of our existence.  It was the spiritual power of moral choice given at creation.  If one does not support God’s long-term direction for humankind, as well as personally and privately participate in God’s redemption plan through Christ, then one has already assigned and defined oneself as spiritually dwelling in the enemy camp.

Major battles and wars have at their core the motivations of evil against good.  Every person makes their choice on which side they are living, and in which camp they choose to dwell.  At the end of our life on earth, we will be evaluated and rewarded according to how well we handled what God entrusted within us.

The key is to choose to live the full meaning of Christmas which is “Immanuel God with us” Isaiah 7:14. (Christmas)  Ephesians 6:12:  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.  As the Bible says, "We’re not waging war against enemies of flesh and blood alone."  "No, this fight is against tyrants, against authorities, against supernatural powers and demon princes that slither in the darkness of this world, and against wicked spiritual armies that lurk about in heavenly places."  "For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood, contending only with physical opponents, but against the despotisms, against the powers, against the master spirits who are the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly supernatural sphere."

We must understand that everything in our reality has a spiritual basis.  Our Universe and everything in it comes from God’s creative hand.  Such basic understanding was the reason for the explanation of beginnings in Genesis 1.  Genesis places existence in perspective, reminding us where all things come from  -God.  It is not a scientific detailed revelation, but rather a spiritual revelation that the mechanics of the existence of all matter and life itself come from God.

Interestingly, the book of John begins with a deliberate echo of the creation story in Genesis.  It takes the reader back to before time began to the moment when God interrupts silence and speaks the cosmos into existence.  Jesus is the Logos (Voice) as He existed long before time was measured.  

The significance of Christmas is that it is the most pivotal moment for humankind.  There are many essential junctions of time.  However, Jesus Christ humbly descended and took on the temporary form of humanness to provide a path of rescue for created human souls who were caught in the middle of the spiritual war between Satan against God.

Christmas and war are entwined together.  Jesus had to come to dwell for a while, to correct the consequences of war that had been fought in heaven.  War on earth has the same basis of evil rising against the good.  Christmas happened in order to end war, because the basic motivator of war is evil rising against the good.