Holiness is more important to God than victory
Some might think the highest priority of the evangelical church today is winning. Victory. Success.
Especially in a cultural and political context. For some Christians, nothing is more important than defeating our cultural and political enemies, at least judging by how they talk.
The priority we place on winning is evidenced by the tactics we use, or at least tolerate. We hurl insults. We single out only certain sins, and sinners, for condemnation. We not only vote for but publicly champion vile, ungodly politicans and culture warriors, because we think we need their power.
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Also, even if we disapprove of those politicans’ vileness, we’re told to keep it to ourselves or address it privately. Don’t do anything to undermine our side. Only attack the other side. This imperative is known among some conservatives as “no enemies to the right.”
This begs the question, is this how God thinks? Is this how He wants us to wage the culture war? Is this how He wants us to engage our enemies?
To answer that, let’s look at a time when God’s people waged actual war.
‘Keep yourself from every wicked thing’
Deuteronomy 23:9-14 is God’s instructions for Israel as they prepare for battle.
He tells them to “keep yourself from every wicked thing.”
Verse 14 says, “For the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He may see no unclean thing among you, and turn away from you.”
When God’s people go into battle, His concern for them is not whether they win or lose; the outcome was always determined by God anyway.
His concern for them is their holiness. He is more concerned with their righteousness than that of their enemies. God says His people must be holy when they fight. God will not be with them if they’re no more holy than their enemies.
‘The accursed things’
An example of God prioritizing holiness over victory comes in Joshua 7.
God had just given Israel the spectacular conquest of Jericho. Next came Ai, and the Israelites were confident, “for the people of Ai are few.”
They, of all people, should have known that victory is not determined by numbers, but by God. And God decided not to give them the victory this time.
Why? Because one of the Israelites “took of the accursed things” of Jericho.
He sought what the pagan world valued. He wanted what they had. He desired the unholy.
And God would not tolerate that. “Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you,” He told Joshua.
“From among you.”
Our enemy is not the unholiness of the world, but the unholiness among us.
There is no victory without holiness.
Logs in our own eye
This is consistent with what we see in the New Testament as well.
Jesus taught that our judging should be of ourselves first: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).
Paul the apostle was least tolerant of sin within the church: “For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?” (1 Corinthians 5:12).
As Peter wrote, judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).
Peter’s first letter also teaches us how to suffer injustice: “not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling” (3:9). He wrote in chapter 2, “But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: ‘Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (20-23).
Notice that the explicit way Christ is our example is His peaceful reaction to unjust suffering. In contrast, some Christians use Christ as an example of combat: He called the Pharisees snakes and vipers, they say. He overturned tables, they say.
Yes, He did. What we should take from those incidents is that Jesus’ harshest demeanor was directed toward His own country. He didn’t overturn the Romans’ tables; it was in His own temple.
And who is the temple now? We are. The tables we overturn first must be our own. (A point made by this insightful article.)
More than conquerors
None of this denies that there is wickedness in the world, that God hates it, or that Christians should confront it and work to defeat it. But the way we do that is of paramount importance to God. If we turn all of our venom toward our enemies with no regard to how much we resemble them, or how much our theology gets skewed, or how much our hypocrisy is a reproach to Christ, then so what if we “win”? It would be a victory for unrighteousness. We would do more damage to the faith than our enemies ever could.
Like he tried with Jesus, the devil would gladly trade all the nations of the world for submission to him. That’s what we do when we adopt the world’s ways and fight by ungodly means.
The early church never fought back as they were hunted and imprisoned and executed, and yet they turned the world upside down. The church does not bear the sword in Christ’s name. Rather, we conquer in suffering, as Romans 8:35-37 so eloquently and stunningly teaches:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Remember that we already have the victory. Jesus is Lord. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. Someday He will return to wipe out His remaining enemies.
Until then, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men (2 Corinthians 5:11). We make disciples through preaching the good news of repentance and forgiveness of sins.
We persuade. We preach. We call. We invite. We summon. We love. And we’re to do all that in holiness, not worldiness.
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