Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are continuing to look at rebuttals to Christian nonviolence. And today, we are going to take a look specifically at Luke 22. In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples to go out and buy some swords right before he is about to get confronted in the Garden of Gethsemane and betrayed by Judas. And a lot of a lot of non pacifists are going to use this passage to argue that Jesus, right here, is encouraging and and promoting this idea of self defense.

Because why else would he tell his disciples to go out and sell some of their items just to to buy swords if Jesus didn't have self defense in view? And if Jesus really was nonviolent, and and He taught nonviolence and wanted to exhibit that, and violence was off the table for Him, then it seems rather contradictory for Him to set His disciples up for failure, if He was telling them to buy swords. I think this is a a really interesting argument against pacifism, but it's one that I don't think is unassailable at all. And I think that a a deep look into it actually helps us to uncover a lot of presuppositions or, maybe not presuppositions, but, traditions that we kind of have in our mind about some some of the events that happened in in Jesus' last hours that just aren't biblical. And, I think it'll be an interesting look.

So let's dive in. By the end of this episode, I I really want to create a larger synthesis of of all of the details and events, and maybe paint a a big picture for you. But before we get into that, I I really need to point out some individual pieces of evidence that we're going to need for our synthesis. Just some interesting points that, in and of themselves, are are important, but when pieced together, are going to create a a more robust picture of what I think is actually going on here in Luke 22. So first point, and a a very important one, is a lot of times when when non pacifists are going to try to point out Jesus' telling his disciples to go ahead and buy swords, you know, they say, well, I mean, it seems like Jesus is telling them to do this for for reasons of self defense.

But, fortunately, we're not really left to wonder because Luke tells us why Jesus had the disciples go out and buy swords. And he says that it was done so that the prophecy could be fulfilled, that Jesus would be numbered with the transgressors. So the the purpose for Jesus telling the disciples to buy swords seems pretty clear. He was trying to fulfill the prophecy that he would be numbered with the transgressors. Now, what that means, numbered with the transgressors, might not be quite so clear, and that's something that we can, argue about a bit.

So what are what are some of our options? Now, if you ask most people, if you bring up this phrase, Jesus was numbered with a transgression with the transgressors, and you ask most people, what does that mean? You are, most of the time, going to get a response that, oh, this means that Jesus was crucified with 2 thieves. Right? He was crucified with other sinners even though he himself was not one.

And that sounds really good if you don't know where this phrase, numbered with the transgressors, comes from. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the 2 thieves on the cross. This, numbered with the transgressors, is directly related to, His disciples, or His his, order for His disciples to get some swords. So what what other options are we left with then? One option would be that, you know, if if you're a pacifist, you could say, well, Jesus did teach nonviolence, and he embodied nonviolence.

And so the fact that his disciples were carrying swords, and intended to use them violently was, this sin, that this problem. And so because his disciples were were in this mode of violence, and therefore sinning, then Jesus was numbered with those sinners. I think that's a a pretty bad argument. I don't I think that just doesn't make much sense of the text. But it's one of the possibilities, so there you go.

What I think is, the likeliest option is that when when the group came to arrest Jesus, they needed some sort of of reason to arrest him. And, yes, Judas led him, led led the group to Jesus, but they had to have some sort of charge. And so the the reason that Rome took interest in Jesus, seemingly, was that, supposedly, Jesus was leading a rebellion. And there are a lot of a lot of pieces of, Jesus' dialogue, especially with with Pilate, that leads you to believe that that's kind of what they were they were talking about. And and one of the things that Jesus says is, you know, my kingdom's not of this world, and, you know, if it were, my my people would fight for me.

And so they they seem to be talking about this idea of of leading a rebellion. And the fact that his disciples were armed went a a long way in showing that this was a potentially legitimate rebellion. Because if they would have arrested Jesus and none of his followers would have had any weapons, and they said, hey. Look. This guy's leading a rebellion without weapons.

That would be maybe a lip a little bit problematic for their case. So the fact that, there were 2 swords and and, interesting note there, you know, why not just one sword? Well, in in the Old Testament, at least, and presumably at this time, when you're going to have a witness testify against somebody, one witness was not enough. You needed 2 to kind of prove the case. So the fact that there were 2 swords, and Jesus says, that's enough.

Right? This idea that, you know, you could have a random person carrying a sword on them. But if you had 2, something's something might be afoot. That's that's evidence that, there might be something more. It's it's 2 witnesses against, the crowd of Jesus, as far as indicating potential rebellion.

It's at least enough for them to have a a kangaroo court, anyway. And we even get an indication of this a little bit later on in in Luke 22 and verse 52. And Jesus says, am I leading a rebellion? And and He asked this. And, so we have lots of indications that being numbered with the transgressors means that because Jesus's, entourage was carrying swords, more than one sword specifically, that that was helpful in in, the Jews arguing that he was leading a rebellion and numbering him with the transgressors, saying he's part of this group that is is doing wrong.

So our first line of evidence is just that, Luke explicitly says what what the swords were for. It doesn't say that they were for self defense. It says that they're to fulfill prophecy. And there are lots of indications that that prophecy, is is that Jesus was numbered as a sinner or as a transgressor or with the transgressors, for the sin of rebellion, a rebellion against the state, which is why Rome could crucify him. A second piece of evidence that, these swords were not really for self defense is that when when Jesus inquires about the amount of swords within the group and he finds out that there are 2, he says, it's enough.

And, I mean, Jesus knows what's coming, and he knows that the people he's going to come face to face with are, trained soldiers, probably at least more so, if they were if they were Jewish soldiers. Probably at least more trained than the group that Jesus was with, a bunch of fishermen. So the the idea that 2 swords are enough doesn't make any sense, that that Jesus was referring to this in terms of being viable self defense. The third piece of evidence that we have is that, when when Peter does use one of the 2 swords, Jesus reprimands them, and He tells them to put his sword away. If Jesus was really intending for swords to be there for self defense, and then he reprimands somebody.

And and not just, like, saying, now you know what, Peter, I changed my mind, but saying, look, the sword's really problematic. You know? The people who use that thing die. You know? You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

And then He heals His enemy's ear. It just doesn't make sense that Jesus is saying, hey, go get swords, but then gets upset that they're used. So there's something else going on here. The 4th point here is that, even if you want to dismiss all of the things that I I said, and and you'd wanna say, well, even though some of those points might be credible, Jesus also was leaving the door open for some sort of self defense. Even if you wanna say that Jesus was was open to self defense, that doesn't mean Jesus endorsed it and thought it was good.

And, one one big reason for that is because we see Jesus face this before. And, we we see it when Peter says, Jesus, I'm not gonna let you suffer. I will not let that come to you. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. You know, the the time that you see Jesus get angry is, and and face Satan head on, outside of the desert, when he's tempted in the desert, is when Peter offers Jesus the option of not submitting to God, of avoiding, of avoiding pain and suffering, and of acting violently to prevent it.

And we'll talk about this a little bit more in, I believe, the next episode when we talk about, the messianic role. Excuse me. Not the next episode. We talked about this in the episode where, we talked about the messianic role, in that, you know, we we rarely see Jesus tempted. Hebrews says that Jesus was tempted in all ways just like us.

Yet, I could never figure out how Jesus was tempted. Like, he never lusts, which, you know, you'd think that Jesus would have if he faces the the temptation that everybody faces. You just don't see Jesus tempted with anything. But what Yoder points out in in his book, The Politics of Jesus, is that, you know, Jesus faces tempt temptation a lot. In the desert, He faced this temptation to to take power through various sorts of coercive means.

Or, you know, taking the kingdoms, taking, the religious institution, and taking the masses through economic means. And then we see Jesus face temptation with Peter, saying, I'm not gonna let you suffer. We see Jesus face temptation here in the garden, where His His disciples have swords. And instead of allowing them to fight for Him, He has them put Him away. And we know that Jesus struggled here because, I mean, he was sweating drops of blood just a few minutes ago.

Like, this was really difficult for him, and he wanted this cup to be taken away. And Luke also, also shows us that, he could've Jesus could've called angels. He could've called legions to to come down and fight for him. This temptation of taking control and and taking control through violence in in several of the means was ever present before Jesus. And so, let's say Jesus did really face legitimate temptation, and this was the biggest temptation that we we see for Him.

And Jesus was, you wanna leave this this idea of self defense on the table. Even if Jesus was leaving room for self defense by having his disciples get swords, it doesn't mean that that was a good thing because we see time and time again that this isn't something that Jesus wants on the table. It's something that is a temptation for him. And maybe having those 2 swords isn't an indication of of Jesus setting himself up for something that was good and right, but Jesus saying, I I just this is this is so tempting. Guys, get some swords because I I just don't know if I can resist this temptation to, to sacrifice my life.

Now, of course, He's God, and He didn't succumb to the temptation. But to act like it could not have been a legitimate, powerful temptation for him, and that these swords could represent rather than, something that Jesus thought was good. It could represent, the culmination of this difficult temptation, I think is very reasonable, especially when you consider that Christ didn't go through with using the swords. He he had Peter put them away. And the early church reads that and says, look.

Is there any doubt about this when when Jesus had Peter sheath his sword? That's for all of us to follow. That's the messianic claim on our lives and the messianic command for us that we all sheathe our swords, and that we beat our swords into plowshares, and that, we live at peace like our Savior did. So, you take all of the pieces of evidence together, and you take a look at the passage, it really doesn't seem at all like Jesus's command to get swords has anything to do with legitimizing violence, even violence through self defense. So now, I wanna take those those pieces of evidence, we're gonna we're gonna add a little bit to it, and we're gonna synthesize it.

And this synthesis is by no means my synthesis. It's, it's one that you can find on, one of the guest interview episodes of Michael Heizer's The Naked Bible Podcast. And I highly recommend you go there because, you're gonna hear a way better explanation of this, much more in-depth, getting into the structure of the book of Luke and its differences from the other gospels and Greek words. And it's it's just gonna really go deep. And and I think it's gonna be a lot better for you.

But I will do my best to to kind of summarize that here, and maybe wet your palate to to take a a much deeper look at this. The interesting part about Luke 22 is that when we look at the section where Jesus starts to talk about buying the 2 swords, around verse 36, we notice that there's an extremely similar, similar structure here to Luke 9:3. And in Luke 9, we see Jesus sending out the disciples. In Luke 9, Jesus says, hey guys, don't bring anything with you when you go out. In Luke 9, there are these ideas that, that His His disciples who are being sent out are going to experience persecution for their discipleship.

So we see this minimalistic approach, like, don't even take anything and expect that you're gonna have hardship. In Luke 2235, right before we get to the the two swords section, Jesus asks His disciples, referring back to Luke 9 when He sent them out, and He says, hey. When I sent you out, did you guys lack anything? I mean, I told you not to bring anything and, I mean, you remember all those commands. Right?

And you remember, that you were gonna face hardship. I mean, did you did you lack anything when I sent you out with those limitations and and, that kind of dreary outlook on how things would be? And the disciples said, no, we didn't lack anything. And it's then that Jesus starts to go into this 2 sword section, and it's like He's telling them to do the opposite of what He told them to do when they were lacking nothing. So he says, we lack nothing?

No. We weren't lacking anything. And then Jesus is like, oh good. Well, do the opposite now, and start taking stuff. Right?

You don't need anything. You just told me you didn't need anything because you were all provided for when you submitted and followed and trusted. But you know what? I'll tell you what. Why don't you go take a bag?

And, yeah, take a take a purse. And, you know what? Why don't you go out and buy a sword? And it's this I it seems to me that, Jesus is being really sarcastic here, because he's reminding his disciples of this this time that should have been difficult for them, and he's reminding them of the provision of God. And then he goes into telling them to do the opposite.

And when he when he asks about them having swords, they're like, well, we we got 2 swords on us, which is in addition to Christ's command in Luke 9 to to take nothing. And so he's like, yep. There you go. There you go. You said you were lacking nothing.

You trusted in God. God provided for you. And now now what? You've got 2 swords on you. Why?

And, I I see this as kind of like a a divine setup from Jesus, where He's not telling them to go out and get 2 swords because they've already got the swords on them. It's kind of like, an, exposing of this lack of faith that his his disciples have had. Because if he really wanted them to go out and buy swords, they would have gone out and buy swords. But that's not what Jesus was getting at. Jesus was uncovering their their lack of faith and their their change in, change in in standing, or position, or or posturing from Luke 9 to now, as they were they were living in fear.

And as they experienced this fear, they're losing trust. In, in The Naked Bible Podcast, they go a lot more into this chiastic structure that we find in in Luke 22, or I guess, beyond Luke 22, and how there's this really, beautiful development of not just Peter's betrayal, but showing in this section how the disciples' addition to the Luke 9 command was actually, in the chiastic structure, this representation of all of the disciples' betrayal. And you can get a lot more of that from from that podcast, and I highly recommend it. So in in summary, we can't say exactly what's going on here. I don't know if Jesus was being sarcastic and just trying to expose the, the difference between the Luke 9 disciples and faith, and, the dwindling faith of the disciples in Luke 22.

I don't know if Jesus was facing strong temptation and was was, having self defense as a an option on the table for him. If he was trying to leave that open, you know, potentially, erroneously. Like, if if Jesus would've given in to that self defense, that would've been a problem because that's not what God wanted Jesus to do. I I really don't know what the reasons were. But when you look at the evidence, there's a lot going for this idea that swords has little or nothing to do with self defense.

And even if it does, it it has nothing to do with approving self defense or violence. As far as as I'm gonna read it, I think it it's pretty clear, that the point here, like the reading of the early church was, is that Jesus is telling his disciples, of which we are his disciples, to put the swords away. And Jesus shows us that, the violence done to his enemies, he is going to heal when he heals the ear of Malchus. And Jesus is gonna go beyond just that, but he is going to go to the cross and die for his enemies of which I was 1, of which you are or were 1 as well. And, more than anything, we see the laying down of violence.

We see the withholding of legions of angels, of disciples fighting for their, for an earthly kingdom. And we see enemy healing, enemy love, and self sacrifice. And to try to draw self defense and out of this, I think, is just a travesty to to the passage. It it doesn't fit at all with Luke's narrative. It doesn't fit at all with the New Testament narrative, with Jesus' life, with what Jesus Jesus is about to do.

It just doesn't fit with with any of that. I think it's a stretch that that really mars the beauty of of the radical act that Jesus is actually performing. So take that as you will, and please follow that up with, with a look at the Naked Bible Podcast and and, that that better extrapolation of information. So for now, peace. And since I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean.

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