FROM CATCALL
Is your god a god of war or peace? Contradiction!
EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
RESPONSE
Well, putting aside the two completely different contexts to which these two verses apply (which alone dispels any contradiction), the first thing that popped into my mind upon reading this “contradiction” was Ecclesiastes 3. Have you ever read it? It’s the part of the Bible that says there’s a time for everything…a time to laugh/weep, a time to kill/heal, a time to love/hate, AND a time for war/peace. Do you understand what that means? It means that there is an appropriate time, a RIGHT and GOOD time, for everything – yes, even hatred, killing, and war.
Do you know to what the Exodus verse pertains? It was in the Song of Moses, which the Israelites used to praise God after He parted the waters of the Red Sea to let the Israelites pass through, but then allowed the waters to crash back together to drown all the Egyptians who pursued the Israelites. The Israelites, God’s chosen people, were completely helpless, and the Egyptians sought to massacre them all. Now would you view that as possibly an appropriate time for God to war? I would. And they praised Him for fighting on their side, for protecting them.
It seems whoever points to this as a contradiction thinks a God of peace cannot go to war, which is patently false. America was a nation of peace before WW II, but when we were attacked we went to war…and we used the bomb to end the war and bring back peace. There is an appropriate time for everything. And at those times, God acts in accordance with His good and perfect will. At the appropriate time, He is a God of war, and at the appropriate time, He is a God of peace. Nobody would argue that Christ was not a man of peace, meek and mild, yet He did real war on the cross against sin and won complete victory. The Bible says that at His second coming, He will be a literal man of war, utterly destroying all who oppose Him to usher in His kingdom of peace. He will end all war by winning a war, and then the Prince of Peace will be crowned to reign in peace. There is no contradiction in that to my mind. To everything there is a time. I’m looking forward to that great time of peace, but I can experience a bit of it in my heart right now through Christ.