15 The Power of The Sword

The Power of the Sword

5.The fifth point Calvinism patterned after Judaism was thePower of the Sword. They were so sure of their superiority, they thought they had the right to persecute, torture, and kill those whose preaching they counted to be a threat. The Lord said, “They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2). He is talking about Jewish synagogues, not pagan temples. This is Judaism under consideration. The religious leaders were alarmed at the preaching of Stephen, and they arrested him, and brought him before the council. While he preached to the council, “All that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15).

They saw his face; the evidence of God’s presence was clear, but it made no difference with them. The high priest questioned him, and he delivered a sermon that should have brought them to repentance, but when he finished his speech, we read, “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And said, Behold, I see heaven opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord. And cast him out of the city, and stoned him” (Acts 7:54-58).

Both the attitude of Paul before his Damascus Road experience, and the attitude of the Jews toward Paul after he began to preach, illustrate the mindset of Judaism. They were sure they had the right to persecute, torture, and kill those whose doctrines they counted to be a threat.

“And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul....And Saul was consenting to his death....As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison,”(Acts 7:58;Acts 7:1;Acts 7:3). At that time Paul was still called Saul. He got his first taste of Christian blood that day, and he would never lose that appetite until his experience on Damascus Road. When he could find no more Christians in Jerusalem he went to the high priest for authority to pursue them wherever they might be found. “And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1-2).

“And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders; from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished” (Acts 22:4-5).

“I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem; and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities” (Acts 26:9-12).

Before the Lord appeared to him, Paul was the hero of the Jews. He was the rising hope of Judaism. He was so exceedingly mad against the Christians, he had them arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and whenever possible- executed.

After he began to preach the gospel they treated him in the same way. Three times they beat him with rods; five times they laid thirty nine stripes on his back (2 Corinthians 11:24-25). When he went back to Jerusalem, they tried to kill him, and they would have done it, if the Roman soldiers had not rescued him. He got away that time, but they still pursued him, hoping to do away with him.

Augustine claimed that same power of life and death, and he applied to Honorius and Theodosius, the emperors of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire for authorization to use force, lethal force if necessary, against the Donatists. From all we can learn of the Donatists, they taught essentially the same doctrines the Primitive Baptists teach today. They would not recognize infant baptism; they believed baptism should be limited to believers. They refused to recognize the baptism of the Catholic party. (At that time the Catholic party had not entirely coalesced into the Roman Catholic Church as we know it.) If someone came to the Donatists from the Catholics, they required them to be baptized. The Catholics said they rebaptized them. The Donatists said they only baptized them; their first baptism was not valid.

One of the reasons they would not recognize Catholic baptism was that many of the Catholic preachers were openly immoral. They insisted wicked preachers could not perform valid baptism. Augustine claimed the wickedness of the preacher did not affect his ability to baptize.

Donatists insisted they were the true church and the Catholic party was not. For these doctrines and others, Augustine pursued them, closed their churches, and claimed their meeting houses for his own party. He had their preachers banished from the land, and if they persisted in returning, he had them executed. It was because of that the Donatists charged him with making martyrs of their preachers.

One thousand years later, John Calvin, Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformers would claim that same power of life and death over those who would not submit to their authority. They pursued untold numbers to their death. The only reason they did not destroy as many as the Catholics did is that they never gained as much power for as long as Rome did.