From a sermon preached in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England in 1879:

“The church of Christ is continually under the figure of an army, yet it’s Captain is the Prince of Peace; it’s object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition. The spirit of war is the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the gospel.

Yet nevertheless, the church on earth has, and until the second advent must be, the church militant, the church armed, the church warring, the church conquering. And how is this?

It is the very order of things that so it must be. Truth could not be truth in this world if it were not a warring thing, and we should at once suspect that it were not true if error were friends with it. The spotless purity of truth must always be at war with the blackness of heresy and lies.” – C. H. Spurgeon

Every Christian, by his or her mere profession of Jesus Christ as Savior is part of a war – a war between truth and error. That assertion begs the question: “What truth; what error? ”  The answer can be gleaned from a a single verse in the gospel of John.

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

With these few words, spoken to his disciples shortly before his betrayal, Jesus claimed that there is only one way to God. Although the disciples might not have realized it, the two words ‘through me’ referred to the crucifixion to come, Christ’s death in our stead, the atoning sacrifice as payment for OUR sin. 

Christianity, by its nature, stands in opposition to every other religion on earth. All other religions are based on pleasing God, or a god, through human effort in order to obtain eternal life, ultimate consciousness, or the highest state of being. To paraphrase Spurgeon, ‘truth isn’t truth if error is its friend.’

The war is between truth and error, not between individuals. If I share the truth of Jesus with someone it doesn’t mean that I hate them, or that I am ridiculing their ‘religion’ or ‘non-theist’ beliefs.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

Although the war is not between individuals, soldiers are engaged in battle. Where there are battles being fought, there are ‘rules of engagement’ (ROE).  If believers are to share the truth (our mission) we need to know what to share and how to share it. Those will be subjects of other posts to this blog.