There’s a little of Samson in all of us.
Samson took hold of the two middle pillars that supported the temple and he leaned against them, with his right hand on one and his left hand on the other. Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He pushed hard and the temple collapsed on the rulers and all the people in it. He killed many more people in his death than he had killed during his life. (Judges 16:29-30, NET Free)
I’m a Christian Mystic, inherently pacifist by nature. I hate seeing people hurt and suffering, and I’m loathe to add to it. But there are most certainly some things more important than my life. Indeed, more important than all human life. All humanity is born in sin, and all deserve to die, and sooner or later we all will. You can’t get out of this world alive. Frankly, I’m eager to leave.
I also know and understand God’s Laws, and He is the One who gets to decide when that end should come. Not by force alone does He rule on such things, but by authority and accountability. His revelation says He holds people accountable for taking life unjustly. His definition of what’s just is not too hard to figure. Those same Laws cover suicide, and you aren’t permitted to take your own life unless you actually deserve to die.
I’m not one of those silly Western absolutists who say, “No one deserves to die.” That’s a lie from Satan; it guarantees more needless killing in actual practice. The mystical side of me says God alone can judge such things, but the lawful side of me insists someone has to execute His justice because He demanded it, literally. It’s the root element of the Covenant of Noah. It’s all perfectly consistent if you understand ANE Mysticism.
God’s Laws make me reluctant to punish anyone for anything. My experience only reinforces that. It’s pretty easy to absorb a great deal of injustice if you really cling to justice itself. God handles most things pretty well without my help. But I do have a mission, an appointment to serve Him. I’m not permitted to tell Him what I will and won’t do. My sense of mission forces me to consider the possibility there are some things more sacred than human life.
You can push me to the limit. That limit may or may not enjoy broad consensus, but that’s not my problem. I’m accountable to the One who drew that limit. Cross that limit, and all bets are off. If you push things beyond God’s justice, don’t expect me to keep playing by your silly rules. It’s not at all about my anger, but about God’s justice. I’ll grab the very pillars of earth and life itself, if necessary, and shake down any system you can name. I’ll use whatever authority and power God places in my hands. If that means I’m taking your life, too, you should have expected that before things got crazy. I’ll be glad to offer all the warnings and explanations you like, but surely you understand some of it will inevitably be contextual.
I don’t anticipate actually taking human life, simply because the odds are small it would come to that. As I say, I’m a pacifist. But I don’t believe in absolutes in the sense we can understand them.
There comes a moment when there’s nothing left to save, and you have to destroy it all.
