No Violence for Jesus' Church

God would not permit David to build His house, because David had shed much blood and waged great wars.

But Jesus builds His Church, God's Temple, by shedding His Own blood to redeem poor sinners!

Both David and Christ obtained peace and rest for their people, but in fundamentally different ways.

David brought peace through war and bloodshedding of Israel's enemies. Christ bought peace for poor sinners, when they were enemies of God, by the atoning sacrifice of Himself at Calvary.

Scriptures tell us there will come a time when Christ will shed the blood of His foes and ours, in the end, when He puts all enemies under His feet and abolishes all wickedness from the new creation.

But note well that this all takes place AFTER the Savior has finished building His Church, God's House.

This was of necessity, for had Christ not built His Church beforehand, and bought peace for His people, we would have all been destroyed by His justice and wrath against sin.

There would be no church, no temple unto God, had the order been reversed, for we too would have all been condemned and slain.

God will judge all sin with death, but for believers, our sin has been pre-judged against the Lord Jesus as our Substitute on the cross.

So it was necessary that the order be thus: Christ dying to save us, Christ building God's House, and finally the judgment in the end of the wicked.

No wonder Jesus made it clear He came not to judge the world but to save us!

But Israel didn't want a meek and lowly Messiah - it wanted a war-like Savior to drive out the Romans and restore the kingdom.

Lost men are insulted by the idea that they need a substitute for their sin.