Patrick Chan: "absolute pacifism cuts against the masculine inclination towards protecting oneself and/or others" in the same way "absolute fidelity cuts against the masculine inclination towards committing adultery."

https://www.facebook.com/maul.panata/posts/1632110287003428

"Capital Punishment" and "Holy War"

Provide no contemporary exception to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

A Theonomic Defense of Pacifism

Jesus commanded His followers to be "pacifists." The word "pacifist" in this context means loving one's enemies and being willing to be killed rather than to kill.

(Matthew 5:9) Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

(Luke 6:27-28) But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, {28} Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

(Hebrews 12:14) Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

You do not love your enemy if you kill your enemy. The Apostle Paul says that Biblical "love" is defined by obedience to God's Law, including the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

Romans 13:8-10

King James Version (KJV)

⁸ Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

⁹ For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

¹⁰ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Love Your Neighbor

The English Standard Version's caption reads:

Fulfilling the Law Through Love

This is misleading. If I kill my neighbor, steal his stuff, and rape his wife, can it still be said that I fulfilled God's Law with respect to my neighbor if I had a warm fuzzy feeling of "love" in my heart? What Paul is saying is if you want to obey the command to "love thy neighbor," obey all of God's Commandments with respect to your neighbor. "Love" is the opposite of killing and stealing.

You do not love your neighbor if you kill him.
You do not love your enemy if you kill him.
Therefore a Christian is a pacifist who would rather be killed than to kill.

Jesus did not defend His life by killing those who threatened Him (John 18:36), and we are commanded to follow His example:

1 Peter 2:21-24

New King James Version (NKJV)

²¹ For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

²² “Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; [Isaiah 53:9]

²³ who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; ²⁴ who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

The word "pacifist" does not mean "passive." It is related to the word "pacific," from the Latin pācificus literally, peacemaking, from pāx, peace

1. tending to make or preserve peace; conciliatory:

pacific overtures.

2. not warlike; peaceable; mild:

a pacific disposition.

3. at peace; peaceful:

a pacific era in history.

4. calm; tranquil:

The Wabash is a pacific river

Pacifism is described in the Westminster Larger Catechism's exposition of the 6th Commandment.

Question 134: Which is the sixth commandment?
Answer: The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.

Question 135: What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
Answer: The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreations; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior; forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.

Question 136: What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?
Answer: The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others,
except in case of
          • public justice,
          • lawful war, or
          • necessary defense;
the neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life; sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge; all excessive passions, distracting cares; immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations; provoking words, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and: Whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any.

This webpage deals with those three exceptions to "pacifism."

          1. Public Justice
          2. Lawful War
          3. Necessary Defense

These exceptions are prooftexted with Old Covenant verses, leading many to think that a truly "Theonomic" ethic (which gives a proper, covenantal emphasis on the Old Testament) is anti-pacifist. A more truly Theonomic understanding of these verses leads to a pacifist position.

1. "Public Justice"

Does a Theonomic follower of Jesus Christ have a right to kill someone in the name of "public justice?"

a. "Public"

For a consistent pacifist (opponent of violence), there is no such thing as "public justice."
"Public" is a euphemism for "the State," which is systematic, institutionalized vengeance, theft, murder, kidnapping, and other forms of violence.
A consistent pacifist is an "anarchist."
A consistent Theonomist is an anarchist.

Many will claim that "capital punishment" can only be meted out by a "civil magistrate."

But God never commanded the creation or maintenance of "civil magistrates."

Many will object to a stateless society based on Romans 13, contending that Romans 13 commands the creation and continued maintenance of a "civil government" or "State," which is authorized by God to kill people and behave in a notably un-pacifist manner. In fact, Romans 13 commands pacifism, not patriotism. It does not condone the organized violence which we call "the State," it simply commands us to "be subject" to it. Romans 12:9ff is a pacifist passage. Romans 13 is a continuation of the pacifist argument which began in Romans 12. For an anarchist analysis of Romans 13, see www.Romans13.com.

There is nothing in the Bible that prohibits "private justice." There is nothing in the Bible that prohibits a man from "executing" his brother if his brother commits a "capital crime" -- solely because he is the criminal's nearest relative.

When a murder takes place in our day, politicians and police can often be heard saying things like, "We are working hard to bring the killer to justice." That is, to kill him.

b. "Justice"

The Bible, taken as a whole, is against "capital punishment."

"Capital punishment" in western civilization is historically derived from Biblical passages* which demanded that the blood of capital criminals be shed:

But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. ⁵ Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. ⁶ Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
Genesis 9:4-6

Smaller sins could be atoned for through the temple sacrifices: lambs, turtledoves, etc., but some crimes were so serious that atonement could not be made in any other way than by the shedding of the blood of the criminal himself:

So you shall not pollute the land where you are; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.
Numbers 35:33

That God does not require the shedding of blood after Christ's work on Calvary is seen in the case of an unsolved homicide; Deuteronomy 21:1-9 required the tribal elders to shed the blood of a heifer in order to atone for the shedding of innocent blood, following the directions of the priests:

{5} Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled. 
{7} "Then they shall answer and say, 'Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.
{8} 'Provide atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people Israel.' And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood.
{9} "So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.

Nobody advocates the literal application of Deuteronomy 21 after the Cross. Christian theologians for 2000 years have rightly concluded that in our day only the blood of Christ can provide such atonement in cases of an unsolved homicide. Yet they persist in requiring the shedding of the criminal's blood when the homicide is solved.

What politicians call "capital punishment" is actually part of the "ceremonial law," overseen by the Levitical priests.

Deuteronomy 17
⁸ “If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. ⁹ And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the word [dâbâr] of judgment [mishpâṭ]. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the mouth [peh] of the word [dâbâr] which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they teach you. ¹¹ According to the mouth [peh] of the law [tôrâh] in which they instruct you, according to the judgment [mishpâṭ] which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the word [dâbâr] which they pronounce upon you. ¹² Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. ¹³ And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.

This has foreign policy implications. "Holy war" in the Old Testament was "capital punishment" on a national scale. The Promised Land was being cleansed of heinous sins committed by the pagans who inhabited the land promised to Abraham. Anyone using Old Testament texts to justify U.S. invasion of a non-Christian land is denying the efficacy of Christ's blood as the only means of atonement, and abusing the Bible.

2. Holy War

I believe the Bible should be used as a blueprint for all political policies. I don't believe it should be mis-used, however.

There are many Christians who use Old Testament "holy wars" as a justification for war, capital punishment, and self-defense in our day. This is a mistake. These wars were not "military" in the modern secular sense. They were religious and priestly. They were part of the "ceremonial law."

Bible scholars often divide Old Testament laws into three categories:
      • "Moral,"
      • "ceremonial," and
      • "civil" (or "judicial").
The category of "judicial law" presupposes that God commanded mankind to form empires or "states." This is a mistaken assumption. When we hear the phrase "separation of church and state" we understand a priestly or religious institution ("church") and a "secular" institution of power and violence ("state"). Go through the Bible from cover to cover. You will never hear God say to man, "Form a State." The formation of "the State" was and is an act of rebellion against God's commandments against murder, theft, and vengeance. "The State" does what we all know is sinful if it were to be done in our families, businesses, churches, and charities.

There really is no "judicial law." Only "moral" and "ceremonial" law.

The "ceremonial law" is priestly law. It is generally about cleansing from sin, or making "atonement" for sin. And this generally involves the shedding of blood. The "ceremonial law" was fulfilled by Christ when He shed His blood on the Cross. In our day, no other blood has any power to atone for sins.

In the Old Covenant, before Christ shed His blood, God required the shedding of blood of both man and beast to atone for sins. Some sins required more than the shedding of the blood of a dove or lamb. They required the shedding of the blood of the perpetrator himself. Today we call these ritual acts of bloodshed “capital punishment,” or in the case of entire nations in the Promised Land, "holy war." Old Testament wars were acts of cleansing or atonement on a national scale.

Neither “capital punishment” or "holy war" are required or even permitted under the New Covenant.

Christians who justify modern secular militarism and imperialism with Old Testament "holy wars" also use Romans 13 as an excuse for war in our day. This too is a mistake.

For Further Reading:
www.GodandtheDeathPenalty.com
God Ordains Evil
Is War Ever "Just?"

This thesis is a linchpin.
If true, it destroys both war and capital punishment as legitimate functions of "the State," and effectively destroys the necessity or even legitimacy of "the State."
If false, it is still true that all legitimate social functions (which would include vengeance, war, and capital punishment if this thesis is false) can be carried out by the Family (patriarchy) in a Freed Market rather than the State (polis).

What follows are excerpts from leading "Christian Reconstructionists" showing that "holy war" was priestly and religious, not secular/civil. [Skip and go to "self-defense"]

Gary North,
Inheritance and Dominion
An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy

Chapter 46

LIMITS TO EMPIRE

The Whole Burnt Offering and Disinheritance

The Israelites were told to show no mercy to the nations inside Canaan's boundaries (Deut. 7:16). These nations had practiced such great evil that they had become abominations in the sight of God. "For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee" (Deut. 18:12). The language of Deuteronomy 20:10-18 indicates that every living thing inside the boundaries of Canaan was to be killed: "thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." With respect to the first city to fall, Jericho, this law applied literally (Josh. 6:15-21). But it did not apply literally to the other cities of Canaan. After the destruction of Jericho, the first city inside Canaan to be defeated, cattle became lawful spoils for the Israelites. "And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it" (Josh. 8:2). The word "breatheth" did not apply to Canaan's cattle; it applied only to the human population. "And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe" (Josh. 11:14).

Jericho was the representative example of God's total wrath against covenant-breakers who follow their religious presuppositions to their ultimate conclusion: death.⁽³⁾ Jericho came under God's total ban: hormah.⁽⁴⁾ This was the equivalent of a whole burnt offering: almost all of it had to be consumed by fire. In the whole burnt offering, all of the beast was consumed on the altar (Lev. 1:9, 13), except for the skin, which went to the officiating priest (Lev. 7:8). Similarly, all of Jericho was burnt except for the precious metals, which went to the tabernacle as firstfruits (Josh. 6:24).⁽⁵⁾ Nevertheless, because God wanted His people to reap the inheritance of the Canaanites, He allowed them to confiscate the cattle and precious goods of the other conquered Canaanite cities. This illustrated another important biblical principle of inheritance: "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22). Canaan's capital, except in Jericho, was part of Israel's lawful inheritance. The Canaanites had accumulated wealth; the Israelites were to inherit all of it. This comprehensive inheritance was to become a model of God's total victory at the end of history. Their failure to exterminate the Canaanites, placing some of them under tribute instead (Josh. 16:10; 17:13), eventually led to the apostasy of Israel and the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, just as Moses prophesied in this passage (vv. 17-18; cf. 7:1-5; 12:30-31).

The annihilation of every living soul in Canaan was mandatory. "And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee" (Deut. 7:16). This was a model of God's final judgment. But it was a model in the same way that Jericho was a model: a one-time event. Jericho was to be totally destroyed, including the animals; this was not true of the other cities of Canaan. Similarly, the Canaanites were to be totally annihilated; this was not true of residents of cities outside Canaan. In this sense, Jericho was to Canaan what Canaan was to cities outside the land: a down payment ("earnest") on God's final judgment -- final disinheritance -- at the end of time. This earnest payment in history on the final disinheritance is matched by the earnest payment in history on the final inheritance. This is surely the case in spiritual affairs.⁽⁶⁾ Debates over eschatology are debates over the extent to which these earnest payments in history are also cultural and civilizational, and whether they image the final judgment, i.e., to what extent history is an earnest on eternity.⁽⁷⁾

James B. Jordan
Judges: God's War Against Humanism

Hormah

17. Then Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah. Now we see Judah making good her bargain with Simeon. The destruction of Canaanite Zephath was total, so that the place was called Hormah.

This is not the only “Hormah,” for we read in Numbers 21:1-3 of a place that was also “devoted to destruction,” and as a result was called Hormah.

Hormah means “placed under the ban, totally destroyed.” To be placed under the ban is to be devoted to death. Just as the Nazirite was devoted to God in life (for instance, Samson, Samuel), so the banned person or city was devoted wholly to God in death. To put under the ban means to curse and to devote to total destruction.

The preeminent example of a city devoted to total destruction is Jericho, the story of which is recorded in Joshua 6:15-19. Everything living was to be killed, all the treasures brought to the house of God, and the city was to be burned with fire. No personal booty was allowed.

More light is shed on this matter in Deuteronomy 13:12-18. The apostate city is to be banned, and “then you shall gather all its booty into the middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with fire as a whole burnt sacrifice to the LORD your God; and it shall be a ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt” (v. 16).

From this we learn that it was God’s fire, lit by Himself from heaven (Lev. 9:24; 2 Chron. 7:1), kept burning perpetually on the altar, which was used to ignite the city placed under the ban. (See also Gen. 22:6 and 1 Ki. 18:38.) The fact that God starts His fire shows that the sacrifice is His sacrifice, the sacrifice that He Himself provides to propitiate His own fiery wrath. Man has no hand in it, and only an ordained priest may handle it. Man is impotent in his salvation, so that man cannot even light the sacrificial fire. If he dares to do so, God destroys him (Lev. 10:1-2).

All men stand on God’s altar. Those who accept God’s Substitute, the very Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, can step off the altar and escape the fire. Jesus takes the fire for them. He becomes the whole burnt sacrifice. Those who refuse the Substitute, however, are left on the altar, and are burnt up by the fire of God. (See Gen. 19:24; Rev. 18:8; Rev. 20:14f.; and for further study, Heb. 12:29; Ex. 3:2-5; Heb. 12:18; Num. 11:1-3; Num. 16:35; Num. 21:6; Gen. 3:25; 2 Pet. 3:9-12; Rev. 8:3-5).

Thus, the destruction of Hormah was a priestly act, issuing from the flaming swords of the cherubic (priestly) guardians of the land, a revelation of God’s direct fiery judgment against the wicked. Not every city was to be destroyed in this fashion, but certain ones were, as types of the wrath of God. This horrible judgment, introduced here at the beginning of Judges, comes again in Judges 20:40, when it is an apostate Israelite city that is burnt up as a sacrifice to God.

R. J. Rushdoony argued that Exodus 30 -- a man's payment of half a shekel upon reaching age 20 -- was a head tax. He was incorrect. The payment went to the priests, not to a civil magistrate ("captain"). The tip-off was that it was calculated as a shekel of the sanctuary, which was a separate, ecclesiastical coin. This was blood money. It was paid on a man's entry into God's holy army, which was both priestly and civil. I discuss this in Chapter 32 of Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (1990).

(That the army was "priestly" can be seen directly from Scripture. That the army was "civil" may be reading modern categories into the text.)

The military was not necessarily a state function over against a Church function in the Old Covenant. Indeed, holy war was a specifically priestly function. The torching of cities is to be understood as taking God's fire off from His altar and applying His holy fiery wrath to his enemies. Thus, the torched cities were called "whole burnt sacrifices" in the Hebrew Old Testament (Deut. 13:16; Judg. 1:17, 20:40, in Hebrew). During the holy war, the men became temporary priests by taking the Nazirite vow (Num. 6; 2 Sam. 11:11 + Exo. 19:15; Deut. 23:9-14; Judg. 5:2, "That long locks of hair hung loose in Israel. . ."). This is all to say that the rendering of specific judgments is a sabbatical and priestly function, not a kingly one.... The sword of the state executes according to the judgments rendered by the priests....

Thus, the military duty is priestly, and a duty of every believer-priest. Both Church and state are involved in it, since the Church must say whether the war is just and holy, and the state must organize the believer-priests for battle. The mustering of the host for a census is, then, not a "civil" function as opposed to an ecclesiastical one, and the atonement money of Exodus 30 is not a poll tax, as some have alleged.

James Jordan, "Appendix D: State Financing in the Bible," in The Law of the Covenant, 231-32 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/: HTML, DjVu.

An Anarchist Weighs In on the Debate over the "Head Tax"

James B. Jordan, in Appendix D of his book The Law of the Covenant, asked questions about how the State can be financed in a Christian Theocracy. R.J. Rushdoony had suggested that Exodus 30 provided a taxing mechanism for the State and its civil functions. Jordan argues that Exodus 30 is part of what Theonomists call "the ceremonial law" and cannot be imposed by civil magistrates in the New Covenant. Gary North agreed, and incorporated Jordan's arguments in his book Tools of Dominion. Robert Fugate has written a three-part series for Chalcedon in an attempt to refute the Jordan-North position. This is an anarchist response to Fugate.

Here are Fugate's original articles:

1. The Head Tax: The Only God-Endorsed Civil Tax
2. A Critique of Jordan's & North's View of the Head Tax, Part 2 of 3
3. A Critique of Jordan's and North's View of the Head Tax (Part 3 of 3)

My response to Fugate begins here, with Jordan's essay and Fugate's response. That will then link to Gary North's essay and Fugate's response, and that will in turn link to my response to Fugate.

• Exodus 30:11-16 - Ceremonial or Civil?
• James Jordan: State Financing in the Bible - Appendix D - Law of the Covenant - Response by Fugate
• Gary North: "Blood Money, Not Head Tax" Tools of Dominion, Chapter 32 + Response by Fugate
• Dr. Robert Fugate on the "Head Tax" + Reply by a Theonomic Anarchist

Biblical salvation entails not simply the establishment of the Church, but entails the restoration of the whole fabric of life, including social life. Perhaps then we should expect to find God giving us a blueprint of the perfect civil government, of the Christian state. Some people in history have thought that the Bible, in the Mosaic law, was doing just that, but in fact there is no corpus as such of judicial laws in the Bible. The reason why so many people have erred in looking at the Old Testament laws as if they were judicial laws designed for some state is that since the rebellion of man, the human race has been infected with Statism, and thus men tend to look at the Bible through glasses tinted with this Statism.

This explains why we do not find a set of judicial laws in the Bible. All the laws of Scripture, including the social laws, are religious. The social laws are God-centered. Some of them relate to Christian civil government, but there is no corpus of civil law or judicial law because the Bible is not a Statist document.

James Jordan, "Appendix E: Salvation and Statism," in The Law of the Covenant, 240-42 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/: HTML, DjVu.

---

“In the literature of Protestantism, it is assumed that the law of God comes in three categories: moral, judicial, and ceremonial. The criticism rightly shows that this category scheme is erroneous. What has been termed ‘judicial law’ is not in fact a legal code, but rather is a set of explanations of the moral law.”
James B. Jordan, “Calvinism and ‘The Judicial Law of Moses': An Historical Survey,” Journal of Christian Reconstruction 5(1978-79):19:

THEONOMY: AN INFORMED RESPONSE
Gary North, p. 259-60

At this point, I am suggesting a weakness in the Westminster
Confession's tripartite division of biblical law: moral, ceremonial,
and judicial. The moral law is said to be permanently binding
(XIX:2). The ceremonial law is said to have been abrogated by [260]
the New Covenant (XIX:3). The judicial law is said to have applied
only to national Israel and not to the New Covenant era,
except insofar as a law was (is) part of something called the
"general equity" (XIX:4) This formulation assumes that the
judicial law applied only to Israel's "body politic." But what of
the family? It is a separate covenantal administration, bound by
a lawful oath under God. Which civil laws in Israel protected
the family? To what extent have these laws been annulled or
modified (perhaps tightened) by the New Covenant? And why?

I am here suggesting the need for a restructuring of this
traditional tripartite division into civil, ecclesiastical, and familial.
In other words, the divisions should match the Bible's tripartite
covenantal and institutional division. There are continuities
(moral law) and discontinuities (redemptive-historical applications)
in all three covenantal law-orders. It is the task of the
interpreter to make these distinctions and interrelationships
clear. The church has been avoiding this crucial task (exegetical
and applicational) for over three centuries. The result has been
the dominance of ethical dualism in Christian social theory:
natural law theory coupled with pietism and/or mysticism.

[For further study along these lines, see our essay, "The Business Covenant," in which we dispute North's claim that God has made a "civil covenant" and an "ecclesiastical covenant" with men.]

• No war in the history of the United States has been justified from a Biblical perspective.
• The "Good War" was a Bad War.
• The United States is a "warlord state," having killed, crippled, or made homeless tens of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians in the last half century, in a state where the Constitution is a fiction and the "military-industrial complex" is actually dictating public policy.

related: Swords into Plowshares

3. Self-Defense

The final justification for not being a follower of the Prince of Peace is the idea of "self-defense."

The Christian position is that it is better to be killed than to kill. You should not take someone else's life just to preserve your own.

If someone threatens to kill you, you "witness" to him, announcing the good news of the Gospel. "Witness" here includes the demand for repentance from violations of God's Law, including, obviously, the harm being threatened. The Holy Sprit promises that God's Word will not return void. "When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him" (Proverbs 16:7).  If the Lord does not do this, then you may become a "martyr," which comes from the Greek word for "witness." There is no evidence in the New Testament than any faithful Christian chose to kill someone in "self-defense" rather than be a martyr. They followed the example of Jesus.

"National Defense'

This means "defense of the State." Since the State is an unlawful entity, killing someone created in the Image of God in order to protect systematic rebellion against God is not an ethical option. Christ clearly taught it was better to be occupied and put under tribute than to engage in violent revolution against "the powers that be," or "national defense" against the powers that wanna be.

Anarcho-Slavery

"Protection"

Some will quote Old Testament verses on protecting the poor and oppressed, and use these verses to defend killing people. In most cases, these verses command us to protect the poor and oppressed from the State and its corrupt judges. The same State whose existence is defended by the anti-pacifists. If pacifists had their way, "the State" would be abolished and 99% of the oppression of the poor would cease. Of whatever oppression remains, most can be dealt with without killing the oppressor. God does not require killing to deal with the tiny, infinitesimal amount of oppression that remains. We are commanded to do our best to protect the weak, but there are limits to that. "Thou shalt not kill" is one of those limits.