On December 29th, 2019 a man entered the West Freeway Church of Christ in the town of White Settlement, Texas. He silently took a seat in the back. Moments later, he got up, said something to a church member, and opened fire with a shotgun. The disturbed man killed two parishioners and turned towards the front of the church.

Then the altercation came to an abrupt stop. 40 feet away, a 71-year-old firearms instructor and church security team member produced a concealed handgun and sent one precisely placed bullet into the assailant’s head. The attacker immediately dropped to the floor and the threat was stopped.

Was the church security team member justified in using lethal force? Many readers might feel like that question is answered with an easy “yes” (and I would agree).

But some well-known evangelical leaders have, at the very least, raised eyebrows at the thought of Christians engaging in self-defense, or owning guns for that purpose.

For example, in 2015, well-known pastor John Piper released a blog article titled, “Should Christians Be Encouraged to Arm Themselves?” Piper’s take in that article was not favorable towards gun ownership for sure, and fuzzy on self-defense in general.

This article is not meant to be a response to Piper. Much ink was spilled on that front back in 2015. Today, I’d like to put forward a positive case: Is there a biblical warrant for self-defense?

Any discussion of this topic must begin with the value of human life.

From creation, God continually affirms his special love for life through the harsh punishments laid on murder.

From creation, God continually affirms his special love for life through the harsh punishments laid on murder.

In Genesis 4, God exacted punishment on Cain “greater than [he] could bear” for killing his brother, Abel. A few chapters later in Genesis 9, God establishes the sanctity of human life based on the image of God inherent in man: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God, He made man” (NKJV).

In Exodus 20:13, God says, “You shall not murder.” The Mosaic Law goes on to give a final punishment for murder in the next chapter: “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death” (Ex. 21:12, NKJV).

The preciousness of life is seen in the harshness of the punishments that God exacts on those who shed innocent blood. God loves life so much that those who snuff it out, can be — no, should be — killed themselves.

So, instead of God’s love for life prohibiting His people from ever doing violence, it lays the foundation for just killing.

Now, the question becomes, when is killing just? And for the purposes of this article, when is lethal force between civilians justified?

God loves life so much that those who snuff it out, can be — no, should be — killed themselves.

We could consider this question in the context of civil authorities and we would arrive at a different set of criteria. But in this article, we are focused particularly on violence between civilians.

When God gave the Mosaic Law to the nation of Israel, He was wise to include laws about civil issues. If someone steals from another, what should happen? If one ox gores another, what should happen? If one man kills another man, what should happen?

While I do not believe that the civil law of Israel should (or can) be applied rigidly on society today, we should be able to say that Israel’s civil law certainly did not violate the moral law inherent in creation. Therefore, we can glean principles from the civil law that help us understand what is permissible in our civil relationships.

The most helpful Mosaic law in this discussion is Exodus 21:12-13: “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. However, if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee” (NKJV).

Here we see, as we saw above, that God loves life. The punishment for unjust killing is death. Yet, if a man kills another, the Israelites were required to ask some questions before sentencing: “Did this man lie in wait for his victim?” Put another way, “Was there planning or forethought put into this killing?” If so, the killer was an aggressor and should be put to death.

Instead of God’s love for life prohibiting His people from ever doing violence, it lays the foundation for just killing.

If not, the text indicates that something else happened: “...but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee.” The plain sense here is that the killer did not seek out a victim, but rather the violence came to him. In fact, violence was delivered to him by divine providence. This man is not an aggressor — he was aggressed upon.

In fact, often in Scripture, the idea of God delivering someone into the hands of another indicates divine judgment (Genesis 14:20, Numbers 21:3, Numbers 21:34, Deuteronomy 2:33, Joshua 10:8, 2 Samuel 16:8, et al.) Viewed this way, self-defense, when carried out justly, can act as the judgment of God on an evildoer (though it should never be done for that reason).

The structure of verses 12-13 might cause us to expect that this man is automatically not guilty. But that is also not the case. God promises to appoint the killer a place to flee for protection against retribution. In these verses, we see that God is so concerned with life that He demands capital punishment for a murderer, yet appoints protection for a self-defender.

The principle pulled from these verses can be applied across all sorts of situations. A home invasion, a robbery on the street, or even defending an innocent third party.

When paired with the scriptural commands to provide for our households (1 Timothy 5:8) and “seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17), this principle of self-defense gives us the right — and in certain instances, may give us the obligation — to intervene, even using deadly force, to protect the image of God in man which the LORD holds so precious.