Warpath Grace

I recently watched the 2006 movie by Zach Snyder, 300. The movie pays tribute in dramatic style to Spartan warriors of old. Spartan culture was marked by military training and toughness. At 7 years old boys entered a state-sponsored education system that included military training. At 20, Spartan men became full-time soldiers and were on active duty until age 60. I must warn you, the movie is violent, messy, and a bloodbath. But it’s not random violence. The movie is quite moving due to the purpose for the violence that Spartan warriors were able to dole out. And I must warn you, the story this article will consider is violent, messy, and a bloodbath. But the key is knowing the reason, the purpose behind the violence.

Judges 14-15 is about Samson. The context is Israel has again been handed over to their enemies. This time it’s the Philistines. But the pattern in Judges breaks on an ominous note because this time Israel isn’t even crying out for deliverance. They seem blind to their sin and bondage. Perhaps all seems right in their own eyes. This is later underscored when Samson riles up the Philistines who come against Judah. Judah asks why they are coming against them and they answer that they have come for Samson. You know what the Israelites do? What they don’t do is say, “Samson is our judge and deliverer; over our dead bodies will we give him up to you.” No, instead “3,000 men of Judah…said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?” Then they bind him and deliver him over. “Samson, stop biting the hand that feeds us. Let them rule us.” Israel seems not only blind to their sinful condition as they seem right in their own eyes but they are blind to their deliverer. Samson seems all wrong in their eyes.

How easily can we relate, just as we are often blind to ourselves, blind to God, and blind to God’s ways. How often have we thought we knew ourselves and our sin only to look back and realize how ignorant we were. How often have we thought we knew exactly what God was up to only to look back and see how in the dark we were.

This story also includes another ominous note right from the beginning. Samson sees a Philistine woman, a woman of the enemy, and tells his parents to arrange a marriage. Rightly, they object. Samson responds: “But Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.’” What is so ominous about this response is that the book of Judges, which centers on Israel’s increasing corruption, ends by summarizing their sinfulness like this: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” So, we have a people whose sinful condition seems right in own eyes and a savior doing what is right in his own eyes.

What is God going to do now? How will he respond? How do you think God responds to you when you’re blind? When you’re just doing whatever is right in your own eyes? What does he do? Let’s see…

Samson’s parents object to the marriage and we’re then told, “His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.” Now, when you first read that it seems to be saying that Samson is seeking an opportunity against Philistines. But there are two problems with that reading. First, it makes grammatical sense that “he” refers to the LORD immediately before it. Secondly, Samson is never playing women with underhanded ways. He is always getting played by women.

It is not Samson at work here to save Israel, ultimately. It’s the LORD. The text tells us this explicitly because Samson’s story here makes zero sense unless you know this. Let me show you what I mean by outlining the events of Judges 14-15. In 14:5-9 Samson is attacked by a lion and “he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.” Who does that?! And why does it matter to know this? Then in 14:10-19 Samson makes a riddle and makes a bet about who can solve it. When his wife plays him and gives the answer to the enemy he goes and kills 30 enemy dudes. Brutal. Then in 15:1-5 Samson’s wife is given to his best man so he “caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.” This is calculated savagery here. Then in 15:6-8 they kill his wife and father-in-law so he “struck them hip and thigh with a great blow”. Lastly, in 15:9-15 Samson is handed over by Israel to the enemy but then he “found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men.” 

This is violent, messy, and a bloodbath and when you read this story you are forced to ask: what in the world is going on here? Are these random stories of violence and mess and blood? Thankfully, the answer is right in the text. “…he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.” God was at work, delivering His people. And the text doesn’t just say that once but over and over again. Before Samson tears the enemy lion apart we read, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him”. Before he takes down 30 enemy men we read, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him”. Before he kills 1,000 enemy men we read, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him”. Then at the end Samson makes it clear that, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant”. What is going on throughout Samson’s story? A great salvation from the LORD by the power of the Spirit.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. It’s what I’m thinking. This seems awfully violent to be a great salvation by the power of the Spirit. This is surprisingly violent and messy and bloody. But it is a great salvation from God and it is violent, messy, and bloody. So, what do we do with it? Ralph Davis writes perfectly, “If this seems brutal, we must simply live with it. We have already seen that when Yahweh delivers his people he does not always dip his saving acts in Clorox and sprinkle them with perfume. To be delivered from evil will frequently be messy….he is the stubborn God who will set all creation ablaze with holy war in order to have a seed and a people for himself.” God will stop at nothing to give mercy and grace to sinners. What we witness in Samson’s story is that God’s grace towards us is so intense, He aggressively saves by violence when necessary.

We are quite timid when it comes to grace. We are timid when it comes to thinking about God’s love for us. We think He is stingy with his love and grace, sort of uninterested in leaving heaven for us. This story shows us God’s grace goes down the warpath for us. Imagine an Israelite reading this and asking, does God love us? Then you read this story and see that His grace and love goes down the warpath.

Samson is a dominate warrior but this section of his story ends in a turn of direction. Samson goes from being a dominant warrior doling out violence to…dying. He is not dying at the hand of the enemy but by thirst. “And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” God then provides water and the text says, “And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived.” It is here we see that Samson does not do what we need in a Savior. He does not go to the death for us and for our sin. He doesn’t give up his spirit. He doesn’t thirst to death. He doesn’t fall into the hands of the enemy. But there is One coming who will do just that for us. 

When Jesus was handed over to the enemy on the cross we read that “…Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said…“I thirst.” When he was given sour wine we read “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” Jesus didn’t come to wage a bloody, messy, violent war. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t come to be involved in a bloody, messy, violent deliverance. Jesus came to be given over into the hands of the enemy. To go all the way to the death for us. To give up his spirit completely. Not to be revived but to be resurrected from the dead. Samson violently saved but we need something much better. Jesus saves by letting violence overtake him at the cross. It was violent, messy, and bloody and all done by hands of the enemy. Jesus went all the way to the death in place of you and me.

Does God love me? Does He Care for me? Read and hear the story again of God’s grace that goes down the warpath for you, grace that went down the warpath of the violent, bloody, messy cross.