As the world processes reports of Israeli airstrikes against the Iranian regime’s military and nuclear weapons program, Christians should think carefully about how to respond. On one hand, we lament the loss of human life that wars bring as we follow our Lord in affirming, “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). On the other hand, we also learn from Jesus that “wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6) will characterize this fallen world until he returns.
Recognizing that there sometimes is “a time for war” (Ecclesiastes 3:8), Christian theologians since the fourth century have developed universal principles for Just War — that is, defining the conditions under which war is justified. “Just War Theory actually goes back to [the fourth-century theologian] Augustine … who kind of articulated some of these principles,” said David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview, “and it’s been expanded upon since then.”
In a March interview on “Washington Watch,” Closson outlined six principles of Just War Theory:
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- First, “There needs to be a just cause. You can’t just go to war for any reason … This rules out a war of aggression from the start.”
- Second, “There has to be right intention. A nation goes to war to end grave injustice or to restore peace. You can’t just go to war because you don’t like your enemy, you don’t like the nation next door. You can’t go simply because of vengeance.”
- Third, “A just war needs to be waged by a legitimate authority. This would rule out individual actors or groups.”
- Fourth, “War should be a last resort … Christians should never be the people itching to go to war. You exhaust all options before you think about war.”
- Fifth, “There would need to be proportionate objectives — all things considered, in terms of loss of life that might be lost or money that might be lost … The things that you might lose in a war can outweigh what you’re trying to remedy.”
- Sixth, “There needs to be a reasonable chance of success. I would point people to Luke chapter 14.” In describing the cost of discipleship, Jesus uses this metaphor, “Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace” (Luke 14:31-32).
These principles provide a framework for analyzing Israel’s airstrikes against the Iranian regime through a biblical worldview. Because Israel’s strike meets each criterion, these principles also provide six reasons why Israel’s strike against Iran was justified, reordered below:
Just cause: Self-defense against annihilation
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi complained in a letter to the U.N. that Israel’s airstrikes “amount to a declaration of war against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
But Israel’s war with Iran did not begin on Friday morning. Israel’s war with Iran began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas — supported by and subservient to Iran — launched a surprise attack against Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, injuring thousands, and capturing more than 200.
Immediately after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel was thrown into a multi-front war against Iran’s extensive network of terrorist proxies in Gaza (Hamas), Lebanon (Hezbollah), and Yemen (the Houthis), as well as smaller outfits fighting from Judea, Samaria, Syria, and Iraq. On October 1, 2024, Iran itself launched missiles at Israel in response to Israeli forces invading Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon.
While not every front in the war sees constant fighting, they are not random or disconnected. The Iranian regime seeks Israel’s annihilation as a necessary implication of its Islamist ideology, and both Israel and Iran understand this genocidal intent. In recent years, Iran has grown steadily closer to obtaining the weapons it needs to turn its ambition into reality.
“For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel’s destruction,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the airstrikes. “They’ve backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons.”
Nearly two years ago, Iran and its proxies attacked Israel, with the avowed purpose of destroying the nation. Israel has deftly beaten back the lesser attacks. But, unless the Israeli government wanted Iranian nukes to destroy its cities, it had to strike Iran itself.
Right intention: Crippling Iran’s nuclear weapons program
This points to Israel’s intention to carry out the strikes. Israel’s purpose was not to seize territory, take revenge on enemies, or gain worldly glory. As Netanyahu explained it, Israel carried out “a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival” by destroying its nuclear weapons program.
Thus, Israel did not bomb cities, civilian infrastructure, or ports. They bombed nuclear enrichment facilities, nuclear scientists, and (to further ensure their safety) the generals who would likely mount a counterattack.
Proportionate objectives: Strikes against legitimate military targets
These actions also fulfill the Just War principle of proportionality. This principle does not envision a sort of eye-for-eye equality in strikes, as the Biden administration often conceived it. Rather, it envisions means that are proportional to the ends. Israel sought to protect itself from a nuclear Holocaust by crippling Iran’s nuclear weapon program (it would obviously like to escape a conventional missile barrage, too). Therefore, Israel struckelements of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, along with related defenses, and the generals who might oversee a retaliatory strike.
Reasonable chance of success: Israel previously devastated Iran’s air defenses
Israel had ample reason to believe its airstrikes would be successful because it carried out preliminary strikes only months earlier. On October 26, 2024 (weeks after Iran’s missile barrage against Israel), the Israeli air force put on a dominant performance in Iranian airspace, demolishing Iran’s anti-aircraft defenses, missile and drone production sites, and other targets. Israeli planes prowled the sky for hours, carrying out 140 sorties across Iran, then returning home with no casualties.
The effect of this previous strike is that it left Iran vulnerable to future air attacks, particularly against its nuclear weapons program (Israel did not attack Iran’s nuclear weapons program in October due to intense pressure from the Biden administration).
“Israel will be able to operate there freely because they don’t have an anti-aircraft shield,” explained Caroline Glick, now a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “If we attack again, will be able to just hover over any city, basically, in Iran that we need to, in order to attack the targets that we need to take out — whether it’s oil infrastructure, whether it’s nuclear infrastructure, or regime targets.”
Legitimate authority: Netanyahu is the legal head of Israel’s government
Speaking of Netanyahu, his position automatically fulfills this next principle of just war. The prime minister is the legitimate head of the Israeli government. He leads a coalition government that controls a majority of seats in the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, which is popularly elected according to the Israeli constitution. This government, in turn, exercises authority over the Israeli military through the War Cabinet. Thus, the strikes were ordered by Israel’s legitimate authority.
This may seem obvious or overly simplistic, but it serves to highlight the contrast between Israel and most of its enemies. Iran’s terrorist proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis — are not legitimate authorities of nation states. They are terrorist militias that illegally seized territory by force. This is significant because, by definition, lawful authorities have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, making all the attacks of these groups inherently illegal. And all these groups have taken their marching orders from the Iranian regime (which may be the legitimate ruler of its own territory, but not the territory of other nations).
Last resort: All diplomatic efforts failed to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon
Israel’s military strike on Iran’s uranium enrichment sites and other elements of its covert nuclear weapons came after all possible diplomatic efforts failed to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Even if they could not know precisely how much time was on the clock, Israel knew that time was running out, so they threw this buzzer-beater.
Iran has “taken steps that it has never taken before to weaponize” its rapidly growing stockpile of enriched uranium, said Netanyahu. “If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time — it could be a year, it could be within a few months. This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival.”
The issue came to a head last Thursday, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officially ruled that Iran had not complied with its treaty requirements to submit to external oversight of its nuclear stockpiles. Such a ruling could reinstate severe U.N. sanctions against Iran. In response to this step — the diplomatic nuclear option, if you will — Iran furiously announced plans to accelerate its uranium enrichment by opening a new facility. It also threatened that, if sanctioned, it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In 55 years, the only country to withdraw from the NPT is North Korea, which did so when it developed its first nuclear weapons.
“Over the past several decades, Western powers have tried to avoid this eventuality through sanctions against Iran, endless diplomacy, Barack Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal, and the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign of Trump’s first term,” wrote the National Review editors. “Multiple acts of sabotage and other covert activities by Israel set back Iran’s program at various points. But ultimately, Iran would not give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and Israelis had no choice but to act.”
This is, perhaps, the most debated point. State Department spokesman Ned Price called Israel’s attack “premature” because “diplomacy had not run its course.” But American diplomatic efforts have also not changed Iran’s position, which is that it has the right to enrich as much uranium as it wants, to levels far beyond what is necessary for civilian nuclear purposes.
Last Thursday, Trump wrote that he had given “Iran chance after chance to make a deal,” and he warned the regime to strike a deal now or else there would be “much more to come” from Israel.
Conclusion
The fact that war is an unavoidable feature of our fallen world does not mean Christians should be fond of it. Even just wars, as outlined above, are permissible only under narrow conditions, as a last resort, by the proper authority.
By contrast, Christians are entrusted with “the ministry of reconciliation,” writes Paul, “that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
Christians should act and pray for peace, “because God can do what man cannot,” said FRC President Tony Perkins. “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariot in the fire” (Psalm 46:9).
Sometimes, God even destroys not-yet-made nuclear missiles by means of other weapons.
Originally published at The Washington Stand.
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand, contributing both news and commentary from a biblical worldview.
