There was once a champion boxer who became a Christian.
After he accepted Christ, he began to study the faith intently, and after a few
years he became a pastor. He felt like his new role as a pastor didn’t really
fit with boxing, so he left his successful career as a boxer, which really
upset some of his friends at the boxing club. They felt like he’d become
“holier-than-thou,” so one evening they decided to go to his house and see if
they could provoke him into a fight.
Several
of the friends went together, and when the pastor opened his door, one of the
men—without warning—punched him right in the side of the face! The blow knocked
the pastor to the ground, but he got up and said, “Hey, what’s this all about?”
Without answering, another man punched him in the other side of the face. The
pastor was dazed for a moment, but he got up, and this time he started rolling
up his sleeves. He looked at the men and said, “You better get ready, ‘cause
I’ve turned the other cheek, and now I have no further restrictions from the
Lord.”
Today we’re
going to look at the famous statement in which Jesus tells us to turn the other
cheek, and I don’t think He meant, “Let the other guy get in two punches first,
then take him out!” But just what did Jesus mean? That question has been tossed
around for a long time and for good reason, because this paragraph contains
some of the most challenging statements in all of Scripture; yet, they are also
some of the most familiar. Let’s read Matthew 5:38-42 [READ
Matt 5:38-42].
These
verses encourage us to remember a couple of very important principles of
biblical interpretation. First, we must keep statements in their context in
order to understand them correctly. How many times have other people
misunderstood you because they’ve taken something you’ve said out of context?
We can do the same thing when we study Scripture. If we don’t consider how the
context of a verse helps us understand that verse, then we run the risk of
misinterpreting it. In this paragraph in particular, some people have isolated
the statement, “Do not resist the one who is evil,” and have drawn conclusions
from it that probably weren’t even on Jesus’ mind when He spoke those words.
The second principle
is that Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture. Since all Scripture
comes from God, it all fits together; so if one statement in the Bible isn’t
immediately clear, we can look at other passages in the Bible to give us some
additional insight. This principle is very helpful for interpreting this
paragraph since it’s a collection of short statements that seem to touch on
very different subjects. When we keep in mind that Scripture interprets
Scripture, that principle becomes a tremendous aid for interpretation.
With these
principles in mind, let’s dive into this passage. We’ll take the same approach
that we’ve taken over the last several weeks of first looking at the problem
that Jesus addresses and then looking at His solution.
The Problem: Misusing Scripture
to justify revenge.
In v. 38,
the Lord states, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” That’s a very short snippet
from a statement in the Old Testament that was given as a guideline for judges
to ensure that any punishment they meted out truly fit the crime—that is wasn’t
too lenient or severe. Its very important to remember that this was a guideline
for judges; it was not a license for
people to take justice into their own hands.
We find
that statement three times in the Old Testament; I’d like to point your
attention to Deuteronomy 19:16-21: “If a malicious
witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the
dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are
in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the
witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall
do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil
from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit
any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye
for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Again,
notice how this guideline was given to the judges as a policy for them to
follow. The problem was that the Pharisees and the people had turned this
guideline into a license for revenge. So a principle that had been given as a
guideline for justice had been twisted to excuse all kinds of injustice,
because when we try to give people who’ve wronged us what we think they
deserve—and that’s what revenge is—the end result is almost always injustice. If you push me down, I’m liable to think that you deserve
to have your face rearranged like a Mr. Potato Head doll! Revenge does
not produce justice, therefore it doesn’t line up with the character of God.
The Solution: Repay no one evil
for evil, but overcome evil with good.
In v. 39
the Lord says, “But I say to you, Do not resist the one
who is evil.” Remember how important it is for us to keep this statement
in context. The remainder of this paragraph will clarify what the Lord means. I
think viewpoints that would tell us to never do anything to resist evil are
guilty of taking this statement out of context. I believe the rest of this
paragraph and the rest of Scripture reveal that Jesus means something much like
“don’t fight fire with fire” or “don’t stoop to their level.” If someone does
evil to us, we are not to respond in kind.
In the rest
of this paragraph, Jesus seems to clear away several of the limitations that we
might want to place on a principle like this. When we think about refusing to
take revenge, we want to draw our own lines in the sand to outline what we
think we should tolerate, and if someone crosses our line in the sand, then we
feel justified to take revenge. We might say, “I’ll
let it slide if this guy talks about my daddy, but if he talks about my momma,
he’s gone too far.” When we draw arbitrary lines like that, we become
just like the Pharisees, and the rest of this paragraph wipes away any of these
lines that we might draw.
1. No actions are exempt from
this command (v. 39b)
In the last
part of v. 39, Jesus mentions an act that was deeply insulting to the Jews: “But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the
other also.” Some people have applied this statement in discussions
about defending yourself from a physical assault, but I don’t think Jesus was
addressing that matter. What He describes here is an insult, not an assault.
He may have
been making an intentional reference to Lamentations 3. Part of that chapter
describes the good of waiting for God to make right all of the wrongs that you
have suffered, and in one section we find these words: “It
is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good
for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when
it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust-- there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who
strikes, and let him be filled with insults (Lam 3:26-30).” Here’s a
good example of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture—Lamentations 3 clearly
equates a slap on the cheek with an insult, so this sheds some light on what
the Lord means in Matthew 5.
This was a
deeply insulting act to the Jews, but even then—even then—the Lord says that we
should respond with patience, grace, and kindness. Jesus Himself was the
perfect model of this response. 1 Peter 2:23 says,
“When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not
threaten.”
The Jew of
that day may have said, “I’ll put up with a lot, but if someone slaps me in the
face, I’m going to take matters into my own hands.” But the Lord says that we
cannot single out actions to make them exempt from the prohibition against
revenge.
2. No rights are exempt from
this command (v. 40)
We Americans love our rights. We are weaned on the idea
that there are unalienable rights that no one can legitimately take from us
(and that is a good way for a government to act toward its people). But
Jesus tells us, in this context prohibiting revenge, that we should hold even
our own rights loosely enough that we will not take revenge if they are
violated.
In v. 40,
the Lord says, “And if anyone would sue you and take
your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” The basic Jewish wardrobe
had three pieces of clothing to it. The first was the loincloth, which was
wrapped around the groin; it was basically underwear. The second piece of
clothing was the tunic, which was much like what we call a “dress.” It was a
single piece of clothing worn against the body that covered the chest, the
torso, and hung down over the legs. The third piece of clothing was the cloak,
which is basically what we call a “coat.” It was the outermost piece of
clothing which was also used a blanket at night, and for that reason, Jewish
society gave people a virtually inviolable right to keep their coat.
If the ancient Jews had had a Declaration of
Independence, it would have said, “all men are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life and the right to hang on
to your cloak.” According to Exodus 22, if I gave you my cloak as
collateral for a loan, you were required to give it back to me at night so I
could sleep in it.
Yet Jesus
tells His audience, “Don’t hold even your right to your cloak so tightly that
you will not be willing to give it up rather than stoop to the level of an evil
and unjust person.” Remember that Jesus is not saying all that could be said
about lawsuits or about rights in a republican form of government like ours;
rather, He is telling us not to consider our own rights to be all-important.
There are goals like honoring God for which we should be willing to sacrifice
our rights if the other alternative means dragging God’s name through the mud.
Once again,
our greatest example of this attitude is Jesus Himself. Philippians 2:5-8
describes the extent to which He humbled himself to carry out the plan of
salvation: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is
yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped [in other words, something to be held
on to at all costs], but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled
himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Think about
Jesus’ rights as the Creator of all things. He has the right to the worship and
gratitude of His creatures. He has the right to display His glory as God. He
has the right to execute judgment against our sins, yet He laid down His own
rights to knowingly and willingly endure the greatest injustice the world has
ever seen.
We are to
hold our own rights in a similar way. There is no right that we can place into
a special category and declare that the violation of that right somehow gives
us permission to take revenge. As Philippians 2:5 says, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”
3. No people are exempt from
this command (vv. 41-42)
Jesus goes
on to mention two kinds of people whom we’re often tempted to think are taking
advantage of us—those who rule over us and those who ask us for help. First,
the Lord says in v. 41, “If anyone forces you to go one
mile, go with him two miles.” The land of Israel at that time was ruled
by the Roman Empire. The Jews hated that fact, of course, but there was little
that they could do about it. Under the laws of the Empire, soldiers had the
right to force private citizens to give them all kinds of assistance, which
included carrying their gear up for a distance of up to a mile.
Now, just imagine if the United States was conquered by a
foreign nation and foreign troops lived right here among us and had the
authority to make us serve them. You can imagine how deeply we would despise
that, so you can imagine how the Jewish people felt as well. But the
Lord said that even in that situation, we should be willing to extend
generosity and good will. We should be willing to go above and beyond to show
kindness even to those who don’t show the same treatment toward us.
Well, its
one thing when someone can force you to help them, but its another when someone
simply asks you for help, which is the situation that Jesus mentions in v. 42—“Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the
one who would borrow from you.” Once again, remember that Jesus is not
saying all that could be said about the subject of giving. Clearly, Jesus is
encouraging us to be generous; in fact, I think He’s saying that our default
response toward others should be generosity.
We should
not have to be coaxed into helping others, kicking and screaming the whole way.
Rather, we should respond with a generosity that has to be reined in so that it
is not reckless and actually harmful. This is not an easy attitude to cultivate
because it is so easy to think that people are taking advantage of us when they
ask for help, and that’s the link that connects this statement to the rest of
the paragraph. Whether we suffer real injustice or we’re only tempted to think
that others want to take advantage of us, we are not to respond by doing evil.
Instead, we are to overcome evil with good.
Now the
reason that we are ever tempted to take revenge on others is that we feel like
the person who has done us wrong is going to get off the hook if we don’t do
something about it. If we don’t carry out “justice,” we fear that justice will
never be served. But the Bible tells us that that simply is not true. Romans
12:19 states, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but
leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will
repay, says the Lord.’” Again, the Lord Jesus is our perfect example. To
return to 1 Peter 2:23, it says, “When he was reviled,
he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but
continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” This is the way
to squash that desire to take revenge—to remember that God will sort everything
out in His time. Our role, then, is to do good to those who do evil to us, in
the hope that they might repent and embrace Jesus.
There was once a farmer who was a very ungodly man. He
rejected God and mocked the Christians in his community, yet he consistently had
better yields from his farm than they did. One year in particular he had a
bumper crop, and like usual, he was telling all the Christians how stupid they
were for worshiping God. But one wise old farmer simply told him, “God doesn’t
settle all of His accounts in October.” Remember that my friends; God
will one day settle all of His accounts, and He will see that justice is
served. He doesn’t need us to do it for Him now, and He won’t need our help
then. Until that day, let us not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with
good.
