Sermon: 'But I Say to You' (Part Six): Retaliation
#1699
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 25-Mar-23; 83 minutes
description: Throughout history, millions of lives have been lost because of family feuds, including the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys, lasting over 30 years because of a stolen hog, the York's and the Lancaster's (also known as the War of the Roses- immortalized by Shakespeare), family feuds in the Bible, including the feud between the line of Seth and the Line of Cain, Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom, and Israel and Judah, all of which will be fixed when Christ returns. A feud takes place when someone does something that offends someone else, initiating with a simple tit for tat emerging into a full-scale civil war. In Matthew 5:38-42, we learn what Christ expects His disciples to do when provoked. The eye for an eye principle practice was universal in the world's cultures and was recognized by Old Covenant law (Exodus 21:21-27, Leviticus 24: 19-20, and Deuteronomy 19:21), defined by the Latin Lex Talionis, meaning the punishment for a misdeed should be based upon some form of equivalence (usually monetary- fitting the crime) rather than simply unrestricted or random revenge. In Matthew 5:39, Jesus, using hyperbole to shock His disciples into a change of behavior or attitude, emphasizing that they should resist the impulse to retaliate. Matthew 5 identifies the ideal among followers of Christ and Romans 13 identifies the rights in a world of sin. One is heavenly, one is earthly; one is spiritual, one is practical; one is internal, one is external. Jesus did not tell His disciples to become doormats and permit evil to predominate. Instead, He urges His disciples to react patiently, using the power of the Holy Spirit to refrain from winning, dominating, or crushing their opponents, but be willing to sacrifice what it will take to resolve disagreement (I Corinthians 6:1), accepting wrong and letting one be defrauded (I Corinthians 6:7)
transcript:
Most Americans are familiar with the long-running television game show, Family Feud, hosted for many years by actor Richard Dawson of Hogan's Heroes fame, as well as a handful of others. Currently, it is hosted by comedian Steve Harvey. It pits five members of two different families against each other as they win points for guessing the top answers to survey questions that are made by the producers of the show. The family that totals the most points after a couple of rounds wins the opportunity to go for the big money at the end of the game. Those things can be pretty funny. I mean, the show's hosts are comedians. The atmosphere of the game show is lighthearted and quite humorous.
But the show's name, of course, Family Feud, derives from the not so funny and far too common real family feuds that have occurred down through history and has marred, not just American history, but world history, because family feuds are not confined just to America. As we will see in a few minutes, they are from all around the globe. But if you think about it and you go back and look at the history that we can easily get off of the Internet, that thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives have been lost down through history because of family feuds. Especially this is so if we think of nations as families grown large, and so any kind of civil war in a nation, pitting people who are related, maybe distantly but still related is from the same family, go to war with each other for power and riches.
In this country, when the words family feud pop up, we, if we are not thinking of the game show, we probably think of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's. That is a feud that started, I believe, in about 1863 and it lasted for almost 30 years in the Appalachian Mountains there on the border between Kentucky and West Virginia.
Now, many of you probably know (if you have any knowledge of this feud), it started over a solitary hog. Randolph McCoy claimed that a Hatfield had stolen one of his hogs and he was pretty upset about it. So he went to court over this stealing of the hog and went to trial and Randolph McCoy lost. Well, he was not going to take that sitting down so he took justice into his own hands and began killing Hatfields over this hog and the lost court trial. Of course when he killed a Hatfield, well, that meant that the McCoy's are going to strike back. And so they retaliated and men and women and children were maimed or killed after this trial.
It all came to a climax in what is called the New Year's Massacre in 1888. Hatfields surrounded the house of Randolph McCoy in the middle of the night and began firing bullets into the house. They ended up killing two McCoy children, and Randolph and his wife barely survived, especially the wife. She had a couple of holes in her body because of the bullets coming through but she ended up living.
Once this happened, the federal government decided to get involved; the Hatfields and McCoys were taking this a bit too far. So there was another court case and this case actually went all the way up to the US Supreme Court before it was settled. In this case, it was settled for the McCoy's because they had been the ones that had suffered the house barrage during that night. And so ultimately, eight Hatfields were sentenced to life in prison and one of their members (supposedly mentally challenged), was executed. And so because of this, the feud petered out by the turn of the century. Still, it went on for nearly 30 years and many people died.
Well, it is not just Americans, as I said. The Scots are infamous for their feuds. In the 14th century, it was Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron that feuded bloodily across their borders. In the 15th century, it was the Stewart's versus the Douglas's. Stewarts came out on top in that one and they eventually became kings of Scotland. Two Highland Scots clans, the Campbell's and the McDonald's, fought over cattle in the late 17th century, both rustling cattle from each other.
Now, if you know anything about our Wild West, you will know that cattle rustling was a big reason for feuds between ranchers and there were many, many feuds that began that way in our country. But in this case, between the Campbell's and the McDonald's, in 1692 members of Clan Campbell participated in what history has called the Glencoe Massacre. Just before this time, I do not know if it was 1692 or 1691, but the McDonald's had refused to sign a loyalty oath to the new British monarchs, William and Mary, and that did not sit well with either Clan McDonald or William and Mary. So with the crown's support, an army in which many McDonald's played a prominent role, traveled to Glencoe and requested hospitality.
Now, among the Highland Scots, that is a big thing. If hospitality is requested and you give it, it is your word. You do not go back on it and it is supposed to be a time of peace. Well, the McDonald's obliged. They gave hospitality. They allowed the whole army to camp on their land near Glencoe and they even went the extra mile (which comes into the sermon obviously later on), and they provided the army food and drink and even entertainment. They went whole hog in giving hospitality to Clan Campbell. But after a couple of weeks, the soldiers turned on the clan. They killed men, women, and children as they slept. The few people that were able to get away fled into the hills and the bitter February weather did most of them in.
Let us not just pound on the Scots, though. The English did a bit of feuding as well in the mid-15th century. The Bonneville's and the Courtney's duked it out in Devonshire. Now, full disclosure here, I want to make sure that I let you know my biases. I am a descendant of the Courtney's through my mother and her family. My grandmother's maiden name was Courtney and as far as I know it is the same clan. So my sisters and I and our descendants, are all part of Clan Courtney. Well, in England, it was not clan, it was Family Courtney. But just to let you know, we still hate the Bonneville's. Just kidding.
But that clash between the Bonneville's and the Courtney's went on for years, both sides shedding blood of the other. And the only reason it was stopped is because it happened just as the War of the Roses was beginning. And of course, the Bonneville's supported one side and the Courtney's the other. The Bonneville's supported the York's and the Courtney's supported the Lancastrian. By the way, the Lancastrians ended up winning, ultimately, that war. But it took the imprisonment of the Earl of Devon (who was a Courtney) for the feud to end. Because this particular Earl of Devon had murdered an associate of the Bonneville's and there was enough proof to imprison an earl for such an act. And the only reason why it ended is because of the War of the Roses and they submerged their feud into the War of the Roses and with death and other things, the Bonneville's actually ended up at the worst end of it because, since the Lancaster's won, the Courtney's got to keep their lands but the Bonneville's were on the wrong end of things.
Same thing happened with the Percy family and the Neville family right about the same time and it ended the same way. The one that supported the Lancaster's eventually won the feud, if you call that winning. Of course, we cannot pass by innocently the York's and the Lancaster's either because they were actually the members of the same family. They were all descendants of Edward the III, each having a claim to the throne. They went through five kings in about 25 years. And like I said, the Lancastrian side eventually won, but there were a few York kings in between all of that and a lot of death. During the 30-year civil war estimates range anywhere from 35,000 to 100,000 killed. And it was a family feud.
And of course, you know the War of the Roses. It is called that because one side allegedly used a red rose as a symbol and the other side used a white rose. The Lancaster's were the red ones, the York's were the white roses. In my research for this, I found out that actually may be bogus. That there is no good evidence that they used these as major symbols of them. There may have been white roses on one side and red roses on the other, but it was our good old friend, Bill Shakespeare, that made it famous in his plays. And so he either made it up or he made it famous. So all these things eventually wind up going back to William Shakespeare.
But, you know, family feuds are not relegated to just secular history. There are family feuds in the Bible. As a matter of fact, we could actually call the first murder, Cain killing Abel, as the beginning of a family feud. Because at that point, the line of Cain and the line of Seth were started and, in a sense, pitted against each other until the Flood. And the Flood did not stop any feuds. Israel and Edom had enmity since the time Jacob took the birthright and the blessing from Esau. And it is still ongoing between the descendants of Israel and the descendants of Edom.
Of course, there is the feud that is still ongoing between Israelites and Judahites. They have not gotten back together since Rehoboam's day. Of course, Israel does not even know who it is. But if they did, there would probably still be the enmity and who knows. That will get fixed when Christ returns. And by the way, we are in an alliance with them now, but it is not that we have ever gotten back together. You remember Bathsheba and David? Well, most people do not know this unless they have heard my sermon or Bible study on this. But Ahitophel was Bathsheba's granddad. And the civil war that he started between Absalom and David was probably because of the way David had treated Bathsheba and killed Uriah the Hittite. And again, we have civil war, a family feud between the family of Ahitophel and the family of David, using one of David's sons. Like I said in my sermon, it was Israelite soap opera and on and on it goes.
If you have humans and they separate into different families, eventually they are going to be feuds and it is because of human nature. Feuds begin with offense. It is either real offense or imagined offense. It does not really matter. Was it really so offensive that a Hatfield took a hog from a McCoy? It could have been easily resolved, but it was not. It took many deaths to finally resolve that feud. Someone does something that someone else objects to, the offended party gets even, and the offender strikes back. And from that point, it is tit for tat, blow for blow, and unceasing escalation until it becomes outright war with destruction and death on both sides. That is how family feuds work. That is how feuds work just in general. Somebody at some point could maybe have backed down, could have said, "OK, this has gone far enough," but there is nobody wise enough, nobody righteous enough, let us say, to do that, to take it, to sacrifice. And so it only escalates.
Now in Matthew 5:38-42 Jesus' instruction there tries to avoid such conflict. And we learn there in that little passage, just five verses long, what Christ expects His disciples to do when provoked. I could just say right now that He does not expect people in the world to follow His advice here because of human nature and the fact that they do not have His Spirit. But He expects His disciples to.
Remember, the Sermon on the Mount. He sat down with His disciples and He taught them. This is not a public sermon. There was a Sermon on the Plain as I mentioned before. That is in Luke, that one is public. But this one here in Matthew 5 through 7 is private to the disciples. It is special instruction for them. Now, He would not forbid people in the world to take His instruction here. But He does not assume that they will because human nature is fighting against it. But those who have God's nature or are building it by His Spirit should be able to do these things.
Now, I said should. It is not easy to do most of these things. But going in, I want you to understand that Jesus is giving us the ideal in all these suggestions or commands that He makes. He is giving the ideal and we may not, at our present state of conversion, be able to do these things. And if we do not do those things, they are still sin to us. But we should understand that these are the goals that we are striving for because they are God's character—God's own character, Jesus' character. And we see many of these things played out in the life of Jesus Christ. So they are overall goals for us to accomplish and a good thing for the grace of God and His forgiveness. He will often put us through situations like these probably to gauge for Himself just how far along we have gotten, how much we have grown. You know, of course, we could see it too if we are perceptive enough. But these are the things that we should strive for.
Matthew 5:38-42 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away."
From the last passage to this one, Jesus moves from forbidding oaths to forbidding retaliation. Or we could put it in more positive terms by saying He moves from keeping one's word, always speaking the truth and so not needing oaths, to keeping the peace. So the paragraph before where He forbids oaths is talking about our speaking true. The next paragraph is always being peaceful, always being the peacemaker.
Now as He has done in all of these "But I say to you" passages, He sets a high, some would say impossible, standard. But we have to remember He is the God of peace and as such, it is how He functions and what He expects of His disciples. What He is doing here, as I intimated before, is that He is teaching true godliness, how to be like Him. And so upon hearing it, upon learning of it, the ball is in our court to keep it as sons and daughters of God. These are part of our personal instructions from our Master, Jesus Christ. This is how He wants us to act so we could be like Him.
The opening in verse 38, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,'" is very similar to how He opens the other paragraphs, the other passages in these particular bits of instruction. Except in this one there are two minor differences. He says, "But I tell you," rather than, "But I say it to you." And He also omits any kind of phrase about who said an eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth. So He omits "to those of old." He just says, "You have heard that it was said." The other ones say, "You have heard that it was said to those of old" or in old times or however your Bible may translate it.
As for this latter one omitting "to those of old," we can only speculate that the omission of the phrase is because He is hinting at the idea that the practice was universal for everyone. It was not just something that people of old in the Bible, among Israelites practiced, but it is also something that all the other cultures around them practiced, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. So there is a hint then at kind of a universality of this particular quotation that He makes because the region's cultures did actually use this eye for an eye principle in their own jurisprudence.
But we can also say that the words Jesus quotes are actually right out of Old Covenant law. So let us go back to Exodus 21. We will see that it is in Exodus and Leviticus and in Deuteronomy. And I think (I did not put a scripture from Numbers here), but I think there is at least some sort of mention of it. It may not be a full mention of it but I think it is there in Numbers as well.
Exodus 21:22-27 "If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no lasting harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any lasting harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. If a man strikes the eye out of his male or female servant, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye. And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he shall let him go free for the sake of the tooth."
Leviticus 24:19-20 "If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him—fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him."
Deuteronomy 19:21 "Your eye shall not pity: but life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."
All of these, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, give the same principle of eye for an eye. And it is a principle, Lex Talionis, that lies at the law of retaliation or the principle of retribution. That a punishment inflicted should correspond in degree and/or kind to the wrongdoer's offense. This principle kept a government, or some sort of person in charge, an authority, from terrorizing people for their crimes. For going way beyond; you know, stealing a loaf of bread is a hanging offense. They are just not equal, they are not punishment in kind. I mean, just look how something similar to that ruined Jean Valjean's life in Les Miserable. He stole some bread and I think some silver candlesticks or whatever and he ended up getting a very long sentence and under very horrible circumstances in the French prison.
So that is the sort of thing that Lex Talionis, the law of retribution, tries to keep within bounds so that people are not punished more for offenses that they have done against the state or against someone else. This is also known as equal restitution or proportionate retaliation. Now many nations applied this law literally, as some Muslim countries actually do today. If a thief is caught stealing, he loses his hand. That is appropriate punishment for the act of taking something with the hand. A murderer in many of these codes of justice of these countries is himself killed—a life for a life. A rapist might be killed or emasculated—kind for kind.
However, God's law or God's instructions on these matters, in most cases, was not so cruel as we would see them in 21st century America. The principle under God's law is that often the restitution was a monetary fine of some sort, paid to the victim or the victim's family, and was proportionate to the injury. We saw a little bit of that. If the owner of a slave punched a tooth out of the slave, then instead of the slave getting to slug his master back until a tooth popped out, the slave was freed. In this case, there was not a monetary fine as such, it was not inflicting injury on the perpetrator, but it was making him pay some sort of damages to the victim or the victim's family. This was often a set amount of money that everybody was aware of. And so they would give you so many shekels for a broken arm or double that for a broken head or you know what I mean. It is just a matter of, "Ok, you've done this, you have to pay." It is not as serious as having your head chopped off or being stoned or hanged or what have you. So you have to pay a certain amount of money as restitution for this.
Now, the principle was so widespread across the Middle East and for a long time, many centuries, that it naturally infiltrated into private matters, not just between governments or people in authority dealing with things that happened in the town or the country, but people would take this into their own hands and perhaps try to resolve matters using the same principle. And without a figure of authority over both parties, that both parties recognized, this idea of Lex Talionis or equal justice, or proportionate retaliation among families or clans or tribes devolved into feuds. It was tit for tat, blow for blow, a cow for a cow, or as we saw a hog for a hog, a death for a death. That is how it was interpreted among the common people and as human nature works, neither side often gave in and it escalated into feuds that break the peace and cause a great deal of destruction and death.
And so that is what Jesus is facing here in Matthew 5:38-42. He is trying to let His disciples know how they can avoid these sorts of things. And He starts then in verse 38 with the well-known principle "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." It was probably how most people thought of it, in those simple terms. And then He says,
Matthew 5:39 "But I tell you [emphasis on you, the hearer, or in our case, the reader] not to resist an evil person."
Oh, that is shocking! So in Matthew 5:39 Jesus is not saying (we have to think of this logically), that offenders should escape justice or that we should not, let us say, report a crime to the authorities or just let things slide. He is not saying that. It may seem like He is saying that because we have to understand that He is trying to shock them into a change of behavior, a change of attitudes. So I am just here to tell you, if someone steals your car, report it to the police. If someone defrauds you and you have enough evidence, file a lawsuit, or if you or a family member is harmed, again, report it to the police.
You do not have to take that kind of thing if it happens, you know, it is a public thing. He is not telling you to lie down and just let everybody trample all over you. You have every right to seek justice for crimes against you. I mean, look who is saying this. This is the God of justice. He is always right. He has been made to be the judge of all people. He is not going to let things like that slide. Now He may give mercy, but He is going to give justice when it is deserved. We need to understand here that He is not saying that we should just let the criminal element in the front door and do whatever they want. That is not what He is saying.
Let us go to Romans 13 and show from Paul how we can understand what He is saying here in a more balanced way. Romans 13, if you know your chapters, is the what we call a government chapter. And Paul explains the purpose of authority, legal authority, appointed authority, and that it is there for specific reasons.
Romans 13:1-4 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities [Every soul. That means us, that means the criminals too]. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. [Now we have God on top of all of these authorities; that He appointed them but for certain reasons.] Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. [Remember that. That will come in a little bit later in the sermon.] For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
So if somebody does evil to you, you have every right under Romans 13 here to try to get justice for yourself. That is what the government is there for, according to God. He gave them authority, He appointed those governments to do exactly that. Now you might not get justice from a human government. Something might go against you. Very likely false witnesses and whatnot may make the case very hard for you to win. I am not getting into all that. But from God's point of view, they are there to be on top of the criminal element and to keep them from wreaking havoc in the world. And so if you have a true complaint, some crime has been committed against you, you are free to take it to that extreme, if you will. You can go and you get a lawyer, retain a lawyer, and follow the path of justice here.
Romans 13:5-6 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers [or servants] attending continually to this very thing.
We pay a fee through taxes so that the authorities can do this for us, so that they can give justice when it is necessary, they can put criminals in jail, they can right wrongs.
Romans 13:7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
So putting this alongside Matthew 5:38-42 we can see that there is a balance here to the extreme of what Jesus seems to be saying and what Paul says we have a right to do, as humans under God, if a crime should happen to be committed against us. We have to juggle these two thoughts here: that Matthew 5:38-42 is the ideal among Christians and Romans 13:1-7 is your right in a worldly sense.
We are given the ability as the elect of God to go through the justice system of this world if we need to, if it is actually true that a crime was committed against us and that sort of thing. But Matthew 5 tells us what Christ says is the ideal reaction and response from a godly person. So we have to think of both of these things, we have to have them in our minds at the same time. They are not contradictory, but they are, how would I put that? One of them is of the heavenly side and the other is the earthly, one is the spiritual, the other one is the physical or practical. Here is another one: one is internal, the other one is external.
So you are not going to go crazy trying to hold these both in your head at once. There are actually two realities, but one is a spiritual godly reality, a heavenly reality, and the other is how we have to deal with life in a sinful world on this earth.
Now, Jesus is saying this back in Matthew 5 because of the culture of the day among the Jews and that is what His disciples had come out of. And the Jews in Jesus' day tended to teach this eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth and at least tacitly support private vengeance rather than going through whoever the public authority would happen to be. At the time, Jews had certain authority and ultimately, the Romans were over them.
So it may have been the fact that they were under the Romans that they tended to support taking things into their own hands and just leaving the Romans out of it. They did not want to get involved with any Lex Talionis on the part of the Roman government because Rome was indeed considered to be rather harsh. If we are right about the prophecy, they are the iron that we see in those legs and feet of the statue, and they were very harsh rulers. I mean, just look at crucifixion.
The Jews were also in a state of rebellion, even if it was fairly peaceful. They had the Zealots out doing their thing, trying to get out from under the Romans. And so they were very much like today where people are demanding their rights and seeking social justice and seeking privileges and being very stubborn about taking any step back from the gains that they had gotten already. So they would use a principle like eye for an eye in order to stay even, as they saw it, with the Romans. And so there was a very tacit, maybe back of the hand type of thing that was encouraging these sorts of things, eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, especially against the Romans or any other non-Jew.
And this is just another area of life in which the religious authorities of the day had twisted Scripture for political, religious, or even personal advantage. And Jesus is correcting this like He has done with many of these other ones.
Let us go back Matthew 5, 39 through 42. We will read all of these again just to keep them fresh in our minds. This is Jesus' instruction.
Matthew 5:39-42 "But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, give him your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away."
So instead of what was going on in the community among the Jews, Jesus' instruction is specifically to His disciples, as I mentioned before, and it focuses on personal matters. He is not focusing on the bigger, let us say, national problems that were affecting the Jews at the time. He is bringing it to you personally and He is focusing on these personal matters, chiefly attitudes and responses and reactions to offenses that a person takes from another person's actions or words. Also in this paragraph are legal issues that have to be dealt with and unfair or inconvenient demands or requests on you.
Now, when these things happen, if you were to go outside and the local police told you that he wanted to take your car, he was commandeering your car, well, Jesus says, let him. Now, this was something that the Romans would do. They could legally drag you in to bearing a burden for up to one mile. Jesus says, "Go two." You understand that; we do not like that. It would be very inconvenient. We might have been just going to the store or something and we had a limited amount of time, but the policeman came up and he demanded the car and he drove away, and you did not know whether you were going to get your car back. You think of all kinds of things. "I'm certainly not going to get my Wonder Bread, peanut butter, and jelly this afternoon unless I walk." And so, that gets the blood boiling a bit or we are riled up.
But Jesus advises us to clamp down on our human responses, on our desire to get even or to retaliate when these things happen to us, and respond like a child of God, not like a sinful person with human nature. And so He urges us here, even though He does not use the words, He urges us to react with patience, with humility, in a spirit of sacrifice and open-handed love and mercy. Now, you know why I said this is on a spiritual level and not on a physical one?
And truly what Jesus commands us here can be done only with the power of His Spirit. We have got to have God's Spirit working in us strongly to be able to resist these urges to get back, to fight back, to say "no, it's my right!" Overall, He says we should quash the attitude of demanding what we are owed or as is probably more often the case, what we feel we are owed. We may not be owed it all, but we get up on our high horse and say, I deserve this and that, and we let our attitude just run away with things.
He is saying we should not stand on our rights or aggressively protect our interests as so many of this country are screaming for today. They want everything coming to them that they think should be coming to them. They want justice. They want $5 million in cash because their ancestors to the fourth or fifth generation were enslaved. They want to be recognized by the public because they deviant and so forth. He is saying Christians have to do something very different and not demand their rights, not think that their interests are so great that they overwhelm everybody else's interest.
Jesus instead advises us to take what ungodly and ignorant people dish out. As His representatives we are to prefer suffering wrong and keeping the peace than intensifying the situation with demands for equal justice. I mean, read I Peter. First Peter is a commentary, if you will, on some of these things when he talks about suffering for righteousness' sake. And Jesus actually goes way beyond even what I have said so far. He tells us to go above and beyond doing what were required and to give them more service than they demand. That is hard!
But yeah, He is giving us top-level goal here, top-level ideal of how a Christian should act in a world of offense. Because we know that among people with just the human spirit, just human nature, situations like these are probably 95% to 98% going to spiral right out of control. Fists are going to be flung, teeth are going to be lost, money is going to be exchanged, court cases are going to happen, and on and on it goes. Like I have said before, several times, these kinds of situations tend to escalate out of control.
And so Jesus is telling us if you do not want to be in these kind of situations and I do not want you to be in these kind of situations, this is what you do. You act like Me. He says, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give more than you are asked for, etc. This is very hard, this is very hard. Like I said before, almost impossible. But He is setting the bar high so we can get on our tiptoes to reach it, make the effort to reach it.
Now, His shocking command in verse 39 not to resist an evil person must have rocked His listeners when He said that. These were burly fisherman in the prime of their strength and He was telling them, do not even resist an evil person. I could see Peter jumping out of his seat, "I'm going to knock his block off!" But this is what his Master said. "Do not resist an evil person." At first, they may have thought He meant that followers of Christ should let evil triumph. I mean, that is what a normal person with human nature would think. If I just went up to somebody in the street and said, "Christ says, do not resist an evil person." "What do you mean? You're saying God wants evil to prevail?"
That is not what He means. Not at all. That is just human nature speaking and thinking about what He said here. But clearly He is speaking about private situations and personal retaliation. I mean, the way it is formulated in the Greek is you, personally, do not resist an evil person who accosts you. And His examples that He gives in the next few verses clarifies that it is that. These are one-on-one situations, person to person, and the Christian is the victim. The evil person is a person who imposes on you, who asks you for more than is necessary, or what have you.
Notice that He does not say here, do not retaliate against an evil person. He actually takes it one step further and says, "Do not resist an evil person." It is not, oh, if somebody slugs you out of the blue, do not retaliate. That is not what He is saying. He is not saying, do not fight back. He is actually saying, take it. If a person comes up to you on the street and breaks your nose with a punch, what does He say? Well, in this case, He gave the, "If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other." He says actually here not just do not retaliate. He says, make it easier for them to give you a second blow. Talk about hard!
He goes so far, Jesus does, as basically saying, do not even defend yourself. It comes down to, let the other guy take advantage of you. It sounds totally weak and impractical and utopian. This is rainbows and unicorns land we are in now. Some would see this as Jesus asking His people to be total doormats before the world, cowardly, asking for oppression and abuse from anybody who wanted to take advantage of them. Sounds like some of the doctrinal positions that Quakers and others like them have taken over the years.
Now, we do need to recognize one very important point here. And that is a little bit of a piece of rhetoric that Jesus was a master of using. And this little bit of rhetoric is called hyperbole. It is shocking, way beyond exaggeration. So He is probably using hyperbole here to make His point. He wanted to see the shocked expressions that I have seen on some of your faces when I have said them because it makes you sit up and try to think about what He is actually trying to tell you, what He is trying to get across. And so He is exaggerating to a shocking degree to get us to change our approach to these personal conflicts, to change our attitudes and our motivations from things like those things that are inspired by human nature, like getting, winning, dominating, and crushing the opponent to, instead, being like Him, being like Jesus, giving, submitting, and serving to mitigate conflict and to restore peace and bring about good relationships.
So His examples here portray His people as unselfish and cheerful, kind peacemakers, willing to suffer personal loss of time or money or honor and comfort to overcome evil and to please God. And I could add here, to be a good witness. Let us go to Philippians 2. Remember how I said that Romans 13 would be a good commentary on Matthew 5:38. Well, Philippians 2, verses 1-17 is a commentary on this, Matthew 5:39-42. Now, as I read this, please think about Matthew 5:39-42 and the things that Jesus said versus the things that Paul is saying. Paul is giving us examples, principles, that fit the situations that are there in Matthew 5.
Philippians 2:1-17 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. [He is speaking to the church here, wanting them to be unified, to have the same outlook, to have the same understanding of what has been taught and to work together in love.] Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in the lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. [What does he tell them to do? Here we go:] Do all things without murmuring and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless [that means innocent, as you see in the margin], children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.
What have we seen here? The examples Jesus gives in Matthew 5:39-42 are practical outworks of Paul's statement in verses 3 and 4, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let him esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others." And as verse 5 says here, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." What we see in Matthew 5:39-42 is the mind of Christ at work in a practical situation. He humbled Himself. He did not stand for His rights as God. Even when He was God, He did not stand for His rights and He gave everything up, all His glory, to become a pitiful manservant. He served as a man and obeyed, going to His death without complaining, as Peter later writes in I Peter 2.
And look where that got Him. This is the paradox: Jesus humbled Himself. He served, He obeyed, He did everything necessary, went to His death. And now, as it says, "God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that every knee should bow." That does not sound like the way to be King of all things. But in God's world, which is the real world, that is how it works. The most humble, the most service oriented, the most loving, is the best, is the greatest, is the highest. Now He is God and King of all things.
So because we are told, commanded, urged, advised, to walk in His footsteps, what are we to do? We are not supposed to complain. We are supposed to avoid disputes. We are supposed to be blameless and harmless and serve, like Paul was doing as their example. He was allowing God to pour him out as a drink offering for their benefit. And here, even though he was probably the most intelligent man that they had probably ever laid eyes on, and was giving them the word of life, he was willingly giving of himself and eventually dying in this cause that God had set him to.
Now these attitudes, motivations, and behaviors are the high calling of God's elect. We like to think of this high calling as being kings and priests in the Kingdom of God. But before we get to that point, we need to be humble servants sacrificing for others' good and showing love and kindness. We know that God has called us to be different, wholly different from the people of this world. And we can actually change that to holy different. We are to be sanctified before the world. Our reactions, responses to conflict must be pretty much the total opposite of the way most people in this world approach these things. Because we are supposed to be looking at them and responding to them with the mind of Christ through the Holy Spirit, and not with the mind of Satan, not with the attitude of Satan in pride and his thirst for power and dominance over everybody else.
So what we are presented with in Matthew 5:38-42 is, ok, you guys have seen Satan's way, the way of human nature, the way of this world. And when somebody slaps you on your right cheek, you give him five in his nose. But He says, I say to you do not resist an evil person. If he slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other one and take the next punch or slap.
Let us, as we finish here, look at the major phrases in verses 39 through 42.
The one that I have been talking most about is turning the other cheek. That is the first major phrase. And He says this in the context of personal insult and offense. His answer that we should turn the other cheek is the equivalent of shrug it off. Or if it is a verbal offense, let the offender run his mouth. Just take it. He is speaking about mostly, in this case, defending our honor. Since the slap of a right-handed person on the right cheek of another person would be backhand, which shows contempt. It is something somebody does to you in contempt. He says, take the shame, swallow the shame. Do not respond in kind; and have we not been told that that is the best way to react to a bully. Do not give him the satisfaction of seeing you react in anger. Jesus says the same thing. Just let it happen and walk away if possible.
Let us go back to Isaiah 50, a Messianic prophecy. We will read verses 6 through 9 where Isaiah writes here in the words of Jesus Christ, the future of Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 50:6-9 "I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. He is near who justifies Me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is My adversary? Let him come near Me. Surely the Lord God will help Me. Who is he who will condemn Me? Indeed they will all grow old like a garment; the moth will eat them up."
That was Jesus' response to the beating He took from the Romans, from the Jews, from everybody. And He said, "That's okay. They're going to get old and die." But He was going to be God. He was going to live forever in power and glory. So He said, "I've got God on My side. He's here. He'll justify Me. Let it happen."
Let us go down to the next one. "Let him have your cloak also." This is in verse 40. We would say someone is trying to take my shirt or this lawsuit is so he could take my shirt. And Jesus says to give your cloak also. Do not just take your shirt but your outer garment as well. The principle here that we need to understand is that Jesus wants us to be willing to surrender whatever it takes to settle a dispute before it escalates. In many cases that is giving in to the demands of the person who has a suit against us. Put in the negative, it is saying, do not be so stubborn that the disagreement lingers because no one will give in. The child of God should want to put the conflict behind him, establish the peace. And if they have to sacrifice to do it, then they should.
I Corinthians 6:1 [Paul writes] Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?
I Corinthians 6:7-9 Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be defrauded? No, you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and you do these things to your brethren! Do you not know [listen to what he thinks of next when talking about defrauding each other] that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.
And he goes on to list all those unrighteous types of people.
Let us go on to the next next one here, verse 41, where you are compelled to go one mile. The phrase we want is "go with him two" because that is Jesus' command. The context deals with being pressed into service or unjustifiably compelled. You are forced to do something, whether legally or not. His example was a legal one, that the soldier could compel a person to carry a burden for one mile. In this example, Jesus tells us to love our enemy and go above and beyond what is required. If you have to dwell among enemies in this world, which we do, even in a place like the United States we dwell among enemies, even if it is only our spiritual enemies due to us having the Spirit of God and they having the spirit of the world.
Well, if we must dwell among our enemies, then compliance with a smile can perhaps give us favor or at least lighten our oppression. That way, you do not really draw attention to yourself for the wrong reasons. You actually do something nice. You do something helpful to your enemy. And what does the proverb say? He puts coals of fire on his head. You know, it is a matter of choosing to do right and good, choosing to do some sort of service to make the person feel better about you. And when you do that, it makes a wonderful witness of Christ's character and preaches a sermon beyond words. You do not have to say anything but hey, sure, let me take it. I would be happy to do that.
I will not go there if you want to write these down: Genesis 39:1-6 and the same chapter verses 20-23. It is an example of Joseph with Potiphar and how here he was a slave and he gave him everything to manage his estate. And even when Potiphar went against him and threw him in jail under false pretenses, he could have stood in his jail cell and done nothing. But it was who knows how long after that, that he was running the whole prison. He gave even though he was a slave or he was what was thought to be a felon. He turned it around and ended up the vizier of Egypt. Very similar to the process of what Christ did.
Last one: "Give to him who asks." This is in verse 42 back in Matthew 5. Obviously, this command to give whatever anybody asks you could really be severely abused by takers and moochers, and it could give rise to unrealistic expectations among the brethren that all they have to do is go up to another brethren and say, "give me this" and they have to. That is not what He is saying here because that would be an abuse of what is being taught.
Now, while what Jesus says here is unqualified, He does say, give to whoever asks, Jesus does not mean we must give ourselves into poverty or give blindly or without consideration. His goal is to get us to have a perpetual and generous attitude of giving. And remember, He is trying to teach us to think like He does. He is not trying to teach us to be foolish or to use our money unwisely. He is teaching us to be thoughtfully generous. And as we have discussed, like in speech club or spokesman's club, often the question comes up (and it did this year) about should you give to beggars? Well, yes, you should have an open heart to the beggar.
But the real thing we should learn from things like that is that we need to be of a generous heart and thoughtful in the way that we give. We do not have to take him home and open up our larder to him or take him down to the bank and give him all our money. I mean, he would want that if he thought of it and asked us for it. He might think that because we are good Christians, we have to give it. But that is not the case. We should be willing to give and we should do our best to give. Give them what will be necessary for the moment, let us say, or try to put them in a better situation if you can.
It is the growth in the attitude of giving that Jesus is trying to promote here so that we do not just brush the person off or stupidly say, "oh, here's a $20. Go to the local liquor store," you know, because that would happen, probably. He wants us to be thoughtfully generous. It would be better to take that $20 to Walmart and buy a jacket and give it to them. (Especially around here in Chicago. A jacket is necessary about 11 months out of the year. I am exaggerating.) But He wants us to learn to be always ready to give, even if it hurts a bit to give. But He wants us to be in that attitude so that whenever somebody does ask us, we are willing and thoughtful to give them something that they actually need that will help.
Let us go to James 4, verse 17. Just an overall principle here. James writes,
James 4:17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
So we have to stay far away from the consequences of this and be willing to give.
Let us go to I Timothy 6. I will just use this as a general principle because I think in the context of wealth and the standard of living in this world, we are all rich compared to the people of this world throughout the centuries. So he is talking here about the rich people.
I Timothy 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, not to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
He has inherited all things. We are co-heirs with Him. He can give us whatever we need. So do not worry, we have got it made. Stick with God and all things are yours. So he says,
I Timothy 6:18-19 Let them do good [let these rich people do good], that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
This is parallel to putting your treasures in heaven. Because what you are actually gaining in this life by doing these things—by being rich in good works and ready to give and willing to share—is the character of God, of Jesus Christ, who we will rule with for all eternity. And we have to have that character if we are going to sit beside Him on His throne.
Let us go back to Ephesians the fifth chapter, where we will end. The first two verses put a capstone on this. Paul writes,
Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore [as we come down to the end of the sermon] be followers of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.
In the end this is what Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:38-42. Imitate God and walk in love, giving yourself in sacrifice for others. It is a difficult task; seemingly impossible for a person of flesh and blood to do this sort of thing. But we must strive to attain this lofty height of godliness. Remember what I said: To this we were called. Because this is what Peter says in I Peter 2:21, "For to this you were called."
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