Resist Not Evil

DMLJ: …if our interpretation ever makes the teaching appear to be ridiculous or leads us to a ridiculous position, it is patently a wrong interpretation. … If our interpretation makes the teaching appear impossible it is also wrong. … Lastly, we must remember that if our interpretation of any one of these things contradicts the plain and obvious teaching of Scripture at another point, again it is obvious that our interpretation has gone astray.

MHA: On the whole, it can be said that the entire passage concentrates not so much on interpreting the law as on establishing new principles for how people should relate to each other in everyday life. … [The Sermon on the Mount] does not contain any call to change the structure of society, but…is filled with calls to transform our inner world….

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.2 - The Sermon on the Mount, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

Matthew 5: 38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

NB: This is too long of a post, but the teaching is complex and it took me this long to write it out such that I could understand it.  Apologies.

Lloyd-Jones offers his view on the purpose of the Mosaic legislation – it was intended to check the excesses of anger, violence, and revenge in society at the time.  In other words, what we see here, and throughout history through the influence of Biblical teaching and especially in the New Testament, is a gradual spreading of Christian ethics and virtue through the societies in which Christianity held influence.

MHA: Using a quote from the law as a starting point, Jesus leads his listeners to new horizons, proposing to them a new degree of moral perfection. … Many centuries were needed for Christian moral ideas to be absorbed into the flesh and blood of human society.

Metropolitan Hilarion cites Ephrem the Syrian:

“Thus Moses led [the people] up from the level of iniquity and established [them] at the level of justice. … But our Lord led [you] up from the level of justice and established [you] on the level of grace so that you would not seek [vengeance] from the one who strikes you on your cheek.”

The law of Moses was built on the idea of proportionate retribution, important within the societal context of that time where disproportionate revenge was often applied and considered ethical.  The example is given by Metropolitan Hilarion of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, who took revenge for the dishonoring of their sister.  For the guilt of one man, the city was slaughtered and pillaged – this after the males were convinced to be circumcised.

While not a straight and consistently upward sloping line through time, the improvements in ethical behavior due to Jesus’s teaching can be seen all the way through the middle of the nineteenth century, but clearly this has fallen off starting in the beginning of the twentieth century.  Basically, the yeast needed time to work, and both authors are suggesting that a) the teaching of Moses was intended to move man slowly in the right direction, and b) Jesus’s teaching extended this.

Lloyd-Jones goes further: justice is never excessive in its demands.  In addition to providing a check on excess, where an eye for an eye is to be the maximum limit, it is not intended to be an absolute requirement. 

MHA: …in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was not addressing the judges of the people of Israel, but his own disciples.

The law was the maximum guideline for the judges, not for each individual to enact on his own.  Here Jesus is speaking to the individual.

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

A most difficult, and in many ways, a controversial verse. 

DMLJ: It means that we must rid ourselves of the spirit of retaliation, and of the desire to defend ourselves and to revenge ourselves for any injury or wrong that is done to us. 

MHA: …evil is not healed by evil; rooting out evil is possible only by opposing it with good. … The advice that Jesus gives relates not to the legal sphere, but to the sphere of interpersonal relations.

DMLJ: Our Lord desires to produce in us a spirit that does not take offense easily at such things, that does not seek immediate means of retaliation.  He wants us to reach a state in which we are indifferent to self-esteem.

Moral victory is attained not by revenge, but by preventing the conflict from escalating further by making concessions, even to the point of sacrificing one’s self interest.  Keep in mind: all of Jesus’s teaching in this Sermon has been aimed at the spirit of the Christian, not at creating law which condemns those under grace. 

Lloyd-Jones notes the confusion this passage has wrought, and he sees the confusion brought on by this idea of pacifism:

DMLJ: [Pacifism] often leads to a spirit which is as far removed as possible from that which is taught and inculcated here by our blessed Lord.

Connecting to the idea that a ridiculous interpretation is a bad interpretation, carrying out these first two verses to their logical ends would lead to a condition of not resisting evil in any sense: no soldiers, police, civil magistrates.  But we are not to be indifferent to law and order. 

This teaching follows the Beatitudes, which are meant for the individual Christian:

DMLJ: This teaching is utterly impossible for anyone who lacks such qualities. … We must be new men and born again before we can live such a life. …We have no right to consider these particular injunctions unless we have already grasped, and mastered, and have submitted ourselves to, the teaching of the Beatitudes.

There is extensive teaching elsewhere in Scripture that makes clear the government is established to resist and punish evil.  For this reason, Lloyd-Jones sees this guidance as not applicable to government; in fact, to apply it to government is heresy.  The implications of this are many, to be touched on in the Epilogue.

DMLJ: For the world, and for a nation, and for non-Christians, the law still applies, and it is the law which says ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’

The powers that be are ordained by God, and these powers are meant to check and punish violence.  But in this light, Lloyd-Jones offers that this teaching cannot be interpreted as pacifism, as it only applies to individual Christians, those who have come through the Beatitudes.

Lloyd-Jones turns to what he understands is taught here, and it comes in the following verses:

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.  41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.  42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

It is here that we find what it means to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile on an individual basis.  We must become dead to self; the first idea that comes to mind if we feel wronged or slighted should not be self-defense or revenge. 

DMLJ: We must rid ourselves of this constant tendency to be watching the interests of self, to be always on the lookout for insults or attacks or injuries, always in this defensive attitude.

The Christian man must die to the approval of the world, even to the approval of those close to him.  beyond this, the most difficult thing for a man to do is to die to himself, to his own approval.  This can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit.

MHA: Rather than seeking legal protection for one’s personal property, Jesus asks his disciples to simply give up their property.

MHA: At least four foundational principles of human communal life are disputed in this passage: the right to self-defense, the right to defend one’s honor and dignity, the right to defend one’s property, and the principle that one need provide only the specific service asked of one.

With this said, questions are raised:

DMLJ: How am I to live like that? …How can one live that kind of life? 

MHA: …can a Christian serve in the army, defend his country with weapons in his hands, and kill people in order to save those close to him?

All of these questions are important to me, especially the last one.  Tolstoy and others would answer “no” to each of these questions; the view was one of pacifism in every case.  However, the overwhelming view of the majority of Christian traditions does not hold to this black and white view.  In most interpersonal relations, this pacifist view holds, but it is not applicable in war.  Here again, I will come to my thoughts in the Epilogue.

Lloyd-Jones suggests that it would make ridiculous Jesus’s teaching to turn the other cheek to a drunk man who struck me:

DMLJ: This man who is not in control of his faculties is behaving like an animal and does not know what he is doing.

The Lord is concerned about our spirit toward such a man; but we are not to be a punching bag for the drunk.  And, I would extend this, we are not to give free reign to those who would treat us and those we love as punching bags.  Regarding a man doing harm to himself and others:

DMLJ: He is, therefore, a man who is to be restrained. … Or if I see a man ill-treating or abusing a child I should do precisely the same thing.

Metropolitan Hilarion cites Bonhoeffer, noting that God did not create chaos, but order:

“Indeed, what Jesus says to his disciples would all be pure Enthusiasm if we were to understand these statements to be a general ethical program, if we were to interpret the statement that evil will only be conquered by good as general secular wisdom for life in this world. … Nonresistance as a principle for secular life is godless destruction of the order of the world which God graciously preserves.”

Metropolitan Hilarion points to Jesus’s life for the example.  On the one hand, He did not resist evil by force; the culmination of this was the cross.  On the other hand, we find many examples in Jesus’s life where He did not passively comply before evil and aggression.  He made many efforts to save His life before His time had come, and did not capitulate in the face of evil; He did not forbid His disciples from carrying two real swords.

When the high priest’s servant struck Jesus on the cheek, He not only did not turn the other cheek, He disputed the right of the high priest to strike Him.

MHA: Jesus’ conduct in all the incidents mentioned above is difficult to identify with the unconditional pacifism that assumes complete passivity in the face of evil.

When it comes to the coat and the cloak, it appears that Jesus is teaching that we not have a sole focus on our rights, that we do not insist on these.  Here again, this teaching cannot be taken in a vacuum. 

Paul and Silas were thrown in prison.  After the earthquake, and the magistrates realized their error, they were to be set free.  Paul insisted on his rights: having been beaten openly, he would not accept being let out secretly. 

The issue here, as with the examples from Jesus, is that the law was being broken by those in authority, and Jesus (and Paul) pointed this out.  It was out of concern for the dignity and honor of the law.  In matters of justice and truth, protests must be made.

Ultimately, the issue comes down to self-examination: why do I immediately desire revenge?  What spirit is in me that I look for ways to repay insult?  These attitudes must be confronted and purged; yet, this does not mean we are to be nothing more than a punching bag.

Ultimately the answer hinges on the following: Am I right with God?  If I am, I can remain happy and content even in such difficult circumstances, even when I feel unjustly treated, even when my rights are taken from me.

Conclusion

Forgive this very long cite, from Lloyd-Jones, but it is necessary to get at the idea of the spirit we must overcome and the spirit we are to pursue.  It is helpful to understand this idea that the desired spirit does not leave us helpless in the face of evil, but gives us strength to deal with the evil properly:

I wonder whether we have ever realized the extent to which the misery and the unhappiness and the failure and the trouble in our lives is due to one thing only, namely self.  Go back across the last week, consider in your mind and recall to your conscience the moments or the periods of unhappiness and strain, your irritability, your bad temper, the things you have said and done of which you are now ashamed, the things that have really disturbed you and put you off your balance.

Look at them one by one, and it will be surprising to discover how almost every one of them will come back to this question of self, this self-sensitivity, this watching of self.  There is no question about it.  Self is the main cause of unhappiness in life.

‘Ah’, you say, ‘but it is not my fault; it is what somebody else has done.’  All right; analyse yourself and the other person, and you will find that the other person probably acted as he did because of self, and you are really feeling it for the same reason.

If only you had a right attitude towards the other person, as our Lord goes on to teach in the next paragraph, you would be sorry for him and would be praying for him.  So ultimately it is you who are to blame.

Now it is a very good thing on the practical level just to look at it honestly and squarely.  Most of the unhappiness and sorrow, and most of our troubles in life and in experience, arise from this ultimate origin and source, this self.

Jesus came to deliver us from self.  He did not consider Himself at all.  After understanding the magnitude of meaning behind His death on the cross, on what basis do we remain standing on self?

Epilogue

I am uncomfortable with this idea that different behaviors by those with a government badge and those without are somehow acceptable.  The example of a view of military service will suffice.

Tertullian was one early writer who first embraced the idea of Christians serving in the military, but later seemed to change his view.  He would write:

“No dress is lawful among us, if assigned to any unlawful action.”

I say “seemed” to change his view, as all I see in this is something that accords quite well with what can be understood as a proper Christian understanding: a Christian does not cease being a Christian when in the service of the state.  If military service (along with police, judiciary, etc.) is acceptable when taken under government authority, as both authors here suggest, then it can only be acceptable to a Christian when the state’s actions do not aim toward unlawful action.

A military (or police or judiciary) that protects the lands and property of those who live within the borders of the state seems justifiable in this regard.  One that searches globally for adventure does not; here we find an example of the unlawful actions and purposes:

MHA: The few instances of refusal to serve in the military that are known to us from the early Christian period were motivated by the fact that this service was connected to the cult of the emperor…

Military in service of empire – “the cult of the emperor” – was and remains a cause for refusal to join the military for the Christian.  It is, fundamentally, the only purpose served by many Western militaries today, while a military in service of the people within the state is almost an unknown idea.