Jesus and the Law of Retaliation
Matthew 5:38-42
In Matthew 5 we have been studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In it, Jesus teaches the principles of the righteousness of His kingdom to His disciples. Christ intends to do two things:[1] for people who are self-righteous, for people like the Pharisees, He wants them to understand how impossible it is for them to justify themselves by the keeping of the law. He shows that the law can’t be kept by just obeying a few external rules. God judges the heart. And so, even if we have not broken the external commandment, we sin and are judged by the evil intentions of our hearts. The one whose heart is full of angry hatred is guilty of murder. The one whose heart is full of lustful thoughts is guilty of adultery. The one who does not keep his word profanes the name of the Lord. So, Jesus is trying to raise the awareness of those caught up in the web of self-righteousness of just how extensive the command of God’s law is.
Second, for those who are His disciples, Jesus intends to teach how comprehensive is the call to godliness for those who are in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus teaches the principles of the Kingdom, calling His disciples to true godliness, a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. We have seen Jesus contrast His teaching with the Pharisees’ traditional teaching of God’s law in four areas. In each of them, Jesus quotes God’s law and the wrong teaching of it. Then He gives His authoritative teaching of God’s true intention of the law. Finally, He applies His teaching to human relationships.
Today we come to the fifth great contrast in 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” (Matthew 5:38-42).
In this section, we see the same pattern as the other contrasts that Jesus has taught. He first explains how the letter of the law was being misinterpreted and misapplied by the scribes and Pharisees; and second, on the basis of His authority as the Son of God, He then shows what God’s true intention in the spirit of the law; and third, He applies His teaching to our human relationships.[2] In all this, He destroys self-righteousness and calls His followers to live His righteousness. So, first, let’s consider,
1. The letter of the law: retributive justice.
Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” (Matt. 5:38). Here, Jesus is simply repeating what the Jewish teachers had been teaching the people for generations from the law of God. The phrase Jesus quotes is found in several Old Testament commands that had been given by God through Moses. If you just heard that phrase quoted out of context from the law you might come away from it thinking that God was authorizing or even commanding revenge against those who wrong us.
But let’s look at the passages in the Old Testament that say this and see if we can discern what God meant these laws to do. John Stott reminds us that the law of Moses was a civil as well as a moral code: “For example, Exodus 20 contains the ten commandments (the distillation of the moral law). Exodus 21 to 23, on the other hand, contain a series of ‘ordinances’ in which the standards of the ten commandments are applied to the young nation’s life. A wide variety of ‘case-laws’ is given, with a particular emphasis on damage to person and property.”[3] It is in this civil, case-law section that Moses gives this law:
22 “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exo. 21:22-25)
The purpose of this law was to protect a pregnant woman and her unborn child from death or injury that might occur if two men were in a fight. It gives the civil judge a guideline as to how to punish an offender. The judgment must fit the severity of the crime. It prevented someone from going beyond the boundaries of justice in avenging themselves.
We find this law again in Leviticus 24:
17 ‘Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal. 19 If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him– 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. (Lev. 24:17-20)
Again, the judicial authorities were to apply a reciprocal justice, no more or no less than the crime called for.
The third place we find this law is Deuteronomy 19. It occurs in a passage intended to prevent perjury and using the court to execute or punish an otherwise innocent individual:
16 “If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, 17 then both men in the controversy shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. 18 And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, 19 then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. 20 And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (Deut. 19:16-21).
The context makes it clear beyond question that this was an instruction to the judges of Israel.[4] And so reading those three commands we can easily deduce God’s point in the Law. It had two purposes:
1) To deter evil. We just read in Deuteronomy “so you shall put away the evil from among you. And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you.” (Deut. 19:19-20). If you think that you will have your hand cut off for cutting someone else’s hand off, you will think twice before you do it. You also will think twice before falsely accusing someone of injuring you. This command was meant to deter evil from taking place.
2) To promote equal justice. In other words, to make sure the punishment fits the crime. God did not want you to kill a man for bruising someone. The punishment was only as severe as the crime that was committed.
And in all cases, the judgment and sentence were carried out through the local civil authority, never in personal revenge by the victims. And so we know that God was promoting justice.
We all have a sinful tendency to avenge ourselves more than we should. Remember Lamech, a descendent of Cain in Genesis 4? Cain, you’ll remember, had killed his brother Abel out of a spirit of jealousy. But God had declared that “whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold” (Gen. 4:15). That was an act of unmerited mercy on God’s part protecting Cain from anyone taking vengeance on him. But it didn’t take long before his very vengeful descendant, Lamech, distorted God’s command and twisted it to justify his own sinful lust for revenge. He once spoke to his wives and said; “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my speech! For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me” (Gen. 4:23). We don’t know the details of this murderous act. All we know is that a young man somehow wounded or injured Lamech; and that Lamech responded by murdering him for it. And then, he speaks in a way that characterizes that sinful lust for revenge that is so often found in us all – “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gen 4:24).
We can condemn Lamech for his arrogance; but not without condemning ourselves. That same tendency toward over-compensated revenge is a part of the sin nature we all inherited from Adam. The history of Israel records many acts of revenge that went beyond “eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” Remember Genesis 34 when the sons of Jacob killed all the men in a city because Shechem had raped their sister Dinah. The law of “‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was just meant to prevent such vengeful acts.
But the scribes and Pharisees took this law out of its context of civil justice were treating this as a command to seek personal retribution. If someone had done harm to them, they took this as a command that required that equal harm be done to the guilty party. If an eye was wounded, then the law ‘required’ another eye be taken. If a hand was lost, then the law ‘required’ another hand be taken. It was cold, clinical, blind retribution.
John MacArthur explains how the rabbinic tradition had perverted an “eye for an eye”:
Each man was permitted, in effect, to become his own judge, jury, and executioner. God’s law was turned to individual license …, and civil justice was perverted to personal vengeance. Instead of properly acknowledging the law of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth as a limit on punishment, they conveniently used it as a mandate for vengeance—as it has often been wrongly viewed throughout history. What God gave as a restriction on civil courts, Jewish tradition had turned into personal license for revenge.[5]
They had taken God’s good law against personal revenge and made it into a law that required personal revenge. But notice what Jesus does. He says, “But I tell you . . .”; and here, He isn’t setting God’s old law aside and setting up a new one of His own in its place. He warned us not to think that He came to do that. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets“, He said (5:17). Here, He is explaining what it means to truly fulfill it. He’s showing us what the true spirit of God’s law was in this case.
2. The spirit of the law: give up your right to retribution.
Jesus states this principle negatively in verse 39: “But I tell you not to resist an evil person.” The word used for “resist” in this verse is one that means “to stand against, to set one’s self up in opposition.” What Jesus is saying is that we are not to position ourselves as that evil person’s enemy combatant. We are not to “stand against ” the person who wants to harm us as an enemy. If we refuse to be their “enemy”, that automatically negates the “revenge” motive in justice; because I cannot take revenge on someone who I do not set myself up against as an enemy.
This does not mean that we do not recognize that the person who harmed us has done evil. Jesus is not asking us to condone evil behavior. What He does not allow is that we retaliate.
I believe the best way to understand what it means to “not resist an evil person” is to view it in terms of the positive commands that Jesus give us next. These situations capture the true spirit of this law. It’s not enough, you see, to simply expect equity in justice, because that’s just the mere letter of the law. Nor is it enough to simply NOT resist evil, because that’s to do nothing at all. Instead, Jesus calls us to follow His own example; and to actively release our claim to our rights and do active good instead to those who mean us evil. Jesus actually commands us to do the opposite of what was being taught.
That brings us to the application,
3. The application of the law: do good to the evil person.
Jesus gives us four examples where someone has violated our personal rights. First, He speaks of our right to personal respect. He says, “But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” (Matt. 5:39). In the Bible times, it was a great insult and a very demeaning thing to be slapped. Jesus is very specific in His description. To be struck on the right cheek – assuming that the one striking was using his right hand – would require that the back of the hand be used. This would be a particularly demeaning and insulting thing. Jesus, you remember, was slapped in this way when He stood before the High Priest (John 18:22-23). Paul also was struck in this way when he stood before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem (Acts 23:3).
What does Jesus want us to do when our dignity and sense of personal honor have been violated? Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. He’s telling us to set aside our right to be respected and to even make ourselves vulnerable to be insulted again. That requires a ‘death’ to self, doesn’t it? What’s more, it places the person who strikes us in a position in which he must consider his actions; and that invites him to be the one to bring an end to the conflict.
Second, He speaks of our right to personal justice. He says, “If anyone wants to sue you and take away our tunic, let him have your cloak also” (Matt. 5:40). The reason I suggest that this concerns the right to justice is that, in the Bible, a man’s outer garment was to be considered so basic a thing that a man wasn’t to be allowed to go without it. In Exodus 22:26-27, God says, “If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious.” If you are sued for your inner garment, you are being sued for all that you have and are being brought to a state of destitution. To be sued for one’s inner garment, and to then throw in the outer garment as well, is tantamount to giving up the most basic demands of justice.
And it goes even further than that. Notice that Jesus says, “If anyone WANTS to sue you . . .” Jesus is telling us to be prepared to give up our right to justice even before it’s asked of us—to go ahead and give the person what they want, and then give them more than they want. Jesus says to respond with a radical love that is even willing to give up your rights rather than take revenge on the person who is suing you.
Third, He speaks of our right to personal liberty. He says, “And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.” This is speaking of how the soldiers of an occupied land exercised the right to conscript a citizen of that occupied land to carry their burdens for them. Simon of Cyrene was something of an example of this when he was forced by soldiers to carry the Savior’s cross (Mark 15:21). The law required that such a person only be forced by a soldier to carry such a burden for one Roman mile. But just think of what a frustrating inconvenience that would be. It would easily take someone twenty to thirty minutes to walk a mile, and perhaps it would take longer if they were forced to carry a heavy burden in the hot sun in the process. Then, after having made the mile journey, they’d have to walk back home, perhaps too exhausted to do whatever it was that they had planned to do if it hadn’t been for that interruption. And who’s to say that, after getting back home, another soldier with another burden doesn’t lay his eyes on you?
What would be your attitude as you carried it? Would you be grumbling under your breath? How do you a soldier would treat you as you resentfully walked along for that one-mile journey? But what if, you cheerfully carried that burden and then after that first mile, you said, “I’d be happy to carry this another mile for you, if I may”? He would probably say, “But why would you do that after I have forced you to walk all this way?” And then, you could tell him. “The first mile was out of law but the second one is out of love.” I’m sure the conversation would be much different on the second mile than it was on the first; don’t you agree? I think a similar thing happens whenever we do more than what is legally required of us and give up an extra portion of our time and liberty to serve another out of love. What a witness for Christ that is!
Finally, Jesus speaks of our right to personal property. He says, “Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.” Proverbs 3:27 says, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in the power of your hand to do so.” (Proverbs 3:27). But what if they don’t deserve it? What if they’ve hurt you in the past? Does that let you off the hook?
Think about this from the context of personal revenge that Jesus is teaching against. Say your neighbor has borrowed things from you before and has not returned them. What is our natural, sinful reaction going to be? “Well, he’s not getting anything from me again!” Don’t hold back your possessions out of spite toward another person. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done. Their asking you should not be an opportunity for refusal but rather an opportunity for radical love over revenge.
St. Augustine observed that Jesus does not say “give whatever you are asked,” but rather “give to whomever asks.” And so, when the beggar in the book of Acts asked Peter and John for some money, Peter replied: “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Acts 3:6) He didn’t give him what he asked for, but he gave him something. And we can do the same. It is not always wise to give money, but perhaps we can help someone with food or a bus pass. Or we can certainly tell them about Jesus.
It may not be loving to give them what they ask; but when they ask, give them something. Meet the real need. Show mercy. We’re not to see the things we own as our personal property that we must keep to ourselves, but to see ourselves as the stewards of that which belongs to God, and to allow God’s things to be used for the advancement of God’s work and of the good of others. The issue is that the believer cannot simply think about himself. He must see the needs of others and willingly help meet their needs. That kind of generous spirit causes the Christian to stand out from the pack of greediness that marks our world.
Each of the four examples illustrates the unexpected. Kingdom citizens are not to do the expected – following the typical patterns of selfish living. But the unexpected – the forgiving, sacrificial, serving, generous behavior of those whose lives have been redeemed by the blood of Christ are to rise above the dark selfishness of the world and display the glory of Christ. But to do this, we must leave our “rights” at the cross and take the narrow but high road walked by Jesus Christ.
Consider how Jesus Christ set aside His own rights and privileges for us. The apostle Paul points us to this example. He wrote;
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. (Phil. 2:5-11).
Though Jesus had the authority to call forth twelve legions of mighty angels to come to His rescue in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:53), He refused to make use of that authority. Instead, He allowed Himself to be seized and led away by evil men (Matt. 26:57). And though He could simply speak the word and cause a whole detachment of guards with torches and weapons to draw back from Him and fall to the ground (John 18:3-6), He willingly allowed Himself to be struck on the face unjustly (John 18:22-23) and remained silent before His accusers (Mark 14:61). He willingly gave up the only possessions He had left in this world when the Roman soldiers divided up His clothes and gambled for His tunic (Matthew 27:35). As the Jewish leaders mocked and ridiculed Him as He hung on the cross, He didn’t stop them. Instead, He prayed that His Father would forgive them (Luke 23:34). And even though it was in His power to dazzle and blind them with a display of His own divine glory (Matthew 17:2), He refrained from doing so. Instead, He hung on the cross in complete humility and suffered injustice – dying for you and me.
The apostle Peter, who was a personal eyewitness to these things, applied His example to us when he wrote, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in His steps: ‘who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:21-24).
How could we possibly look at Jesus, be moved in the depths of our hearts over what He has done for us, and then still grasp greedily after our own rights any longer? How could we possibly look at Jesus and His death for us on the cross and not repent of our sin and believe in Him, trust in Him, and follow Him?
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[1] Ligon Duncan, https://fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/god-s-law-vs-human-tradition-part-5/ accessed 12/04/2022.
[2] Greg Allen, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2004/111404.htm . I adapted Allen’s outline and drew from some of his points in developing this sermon.
[3] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 103–104.
[4] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 104.
[5] John MacArthur: Matthew 1-7 Macarthur New Testament Commentary Chicago: Moody Press
