“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” – Matthew 5:38-39
This may be one of the hardest and most unnatural teachings of Jesus. It goes against ever fiber of our being and the predominant teaching of our culture. But that should be irrelevant to Christians, because Jesus, our Lord, commands this of His people. Moreover, He demonstrated it through His own experience of betrayal, arrest, injustice, abuse, suffering, and death. He lived this way and expects us to live this way as well.
This is the way of Jesus. Conceptually we love it. Personally, we hate it when it involves ourselves. Often we read these verses and come up with extreme hypothetical cases to argue against the word of Christ. We need to stop! Rather than grimacing about this truth, ignoring it, or trying to explain it away, we must instead think through what it really looks like in our lives and prepare ourselves to obey.
We need to embrace this truth, understand this truth, and apply this truth in our lives. To respond to personal injustice with Spirit-filled passive resistance requires immense strength that only God can provide. We need to intentionally cultivate our relationship with God so that when the time of testing comes, Christ in us will triumph over fallen humanity in us.
What’s at stake here is eternally significant! This isn’t just about our own faithfulness and obedience to Christ. It’s also about the startling witness to Jesus Christ that occurs when we stare personal injustice and persecution in the eye without blinking and without fighting back. In those moments, Christ is held high and glorified before watching observers. For 2000 years, obedience to Christ in this way has brought some of the most hardened opponents to Christ to saving faith. Do you have the courage and strength to obey Jesus?