When should Christians not resist an evildoer?
Commentary on Matt. 5:38–42
At Matt. 5:38–42, Jesus taught his disciples:
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 an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
These are certainly radical teachings. They were appreciated as such from very early on, since even in the second century Trypho, Justin Martyr’s hypothetical Jewish interlocutor, comments: “I am aware that your precepts in the so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great, that I suspect no one can keep them” (Dialogue with Trypho 10). It seems likely to me that he was referring to a commandment like this.
How ought these commandments to be interpreted? Should Christians adopt this attitude of apparently total passivity toward wrongdoers indifferently, to anyone whomsoever?
Insisting on this interpretation leads to very significant problems.
If there is a universal command not to resist an evildoer, then this would mean that Christians could not serve as police officers or law enforcement, since these occupations specifically involve resisting and inhibiting evildoers.
Likewise, it would imply that Christians have no right to self-defense, since defending oneself implies being attacked and thus involves resisting an evildoer.
From these two facts, it would follow that there could never be a Christian state or a Christian nation, since there cannot be a state where laws are not enforced and evildoers are not resisted or inhibited.
It would likewise follow that it would be against any nation’s interest to have a majority Christian population, since in that case a majority of its population would be religiously obligated not to resist evildoers or prevent them from committing theft, assault, and the rest.
In light of all this, interpreting Jesus’s commands as absolute prohibitions implies that Christians must always remain a minority that allows itself to be abused and taken advantage of by everyone else as a matter of religious obligation.
The proponent of this interpretation will find himself at a major theological crossroads. If he insists on this radical interpretation, he will have to concede that Christians, as faithful followers of Jesus’s teachings, must be entirely indifferent to the way things go on in the world, indeed that they must reject earthly welfare altogether and become indifferent to abuse or death. This implies an extreme dimension of world-rejection on Jesus’s part. His religion would have consequently nothing to do with this world and life within it.
If one cannot accept this consequence, one must choose between either rejecting Jesus’s teachings as extreme, which is the same as dismissing Jesus as a teacher and thus ceasing to be a Christian, or else find a different way of making sense of them.
To my mind, the way forward for Christians is to understand Jesus’s ethical teachings in this regard to be limited in scope. They are not intended to apply to all evildoers whatsoever. Rather, they are intended as rules for Christians to follow among themselves only.
Christians should not resist evildoers within their own ranks. They should put up with insults and even physical violence from one another. But this does not mean they afford the same privilege to outsiders. They have the right to defend themselves against non-Christians and to resist evil done to them by outsiders.
Why should Christians put up with such behavior from other Christians? Because presumably all Christians can see that they are doing something wrong in insulting a Christian or trying to take advantage of them. They would be aware of the fact that they are doing something wrong and could be made to acknowledge their wrongdoing. As someone once said, “turn the other cheek” only works if the other person has a conscience. Christians presumably have consciences informed by Jesus’s words and thus can appreciate when they are doing something he would not approve of.
It is reasonable and legitimate to be more lenient with insiders than with outsiders. For example, a parent might put up with rudeness and insolence from his own children. The reason why is that beyond the poor behavior there is a bond between parent and child that can be appealed to in order to bring the poorly behaved child around to admitting his error. But a man does not have an obligation to put up with rudeness and insolence from a total stranger, because there is in such a case no prior relationship and no more fundamental bond to which he can appeal in order to convince his wrongdoer to behave himself better.
In order to convince a person to treat you well, there must be some values and concerns in common between you and the other. If there are none, then there is nothing you can appeal to in order to change the other’s attitudes toward you, all things being equal.
If one wants to make Jesus’s commands believable and prevent them from leading to total rejection of life in the world on the part of Christians, they should be understood as expressing a privilege that Christians accord to one another. A Christian is willing to put up with abuse from another Christian because this is a privilege of being a part of the Christian community. They do not punish each other constantly but are to a certain extent tolerant of each other’s mistakes as a way of being tolerant of one another and giving each other second chances.
One possible line of evidence in favor of this interpretation is the following. In Matthew’s retelling, Jesus addresses these teachings to his disciples: “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them” (Matt. 5:1-2). To the extent that one interprets Jesus’s ethical teachings as intended for a renewed Israel that must nevertheless live among outsiders, it is reasonable to think that he intended these rules to apply to insiders.
One possible line of evidence against this interpretation is the following. Jesus tells his disciples to go two miles whenever compels them to go one mile. This is often interpreted as referring to the practice of some Roman soldiers of compelling citizens to carry their burdens for some distance. Presumably a Roman soldier would not be a member of Jesus’s community of renewed Israel. Therefore, one could make the case that Jesus intends to commend to his disciples an attitude of radical passivity in the face of abuse from outsiders.
By way of response, I would say the following. First, Jesus does not explicitly mention Roman soldiers, so that it is possible that he is referring to some other sort of situation. It is not impossible for one Christian to ask another Christian to accompany him on some chore or errand. Second, it was not impossible for Jews to serve in the Roman military. In that case, Jesus’s command would still have been intended as a way for Jews to treat other Jews. I only now speak of Jesus’s teachings as concerning the way Christians treat other Christians because in our day, as opposed to in Jesus’s day, Christians are generally not Jews and are for the greater part Gentiles. In other words, I content that interpreting Jesus’s teachings in this way is a way of contextualizing them in a new set of conditions while preserving the intent and spirit of his words.
One might object that Jesus could never have been intending to refer to his own disciples as “evildoers” who must not be resisted. But as a matter of experience, we all know that Christians often do wrong. In this same sermon on the mount, Jesus taught his disciples to ask God for forgiveness for their wrongdoings (Matt. 6:12), and he tells them openly they are evil, yet they know how to give good gifts to their children (Matt. 7:7–11). Thus, I do not think that Jesus thought it impossible for even his own disciples to mistreat one another and thus plausibly earn the title of “evildoer.”
There are still further arguments against this interpretation that are not easily answered. For example, one might ask how far a Christian is expected to go in his nonresistance of another Christian’s evil. If a non-Christian tries to murder a Christian, there is nothing in Jesus’s words, according to my interpretation, that prevents the Christian from defending himself. But if one Christian attempts to kill another Christian, should the latter not do anything about it?
One possible response is to say that there are certain things a person can do or try to do which show that he is not really a Christian. Thus, resisting a person who is trying to kill you is legitimate, since no Christian would ever really try to do that. Another possibility is to say that “resist not an evildoer” can be qualified by common sense to exclude cases of legitimate self-defense, though this would undermine one’s motivation in trying to restrict the commandment to intra-Christian wrongdoing altogether.
I’m not sure exactly how to respond to that objection. At the same time, I think the best way forward for Christian ethics is to interpret Jesus’s commands as pertaining to the way Christians treat each other. They do not have to do with the way Christians behave in relation to non-Christians. That is the only way out of the dilemma I mentioned earlier, namely of rejecting Jesus’s teachings altogether or else embracing a highly unpalatable attitude of world-rejection.
There are still further questions that arise. For example, how does one know who is and isn’t a Christian? Being baptized and attending Christian gatherings regularly would be a fine standard. But these are troublesome matters that would have to be addressed at another time.