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. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:38-48 ESV
In the Bible, the Lord Jesus calls us, His disciples, to “offer no resistance to one who is evil,” and to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” As examples of these, we are told to “turn the other cheek,” “give him your cloak as well,” and “go with him for two miles.”
Some of us, at one time or another, have had difficulty with these teachings. What do they mean, and what do they not mean? And how do we know?
Specifically, the questions arise: Do these passages teach us to become “doormats” – to let people walk all over us? Do they imply that we deserve to be treated like filth because we are terrible sinners? Do they suggest that we show weakness in the face of evil, allowing wicked people to exploit others? Should the abused simply submit to the ill-treatment of their abusers, and do nothing in the face of evil?
These are not hypothetical questions. Many people fear mistreatment because of present or past experiences of abuse. Some of them are suspicious of these teachings of Our Lord; or at least, they have trouble seeing the genuine (and indeed glorious) spiritual good that these teachings reveal. Subsequently, they reject these teachings or hold them as empty proverbs, perhaps even without realizing it.
How, then, should we think about these teachings? As with all of the Sacred Scriptures, it is important to understand the context: the context of the scriptural text itself, and the context of the related truths of the faith which together with it, forms a coherent whole (see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 109-114).
The New Law
The immediate context is that these teachings are found in the Sermon on the Mount, which is contained in chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of Matthew. This sermon is (rightly) considered by the Church to be a privileged expression of “the New Law” – the “Law of the Gospel.” This “law,” is not the Old Covenant Law of Moses, but the New Covenant Law of Christ. It fulfills the Law of Moses, as Jesus declares near the beginning of the Sermon (Matt 5:17-19). The Bible calls it “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2), “the law of faith” (Rom 3:27), “the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2, 1 Cor 9:21), and “the perfect law, the law of liberty” (James 1:25, see 2:12), among other things. It has come to us in Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. … But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. …
Jeremiah 31:31-34 RSVCE, see also Hebrews 8; ezek 36.
It is clear in this prophecy that this new law is not written on tablets of stone, it is written in the hearts of the members of the New Covenant. In other words, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, this New Law
is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity [love]; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1966.
The New Law, then, is not primarily an external law of behavior to be visibly complied with, it is a work of God within us. As we live our lives in faith, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, feeding on his Body and Blood (see John 6), we are called to grow into the fulfillment of the New Law. As we “live by faith” (Gal 2:20), God works his grace within us, and we are gradually made more and more capable of fulfilling it, more and more like Jesus.
This happens also through the Church, whose ministry works
for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ, so that we may no longer be infants …. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ.
Ephesians 4:12-15 NABRE
All of this means that the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount are not obligatory in the exact same way that (for example) the Ten Commandments are. They are about “living the truth in love,” according to the pattern of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In this way, they represent the divine heights of love beyond our natural capabilities, only possible through the gift of God’s grace, given according to his wisdom and mercy. And his timeline. The Ten Commandments and many other rules of behavior, on the other hand, may be gifts of God, but they serve to establish basic standards of justice achievable in some form (in principle) by anyone. History shows this, and the Scriptures teach it as well (see Romans 2:14-16).
“He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law”
But there is something else to say about the context of these teachings of Our Lord. Since they are about the love worked within us by God, they share the characteristics of that love. And what are those characteristics? We will consider two of them.
1. “Love your neighbor as yourself”
Even in the Old Covenant, the divine commandment of love says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). The New Covenant presupposes and fulfills the Old. Therefore, the love that the Lord calls us to when he teaches us to “not resist evil” and to “turn the other cheek” presupposes proper love of self. It cannot mean that we ought to become “doormats” for others to walk all over; for the simple reason that a person who allows himself to be a doormat does not love himself as he should.
If and when “turning the other cheek” harms your inner integrity, burdening your soul, making you weaker … then you probably shouldn’t do it.
Likewise, to “not resist evil” cannot mean that we ought not defend the vulnerable and afflicted, because a person who fails to do so would not be loving his neighbor as he should.
Discernment of circumstances, then, is required in following the Lord’s teaching.
2. “Love one another as I have loved you”
In the New Covenant, the command of love is fulfilled and raised to a higher form. We are not ultimately called to love others merely as we love ourselves, but also as Jesus Christ has loved us. And how has he loved us?
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. … This I command you, to love one another.
John 15:13-14 RSVCE
Jesus loves us so much that he laid down his life for us, making us his friends; that is, making us into those who can fulfil his command of love. By his grace we are made capable of loving others even to the point of sacrificing of ourselves, giving up our very life. When we love others in this spirit, we are fulfilling his command.
One will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
Romans 5:7-8 RSVCE
Jesus died for us “while we were yet sinners.” He loved us so much that he died for us “while we were enemies” (Rom 5:10) of God. In other words, in dying for us, Jesus Christ loved his enemies!
This, then is the higher love expressed in the Sermon on the Mount: rather than hate our enemies, we should love them self-sacrificially. Since we were enemies of God and were made friends by his love, so should we make our enemies into friends by loving them. And that means “not resisting those who are evil,” “turning the other cheek,” “going two miles” when forced to go one, and “giving your cloak as well” when sued for your coat, etc. Deeds like these, done with self-possession and out of love, bear a powerful witness. They can “prick the conscience” of those who do evil and lead them eventually to repentance.
“‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19)
But the objection that we started with can be re-asserted here: are we to put ourselves below evildoers by submitting to their abuse? Are we to ignore the cries of the oppressed – the needy, widows, and orphans – out of a so-called “love” for their oppressors? … What if they have done extremely heinous things? What if they don’t repent? At some point, mustn’t they just be stopped?
YES! They ABSOLUTELY must be stopped. But according to God’s wisdom, not ours.
The Gospel that Christ commands us to proclaim is good news “to the poor.” It is “liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind”; it is “freedom” for “the oppressed” (see Luke 4:18-19). The Kingdom of God is at hand, and this truth is freedom from slavery and oppression, healing of illness and injury. First, this freedom and healing is spiritual – liberation and healing from sin. Beyond that, it is also outward freedom – as those who are freed from sin perform works of justice and mercy in the world for the sake of the poor and oppressed. All of this is the work of Christ himself, acting through believers, coming to the aid of those in need.
Inspired and moved, then, by the Good News of Christ, we are to perform works of mercy that come to the help of the oppressed and build just societies. This includes directly defending the oppressed from evildoers.
Like we’ve said above, discernment of situations is necessary. We must imitate God in his mission to liberate the oppressed. But we also must be ready and willing to imitate God in his self-sacrificing love even for enemies, whenever possible.
And yet, at all times, “vengeance belongs to the Lord.” As individuals, we are not in the business of enacting private revenge or taking it upon ourselves to dispense justice – on behalf of ourselves or of others. God shares a measure of his authority with the public authorities (incl. with parents, etc.), for the sake of the common good (Romans 13:1-7); but ultimately, God alone knows how to punish and how to show mercy to the wicked.
We work for justice according to God’s wisdom, but ultimate justice is God’s job. Christ now reigns in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, “until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:25-26).
Ultimately, death will be destroyed, and the freedom and healing of the Kingdom will be complete, when the Lord Himself intervenes decisively in history, completing the new creation in Christ. This will be His Second Coming, at which the Last Judgement will take place. At that time all things will be fulfilled. Wicked oppressors who refuse to repent will at that time be dealt with decisively, in complete justice, once and for all. And God
will dwell with [the human race] and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them [as their God]. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.
Revelation 21:3-4 NABRE
This hope, which we await, should give us the freedom to love our enemies. We know that, though he uses us as his instruments in the world, the Lord has reserved full justice to himself.
“He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust”
The Lord says, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil,” and “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” He teaches, “Turn the other cheek,” and “Give him your cloak as well,” and “Go with him for two miles.”
As in all the teachings of Our Blessed Lord, they should be understood in the light of his Person. How does the Lord Jesus Christ, himself, follow these injunctions? And how are they expressed in His masterwork, the Cross? By reflecting on these questions, everything we have said above can be said again in a new way.
Of course, Our Lord followed his own teachings. But He did so in ways that show that these words in the Sermon on the Mount are meant to be taken as reflective of a disposition that results in a pattern of typical behavior, rather than as a strict command demanding prompt and complete obedience in every circumstance. Above all, he wants our hearts to be like his.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus was literally slapped in the face, but he did not literally “turn the other cheek” (John 18:22-23). On the other hand, when he went to the Cross, he “did not resist evil,” for
he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
Isaiah 53:7, see Acts 8:32
But he did not thereby fail the poor and oppressed. It was precisely in his self-sacrificing love for sinners, oppressed and oppressors alike, that he accomplished the defeat of evil and the deliverance of the weak.
Now we wait as that victory is carried out. Not passively, but actively – because we participate in the victory by furthering the Kingdom of God. Like the Lord, we love all – even our enemies. We imitate him who “makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.” We are willing to love sacrificially, even for enemies. And yet we do so with wise discernment, standing up for the innocent and oppressed. Nevertheless, our faith is in God, not in ourselves, to finally overcome evil in the world.
Bless those who persecute [you], bless and do not curse them. … Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Rather, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.
Romans 12:14, 17-21 NABRE