Matthew 5:39

39. Resist not evil The word here, resist, may also signify retaliate. As it is the maxim of individual retaliation that our Lord is here annulling, this would seem to be the natural meaning of the word. It is also the law of retaliation, an eye for an eye, that he is now expounding. The instinct of self-preservation seems to be given us divinely, for the very purpose of instantaneous resistance of violence; and the religion of Jesus does never condemn the healthful action of any one of our primary instincts. Yet the feeling of revenge proper, the appetite to inflict a pain upon him who has given us pain, our Lord does condemn. In the place of this he substitutes:

1 . The aim to bring the injurer to repentance and reformation. 2. The effort to disarm him by unexpected concession and graceful conciliation. This is the true Christian mode of overcoming a foe.

Still it must be acknowledged that the Greek verb here used signifies to resist rather than to retaliate. It is a compound word, literally signifying to stand against. The command, therefore, is, not to take our stand in opposition to, or to take issue with the evil. The word in the text rendered evil may signify either evil or the evil person. The latter is perhaps the preferable meaning. The import, therefore, of the command, with these definitions of the words, may be best completely understood when we have explained the latter half of the verse.

Cheek, turn him the other also Our Lord gives a supposable instance. The turning the other cheek is a symbol by specimen or sample of the thing. To do this in a bare literal way would probably expose a man to ridicule, especially if known to be a mechanical compliance with the letter of the command. But follow that course skilfully of which this instance is an index. By some method subdue your enemy with an unexpected stroke of generosity, of candour, of concession, of confidence, of appeal to the magnanimous part of his nature. Thus you will make him your friend, develop the good in him, and illustrate the true generosity of the Gospel.

Both members, therefore, of the verse taken together will amount to this: The Christian way of dealing with the bad assailant is not to take issue with him, or to overcome him by hostile force; but to disarm him by generous concessions and benefactions. The sentiment is therefore identical with the precept of the wise man in the Old Testament, (Proverbs 25:21-22:) “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink. For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee.” Yet it would be doing great violence both to the words of Solomon in the Old Testament and of the greater than Solomon in the New, to understand them as commanding us to extinguish the instinct and to disobey the law of self-preservation, when assaulted by some violent and unappeasable foe.

And here we must repudiate the interpretation of our Lord’s commands in regard to oaths and to non-resistance of an enemy, adopted by Stier and other German critics, and also by Alford, which represent those commands as not intended for the real, but imperfect Church hitherto existing on earth, but for an ideal Church hereafter to exist. Whatever our Lord’s commands were, they are binding in their full moaning now. The fact that the low state of Christian morality renders the declining of oaths and the practice of non-resistance inconvenient at the present time, does not abrogate the law. If the Quaker interpretation be true, the Quaker doctrine is true, and the Quaker practice right, and all Christendom is bound to be Quaker. There can be no sliding scale in Christian morality. Nor is obedience to the commands of Christ to be postponed to some distant age in the unknown future.