The Natural Desire for Retaliation

I want you to think for a minute about the pleasure that people take in retaliation. Study after study—I was doing some reading in journals this week—show that humans are hardwired to like revenge. Neuroimaging experiments found that imagining or enacting revenge actually activates the brain’s reward centers. This happens from the time you’re a kid till the time you’re an adult; you feel satisfaction when somebody gets their just deserts.

In one study, participants were given a game to play that provoked retaliation. When they punished a wrongdoer, their brains lit up with pleasure. Like in the game of Sorry!, if somebody knocks you back to the beginning, when you get them later… actually, the first time, if they haven’t done anything wrong to you, your brain doesn’t light up. But if they’ve knocked you back and you get them back, pleasure centers light up. There’s something naturally addicting, naturally satisfying, pleasing in that feedback. It feels good.

There’s another interesting study—people do crazy studies, but it was really cool. They had two volunteers facing each other. The first one pushed on the finger. However hard they pushed, the other one was supposed to squeeze back. Every time somebody squeezed a finger, when they squeezed back—when somebody applied pressure to the other person’s hand and then they were supposed to reciprocate with the exact same pressure—on average, they squeezed back 38% harder every time, back and forth, back and forth. So after a few rounds of this, think about what happens. You squeeze just a little bit, and then by about five rounds later, you’re squeezing as hard as you can, and they squeeze back even harder. And the point of the game was ‘squeeze with the exact same pressure.’ We naturally don’t respond in the exact same way. We don’t reciprocate with the exact same way that somebody has acted against us. We escalate. So we not only like to retaliate, but we’re wired to hit back harder.

Escalation: The Hatfields and McCoys

There was a famous story in history, you guys may have heard of it. Have you guys heard of the Hatfields and McCoys? I’m seeing some yeses, some nos. This is a super famous family feud from West Virginia and Kentucky. If you guys haven’t heard about it, I’ll tell you because it’s often referred to in pop culture.

Nobody really knows what started it, but there was a small disagreement back in the late 1800s. They say that somebody stole a pig, or maybe somebody insulted somebody first. There are debates over what actually happened, but it quickly grew into something larger. One family, the Hatfields, did something wrong; the McCoys did something a little bit worse to the Hatfields, and before long, they were killing each other. It got so big that more than a dozen family members were killed, back and forth. This big family feud, like they’d get a little small army for one family, march on the other family. This thing lasted for years and years and years, and nobody could remember what started it.

Selfishness is Natural, Not Okay

But this is what happens in our hearts. We like to retaliate. We feel like, “I need to go execute justice myself.” And when we do it, it feels good. Nobody has to teach us to say “Mine,” right? That was a word that kids naturally come up with from an early time. They say “Mine” reflexively. And as I was reading studies, so often when kids naturally retaliate when somebody takes their stuff, right? If somebody takes your stuff, you want to get justice. You want to get your stuff back, and you want to harm the one who took it.

But natural does not mean okay. This is natural to all of us; there are no exceptions. This is who we are as humans. We are naturally born with a selfish bent. We are naturally born just like the Hatfields and McCoys, just like everybody was born since Adam, to say, “I want what’s mine, and if you take it from me, I want you to pay the price.”

This is what Ephesians 2 talks about when it says, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins.” You remember what it says? It says we were carrying out the desires of our body and our mind, just like the rest of mankind. So when you want what’s yours, when you say “Mine,” when you want to retaliate when somebody takes something that’s yours, who are you looking out for? Self. Yeah. We are naturally wired to love ourselves. We’re naturally wired to defend our own honor, to defend our own stuff. And we actually sort of like it if the person who took our stuff gets something worse in return.

This plus-one pattern of retaliation turns slights and brawls into minor feuds, even wars. In Genesis chapter 4—so you know how there’s Adam and Eve, and they had Cain and Abel? You remember Cain? God said that if somebody were to harm Cain after he killed Abel, that there would be sevenfold retaliation on them. He said that to protect Cain. But Cain’s great-great-great grandkid, I think it was Lamech, he actually said, “I’ve killed a man for wounding me.” So a man wounded him, a man harmed him, and he said, “I killed him.” A young man struck him, and he killed him. And he goes, “And if anyone kills me, I call down 77-fold revenge on that one.” From just a few years after Adam and Eve, and then the first sin, and then death entered the world, Adam’s descendants were responding to people hitting them with murder and saying, “This is right.”

God’s Law: Eye for an Eye (Restraint, Not Vengeance)

So then God’s law, when God had his people in Israel together and he gave his law to them in the wilderness through the Mosaic law, he instituted a law that said you’re not going to have to distribute justice on your own, where you just say, “Alright, somebody sinned against me, I’m going to go make it right.” They said, “No, that’s not how it happens. There are going to be laws set up, there are going to be judges, there are going to be priests and judges overseeing this. And it’s going to be restrained. It’s going to be actually coordinate with what the sin was.” And they called this “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.” Have you ever heard that? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It was in Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, Deuteronomy 19.

And there were commands, there were guidelines, listen to this, for Israel’s judicial system, right? This was the law for the nation, to be administered publicly by judges and elders within the community. Leviticus 24:17 says, “Whoever takes a human life shall be put to death.” Right? So that was the law. This is what the judges were to do. The Bible is all for capital punishment within Israel. If you take a life, you’re going to be put to death. But if you slap someone in the cheek, you don’t get put to death. If you knock their tooth out, you don’t get put to death for that. It’s eye for an eye. If you gouge somebody’s eye out, your penalty is reciprocal and it’s equal. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It says, “Whoever kills an animal shall make it good.” If you kill an animal, you got to replace it. But if you kill a person, you’re put to death. The same rule shall apply for the sojourner, the same rule applies for the native.

The goal was that punishment should be fair, proportionate, and limited, and that it doesn’t have the individual saying, “I’m going to take vengeance.”

Jesus Corrects the Misuse of the Law

But do you remember what’s been happening? Now, get back to the Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember? So Jesus quotes this, but do you remember every time in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus has said, “You have heard it said,” and he quotes the Old Testament? He quotes what the Pharisees are using to actually misrepresent the Old Testament. “You’ve heard it said…” What do you guys remember what the first one was? “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not murder.'” But Jesus said, “Oh, but I say to you, don’t hate your brother, don’t be angry with your brother from the heart.” “You’ve heard it said, ‘Don’t commit adultery.'” And Jesus says in each one of these, it’s the heart that matters.

Here, if you look down at verse 38 of Matthew 5, Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'” And then he’s going to correct—he’s not correcting the Old Testament law. What he’s doing is he’s correcting the way that the self-righteous, self-centered Pharisees had twisted the law in a way that was directly contrary to what would please the Lord. They were actually taking this law, “eye for an eye, tooth for tooth,” and they were using it to demand vengeance.

Just like in each one of these ways, they were taking statements in the law and saying, “Oh, don’t murder, so as long as I can hate my brother and as long as I don’t technically murder, I’m off the hook.” These guys had taken the law and set up this really complex system. I’ll read you part of it. Do you guys remember I talked to you about the Mishna a while ago? It was the interpretation of the law. Remember how Jesus tells the Pharisees, “You guys are missing the point. You’re so focused on the small details that you miss the big picture of the law.”

And the Mishna, which is the interpretation of the law from a few hundred years after Jesus but probably representative of what the Pharisees were teaching, has this: it says, “He who boxes the ear of a fellow”—so if you hit a guy in the ear—”you have to pay him a certain amount of money.” And if you smack him, you have to pay him a certain, more amount of money, 200 zuz. But if you hit him with the back of your hand, it’s 400. And he goes through all these silly things of, if you hit him in just this way, it costs you this much money, and if you hit him in this other way, it costs you this much money. And so the whole point here was they’re saying, “If you insult me, let’s go to my rule book. Exactly how much do you owe me?” It missed the whole point of saying, “Nope, this isn’t about personal vengeance. We’re going to let the judicial system take care of all that.”

And the law actually said in Leviticus 19, “Don’t bear a grudge, don’t seek vengeance.” The Pharisees had missed that whole point. And then they even added to it, it’s crazy. Then on top of that, they say because a slap in the face is an insult to one’s dignity, the higher the dignity of the person, the more you owe them. So if you slap a poor person, you don’t owe very much, but if you slap a rich person or a priest, a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, then you owe a whole lot. You see how it totally missed the whole point of the law? God’s word was being used to justify selfish demands for rights, even justification for revenge. And what was totally missing in the Pharisees’ mind? Love, grace, pleasing the Lord. Love, grace, and pleasing the Lord. It took punishment—so the law was intended to take punishment out of the realm of personal vengeance—and the Jewish practice stuck it back. They said, “Nope, we’re going to use the law to justify personal vengeance.”

Jesus’ Radical Call: Give Up Your Rights

And so that’s what Jesus says. He said, “You’ve heard it said,” and then he quotes the law. There’s nothing wrong with this law, especially not for Israel. But it wasn’t meant to facilitate or justify personal vengeance, especially one that ignored love. And Jesus instead says something pretty dramatic, pretty radical. He says instead of demanding eye for eye, tooth for tooth, instead of demanding justice, how about this instead: give up your rights. Give up your rights.

Let me read what Jesus said instead. Listen to this. This is pretty hard to receive if you think about what this is actually saying. Jesus says, “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.”

I want you to look at that. What do all of those things have in common? If you were to be able to do each one of these, what does it have in common? Giving more than asked… That’s good. What else? Selflessness… doing more than is asked… not demanding your own right… selflessness.

Jesus is giving a huge contrast between the selfish demands for rights that are natural to the human—that the Pharisees were actually using God’s law to justify—and he lays out something incredibly radical. It gets your attention, sort of like, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.” Right? Something that’s startling, like, wait, how am I supposed to do that? So you mean I’m not supposed to resist the evil one at all?

These passages have been taken… they’re probably some of the most misunderstood in the whole New Testament. Have any of you guys read War and Peace? Tolstoy? A few. It’s really long; it’s not that good, don’t worry about it. But he takes these passages to actually try to say that utopia is going to come when the government adopts something like this. Like, let’s get rid of police, let’s get rid of armies, and let’s get rid of authority, and then we’re going to have true peace and utopia. Just everyone learns to turn the other cheek, and you’re going to do that through laws, through rules that say that. That’s not what’s going on here.

Jesus is not saying that a country is supposed to adopt these rules or that there shouldn’t be a police force that would resist evil. But he’s speaking at an individual level, right? The law was written, that eye for tooth for tooth, that was for Israel at a law, at a judicial level, not meant for individuals to take it and execute the law themselves. So this is not advocating for pacifism at a government level. But what it’s saying is, at an individual level, do not seek personal justice. Don’t demand your rights. But when somebody sins against you, when somebody wants to take your stuff (maybe not even sinfully), when you are put out, respond with humility, grace, generosity, and radical love.

Examples of Radical Love

These are real-life examples. They’re not an exhaustive list or a firm set of rules, but what they do is they reveal what’s really going on in your heart. When I read this, my heart says, “Yeah, but… yeah, but…” and I want to find the ways to get myself out from under what it demands. But they are representative of how the gospel believed should impact the life of the faithful. You remember earlier in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said that we, the Christians, his followers, are to be salt and light? Think about what salt and light do, right? They stand out so that when the world sees your good works, they can glorify God your Father in heaven. If you respond like this, in a way that’s totally counter, in a way that doesn’t demand your own rights when somebody sins against you, you’re going to stand out, and they’re going to ask the question, “Why? Why would you? Why are you not resisting?”

Turn the Other Cheek (Honor)

Think about it. If somebody embarrasses you in front of your friends, if they make fun of how you look, how you speak, if they make fun of something that you said, what’s your natural response? Your blood boils and you… right? You’re embarrassed. You want to strike back out at them. If they give you a really good insult, you feel like you better have a comeback coming. That’s natural. Why? Well, because your honor was insulted. That’s what’s going on with a slap in the cheek, right? A slap in the cheek, this wasn’t probably primarily a physical insult like a punch; this is a slap, an attack on somebody’s honor. Just saying, “It’s alright, keep quiet, let another one come.”

Why? Instead of firing back with a sharper insult or turning everyone against that person, what if you chose to respond in kindness? Not because you have to, but because you want to? What if you were so overcome by the grace that you’ve been shown to a God who you have rejected, rebelled against, that when somebody sins against you, you see that sin, you see that insult compared against an infinite insult that you’ve given God, and you see that that real insult doesn’t begin to measure up? You’re like, “Okay, I don’t need to respond. God saw that, and God’s shown me so much grace, I can respond in kindness.”

Give Your Cloak Also (Generosity)

Or the example of suing and taking a tunic. The law said that even the poorest in Israel had an inalienable right to their outer garment. It actually had laws to say you couldn’t take somebody’s cloak. So when it says if somebody sues you and they have a legal claim to your tunic, and they want to do the unjust thing and take your cloak as well… the heartbeat shouldn’t be “Mine!”

It should be something like… imagine a classmate unfairly taking your money, something valuable from you, refusing to pay it back. And then instead of becoming bitter or demanding repayment, you let it go, even though they were in the wrong. You even go so far as to offer to help them. Maybe you think, “Oh, if they needed my tunic, maybe they don’t have any clothes? Do they need my cloak? Maybe I should give them my cloak? Maybe they need it more than me.” Do you see what’s going on there? The natural tendency when somebody sues you is to say, “Oh no, you can’t have my stuff! This is mine! I’m fighting for my rights!” But what Jesus is saying is, okay, well, if they’re suing me for my tunic, what would loving others like myself—not thinking of my own rights, my own needs, but thinking of others maybe is even more important than myself—might be like, well, let’s not even go through this whole suing thing. Let me just, if you need it that bad, here, have my cloak as well. That’s a selfless love.

Go the Extra Mile (Service)

Jesus says, “If somebody would force you to go one mile, go with them two.” What was probably going on here? This is Israel, the land Rome had conquered them. Ever since the Persians, there had been a rule if, in the conquered land, the conquerors—Persia did this, then Rome did it—if the army’s coming through and they’re carrying all the stuff, they could conscript anybody. Just say, “Here, you have to carry my stuff.” You couldn’t carry it forever; there were limits on it, something like a mile. To say, “Hey, we got to carry all this army stuff to the next town. You five guys, can you help carry it?” And you had to say yes.

But you could imagine if you were working out in the field, doing your business, and the army comes up and says, “Hey, you guys have to go a mile.” What do you think’s going on in your heart? You’re like, “I have my business to run, I have my stuff, I had all these plans for the day, and you’re making me go a mile!” What’s Jesus saying? Get your eyes… don’t be so worried about yourself. Go two. That would stand out. Like, “Oh, you guys need help? Here, let me…” and you’re my enemies… “let me go the extra mile for you.”

How could this look for you? Imagine if your sibling asks you for help with their chores. It’s their chore, it’s their job, right? It’s the job that they’re responsible for. And they say, “Uh, can you help me with this?” And you do it, not because it’s your job, but even though it’s their job. And the next time that you see that they didn’t do it, you actually volunteer. You say, “Hey, I’m going to do your job.” It’s not because it’s my job, but it’s yours. Or maybe your parents, your dad asks you to do the job that you know your dad, your mom asked your sibling to do. And you don’t grumble in your heart; you just go out of your way, from your heart, in love, and do the job that you didn’t have to do, beyond what was asked.

Give to the One Who Asks (Generosity Heart)

Jesus says, “Give to the one who begs from you, do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” This is a heart of generosity. It’s not a command to be a fool. The Bible actually gives examples of when you’re not just supposed to give your stuff away. An example would be somebody who refuses to work, especially in the church; don’t encourage them not to work. But you know what my heart does? My heart looks for reasons not to give my stuff away. Because it’s mine. It’s mine! It’s because it’s mine. My heart wants to think, I want to look for reasons why I shouldn’t give it away. Jesus says, “Don’t live like that. Live in a way that looks at your stuff not as yours, but as a great instrument to be generous with.”

This is actually the mark of a Christian. If you’ve been given so much by Christ, and you see a brother or sister poorly clothed, if you see a friend in need, and you look at them and you have what they need, and you just say, “Oh, I’ll pray for you,” and you don’t give them what they need, what does that say about your faith? James says that’s faith without works; that’s dead. John says in 1 John 3, “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Impossible Without a Changed Heart

You can see this is a pretty radical way to live. Every single one of these, my heart says, “Yeah, but I can’t do all of that, right? This means I’m going to get taken advantage of. This means I’m going to lose my stuff.” What in the world would make somebody live like this?

Well, first off, I want to say this teaching, it’s utterly impossible for somebody who’s not born again. You don’t do this. Each one of these things requires a heart change that actually says, “I’m not the most important thing.” It actually is a heart change that says, “I’m going to love others, count their needs as more important than my own. I’m not going to seek justice; I’m going to seek grace.” You have to be born again to want to live like this.

Why Live This Way? Be Sons of Your Father

And so if you look down at point three, why the Christian must do this. This drives home this isn’t just a list of impossible commands to make your life hard. But actually, Jesus goes on from this—and this is what we’ll talk about next time we’re in these verses—Jesus says, “You’ve heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'” But listen to this, he says, “But I say,” love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. And why? This is the whole point. Why would you possibly do that? Why would you love your enemy? Why would you pray for those who persecute you? Why? Why on earth would you turn your other cheek? Why would you go the extra mile? Why would you just give to whoever asks?

He says, “so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” This is verse 45 of Matthew 5. Why? What does our Father in heaven do? He didn’t owe us anything. We were his enemies. To Christians, he gives them eternal life at great cost. What about to the world that’s still in rebellion, hates him, goes to the grave shaking their fist at him? He says in the next verse (verse 45, continuing), “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Think about that. We just think the sun rises… well, because the earth spins. That’s true, but why does the earth keep spinning? And we get to enjoy the next day? Because God is gracious. When the sun rises, it should be a reminder that God doesn’t give us what we deserve.

He gives believers a special grace, and you will never know what you deserve because Christ absorbed it. If you put your faith in Christ, you will never know justice because Christ absorbed it. This life, if you’re a Christian, this life with its difficulties, is going to be the worst you ever have because one day every tear will be wiped away, all the pain will be removed, because Jesus absorbed the wrath of God for every sin. But for those who don’t believe, who actually will receive justice one day, they actually have common grace today: the grace of taking a breath. They don’t deserve that breath. You and I don’t deserve this breath. The warm sunrise, the beauty of a sunset, good tasting food—all that we enjoy, that’s grace from our Father. And if we respond not claiming our own rights but being generous, not demanding justice but being kind with love, we are like our Father who is in heaven. And it’s a very clear testimony that you actually believe the gospel.

Recognize the Grace You Received

The Christian must do this to reflect God’s character. Secondly, we recognize the grace that we have received. You guys know the parable of the unforgiving servant? The guy who was forgiven 10,000 lifetimes of debt? You remember what he did? He turned around and demanded justice from his brother who owed him significant debt, but maybe a couple thousand dollars. That’s what happens when somebody slaps you in the cheek, sues you, sins against you. You might say, “Hey, justice demands! This isn’t right!” But that’s what I was talking about: if you have an infinite debt that you owed God and he just wiped it clean, how could you possibly go out and demand justice from your brother or sister who owes you a few thousand bucks? Somebody slaps you in the cheek—if you’re overcome by God’s grace, you’re not going to slap him back. It’ll actually empower you to love your enemy, say, “This is a chance to show grace to you just like God showed grace to me.” That’ll stand out like salt and light.

The only way to get there is by rehearsing the gospel to yourself, to actually believe it. This is what faith is. Faith isn’t just knowing in your head that Jesus Christ died for you, but it’s believing in your heart that he did, and seeing yourself in relationship to others in that way.

Entrust Justice to God

Third, Christians must be like this because we entrust justice to God. It doesn’t mean that you say justice doesn’t matter. God actually deeply cares about justice. That’s why he killed Jesus, right? He couldn’t just wipe sin away like it didn’t matter. Every sin will be paid for.

Romans 12 though says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves.” Never seek justice yourself. But what? “Leave it to the wrath of God.” If somebody does something really wrong to you, and it looks like justice will never be had in the world… Just a few verses later it says that the government and the police is actually God’s way of executing justice now. There’s nothing wrong with calling the police, letting them do their thing. But what’s wrong is if you’re like, “Hey, justice needs to be had! I need to go get vengeance, right?” Like when your friend insults you or somebody insults you and you throw an insult back. That’s getting vengeance. And they say, “Nope, don’t do that. Leave it to the wrath of God.” Why? God said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”

If they really sinned against you… like think about it, if somebody really, really sinned against you, maybe in a way far more substantial than insulting you or stealing your stuff, doing something truly, truly evil, you’re like, “Man, I can’t do this in this way. I can’t turn the other cheek.” What you’re saying is that you don’t believe that the justice that God will pour out, which is hell… you’re saying that that’s not sufficient. It is. God’s justice will not be insufficient; it will be sufficient. But how much better would it be if you show that person mercy, and God uses that to break their heart, bring them to repentance? And now that hell, that eternity of hell that they deserve for sinning against you, was placed on Jesus at the cross. And now you and that person who sinned against you get to stand side by side as brothers, looking at Jesus, your savior, overcome by mercy rather than justice.

Follow Christ’s Example

We get to follow the example of Christ himself. 1 Peter 2 says that when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he didn’t threaten, but he continued to entrust himself to him who judges justly. He said, “God, you’ll take care of that sin.” And then he died so that those people who sinned against him might be forgiven.

If you have your eyes on the cross and you believe in Jesus, you have your faith in him, that’s the only way to not respond to evil with evil. The only way to not want to slap them in the cheek when they hit you in the cheek. The only way that you look at your stuff not as yours, but as a means to be gracious, generous, and give.

Conclusion: Trade Your Rights for Love

So the whole point of Jesus here is give up your rights for the sake of the gospel. Just like God loved you, trade your rights for love. So let’s go to discussion groups and let’s think about the gospel, think about grace, and think about how you can apply this to your own life.