The Self-Denying Doctrine of the Pure-hearted Tolerance of Evil

Introduction

An Eye for an Eye

Once again, Jesus quotes the OT law in which the most religious Jews had stripped certain passages from their context and overliteralized them, or turned them into cliches. In the last passage he quoted a general saying sumerizing the OT truth that it was a sin to break a oath. This evolved into a literalism that took the command to not break an oath as a literal exclusive condition, so that oaths not taken in God’s name were not valid and one could sinlessly break the ninth commandment. This next cliche, one still popular today, is “an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.” found in Ex 21:22-27

Exodus 21:22–27 (ESV)

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

The law was a fense around young goats who have hearts that would like to wander. They tried to push against the fense and had only gotten mortally wounded. Now they rebel, not by openly pushing against the fense of God’s law, but by redefining where the fense is so that they may still indulge their morally evil adventurous passions. When God says “an eye of an eye” he is not saying that from a positive perspective but from a negative one. That is, God is not saying, “make sure the punishment always matches the crime,” but instead, “make sure the crime is always serious enought to match the crime.” God is not trying to make sure those criminals get what’s coming for them, he’s saying that Israelite people never punish a criminal beyond what they had done. God was limiting excess in punishment of guilty persons.

This is smoething that people are prone to do in practise called ‘revenge’. Revenge never fits the crime, is charges heavy interest on the original offense. Someone hits you, you hit back a little harder. The classic example in Isreal’s own history was the vengence that Simeon and Levi, the sons of Jacob, delt out on Shechem in Genesis 34. The two men killed an entire city, men, women, and children, to avenge the rape of their sister. A more recent story is in the famous 19th century socialist novel Les Miserables where the main character is sentenced to five years in chain gangs for stealing a loaf of bread, a sentense that increases wit multiple escape attempts to 19 years! Although finctional, such sentenses were not uncommon in the 18th and 19th centuries in western Europe. We see clearly that the human nature tends to view the sins of oters as must greater than our own, and thus deserve a greater sentense than we do for the same offense. Don’t we do this? I know if I cut someone off in trffic, I tend to not see it as serious as if they cut me off. God never needs to limit mercy against a sinner, for he shows infinite mercy to each of his elect and an overflow of this mercy in this life to the lost. God does not have to institute a limit on mercy, but on wrath. Wrath is also expressed by God, but not to the degree that he shows mercy. The only unforgivable, the only sin that must be present for someone to go to hell, is the sin of unbelief. Anyone from any place in any class speaking any language is offered the gift of salvation freely. The only way they can go the hell once they’ve heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ is if they continue in unbelief for every moment of their life until death or insanity takes them. But how great is man’s depravity, that the vast majority of humanity, and it would be all of humanity apart from his electing grace, goes to the furthest end of their ability to persist in unbelief until the moment they feel the flame of hell consume their souls. It should have been so for all of us, for we were no better or wiser than they.

So if God has done so much to show us mercy, can we really thing we can show too much to show mercy to others? No, God was setting the boundary against the excess of revenge. Unfortunately, the unbelieving Israelites redefined the fense and found themselves on the outside, free to do whatever they want.

Jesus addresses this way of approaching the law once again, forbidding not only personal revenge but painting the interactions of the Blessed Ones with the self-deniel that God always intended for his people to have.

Do Not Resist

Christ’s counter to the Pharisaical view on personal justice is simple, “do not resist the one who is evil.” Now if we remove these words from their proper context we are surely going to miss Jesus’ point. Jesus is not saying that evil should never be countered, but that personal resistance of evil should be avoided in a holy personal tolerance of evil done to us. In their personal interactions with others, Pharisees pursue personal justice, but Christians are called rather to pursue self-denial.

This statement is not a universal command, but one that is planted firmly in its context.

Evil must sometimes be resisted.

The command is not given on a societal or offical level, but on a personal one.

The command, Llyod Jones points out, is not given to the world but only to those who have been Blessed in the humbling on their hearts before God. It is for those who are poor in Spirit, meek, hungry and thristy for righteousness, an so on.

We should not expect dogs to act like men, nor should we expect worldly people to act like those who have been changed by the power of God.

Ways in which Christ expects this kind of self-denying, pure-hearted tolerance of evil.

Personal Attacks

Property Confescation

Tyranny

Open Hands

Why is this here? Jesus is talking about not resisting evil and then all of a sudden he’s talking about begging and lending.

What Jesus is doing is expanding the heart he is describing here; a merciful heart that is engaged in self-denial, not only by force at the hands of others, but willingly to those who merely ask.

The Heart of the Matter: Relational Self-Denial

The wrong way of thinking: manipulating the Word of God to serve yourself and your own desires of retribution.

The right way of thinking: willingness to tolerate evil personally and leave justice in the hands of God and God-ordained means.

1 Peter 3:9 ESV

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

Conclusion