The Law & our Rights

If Jesus teaching had not shocked His hearers yet, it is certainly about to. These passages are probably among the most loathed and least lived in the culture He lived in as well as ours. In Christ’s day the religious people were much like the religious people of today. They insisted on having their rights. They also were insistent on revenge. If they were wronged they wanted to see the perpetrator pay and pay dearly. The most extreme example of this is the treatment of Jesus at the hands of the religious leaders. Their actions toward Him were vengeful. He had successfully revealed their religion as a sham before all the people. For this reason, they saw to it that He would be humiliated & killed.

We live in a “me” centered society. The blessing of liberty has caused us to erroneously think that the most important thing in the world is our rights. We scream for women’s rights, workers rights, gay rights, animal rights, religious rights and on and on. If our perceived rights are trampled on we are ready to march to Washington, go non strike or even sue. Few things make us angrier than someone or something taking our rights away. In these passages Jesus will teach us how to respond when we feel like someone has mistreated us. At the same time His teaching will reveal to us just how self centered we really are.

The Law

Jesus begins by making reference to the famous “Lex Talionis”. This principle is the bedrock of law for most civilized countries. It basically teaches that the punishment must match the crime. The Jewish people had received this Law through Moses (Exodus 21:4-5). There are two reasons we can cite that this law was given.

* As a deterrent to crime. Deuteronomy 19:20-21says that those who witness this law “shall hear and fear and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.”

* To discourage excessive punishment. “Eye for eye” means that one cannot take an eye and a finger if their eye has been taken. That’s exactly what we want to do. If someone hurts us then we want to hurt them more! This law prohibits that.

We should realize that this Law was enforced by judges in Israel’s day. It was not the right of the people to go and steal a chicken from their neighbor just because their neighbor stole a chicken from them. God had Israel set up a just judicial system to determine the guilt or innocence of a person. As well, they prescribed the punishment (Deut. 19:18).

The religious leaders had completely butchered the proper interpretation of this commandment. To them, as it does with many of us, it meant “Retaliate when you are wronged”. Sadly that is the interpretation that self centered eyes reveals.

The phrase “Resist not evil” has been problematic for some. They believe that these verses teach total pacifism. Does God allow any retribution or resistance? Is Jesus teaching that a man should watch as his family is beaten before his eyes? Should believers ever use the law to protect themselves? Should believers work in law enforcement or the military? The short answer is that God does allow us to protect ourselves, He does allow for retribution and He does allow for protection under the law.

* The Law teaches in Exodus 22:2 “If a thief be found breaking up and be smitten that he die there shall no blood be shed for him”. Remember that Jesus does not contradict the Law in the Sermon on the Mount, He is simply explaining it. The Law allowed for self defense and Jesus is not contradicting that.

* Jesus made reference to legal rights when he challenged the High Priest in John18:23. After being struck for no reason He asked “I f I have spoken evil bear witness of that evil: but if well why smitest thou me?” Paul appealed to the protection of the law by claiming his legal rights as a Roman citizen. He was about to be killed after testifying before a Roman court in Acts 22:25 when he asked them “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?” The purpose of the law is to protect people from injustice and it is not sinful to cling to it for protection.

* The Bible says that the enforcers of law and the executors of justice are ordained by God (Rom. 13:1-4). Some of the great men of God were military men. Men such as Joshua & David. In the New Testament the Roman centurion was said to have the greatest faith Jesus saw in Jerusalem (Matt. 8:10). As a centurion, this man was a military leader.

Jesus is not annulling other truth found in the Old and New Testaments. He is dealing with the selfish attitude that the people of his day had toward one another. His teaching calls us to deal humbly in our personal relationships with one another.

Revenge- Right to pride

A desire to retaliate is common among man. It stems from pride. That is why what Jesus says next is so troubling for many. He says “Turn the other cheek”. The situation Jesus describes is a man being back handed across the face. Because most people are right handed and the slap takes place on the right cheek. In order to do that, it would have to be a back hand. In Jesus culture this was not done so much to inflict pain, but to inflict shame. It was a humiliating thing for a man to be slapped (and it still is). The natural reaction of most men would be to tear the other man’s head off. However, Jesus says that when this happens we should turn the other cheek. In essence, that means to allow him to slap us again.

This is completely contrary to our nature. If our co-worker is not doing their job, we won’t do ours either. If our neighbor is loud late at night, we get louder. If someone is rude to us, we get rude back. We do this because our pride has been hurt. We don’t want anyone to think they can run over us and get away with it.

This is usually manifested through our speech more than anywhere else. We slap people back through sarcasm and insult. We would never physically slap someone in front of a crowd of people. But we will slap them with our tongue in front of others. We do this for one simple reason. We are more concerned about ourselves than we are others. Jesus is teaching us to make the well being of the other person our priority. Our goal is to point them to Jesus not point out how they have hurt us. If they insult us we are to endure it. There are proper ways to confront people who insult us. However, it is not proper to insult them back.

Possessions-Right to things

Jesus now deals with legal suits. He says “if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also”. The coat would have been what we know as an under shirt. The cloak would have been our equivalent of a coat. It was illegal for a Jew to keep a mans outer garment for collateral after the sun set (Ex. 22:26-27). However, if it was freely offered that was another story. Jesus is dealing with a justified legal claim. If money is owed to an individual and they demand that the money be paid, we should pay it. Even if it means sacrificing our collateral because we have no money.

It would take a man with no heart to make such a demand. This person would no doubt be “an enemy”. He does not have our welfare in mind at all. He wants to fill his own belly even if that means that we starve to death. He doesn’t care about us, so why should we care about him? Proverbs 25:21 says “If thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat..” This may be disturbing to us. The New Testament says the same thing in Romans 12:19-21. Aren’t we just strengthening our enemy if we do this? Are we not simply enabling him to continue to oppress people. No we are not. The Bible says in Romans 12:21 that we are overcoming evil with good. Our righteousness will compel people to come to Christ. We do not lift up His name by demanding our rights.

We live in an age where people do not want to pay what they owe. We file bankruptcy to get out of paying people, we find loopholes, and fight and fuss demeaning the people we owe the whole time. Christ says, if we owe it pay it and be done with it. Paul emphasized the hurt that drawn out lawsuits involving believers caused in 1 Cor. 6:1-8. We should make certain we love people more than possessions.

Freedom-Right to Liberty

In the time of the New Testament oppression was a common thing. Jesus reference to the second mile deals with oppression. When a nation was overtaken by another nation the dominating people group had preeminence over the conquered people group. In Jesus day a Roman soldier could force a Jew to carry a load for him. This practice added insult to injury. It was enough that the Jews had been conquered by the Romans. To be forced to do their bidding made it even worse. An example of this law is when Simon of Cyrene was forced by a Roman soldier to carry the cross of Christ (Matt. 27:32).

It is hard for us to imagine that we could be walking along and all of a sudden someone we don’t even know stops us and forces us to carry something for them. According to Roman law, the person could be forced to carry the burden for up to a mile. The load could be large as well, causing more time to be spent helping someone you don’t know or like! Nevertheless, it was a legal practice in Jesus culture and He commands that His followers carry the burden willingly. In fact, He goes even further to say that we should be willing to carry the load two miles if necessary. That’s giving 100% more.

The believer is called to give up liberty for the Lord. Paul was a great example of this. He voluntarily gave up his rights so that Christ would be preached (See 1 Cor. 9:4-16). We see little of this attitude in 21st century Christianity. We are concerned only about what we must do. God wants us to be extra mile believers. In loving, giving, going, forgiving, serving, worshipping, etc. God has called us to go the extra mile.

Money- Right to be rich

This verse does not mean that we are to give to someone whatever they ask for and whenever they ask for it. We are called to be:

*Reasonable in giving. That is we are not to buy the liquor a person needs to get drunk on. To do this is to involve ourselves in their sin by enabling them to sin.

*Responsible in giving. God has called us to provide for our own household. If we neglect our family to provide for others that is not righteous because it is not being responsible for what God has blessed us with.

What Jesus is teaching us is that we should be willing to help people financially. When a person comes to us with a legitimate need asking for help, we are to help them. We would do well to remember that we are only stewards of what God has given us. When He shows us a need we should be willing to part with His money to meet that need. Selfishness is a sure sign of a dead religion.

We do not have the right to be rich. Sometimes God gives people that privilege. We should not try to make ourselves rich. We should be faithful with what He gives us and leave our financial status up to Him. Today’s Christianity is enduring a terrible false teaching that claims it is God’s will that everyone be rich. This is not what the Bible teaches and it has encouraged the selfish attitude that already existed in the church.

In this section Jesus is teaching us a lot about humility. He says to us that we do not have the right to be proud, the right to hold on to things, the right to liberty or the right to be rich. In essence, He is teaching us to make sure that we help others before we help ourselves. Our supreme goal should be that people see us abandoned to the cross. We should find our joy not in meeting our needs but in glorifying God by finding our complete satisfaction in Him.