WHOSOEVER SHALL SMITE THEE ON THY RIGHT CHEEK, TURN TO HIM THE OTHER ALSO

Our world thrives on vengeance. Popular thinking says that if someone harms someone else, the injured party should revenge themselves on their oppressor with all of the fury that they can muster. No punishment should be spared, and no clemency need be shown in giving retribution against their persecutors. Films, novels and songs all celebrate violent reprisals against those who offend us. Conventional wisdom says stand up for your self and show no mercy.

While not sanctioning petty revenge or mercilessness, the law took a rigorous stance on the recompense of injuries. ‘An eye for an eye’, Exod. 21. 24, was the famous axiom that showed the grave repercussions of doing damage to someone else. Unfortu­nately, the human tendency is to pervert God’s holy standard. The divine law prescribed punishment to fit the crime, but it also had sections that provided mercy for the offender. The New Tes­tament agrees with the necessity of showing pity: ‘For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment’, Jas. 2. 13. The Lord Jesus Himself listed mercy among the ‘weightier matters of the law’, Matt. 23. 23.

The Lord Jesus goes beyond justice to a superior mode of action - turning the other cheek to our enemies, Matt. 5. 39. Truly this requires superhuman self-control, which only the Holy Spirit can provide to the believer, Gal. 5. 23 RV. Christ demands a willingness to suffer more, if need be, without retalia­tion. Of course He does not ask us to do something that He has not already done. Calvary shows the reality of this truth in the life of the Man of Sorrows: ‘Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously’, 1 Pet. 2. 23. Our Lord knew what it was to suffer unjustly. He also knew that the One who judges righteously will one day rectify the false accusations that were made against Him. The Father vindicated Jesus by rais­ing Him from the dead; moreover, the world will one day see His exoneration when He comes again to earth.