Pacifism and Interpreting the Sermon on the Mount

Greg is a friend of a few people on this blog, and he contacted me the other day asking me if I would post his reply to the discussion we have been having on the Sermon on the Mount. It’s reproduced in full below. I will leave a few comments in the comment box after posting this.

In read through all the discussions on Pacifism (at least all that I could find on the blog) I felt obliged to comment on some of the interpretive issues that arose, particularly ones relative to the Sermon on the Mount. I can’t really address all the things that have been said about it from all the discussions, so forgive me if I’ve missed important details. I also found some of the distinctions that were made somewhat obscure and so if I’ve misunderstood anyone’s position it may be because I didn’t fully understand some of the points that were made. Nevertheless, I thought I would try to contribute to the discussion, especially because the Sermon on the Mount has been a fascination of mine for some time.

Regarding the issue of the audience and setting of the sermon. The audience is primarily the “disciples” but also the “crowd” that assembled. So we should read his teaching in that context and regard it as an address to Jewish followers and not specifically directed to the leaders, teachers, or officials, as he does at other times. And so I think it is pretty clear that it is addressed to a crowd of individuals and not a nation as a whole or to national leaders. It is true that he sits on the mountain and that this may intentionally parallel Moses on Sinai. However, this parallel need not be interpreted as Jesus giving a new Law to a new people. In fact, we all know that this is explicitly contradicted by his statement that he came to fulfill the Law and would by no means abolish it. So the new law idea is not an option. Alternatively, we could easily view the Sinai parallel as an additional hint toward Jesus’ affirmative exposition of the Torah. In others words, as his sitting and teaching on the mountain echoes Moses on Sinai, so his teachings echo Sinai.

Now I don’t really understand why Christians tend to struggle so much with this issue of the unity of the OT/NT. Clearly if Jesus had contradicted the Scriptures in any of his teachings, then he was not the Messiah. Even Jacob Neusner recognizes this and rejects his messiahship on that basis. When it comes to him speaking about “fulfilling” the Scriptures it is meant both in the sense of living it out and in the sense of correctly interpreting it. In other words, not only is Jesus saying that he will abide by the Law, but he also teaches (i.e. interprets) the Law for the people so that they could also fulfill the Law. And it’s the latter that matters the most here.

Hence, he goes on to his “You have heard it said…But I say to you…” sayings. None of these sayings that he addresses are teachings from “the Torah and the Prophets.” It’s true that the commandment about adultery appears word for word in v.27, and so does the one for murder in v.21 (yet in an expanded version), and the “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in v.38 (yet is a fragmentary form of the command from the Torah), but the other three sayings do not appear in the Torah. They resemble its teachings but Jesus’ comments on each of them illustrate that none of the 6 sayings are taught in the Torah or the Prophets.

By this I mean that we should not interpret the quoted command as something that is understandable apart from Jesus’ remarks in response to them. To illustrate this let us consider the example of the divorce command in v.31: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” A proper understanding of this rejected teaching cannot be understood if isolated from Jesus’ response because the most plausible interpretation would regard it as simply the requirement for men whenever they get divorced that they must give their wife a divorce certificate. But if the statement is taken with Jesus’ response, then we could interpret it as a teaching that has the giving of the certificate as its only requirement for divorce. This Jesus rejects and recalls the teaching in Deuteronomy 24 that the certificate is only written after the husband has found an “indecency” with his wife. And so the only true grounds is sexual immorality and not the certificate.

Moreover, Jesus is using a Rabbinic rhetorical formula. Rabbis would quote another rabbi’s interpretation of Scripture and reject it by contrasting it with their own interpretation. In doing so they would commonly summarize the interpretation in a very abbreviated form like Jesus does here with the “You have heard it said… But I say to you…” formula. Rabbinics scholar David Daube dedicated a chapter to exploring this specific issue of Rabbinic rhetoric used by Jesus in this passage in his book, ”The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism.” And so even though some of the sayings have an identical form to sayings in the Torah it does not mean that Jesus is rejecting or changing the meaning of a commandment in the Torah. Many people try to reject a disunity in OT/NT teaching by saying that Jesus intensified the commandments. But this is also not acceptable. Neusner also puts forward the view that Jesus is “fencing” the Torah like the Pharisees did. Really I think the only proper way to understand it is to view it as a proper interpretation of Torah, which is put forward in contrast to teachings by Pharisees, by the scribes, or by common ideas prevalent in the their culture.
Now to specifically address the relevant passages, we should first observe that nowhere in either paragraph (vv.38-42 or 43-48) is there any mention of “killing” or violence. Regarding the first paragraph (vv.38-42), the citation in v.38 of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is not a reference to the commandment in the Torah. Andrew is correct to view this commandment in the Torah (which this verse does not refer to) as directed to the representatives, or judges, since it is in the context of punishing criminals. However, Jesus is referring to an aberration of the commandment not the commandment itself. It would be helpful, as you said, if we had some extant source that explicitly teaches this, but it isn’t necessary. Some debate over texts in the DSS but recourse to that is not necessary. Moreover, even without recourse to rhetorical formulations being employed here, I think it’s apparent that Jesus is not referring to the commandment given to the judges and officials in the Torah. This is because of what he says in the next 4 verses. All of which make sense for regular people in day to day situations and none of which are directed to policy-making or judicial decision-making for someone in an official position.

Verse 39 teaches that one is not to oppose wicked or malicious people. And that if you are insulted, exemplified by a slap on the right cheek, the reaction should not be to jump to restore one’s dignity through retaliation.

Verse 40 is about someone going to court in order to obtain a person’s undergarment. In Jewish law you could sue for the undergarment but not the outer garment. Hence, it says to even let him have your outer garment too. The point is to counter the attitude that people so often have about asserting and defending their legal rights.

Verse 41 is about a legal right government officials had to commandeer individuals to transport baggage for a certain distance. Here there is an attitude countered, namely, a person’s resentment toward duties imposed on them by governing authorities, especially things viewed as unreasonable or burdensome.

Verse 42 is the odd verse out here, especially for pacifists, because it does not seem to relate at all to the “eye for an eye” citation if Jesus were quoting the commandment from the Torah. But since he’s citing an aberrant interpretation that, as we have seen from the contrasts in the last 3 verses, teaches a self-centered approach to things, it is understandable why this verse appears here. It’s because it is relevant to attitudes individuals have towards others but more importantly about themselves. Here we see countered an attitude that is an unwillingness to share possessions. I’m not sure how this verse could be consistently viewed with a Pacifist hermeneutic. Would it result in a communist political system or a does it advocate an ascetic lifestyle? I don’t mean to belittle here, but only to note that a hermeneutical consistency should lead in a direction like that because to have interpreted the ‘slap on the right cheek’ or the ‘non-opposition to wicked people’ as a command for non-violence demands the same literalist hermeneutic in this verse as well.

The point is that so far it is abundantly clear that this is not about policy-making or whether judges should not render certain decisions that include violent punishments. That can only result far an over-literal reading of this passage and one that does not take into consideration all of its formal characteristics. In fact, in some ways I’m not even sure the pacifist could even claim a literal interpretation here because there is no mention of violence or killing at all, so I’m not sure where it would even come from except a misunderstanding of the ‘eye for an eye’ citation, and an unawareness that the slap on the right cheek is symbolic of personal insults, and then misunderstanding the slap as representative of violence, and then finally combined with an extreme overgeneralization of Jesus’ teaching.

Moreover, it should be said that the phrase lex talionis is not a proper way to understand the principle of an “eye for an eye” because the Latin phrase expresses a notion that is essentially retaliatory, which the Torah repudiates. This is important because it reveals a long held historical misinterpretation. Really it is the “measure for measure” principle, which implies nothing retaliatory. This principle is upheld constantly throughout the NT and even a number of times by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. It is even explicitly stated in 7:2, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” It also undergirds his teaching about forgiveness, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (6:14-15). Finally, the most interesting one is the Golden Rule itself, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (7:12).

Clearly, Jesus is not rejecting the teaching of measure for measure in the Torah, since it corresponds to the teaching which he believes expresses the very essence of “the Law and the Prophets.” Instead, he is rejecting teaching that supports the actions of individuals who are vengeful, excessively defensive, selfish, and self-justifying in their attitudes.

Now the second passage (vv.43-48), in many respects echoes some of the same ideas expressed in the first passage, but it also expands on it in unique ways. The two paragraphs are even more closely related in Luke 6:27-36. Since we know that the citation is not from the Torah, even if it had more closely corresponded to it, we already know that it’s not implying that the Torah taught that people are to hate their enemies. What’s more, since Jesus is here putting forward a proper interpretation of Scripture he’s making the case that the OT teaches that people are to love their enemies. Andrew seemed to think that the OT doesn’t teach this. It doesn’t explicitly, but I think it does implicitly and by example. Certainly Joseph is an example with his forgiveness of his brothers and David should also be considered in relation to Saul.

But here Jesus points to God the Father as the example, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (5:45). And he completes the paragraph saying, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v.48). I don’t see how this has political ramifications in the way that pacifists do. The kind of love that is used here as the example is providential care not judicial administration nor even redemptive love. This is clearly not meant to be a guide for judges or government officials or else justice would have to mean no punishment for all and, therefore, no justice at all. The point here is that God loves all of his creation, whether they are good or wicked. But it does not mean he will withhold violent punishment from the guilty. In fact, we all know that the condemned will be punished violently. And so neither should the authorities he has appointed to administer appropriately measured punishment on criminals withhold it from them.

Verse 46 teaches that we are to love people who do not love us back. This is in line with how God also acts toward the wicked. This and the example of the tax collectors even recalls the same selfish attitudes that Jesus just repudiated in the previous passage. Yet now he has developed the thought by moving away from attitudes that seek a recompense for personal injury and assert personal rights to a matured or “perfected” approach that even cares for people from whom we may gain nothing in return, and even may be accosted by them for it. And so we are to be “perfect” or “complete” in the same way God is.

I know that my post is really long, but I thought I should try to be more thorough so I didn’t miss too much. I didn’t want to get into the Romans and Peter passages, but in some respects I don’t think they matter if this passage is understood properly because I don’t see any reason to try to read them in a pacifistic manner unless it stems from misunderstanding of Matthew 5-7.

Greg Armstrong
Email: gregmarmstrong@gmail.com