Non-resistance.
The difficulty with this, as with similar passages in the teachings of our Lord, is to see how to carry out the precept in the fulness of the intention of the great Teacher. Are we to take it quite literally? If so, Count Tolstoi is right, and we have not yet begun to be Christian. Are we to take it 'metaphorically,' or even as a hyperbolical expression? Then we shall be in great danger of watering it down to suit our own convenience. Plainly our Lord meant something very real. Moreover, this is no counsel of perfection for select saints. It is a general law of the kingdom of heaven; it is a precept of that exalted righteousness exceeding the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees which Christ absolutely requires of all his people. How, then, is it to be interpreted?
I. THIS IS A LAW OF UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN CONDUCT. Christ was not a Solon, drawing up a code of state laws. His precept was not made in any legislative assembly. He spoke to men who lived under the irresistible yoke of stern, just Roman government. But his words had no influence with that government. Thus, no doubt, they were primarily for private conduct. They did not concern the question of a state's duty in defending its coast from the invader, or protecting its citizens by police supervision from outrage. But attempts have been made to confine the obligations of our Lord's words to the individual relations which he was contemplating when he uttered them. The Sermon on the Mount, we are told, is for private Christian guidance only; it is not intended to regulate governments. Surely that is a dangerous narrowing of its functions. So long as the state is not Christian, Christian principles cannot be looked for in legislation; but as soon as the gospel has Christianized the state, Christian principles must appear in public policy. This was apparent in the criminal legislation of Constantine, the first Christian emperor of the Roman empire. It is a grossly unchristian thing for men in a free, self-governing country to think that motives of greed or revenge that are not permissible between man and man are allowable between nation and nation.
II. THIS LAW IS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH ORDER AND JUSTICE. To see that it is not, we must observe its exact application.
1. It does not concern our defence of others; it only touches our defence of our own rights. The government is bound to protect those committed to its charge, but it is not bound to avenge an affront offered to itself. The policeman is required to guard the victim of a brutal assault from violence, but he is not bound to avenge insults and wrongs directed against himself.
2. The reference to the "lex talionis" evidently shows that the thought is of revenge. Still, all resistance of evil seems to be forbidden. It is certainly difficult to see. how the principle is to be applied in all cases.
3. Nevertheless, we have sadly failed to carry out even its intelligible and more obvious demands. Patience and calm endurance of wrong are not Anglo-Saxon characteristics, but they are Christian. Interpret Christ's precept