Jesus eye for an eye1/11/2024 Why is it such good news that God is “without…passions” (WCF 2.1)? What would change about God if he experienced the kinds of passions that we do? When the Son of God became incarnate as the man Jesus Christ, what kind of passions did he suffer: passive or active? What kinds of passions do we suffer? To what degree is our suffering passive and innocent, like Jesus’? To what degree is our suffering active, from the motions of our corruption of sin?Ĥ. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. But whoever kills another person must be put to death. Whoever kills another person’s animal must give that person another animal to take its place. Anyone who injures another person must be injured in the same way in return. What do we mean when we talk about “emotions”? What does the more precise category of “passions” teach us about the suffering of our soul in response to both injuries and insults? Why do our passions burn so hot when we are insulted-often far beyond what would be proportionate to the actual injury we suffered (e.g., a back-handed slap to the cheek)? Why does Jesus teach that the law forbids such passions toward retribution against the one who has wronged us?ģ. 38 You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ a 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. Leviticus 24:19-22 And whoever causes an injury to a neighbor must receive the same kind of injury in return: Broken bone for broken bone, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. 20:22 24:29)? On what basis, then, did the Pharisees expand the provisions of lex talionis into private grievances? How do we justify private vengeance?Ģ. What does the law say about private vengeance (Lev. What did the lex talionis (“law of retaliation”) legislation require? Why does lex talionis bring wisdom and justice to the public system of justice? How had the Pharisees perverted lex talionis by turning the principle toward private grievances. While we long to gain justice for the ways that we suffer, Jesus came to suffer for sinners. He says Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him. Then in the New Testament Jesus taught love your neighbor. Even so, Jesus completely rids this covenant in the New Testament in Matthew 5:38-45, while specifically mentioning the eye for an eye statement. If you gouged out a person’s eye, then your eye was gouged out. While there is an important place for public justice, Jesus shines his pure light of righteousness into another one of the darkest-yet best hidden-corners of our hearts. In the Old Testament, Moses seemed to authorize eye for an eye retribution as part of the law if a person was injured. While Jesus does not repudiate the public implications of the “eye for an eye” laws, he shows that those laws were never meant to justify private vengeance or personal vendettas. When we are hurt, the most natural response in the world is to seek immediate retaliation. In the sixth section of Jesus’ teaching about the law in the Sermon on the Mount, he touches a spiritual nerve.
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