Did Christ Teach That We Shouldn't Fight Evil?

Mat 5:38 You have heard it said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Mat 5:39 But I say to you, Do not resist evil: but if someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him as well.

This is one of the most famous of Christ's saying, but it also largely misunderstood.

The first verse expresses our basic concept of justice, that the scales of justice must be balanced. Christ rejects this notion that individuals can calculate what is "fair" or stop people from making mistakes.

The term tanslated as "evil" here means "burdened by labors" and "worthless." It doesn't mean "evil" as such. While he specifically tells us that was cannot oppose what is worthless in others ("resist" is from the Greek anthistêmi, which means "stand against something, especially in battle), he doesn't tell us to back down from evil.

By turning the other cheek, we are actually ignoring behavior that we see as worthless. We are saying that physical pain just doesn't matter. We are saying to our attacker that they lack the power to hurt us. This is consistent with Christ's message about physical pain being temporary. It is only the spiritual, the eternal that matters. "Turning the other cheek" is a defiant act, risking the physical for the sake of the spiritual.

Why doesn't Christ counsel us to back down from worthless attacks? Again, the issue is what is important. Always, Christ puts the spiritual ahead of the physical. If we back down from evil, we lose something of ourselves. We are showing cowardice. Turning the other cheek is the ultimate statement of courage. While running away diminishes us, standing up to power and accepting the consequences increases us.

Does this lesson mean that governments should not pursue and punish criminals? Of course not. Christ was concerned about how we as individuals treat other individuals. Only individuals have souls. Christ's focus, especially here in this first sermon, is on our spiritual development. States and governments do not have souls. States and governments can try to balance the scales of justice, but that isn't Christ's concern. The biggest temptation is that we abdicate our personal responsibility to morality leaving these issues to the government. This is the same as abandoning our spiritual development. Morally, we need challenges to prove our spiritual courage. As a society, we must fight evil, but on an individual basis we must use encounters with evil to demonstrate our spiritual courage.

"Resist" is from anthistêmi, which means "to set against," "to oppose," "to contrast," "to match against, or "to give in return."

"Turn" is from strephô, which means "to turn about," "to turn aside," "to sprain," "to twist," "to return," "to convert," "to twist about," and "to turn over in one's mind."