Resisting evil by non-resistance

squaring a circle

My wife asks good questions. Last week we were looking together with some fellow believers at the topic of forgiveness and reconciliation, while working through the Sermon on the Mount, and especially Matthew 5:38-47, and in response to a question I quoted one of Keller’s refrains from his forgiveness book, “it’s never loving to allow someone to go on sinning” (he says this a few times in the book). My wife asked how this squared with the very confronting examples in 5.38-41, which do indeed to suggest not merely not resisting, but actively aiding someone who is doing evil. How do we reconcile these things?

I had to go away and think harder on this topic, because I think Keller’s principle is both right and biblical, and I also think that Jesus is teaching a radical form of love that ought to drive us to exasperation. Here’s my attempt to put these into conversation in seven ideas:

1. Non-Retaliation of Evil

In the context of Matt 5.38-41, Jesus’ primary point is that whereas the Old Testament Law restricted and curtailed retaliation and payback, there is a greater righteousness in view, on display, and to which we are called. And that greater righteousness is not to retaliate. So, the primary emphasis in vv38-42 is retaliation, not resistance per se, despite the way v39 is often translated. Nolland offers “you are not to set yourself against one who does evil” as a rendering that might bring this out further. Resistance, however, isn’t a question that will get swept away so easily. However, the slap in v39 is an insult, probably designed to illicit a fight (“why don’t we step outside and settle this…”). The response Jesus calls for is (i) de-escalation, (ii) refusing violence, (iii) being willing to suffer heightened injustice. This is similar in v40’s first example - despite the legal claim that the defendant might have (this is arguable, because the plaintiff here is almost certainly doing something morally wrong if legally right), they are to be willing to suffer heightened injustice, but this heightened injustice may in fact unmask or expose the plaintiff’s wrong for all to see. I would put this principle in these terms - a willingness to suffer injustice is not itself an enabling of injustice.

Perhaps I can offer a parallel that will make this point more vividly. The proverbial man with a gun to your head says “If you don’t do X, I’m going to shoot you, and it will be your fault.” The right answer in these moral hypotheticals is, despite what some people say, that it will not be your fault, it will be their fault, because they have moral agency and are choosing to shoot you.

The principle of v38-42 is expressed by Paul in 1 Cor 6.7 - “why not rather be wronged?”

2. Non-violent resistance

While (non-)retaliation is the primary scope of v38-42, the question of resistance is not absent from the New Testament. I would argue that the shape of resistance to evil is profoundly non-violent. This probably isn’t an argument I can make in full here, but between Jesus’ teaching and example, 1 Peter, Romans, and the whole sweep of Revelation, I would put it that the ethic of Jesus both opposes evil, and does so practically by a disavowal of violence as a means.

3. Active Acts of Love

Instead, let me offer up Romans 12:17-21. How do we overcome evil? Between v17’s “Do not repay anyone evil for evil” and v21’s “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” we have a Pauline version of the Matthean Jesus. Evil is primarily overcome by doing good - not seeking revenge, actively loving our enemies (v20) by seeking their highest good, their utmost welfare. It is this behaviour that is likely, if anything, to win them over, to turn the enemy to a friend, the hater to a lover, the persecutor to a partner. If we truly love our enemies, we desire not to destroy them, but to see them transformed.

4. Speaking Truth in Love

Ephesians 4:15’s “speaking the truth in love” is a much-abused verse, mostly because it is largely quoted by way of “Here are some harsh things I want to say but tell you under the guise of love”. However, let’s accept that there is a genuine kernel of both truth and practice here - it is loving to tell people things they don’t want to hear, when it is both motivated for their good, and actually for their good. It isn’t loving, for instance, to allow someone in a self-destructive pattern of behaviour to merely carry on destroying their life, and trashing the lives of those around them. Speaking the truth in love to them is never meant to be a pretext for simply being a jerk. It’s the outcome of a patient and persistent pursuit of such a person, seeking to both practically and prayerfully encourage, comfort, and confront them, for their good. This is where we approach the idea of “it’s not loving to permit someone to go on sinning.”

5. Forgiveness as the basis of Justice

One of the many things Keller successfully and skilfully does in his forgiveness book, is show how justice and mercy meet in the practice of forgiveness; that forgiveness is not the abandonment of the pursuit of justice, but it’s necessary precondition. He draws upon the work of Miroslav Volf, and even more profoundly Jacob and Rachael Denhollander, and their exploration of God’s satisfaction of justice on the cross, where God himself pays the debt, as the basis for offering forgiveness knowing that justice is done. Practically, this works itself out as the ability to offer forgiveness and seek justice without seeking personal vengeance. In light of today’s thread, our ability to love enemies and evildoers must find its first expression in forgiveness, if we are to love them genuinely, for their own good, with non-retaliation and non-violent resistance to their acts of harm.

Photo by Andreas Fischinger on Unsplash

6. Leave ultimate justice to God

There is something profoundly comforting about believing in a God who so hates evil that he will not let it go unchecked forever, but has promised to bring it to an end, and bring about justice and a setting-right-of-wrongs and an end-of-evils. That hope, for the Kingdom come, means that unlike secular advocates for justice, who feel driven to bring about justice in this life at whatever cost (because this world is all there is, and so if justice isn’t done here and now, it can never be done), a Christian can genuinely leave room for the justice of God. This is coupled with the aforementioned trust that God has dealt with the punishment for evil - in Christ, on the cross - which means we can genuinely hope and pray for repentance and deliverance for those who harm us.

7. Seek legal recourse for the good of perpetrators and other (potential) victims

What about the sadly-not-a-hypothetical but still-a-trope case of a violent and abusive husband - how does one (i) forgive, (ii) not-retaliate, (iii) not enable sin, (iv) seek justice? How do we put all this together in a case like that? I think we can say this - that forgiveness can be offered on the basis of one’s own experience of God’s mercy and grace, and that this is done as a free gift. That the pre-condition of reconciliation is repentance by the perpetrator. That reconciliation does not mean the immediate restoration of relationship, but a slow building of trust that depends upon not just repentance, but ongoing change, rehabilitation, and proof of change. That non-retaliation means refusing to pursue personal vengeance - that includes all the usual things such as financial, physical, emotional, social payback. It means restraining oneself in love in order to seek their utmost good, not to repay them for the harm they’ve done. That a commitment to their good furthermore will call for a costly and sacrificial love expressed in doing good to them in return for their evil. However that commitment can and will set forth boundaries - I will do x, y, z, but I will not tolerate a, b, c, because I won’t enable you in violence or abuse or put myself or others at ongoing risk of harm. That seeking justice includes recourse to civil authorities - because this is also a crime against the state, and for the good of the perpetrator, and other (potential) victims, it may be appropriate that a person be restrained from further harm.

I don’t think this solves everything, or neatly gives all the answers. But I do think it helps resolve a tension, and plots the kind of path forward based on an integrative picture of virtue in following Jesus.