This idea is fairly common. It seeks to exclude certain enemies from Jesus’ command to love. It goes like this – Jesus is only teaching that we should love enemies in our personal relationships with them. But if we have an official role in society (an agent of the State) as a police officer or judge or soldier, we are not to love our enemies or return good for harm. Rather we are required in some cases to return harm for harm, or even kill our enemies.
This idea gains traction because it has some truth in it. God has established the State in order to suppress evil and this includes the power to return harm for harm and in some cases killing. And it is true that no one is to take the law into their own hands. Punishment and killing must be community or State sanctioned. So for instance, in the Old Testament it had to be sanctioned by means of the elders, judges, priests etc., depending on the situation. So here there is a distinction between just acting on your own, on a personal level, and what the State or governing authority does.
The logic of this argument seems to be as follows – God has set up the State (it is his “servant” – Romans 13:4) in part to suppress evil by returning harm for harm. If it is God’s servant, then God must have no problem with the State, and Christians can take part in what it does. Since this is so, Jesus must not have been speaking of the State or agents of the State when he said, “love your enemies.” He must be speaking to another sphere, that is, just the personal realm. So we should love our enemies on a personal level, but if we are agents of the State we are to return harm for harm or even death.
This is backed up by the fact that in the Old Testament, where the people of God were set up as a political state, godly people returned harm for harm and killed at God’s command as agents of the State.
The central problem with this argument is that it rests on the assumption that Jesus, without anywhere stating it (and indeed while contradicting it, as we will see below) accepts that the harm for harm standard of the State and Moses is still valid for his followers. This is a problem because when Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, it comes in a context where he is contrasting what is taught in the Mosaic Law with the higher standard that he teaches. He has come to fulfill or perfect the Law – Matthew 5:17. He has come to lay out the exceeding righteousness of the kingdom of heaven – Matthew 5:20. He is not assuming that what went before simply continues on. Indeed, in all six examples he gives in Matthew 5 the standard given by Moses is raised. In fact, when he speaks of the Mosaic standard of returning harm for harm, he says “if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” – Matthew 5:46. He is saying, you are doing nothing more than sinners – tax collectors and Gentiles!
Jesus is not assuming that his disciples will still practice returning harm for harm as agents of the State. He is teaching a standard that is higher than what Moses or the State operate by. It is the standard of complete love, which is the standard of the kingdom of God. And he is calling his disciples to live by this standard in every area of life.
He makes this clear in several ways, as we saw in class:
1. He forbids his disciples from practicing harm for harm. Moses taught this, but Jesus excludes the principle itself, without any stated exceptions. So harm for harm is forbidden in whatever context it might operate. And if you cannot, as a follower of Jesus, return harm for harm, then you cannot be an agent of the State to harm others. Jesus knew that this is how it worked in the Old Testament and in the State, but he forbids it nevertheless.
2. Jesus teaches his disciples to do good to their enemies. This is what it means to love our enemies. We pray for our persecutors – v. 44. We feed our enemies – v. 45. We bless them with a greeting of “peace” – v. 47. And following the example of Jesus, who died for his enemies on the cross, and heeding his call to take up our cross (Mark 8:34) we are to sacrifice for their well being. Such love always does what is good for the enemy. At a minimum, this excludes killing our enemies. To kill an enemy is not returning good for harm.
3. Jesus includes all enemies in his teaching. For instance he simply says, “love your enemies.” He makes no exceptions. National enemies are included in the context of Matthew 5, the oppressive Romans. And in the subtext of “hate your enemies,” Deuteronomy 23:6, the Ammonites and Moabites are referenced. He also uses language that is so broad that it must include everyone, for instance, “the good and the evil,” “the just and the unjust” – v. 45.
4. Jesus teaches his disciples to have complete love. The very point that Jesus is making in this passage is that our love is to include all people. Just as the Father’s love is perfect or complete in that it encompasses everyone, so our love is to do the same – v. 45, 48. If our love excludes certain people or people in certain circumstances, for instance, when we come across them as agents of the State, then by definition it is not complete. Instead, a rather large gap is created where many of our enemies would fall, where we can and indeed are supposed to harm them and possibly kill them.
So the conclusion is not – since God allows for the continuance of the State, and uses it until the kingdom comes in its fullness – that therefore Jesus must be making an unstated exception that allows his followers to return harm for harm as agents of the State. We must read Matthew 5:43-48 for what it actually says, and not read into it a distinction that is not there. The conclusion is that Jesus is clearly not making any exceptions and so is precisely calling his followers to the higher standard of the kingdom of God. And as a part of this he is saying that in as much as Moses or the State calls you to return harm for harm, you cannot be a part of what they do.
Here are some further thoughts:
Jesus is to be Lord of every part of our lives. If we accept the personal vs. agent of the State distinction, then potentially large portions of our lives are no longer under the domain of Jesus. His teaching and example now only apply to a portion of our lives – the private part. We live by a different ethical code in the public part of our life. Something which Jesus left no instructions for or said anything about. (Everyone agrees that Jesus never taught us about harming others, running a political state or how and when to kill others). And our actions in the public part of our life will contradict what he actually taught and modeled for us – returning good for harm.
So, if we accept this distinction we must say that Jesus’ teaching and example are not an adequate guide for our lives. He is not Lord of every aspect of our lives. But this is impossible to say in the framework of New Testament teaching. For we are not part Christian and part of the world. Living one way part of the time and another part of the time. Every part of our life must be in conformity with what Jesus taught and modeled. As Lord, he claims every part of us.
The State does have a role to play, but it is not the means by which God has or is bringing about his salvation in this world. This was done through Jesus, who loved his enemies and died for them, not returning harm for harm. And it is still done through the church that lives by this higher standard of the kingdom. The State simply suppresses evil in the world until Jesus returns. At that point all human states will cease to be, and all people will be submitted to the lordship of Jesus.
For now we are to submit to the State. But only in as much as it doesn’t go against Jesus’ teaching and example. When it asks us to do this, we answer as Peter did to the Sanhedrin, “we must obey God rather than man” – Acts 5:29. That is, we must do what God says, as opposed to what the State tells us to do.
This is the real distinction between Christians and the State. It is not between us as private Christians acting to love our enemies, and us as agents of the State acting to harm our enemies. It is between us as a community of Christians living every part of our lives according to the higher standard of the teaching and example of Jesus, and the world that lives in every way according to a different, lower standard. God works through both, but he calls Christians to live according to the way of Jesus.
As for the presence of soldiers and rulers in the church in the New Testament we will address this social anomaly in a later class.
