3. The requirement which our Lord lays on His disciples is not only made in words. It was enforced, where the enforcement is most striking, in our Lord’s example. You watch our Lord in Hispassion; and when you look delicately and accurately at the details of the treatment He received, you observe how almost intolerably hard to bear were many of His trials. We can hardly conceive what to Him it must have been to bear the hideous insults and injustices of men.Think for example, to take a subtle but impressive instance,[52] of those false accusations brought against Him which had in them the sound of truth. “And there stood up certain, and bear false witness against him, saying, We heard him say,I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.”[53] He had said in fact not that, but something like it. He had said“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”[54] That is, Suppose you destroy, then I will rebuild. There was a great difference between what He had said and what He was accused of saying. But you know in what atmosphere it is that such accusations are brought. The crowd does not considerdetails; it listens to the vague sound of the words; it is easily convinced: “He said something of that sort. If he defends himself, he has to quibble.” And thus they rush off and put down to the accused man not what he said, but what he was supposed to have said. Now our Lord had that delicate instinct of the pastor. He knew there were people watching Him, and wondering whether He were the true Messiah or no. To have an accusation brought against Him which sounded as if true, and, though it was not true, excited such fierce animosity against Him—this was a profound trial of spirit: and it is only one instance in which a little imagination, if we bring it to bear, shows us the depth of what our Lord had to endure not only in the way of insults, but of injustices.Yet “when he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”[55]
4. When our own personal feeling has been utterly suppressed, then it is quite possible that another duty, the duty of justice, the duty of maintaining the socialorder, may come into prominence again.Thus our Lord is in another passage[56] recorded to have said something that may appear at first sight plainly contradictory to what He says here. “If thy brother sin against thee”—are you simply to take no notice of it? No. You are to “shew him his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican.”
Here it is obvious our Lord is enjoining not an extreme measure of personal meekness, but an extreme insistence on social justice. And He Himself made a certain claim on justice in His trial: “And when he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so? Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness ofthe evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?”[57] So St. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, claims justice: “I am standing before Cæsar’s judgement-seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou also very well knowest. If then I am a wrong-doer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if none of those things is true, whereof these accuse me, no man can give me up unto them.I appeal unto Cæsar.”[58]
We observe therefore two opposite duties. There is the clear duty, so far as mere personal feeling goes, of simple self-effacement. Only then, when we have got our own wills thoroughly subordinated to God’s will, when all the wild instinct of revenge is subdued, are we in a position to consider the other duty and to ask ourselves what the maintenance of the moral order of society may require of us.
This particular point gives us an opportunity to consider generally our Lord’s method in teaching. We have beenbrought up against one conspicuous instance in which our Lord appears to contradict Himself; and the explanation of this lies in His method. At times we must notice His method was metaphorical. When we were considering what He says about asceticism, for example, we saw that the instances given were plainly metaphorical. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.” That is a metaphor for violently putting under restraint any faculty which has been misused.
But here His instances are not metaphorical. They are such as quite admit of actual and literal application. They are, however, proverbial. You may notice in the proverbs of all nations that they easily admit of appearing to be contradictory and yet of being perfectly intelligible in the guidance they give us. One day you will hear a man condemned as “penny wise and pound foolish”; another day it is “take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.” One day it is “look before you leap”; another “nothing venture, nothing have.” The suggestions involved in these pairs of proverbs arecontradictory. The important matter according to the one is to be careful about large sums, according to the other to be careful about small sums: according to one to think before you act, according to the other to be ready to run a risk. But each gives what is obviously the right guidance to certain characters in certain situations, and gives it after the manner of proverbs. A proverb embodies a principle of common, but not universal, application in an absolute and extreme form. Another proverb may embody another principle in a similar form. And thus expressed they may easily appear contradictory, and both alike impracticable, if taken literally, because all the qualifying circumstances are left out.
Our Lord then teaches by proverbs. In emphasizing one principle He expresses it as an absolute direction in an extreme instance: “If a man will take thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.” In emphasizing another principle He expresses it in a similar form: “If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault” and follow the matter up to its extreme consequences.
And every one must recognize that the right application of each proverb depends on the question, What is the particular principle which at a particular moment is to be brought into play? No proverb could be ever taken as a rule for constant action, but only as a type of action when a particular principle is to be expressed.
Now we may take the injunctions which our Lord gives, and ask ourselves how we can apply these particular proverbs to-day.
“But I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”