"Turn the other cheek" is not pacifist, nor is it incompatible with the duty of justice.
Grace neither ignores, overrules, nor counteracts justice--it goes far, far beyond it. Grace satifies justice on behalf of the guilty.
That's the gospel.
I think we've (or maybe only I have) mischaracterized Jesus' call to turn the other cheek as weak, as rolling over, as a rejection of the duty of self-defense (8th commandment).
In the man Jesus Christ, both Justice and Mercy meet together. Perfect Justice satisfied and yet graciously done in our place--the classic doctine of "penal substitionary atonement." So I think it must be something deeper than a denial of one's individual rights.
Hear me out.
If the first slap incurs a debt of retributive justice--meaning that, in the terms of 'eye for an eye', the offender is now due a slap from the offended in order to even the scales, then it seems to make more sense that Christ's exemplary call is to have the offended party pay off the debt of the offender. "The chastisement that brought *us* peace was laid upon *him* and by *his* stripes *we* are healed."
That is not weakness. That is both justice satisfied and an exhibition of overwhelming grace toward the offender--a display of immovable love that ought to make him ashamed. Strength magnfied beyond one's self.
[Romans 12:20-2](http://blb.org/kjv/rom/12/20-21/), KJV
(I think I first heard this interpretation from William Ian Miller in his fascinating book, Eye for an Eye.)
#Reformed #Christian #grownostr
