“If YOU don’t kill yourself, then I’ll have to do it FOR you!”
“If YOU don’t kill yourself, then I’ll have to do it FOR you!”
“38 You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41 And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away” (Matthew 5).
Although I had “accepted Christ” at age 19 (and really meant it!), it was not until I was 31 that I realized that Jesus intended for commands like those just quoted above to be taken LITERALLY, as well as figuratively. The form of Christianity in which I had been raised had created the impression that “crazy” sounding passages like those really just boiled down to “be a nice and helpful guy!” Boy, was _I_ wrong! And so was my form of “Christianity”! And so is YOUR form of “Christianity” likely to be!
When I first started to think about that passage as being the product of very careful and deliberate thought on the part of Jesus, my first reaction to taking it seriously was something like, “This is SUICIDAL!”
Further study and conversations with God led me to understand that, yes, it IS certain kind of “suicide,” of putting one’s “self” to death, a “self” that MUST indeed die. Jesus did not simply die in your place so that YOU do not have to die. He died so that you can die ALSO! “24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up HIS cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24)
The way that enables you to avoid the destiny of Satan and enables you to enter into the resurrection glory of Jesus requires you to make a very specific decision: to pay attention to the natural and literal sense of His instructions in that Sermon on the Mount AS IF YOUR ETERNAL FUTURE DEPENDS UPON IT!
“I have been CRUCIFIED with Christ, so it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
“Further, those who are Christ’s have CRUCIFIED the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24).
The decisions that are included within the determination to obey those commands in His “Sermon on the Mount” are part of what Jesus meant by the following:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not HATE his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, AND HIS OWN LIFE ALSO, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).
“23 But Jesus answered them, saying, … ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and DIES, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will LOSE it, and he who HATES his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12).
“24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him DENY himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
You “deny” your “self” by making the decision to plunge into doing what is impossible and “suicidal” to all normal human instincts: embrace those “crazy” teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (and other places).
The problem with our “flesh” is that it just won’t “die” through plant-like process, whereby you just “out-grow” it. And if you “ignore” it, it simply won’t just “go away.” You have to “kill” it, you have to “crucify it.” One of the problems with Protestants is that they have been so focused upon condemning Rome for substituting those “good words” for genuine “faith alone” that they have been not MIXING their supposed faith with Rome’s horrible “works” to set about actively killing their true enemy: their “selves”!
Historically, fasting has been one of the commonly chosen ways of “crucifying” the flesh, and it will indeed work – at whatever level of our “selves” that CAN be affected by fasting. But that “self” (or “flesh”) which must be “hated” unto “death” goes much deeper than our physical appetites:
“19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious, namely: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, fits of anger, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, 21 envyings, murders, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. … 24 Further, those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5).
Fasting will certainly help to crucify “drinking bouts, orgies, and the like,” but it is rather pitiful in dealing with things like idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, factions, or envy. Many of the Spanish Inquisitors, who were zealous to root out heresy, fasted and flagellated themselves aplenty – just prior to getting to business by torturing their victims, cutting out their tongues, and then burning them to death!
So that brings us back to the voluntary “suicide” of Matthew 5: “38 You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41 And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”
What our deepest instincts (“fight or flight”) tell us when we read that passage is, “this is suicidal!” What if an evil guy DOES just start swinging at me? – or, worse, at my wife or child? What if some guy’s lawyer calls up and tells me I am being sued for something I think is unjust? What if the Chinese come over here as conquerors of our beloved nation and one of their soldiers (as did the Romans in Israel) demands that I obey THEIR law that requires me to carry their fifty-pound knapsack for a whole mile?
It is precisely at THAT sort of threatening occasion that someone who wants God to consider them to be a Christian is called upon by the Spirit of God to mix those specific “suicidal” COMMANDS of God with the specific PROMISES of God:
“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; 3 The God of my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, My stronghold and my refuge; My Savior, You save me from violence. 4 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies” (2 Samuel 22:4).
“5 Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him” (Proverbs 30:5)
“So they tried to arrest Him, yet no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come” (John 7:30). Add this to the following: [Jesus to Peter] “Most assuredly I say to you, when you were younger you used to get dressed and walk where you wished; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you don’t wish.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.)” (John 21:18). [This tells us that IF you are the true covenant relationship with Him that HE has created, your departure from your body will be planned and coordinated by Him personally, as it was with Jesus and Peter. Alas, most today who consider themselves to be “believers” are NOT in HIS form of covenant relationship with Him].
It turns out that if God thinks you really ARE His elect child, but if you are a bit stubborn at turning your very “self” into your worst enemy which needs to be conquered, then in His mercy he will execute the title of this homily: “If YOU don’t kill yourself, then I’ll have to do it FOR you! The context for that “foreknowledge” and “predestination” about which Paul speaks in Roman 8:28-30 is not some kind of “free pass for those lucky enough to be predestined.” Rather, the real context for that foreknowledge and predestination is something like this: “Because I know what I can accomplish through My surgery upon you, I am so determined to bring you home to me, that I will BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY if I have to!
Do you want His plan A or that bone-breaking plan B? Or, most tragically, are you perhaps in FACT even walking on that “broad way” of no covenant at all – regardless of any zeal that has been created within you by some “spirit of religion” – so that you are in FACT actually substituting the true Biblical version of His Covenant with a counterfeit ecclesiastical version of that covenant?
The eagerness with which you are desiring to understand and live out the details of that holy “Sermon on the Mount” is an excellent measure of whether you actually are in His saving covenant. Are you EXCITED to have Him teach you to “turn the other cheek”? Or, are you looking for all the clever excuses you can to reinterpret that vulnerable way of life in a way that satisfies YOUR sense of “right and wrong”?
PART of “denying self” is to crucify those “fight and flight” instincts which insist that we either strike out or run away from perceived or imaginary threats. Instead, we ignore their pleas and rather trust in the commands, promises and examples that both He and His Spirit-filled apostles provided for us, and let our GOD prove that He is not only the “Lord over history” but the “Lord over OUR history”! THIS is what makes you a Christian. THIS is the way that enables you to break the ties that connect you to Satan. Regardless of whatever more “reasonable” advice you have received, THIS is His way of salvation!
