Matthew 5: When Jesus Overturns Our Idea of Justice

Introduction

In the 1970s in France, judges made an observation: disputes kept growing, and settling a case in court was not always the best outcome for the parties. So they launched a new practice, mediation, to encourage agreement. It gradually entered French law, then a European directive in 2008. Yet two lawyers the preacher spoke with this week confirm that in 2026, mediation falls short of its goal when relationships are already damaged.

Jesus, "the mediator par excellence," made the same observation some 1,970 years earlier, in Matthew 5:38-48. This message from Église du Tabernacle is part of the series "À l'école du roi" ("In the King's School") on the Sermon on the Mount. As Benjamin, the church's pastor, reminded the congregation: Jesus is after our heart.

The question is simple: "What face, what posture, what behavior do you show when you are in a conflict?" The preacher follows two lines of thought. Jesus wants to transform your heart in the way you settle a conflict, and then in your attitude toward the enemy.

Message outline

1. Jesus does not step into the human courtroom

Judges realized that their rulings, grounded in the law, did not repair human relationships as well as hoped.
Jesus is less interested in how our conflicts end than in the behavior we adopt during the conflict, and in what comes before it. He cares about the quality of our relationships.
He does not step into the human courtroom: that is not his role, neither during his ministry nor in this passage. "For God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him" (John 3:17).
So this passage is not a manual for settling legal disputes, one that would ask Christians to downplay the offense and lie flat before wickedness. "But that's not it." This text is for you, whether you have suffered an injustice, you are fighting injustice, or you have ended up resigned, telling yourself: "Given the state of the world, what is one more conflict…"

2. Jesus names the offenses

Jesus uses precise legal language for the time. He speaks to people who know the law, whose role is to hand down judgments.
He names offenses that touch on relationships, the body, property, and the power of the state.
The slap was the ultimate gesture of insult, the one that struck a person's dignity. Today it might be humiliating videos made public, a smear campaign on social media, humiliation in a meeting, a false accusation. The shirt represents the possession you need for everyday life: your shop destroyed during demonstrations, a raise unfairly refused, an inheritance dispute, a client who doesn't pay your invoice, your ideas taken over by someone else. "They steal your shirt."
Requisition is the demand of the state that obliges and compels you. Today: a business closure for reasons of national security, an unexpected on-call duty you won't be paid for, an extra task imposed by your superiors, a family responsibility someone asks you to carry for them.

3. The law of retaliation and how it was distorted

When Jesus says "You have heard," he recalls the law of Moses, which served as both civil code and moral code, built on the ten commandments and the rules that follow Exodus 20.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is the law of retaliation (Exodus 21:22-25): a penalty proportionate to the harm, and above all the principle that a wrongful act does not go unpunished.
In this system of justice, it was up to the judge to decide: to examine the fault, discern, set the sentence, and look for a fair balance of compensation.
In Jesus' day, the principle had been twisted to justify personal revenge: "We can't let a wrong slide, so I'm going to get even." Compensation, and especially financial compensation, had become the supreme act of justice. Yet the law said: "Do not take revenge yourself."
Jesus' diagnosis matches the judges': compensation does not settle conflicts. Relationships are neither repaired nor improved at the end of a payback.
The preacher remembers a lecturer from his law degree in Créteil. She took pleasure in recounting all the complaints she had filed, for example when a neighbor didn't clear the sidewalk in front of his house in winter. What was the real goal of her quest? "And you, what is your goal when you point your finger at the damage?"

4. What Jesus is aiming at: the disposition of your heart

"Do not resist," "do not hold it back," "carry it two kilometers": Jesus is aiming at a behavior. If I resist, I mobilize force and amplify the conflict. If I hold back, I may lie about the value of my assets, in a divorce for example. Facing requisition: "When the state sees me, I pay, but if the state doesn't see me, I don't pay."
Jesus goes after the root of the evil, our selfishness. James says it: "Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members?" (James 4:1-3).
The line is thin: by praying that your scheme will work, you can go from being the one who suffers injustice to the one who creates the conditions for it.
Jesus' conclusion concerns what comes before the conflict: "Give to him who asks you." He doesn't come to tell you "you're right" or to make you rich. He calls you to be generous with what you have received, not to stay unmoved before evil and misery, to be quick to give, to lend, to do good.
"The smallest situation calls for a transformation of your heart": an unfair manager, a paycheck that isn't complete, a neighbor bothered by your smoke or by the noise when you have guests, a family that pushes you aside because you chose to believe in Jesus. "How do you pray for him? That's the question."

5. Loving your enemies: Jesus corrects a distortion

"You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." The law did not say that. It said: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).
A distortion in interpretation had reduced the neighbor to the people of Israel. Everyone else became someone potentially to hate: "It's terrible."
The preacher turns the question back to the church: how do we look at those who don't believe as we do, those who are not like us? It is easy to tell yourself: "That one, anyway, is not someone God loves." The driver who cuts you off on the road quickly lands in the enemy box.
There is only one thing God asks us to resist: the devil. "Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).
Believing in God is not a status you settle into comfortably. God makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

6. A judgment is coming

"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" If there is a reward, there is a judgment. True justice is yet to come.
At the final judgment, all our actions and all our attitudes, in lean times as in plenty, in conflict or not, will be judged by God. There is a judgment that keeps us at a distance from God forever, and a judgment in which, justified by Jesus, we are forgiven by him.
Even for those who are forgiven, when Jesus returns, God will look at our life and reward us, or say: "Your cup will be a little less full."
It is a call to the extraordinary and to being set apart. Jesus looks at the wrongdoer and worries about one thing: his salvation. "And you, when you look at the one who caused the conflict, do you worry about his salvation?" God wants everyone to be saved.
"Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect"; some translations speak of goodness. The justice God wants to accomplish is not first a justice that punishes evil. He has already accomplished it: we were all meant to perish because of sin, but he accomplished it through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

7. The extraordinary is already lived on earth

The previous week, the church devoted a service to the persecuted Church. These testimonies are not only meant to move us or to prompt giving: they are there so that your heart changes.
A young sister, at 15, is beaten by her brother and put out by her parents because she chose to follow Jesus. In front of a police officer, when asked whether her family mistreated her, she answers no. The preacher thinks that even today she may thereby have access to her parents, to share with them about her life in Jesus: "That was much more important."
An Iranian brother, imprisoned and tortured for his faith, cries out in his cell. The guards think he is cursing them: "No, I am praying." He was released and keeps believing. Not entering into hatred and anger "is more important than winning a lawsuit."
Martin Luther King, a Baptist pastor, endured during 13 years of struggle threats, arrests, FBI surveillance, unjust imprisonment, assaults, defamation, and a bombing of his home. He constantly affirmed that hatred could not defeat hatred and that only love could turn an enemy into a friend of God.
Jesus himself, humiliated and nailed to the cross next to real criminals, prayed in the midst of the worst suffering: "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). "The ultimate remedy is love."
In practical terms: start with prayer, fight the selfish desires of your heart. 1 Corinthians 13 gives the list: patience, not plotting evil, grieving over injustice and rejoicing in the truth. Before going to court, see whether you can forgive, trust again, hope, persevere. If a fight of this kind is coming, "fast first," pray and submit to your God, because "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).
The preacher concludes with James 5: "Don't grumble, brothers, against one another, that you not be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door," and take as models of patience the prophets, those witnesses of faith, and Jesus himself. Then with Matthew 5: "Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven."

Key takeaways

Jesus does not step into the human courtroom: he doesn't come to prove you right, he comes to transform your heart.
Compensation does not settle conflicts. What matters to Jesus is what comes before the conflict and how you live with your neighbor.
The root of our quarrels is our selfish desires. The only thing to resist is the devil.
A judgment is coming: God will look at all our actions and attitudes, and he worries about the salvation of the one who does wrong.
Love is the ultimate remedy, as persecuted Christians, Martin Luther King, and Jesus himself on the cross have shown.

Personal application

What conflict do you have in front of you right now, at work, with a neighbor, or in your family?
When you point your finger at damage done, what is the real goal of your approach: to repair the relationship, or to obtain compensation?
How do you pray for the person who is hurting you?
Who have you put in the "enemy" box? Do you worry about their salvation?
Before entering this fight, are you ready to pray, to fast, and to ask yourself whether you can forgive?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" mean in the Bible?

It is the law of retaliation, given in the law of Moses (Exodus 21:22-25). It set the principle that a wrongful act did not go unpunished and that the penalty had to be proportionate. It was up to the judges to decide. In Jesus' day, this principle had been twisted to justify personal revenge and the pursuit of compensation.

Is turning the other cheek a way of resigning yourself to injustice?

No. The preacher points out that Jesus does not step into the human courtroom and that this text is not a legal manual. Jesus is aiming at the disposition of the heart: the selfishness that pushes us to resist, to hide, or to amplify the conflict. He calls us to be quick to give and to pray for the one who does wrong.

Did the law of Moses tell people to hate their enemy?

No. The law said: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). A distortion in interpretation had reduced the neighbor to the people of Israel and put everyone else among the enemies. Jesus sets things straight: the only thing God asks us to resist is the devil (James 4:7).