I received this comment and tried to answer it the best way I could, but it got me thinking that there are lots of people out there who could probably answer it better than myself. So, I copied my reply below. Please, feel free to add your thoughts, insights, or opinions on the subject. Thanks and God bless.
The comment was: “Evil for evil is not justified in the Bible as an eye for an eye?”
My reply was:
Good morning Rob 🙂 This is a tricky thing for me. I don’t like translating the Bible, I am not an expert or scholar 🙂 I prefer someone reading and learning what He wants them to learn and not relying on “man” to tell them what He meant.
Having said that, I will do my best to tell you what I believe on the subject, but ask that you take it for what it’s worth and not the gospel 🙂 I can justify a lot of my past “evils” and have justified them by saying well, they did it to me, an eye for an eye. I’ve done this more times than I can count, I’m quite good at it, I’ll say was quite good at it, instead of I am because I try hard NOT to be that way anymore. I fail, but I am only a fleshy human.
Now, back to the lecture at hand. Eye for an eye.
In Deuteronomy, it not only says an eye for an eye it says to not have pity on the punished, that it’s a life for a life, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot. BUT that was for the people being punished for their errs, breaking “the law”. Those that had been before the judges, and found guilty for something they had done. I feel the key there is they had been before the judges, which at that time were to be there under God’s anointing.
The “eye for and eye’ wasn’t someone pissed me off, and I judged them, and I got them back or punished them.
Of course, since man is corruptible, hence judges are corruptible, therefore we can see there’d be a lot of “eyes for eyes” if the flesh was sitting in judgement.
That brings us to Jesus. He died for all our sins, removing us from being under “the law”. Now, There’s the fly in the ointment. If He died for all our sins, who are the judges now?
It, in my humble opinion, removes the judgement aspect. I feel God knew we wouldn’t be able to be incorruptible enough to judge ourselves, but He knew, like the children we are, we would not believe Him, and therefore we had to learn it from our own mistakes.
In the New Testament, in Matthew, it tells us, that you’ve heard an eye for an eye but if someone strikes you to turn and give them the other cheek, and all through the New Testament it tells us to not judge, pull the beam out of our eye before we pull the splinter out of our brothers eye, let he who has not sinned cast the first stone, love one another, how many times do you forgive, not 7 but 70 times 7, and Jesus said that one. You get the drift.
Sorry the reply was soooooooo long. I don’t know if this is the right answer, I don’t know if this is the right meaning. This is the meaning I get when I read His word and I know I feel so much better since I’ve started, and been able to not do evil for evil. It wasn’t easy at first but now, it is truly miraculous how easy it is and the joy and happiness it brings me.
Like I said, I suggest you read it and translate it into what He wants you to learn. God bless you brother.
What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear what others feel, or believe on the subject.
The Word 