1 Peter 2:20-23

Peter wrote his first letter in the New Testament from Rome, the most powerful city in the ancient world. The position of Christians within the city, and the empire it ruled, was precarious. The Jews thought they were heretics and chased them out of the synagogues. Both religions were distrusted by the Romans because they refused to worship the Emperor as a god. Their beliefs were seen as destabilizing society. Christians were easy scapegoats in the aftermath of the great fire in Rome, which happened a few years after this letter was written.

The persecutions devastated the Christian community in the city. Both Peter and Paul were killed. According to tradition, Peter asked the Romans to crucify him upside down so that he would not die like Jesus. St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the holiest shrines in Catholicism, is supposedly built over his tomb.

Photo: Alvesgaspar

Peter had good reason to hate the Romans. Instead, he counseled his readers to honor the Emperor and respect authority, essentially telling them to turn the other cheek:

But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.  

- 1 Peter 2:20-23 

Peter isn’t saying to forget what the Romans were doing to them, and he’s not even really telling them to forgive in this passage. What he’s saying is that it wasn't their place to seek revenge. God would take care of it. It’s the same reason why Americans aren’t supposed to take matters into our hands when we are cheated or robbed, or even when someone is murdered. The state ensures justice, through the police who investigate crimes and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.



God is different because he administers divine justice. He doesn’t need to investigate anything. He created the universe, and knows everything that happens in it down to even the most minute detail. He has numbered every hair on your head (Luke 12:7). Nothing escapes His sight, and no action can be concealed:

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. 

- Luke 8:16 

What Jesus is saying is a promise and a threat. On one hand, Christians are assured that there will be justice for anything done to us, no matter how small. On the other, we know that we will receive justice for anything we have done.

Jesus could have been angry about the injustice he suffered in his short time on Earth. His public ministry consisted of walking around Israel for a couple years, healing the sick, feeding the poor, and telling people that God loved them. His reward was being stripped naked, hung on a cross, and tortured to death. It was the greatest crime in human history. And yet, despite everything the Pharisees and the Romans did to him, Jesus didn’t hate them. He knew God would punish them. He felt sorry for them.

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals -- one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” 

- Luke 23:32-34 

The misconception about turning the other cheek is that it’s something a weak person does to justify not fighting back. What’s really going on is that Christians aren’t supposed to fight back because we will only end up getting in trouble ourselves. A good analogy is what often happens in a football game: one player cheap shots another player, the other player responds in kind, and the second player ends up being the one who gets the personal foul. Retaliating only gets him in trouble, since the referee often doesn't see what the first one did. That’s not the case with God. Christians don't have the responsibility to retaliate under our own power. No one is getting away with anything in this world. There will be justice for every evil thing that has ever been done.

One of the craziest things on display at the Oklahoma City bombing memorial is a newspaper article written in 1993, two years before the bombing, that quotes Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh wanted revenge for the Branch Davidian shootout in Waco, which killed 73 people, so he built a car bomb and detonated it under the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, killing 168 people. Of course, none of the people there had anything to do with what McVeigh was angry about. He just murdered a bunch of random strangers. That’s the problem with human justice. An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.



When we put ourselves in the place of God and attempt to get revenge, it usually turns into this scene from The Big Lebowski, when John Goodman decides to get revenge on a teenager who stole his friend’s car by destroying the sports car parked in front of the kid’s house. The problem is that it was actually owned by the kid’s neighbor. When he sees what happens, he decides to destroy Goodman’s car. Except it's not Goodman's car, either. It's his friend's stolen car. The end result of his quest for revenge is that everyone involved just ends up being worse off than if he had done nothing.

On a much bigger scale, this is basically what happened in the Second Gulf War. The U.S. wanted revenge for 9/11 so badly that we lashed out at Iraq, even though they had nothing to do with it, unleashing a tidal wave of violence, destruction, and misery that the entire region is still dealing with 15 years later.

The same thing would have happened if Peter had begun a Christian insurrection against the Roman Empire. A few years after his death, Jewish nationalists in Israel revolted against the Romans, beginning a series of wars that killed millions of people, lasted for over 60 years, and ended in the complete destruction of their nation. They thought it was God’s will for them to revolt, and that He would lead them to victory. They were wrong. They weren’t wrong that the Romans needed to be punished. They were just wrong in thinking they were going to be the instruments of that punishment.

There are serious consequences for sin in this world, but the even greater ones come in the world after. God is the final judge. Either you go before Him with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as payment for your sin, or you stand before Him alone and have to answer for your actions. Is there anyone in the world who would really feel comfortable in that scenario? There was only one perfect human being who ever lived, and he died to take the punishment that was coming to each and every one of us.

Christianity offers perfect justice and perfect grace. Christians know that God will judge us for our actions, but we also know that Jesus has paid the penalty for them. We have gotten a get out of hell free card.

One of my favorite parables in the Gospels is the unmerciful servant:

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.  

At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.  

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’  

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.  

Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all the debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

‘This is how my heavenly Father will treat each one of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’  

- Matthew 18:23-25 

We love because we have been loved. We forgive because we have been forgiven. Christians shouldn’t hate our enemies. We should love them. They know not what they do.