Sunday's TV sermon was centered on the last portion of Matthew 5, which the NRSV places a header that says, “Concerning Retaliation.”
Verses 38-42 are translated as this:
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
In verse 38, this comes from Exodus 21:23-27, which is a commandment of Yahweh, expressed to the Israelites by Moses. In actuality, this addresses harm coming to a pregnant woman, such that verses 22 through 25 state:
22 “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. 23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
The same “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth” rules are then applied to a “slaveowner striking a slave,” causing him or her bodily damage.
This means when Jesus spoke from the acoustically perfect hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee, where Jews gathered to hear his words of wisdom softly spoken drift down upon their ears, his saying “You have heard that it was said” means: As Jews who read the Torah and had heard the Torah read to them, orally aloud on Sabbaths (and in schooling), they knew Moses said what Yahweh told him to say, about a system of justice being necessary.
Jesus also said (prior to this lesson), “Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17, NASB) That means, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was still the Law that governed Israelites.
Here, it is most important to realize that the Jews to whom Jesus spoke were NOT Israelites.
The LAW laid down by Yahweh, through the lips of Moses, was ONLY relative to those souls in bodies of cleansed flesh that had spiritually married Yahweh, with each and every one (male and female) being His Son reborn (via the soul of Adam-Jesus being the Lord of each and every one). Thus, the word “Israel” means “One Whose inner el (soul-god-spirit) Retains” the commandments of Yahweh.
For all the other people in the whole wide world, Moses spoke zero commandments from Yahweh to them. It is said the same “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” system of man’s laws pre-existed the time when Moses led a large gathering of saved souls in flesh out from Egypt, into the wilderness. This means a system of justice is necessary all over the world, especially where the people are not Israelites and do all kinds of harmful things to others, unfairly.
What Yahweh told Moses to command His people (true Israelite) to live by means, “If you want to “Retain the El of Yahweh” (Adam-Jesus) as One with your cleansed soul, then you live according to the way that inner El tells you to live (as one’s inner Lord, extended from Yahweh)" Otherwise, your soul-flesh stands to be judged as unworthy of remaining in this special group that totally serves Yahweh, not their selves.
This means that Jesus was not telling anyone to stop maintaining a law of justice, which punishes those who break laws equally, based on the amount of harm done to another being the just harm oneself will have brought upon oneself. Eyes, teeth, hands, feet, burns, wounds, and stripes are all figurative, just as are pregnant women, slaveowners, and slaves. Punishment for murder demands execution, not forty years of jailhouse tattooing in some Godforsaken den of inequity (where taxpayers foot the bill for a criminal to remain a criminal). Cut the murderer’s head off; and, do it quick. Israelites have more to do that is important, than to slop the criminal pigs forever and a day.
This is why Jesus then taught that his soul was that soul that would forever prevent one from having to worry about what the Law says to do with lawbreakers. When Jesus said, “I say to you,” his use of "ego de lego hymen" says the soul of Jesus must become one’s identity, as “I.” It then says one’s soul led by that inner Lord “ego” will “speak” or “say” to others, what the Jesus soul will “say to your soul” (where hymen means “yourself,” and a “self” is a “soul”).
This, my friends, means the key to not losing an eye, from having caused one's eye to be taken, is to stop "speaking" to your own "ego-driven self," telling "yourself" it is okay to make another lose an eye, never thinking once about incurring an equal debt that must be paid back.
If you do not pick up on this – You must let Jesus speak for You – then You can never grasp the truth of being reborn in the name of Jesus Christ. It can only be with Jesus being your “I” that “says” to “your soul” “not to withstand this evil.” Without Jesus as one’s inner Lord, “No” soul alone can “stand against” the wiles of Satan, who tells one it is okay to do “this evil.”
Jesus then stated the “exception,” as that which “instead” happens. In that, he said, “whoever you” are – with Jesus as your Lord or without that divine guidance – this “shall strike into this right hand side of the face of your soul.” In that, remember the commandment included “stripe for stripe.” Thus, a sinner (a Law breaker) that has been “stricken” for not being the “right hand” of Yahweh – led by His Son within – being so "slapped" returns that wayward soul to wearing “the face” of Yahweh (as the Son reborn). Wearing the face of Yahweh is the First Commandment (Thou shall wear no other face before Yahweh, other than His face).
When that “slap on the right cheek” happens, then “turn to him” (“his soul”) and (use of kai) realize one’s soul is the left cheek, as “the other” face that is not “the right jawbone.” Here, it was the “jawbone” of an ass that allowed Samson to destroy a thousand Philistines (metaphor for those trying to make an Israelite give up serving Yahweh and become like them, serving self).
To think Jesus said to be unfairly treated as a Lawbreaker is putting words in his mouth that would change the Law much more than one iota. Jesus was saying, “If you want to avoid equal punishment for sins committed against others, then listen to your parents when they tell you the correct way to act – according to the Law – by slapping your cheek (or buttocks). He did not tell anyone to let someone else sin, by allowing them to sin even more.
What Jesus next said is this: “and (use of kai) to him desiring of your soul to condemn” – i.e.: Satan is the one who whispers, “It is okay to sin” – “and (use of kai) this garment of your soul to receive (as having Satan cover your soul and flesh, rather than have Jesus the Lord over your soul and flesh) , send forth to his soul and (use of kai) long outer robe”. Here, the conditional of “shall strike” means it is optional what spiritual possession a soul chooses to lead it. When Satan tries to steal your “coat” of flesh – the temptations to sin – then one either gives Satan also one’s soul, or one brings out the inner robe of Jesus that tells Satan, “Get behind me!”
Jesus was not changing the Law, by saying make it easier for people to steal, by giving them more than they ever thought they could take from you. He was saying, “If you want to avoid the strike of Judgment for sins committed in the flesh (a soul no longer clothed in flesh), then your soul needs to have the inner robe that forever stops the temptations of sin to cease and desist. When the "coat" of flesh is left behind in some hole in the earth (ashes to ashes), then a soul clothed in the soul of Jesus shows up for Judgment looking like the face of Yahweh. The Judgment is then (always), "My Son! Welcome home!"
This then led Jesus to preach: “and (use of kai) whichever your soul” [the choice one's soul makes to serve] that soul as one’s Lord and Master will invariably send one’s soul and flesh “into public service,” as “compelled to walk” the walk and talk the talk of that possessing spirit. That command will be to go “a thousand steps as one” with that guiding spirit at one’s lead. This then means wherever “you go with his soul,” then it is not just “one” soul in ministry (that either of good or of evil), but “two.”
Jesus was not asking any soul in the flesh to “walk” behind another, pretending to be a follower of “one,” who is a lone soul compelled to do what another soul tells he or she to do. Jesus was not saying, "If the Law says do this, then do that plus add in what you think would be an extra helping of that." To “walk” with Jesus as one’s Lord means to “go as one,” when being “one” demands the union of “two.” That number means a saved soul joined spiritually with Jesus’ soul; and, that is the gift of divine marriage to Yahweh.
Jesus then taught: “to this to be demanding (or asking) your soul , give ; and (use of kai) this desiring away from of your soul to borrow (or lend) , not you shall pervert (or turn away).” This says to avoid equal punishment for acts of sin against others, the influence of Satan “demands your soul” either to “give” in to sin or “give” in to the divine possession by Yahweh’s Son, Jesus’ soul “one” with yours. To have Jesus' as the Lord over one's soul will then control the “desires” of the flesh, should one’s soul choose complete submission to serve Yahweh. It means one willingly “lends” one’s soul to Jesus’ soul, who (as the Good Shepherd) keeps one's soul from becoming lost and “perverted” by Satan.
Jesus was not telling anyone open up a bank and start taking applications from the whole world, who have “desires” of getting free stuff, without ever having to do anything to earn that. That god is one of Satan's little helpers, called Socialism (and every other -ism in the philosophy of man book).
I believe it is past time everyone knew the truth of the Word. The evidence is all around now, pointing to the world about to burst at the seams, from not knowing the truth. Ignorance makes it seem as though Jesus would be proud to watch Christians die at the hands of Satan’s minions, while they laugh and say, “Take it idiots! Jesus said to let us poke your eyes out for you not seeing how he was telling you to stop sin, by being Jesus reborn.”