In Leviticus 24:19-20, Exodus 21:23-24, and Deuteronomy 19:21, there is a system where a person can return an injury for an equal injury from another person, often referenced as “an eye for an eye”. This is the opposite of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:38-48 about turning the other cheek and loving your enemy. Did Jesus contradict the law? 

These Old Testament verses (Leviticus 24:19-20, Exodus 21:23-24, and Deuteronomy 19:21) deal with punishment by a penal system, which required witnesses to get justice. These were not for personal grudges, yet at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were taking these things out of context and allowing people to abuse this for personal disputes via mob justice. In addition, the rules were given to a group of people who lived in a time when violence was used to keep peace in many cultures worldwide, so it wasn’t unique to them. Lastly, before Jesus, people didn’t have the Holy Spirit, God’s presence on the inside, who softens a man’s hard-heartedness (Ez 36:27-29), so God had to operate with them differently.

Leaven oftentimes is used as a metaphor for sin because of how fast it spreads, and if sin isn’t dealt with early, it will spread like leaven throughout the whole community. According to the Law of Moses, exponential growth in sin will spiritually corrupt the nation of Israel, leading to them being exiled from the land (which happens later under the Assyrian and Babylonian empires). The death penalty functions as a deterrent to an extent, but even with that, humanity’s sin nature will always come out, and someone will test God’s law. God, in his mercy, created the animal sacrifice system to substitute for the death that is deserved for sin. However, when it comes to public sins that witnesses expose, these sins are often punished publicly as an act of justice for victims and their families, and a reminder of God’s holiness and the Israelites’ requirement to be holy in his presence. This is to prevent people from abusing the sacrificial system and God’s mercy by sinning all over the place, hurting people without a care in the world, then making cheap sacrifices at the last minute to cover their debts. This is why Jesus overturned the tables of the Temple (Matt 21:21-13); auctioneers started cheapening the sacrificial system.

Furthermore, Jesus addresses this issue head-on in Matt 5:23-24 by telling people to apologize to those they have wronged before bringing God their guilt sacrifices. Otherwise, the sacrifice is meaningless if they are not repentant. When someone gets away with sin because there were no witnesses, that can be considered an act of mercy from God, and should be thought of as an opportunity to repent, or else that person may get caught next time.

Victims of wrongdoing will typically bear grudges and hold hatred in their hearts for the other person. This goes against the command in Lev 19:18 to not hold grudges but rather love your neighbor as yourself. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus called this the 2nd greatest commandment, only second to loving God with all our heart, soul, and might. Furthermore, he says following these two commandments will fulfill all the laws. The dealt penalty was one way to alleviate this, and mercy is shown through the sacrificial system by the requirement of death for sin (Rom 6:23). God made other systems of mercy besides the sacrificial system. The two systems related to the context of this discussion were refugee status and eye for eye restitution. The city of refuge system was designed to protect people from those who held grudges (Numbers 35:9-29, Deut 19:1-13). This was for someone who accidentally killed someone else, so they could escape from the victim’s family, because even though it was an accident, their hard hearts prevented them from forgiving. The eye for an eye system is built on the foundations of the death penalty for murder (Gen 9:5-6). This allowed someone who was truly wronged to get immediate closure so they could move on. Otherwise, it can turn into family feuds and cause strife between families in future generations, and this division would cause problems for the Israelites as a whole. 

It also promoted equal retribution, meaning a person can’t murder someone for simply wounding them; the punishment has to match the crime. In Genesis 4:23, one of Cain’s descendants named Lamach murders a man for wounding him, and this spiraled out of control and led to the mass violence that caused the flood of Noah’s generation. This is why, in Numbers 35:30-34, God says that murderers must be put to death. Like with other death penalty sins, it requires more than one witness, and an animal sacrifice cannot even cover the murderer’s sin; they must die. Murder pollutes the land spiritually, and the only way to cleanse the land of murder is to execute the murderer. God chose the lesser of two evils (vengeance and compensation) to put up with spiritual darkness until Jesus and the Holy Spirit came with the New Covenant, which is a more permanent solution.

Jesus initiated the promised New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34), different from the Old Covenant. So when Jesus teaches us to show mercy by turning the other cheek and praying for our enemies instead of seeking vengeance in Matthew 5:38-48, this is about introducing a new system that shows mercy instead of punishing with death. We don’t have to stone people to death in the New Covenant because Jesus died in the place of all sinners, and receiving him as Lord and Savior (Rom 10:9-10) brings the gift of the Holy Spirit, who helps believers overcome sin, live holy, and forgive people. Rejecting the gospel keeps people in the same sinful state they were born in, and they will not follow God’s way. Still, at any time, a person can come to Jesus to be born again, so there is no need to execute people because all people are potential followers of Jesus until they die. Paul started off persecuting and executing Jesus’s followers. Then he became one (Acts ch. 9). The Old Covenant used the death penalty as a deterrent for specific actions and as a reminder that all people have failed and that following God’s laws and all of us deserve to die. Still, the Good News of the New Covenant resolves the conundrum. People who reject the gospel will be condemned on Judgment Day when they die, but until they are allowed to live long enough to have multiple opportunities to receive the mercy that God is freely offering through Jesus’ sacrifice. Until then, we must love and forgive people so they can experience God’s Kingdom and know that freedom from sin is the right decision, and the best one they will ever make.