“It would not be easy to find a man who,
on receiving a fisticuff,
would be content to give only one in return”
That’s what Augustine said when preaching on the famous eye for an eye law from Leviticus.
fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered (Lev 24:20 NRSV)
Today, scholars largely agree with Augustine, that because of our human inclination to retaliate, Leviticus was setting a limit on revenge. If someone poked out your eye, you couldn’t have their head, or their arm, or even two eyes. If you desired retribution, you could not simply lash out in anger. If you felt the need to retaliate, your retaliation had to fit the crime. Not exceed it.
Augustine understood Leviticus to be teaching moderation and self control, saying “For it is not easy to find any one who, when he has received a blow, wishes merely to return the blow; and who, on hearing one word from a man who reviles him, is content to return only one, and that just an equivalent; but he avenges it more immoderately, either under the disturbing influence of anger, or because he thinks it just, that he who first inflicted injury should suffer more severe injury than he suffered who had not inflicted injury..”[1]
Similarly, Saint Cyril of Alexander sees the law as an attempt to teach Israel to refrain from reacting in anger. He says “his anger at the wrongdoer must not go beyond an equal retribution.” But Saint Cyril goes even further, suggesting that our tendency to act towards our fellow humans through a mode of legality, is “by no means pleasing to God.” According to Saint Cyril, the law was given to slowly and gently lead Israel to “...the perfect good. For it is written, ‘To do what is just is the beginning of the good way,’ but finally all perfection is in Christ and his precepts. ‘For to him that strikes you on the cheek,’ he says, ‘offer also the other.’”[2]
Again, Augustine is in agreement, seeing these boundaries as a way of training Israel to refrain from revenge. “Such a spirit was in great measure restrained by the law, where it was written, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;’ by which expressions a certain measure is intended, so that the vengeance should not exceed the injury. And this is the beginning of peace: but perfect peace is to have no wish at all for such vengeance.”
That, according to Augustine, is the kind of character we were created for: a Christ-like character. Because Christ Himself revealed the true fulfilment of this law was not to demand an eye, or an ear, but to turn the other cheek (Mat 5:38-42). And, well, if Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, (Col 1:15) and the exact representation of God’s being (Heb 1:3), is this not also what God is like? And, are we not called to “be imitators of God” (Eph 5:1)?
And at this point we might well wonder, is this truly representative of God‘s character? If God expects his people to turn the other cheek, does He follow His own rule? If God expects humans to set limits on retributive justice, would not God also set appropriate limits on His divine retribution? At minimum, since God’s character is described as “slow to anger” (Ex 34:6), surely it is not in God’s nature to lash out in violence. God says He is emphatically not like humans in that way; “I will not vent the full fury of my anger; I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man, the Holy One among you; I will not come in rage” (Hosea 11:9 CSB).
Sometimes I send my kids to timeout. We have a system where timeout means they wait in their bedroom, one minute for each year of their age. So Asher, my 12-year-old, sits in timeout, in his bedroom, for 12 minutes. Is this just? Is it restorative or retributive? These are questions I’ve agonised over with my wife. Because it may be merely me; getting angry, using my authority as a father to get the peace and quiet that I want. Is timeout a purely retributive punishment for no reason other than he deserves it? Or is timeout a discipline designed to teach and to heal? Am I sending my son to timeout to teach him a life lesson, in the hope he will grow and change, and our relationship will be restored. That’s restorative.
Saint Irenaeus was born less than a hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Irenaeus’ mentor was Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of John the Apostle. Living and writing at a time when the witness of the Apostles was still fresh, Irenaeus has much to say about God‘s justice—whether it’s restorative, or retributive, and exploring the line between just and unjust. However, Irenaeus poses a slightly different question. He wonders if the nature of the punishment is just.
Say I had a goldfish that had been living in a bowl on my kitchen counter for three years. One day my goldfish disobeyed me. So I sent her to timeout. For a just three minutes. In the bedroom. Apart from the question of whether my motive is retributive or restorative, the punishment is not by nature just. Because it is not my fish’s nature to exist in a bedroom out of water. Taking a fish out of water would be unjust.
Perhaps you don’t have a soft spot for fish. Fair enough. What about humans? Say the government decides that from now on, all detainees will be sentenced a just and appropriate number of years for their crime. But the new detention centre is being moved to the Moon. Without oxygen. This seems astronomically unjust.
Okay, those examples may be far-fetched, so allow me to reign it in and share a serious example from my time at church youth group (and a content warning for s=%ual manipulation). I vividly remember the day we found out. Our youth pastor had cheated on his wife. He’d had an affair. But he’d had an affair with one of the teenagers in the youth group. An announcement was made at church. He was dismissed immediately. People got very angry. There was all kinds of outrage. And rightly so. He was 100% in the wrong, And the young woman involved? She wasn’t named. She was protected. However, as a youth group kid I was appalled at the injustice of it. What about her? Why was no one blaming her? She had consented. She was legally an adult (she had just turned 18). She slept with a married man.
Back then, teenage Phil, angry adolescent Phil, would have named and shamed her. However, current Phil—much older Phil—Phil who is a father and who has a daughter—Today Phil would not react in that way. I now realise that that man used his position of power to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. I now know that he most likely groomed and manipulated her. What would I do if it was my daughter? Would I demand an eye for an eye? What would be just? Perhaps what brings justice for him, does not bring justice for her. Perhaps that’s the point. The most just thing for that young woman, might be to take her to counselling or therapy. To help her recover from the shame. To help her start to heal. To help her learn from her failures so she doesn’t make the same mistake again.
And yes, she did make mistakes. She was in part responsible for what she did. But what is just? What is justice for him? And what is justice for her? This is where Irenaeus offers an incredible way of reading the story of Eve’s deception and failure.
I see many similarities between these two stories: the interplay between the young woman and the youth pastor, and the interaction between Eve and the snake. That youth pastor had the appearance of being wise and trustworthy; he was older, more clever, more manipulative, more crafty, and he offered sweet words although they dripped with evil intent. Eve, though not innocent, was young and naive, she was tricked, manipulated, and taken advantage of by someone who twisted the narrative to suit his own evil desires.
How did God react? Did God implement His own eye for an eye principle? Did the punishment fit the crime? Was sending her out of the Garden restorative or retributive? By removing access to the tree of life, did God want to heal her, or make her suffer?
Irenaeus asks this question in a profoundly insightful way. He suggests that what was taken from Eve was essential to her. Just as placing detainees on the moon with no oxygen takes away what is essential for life—oxygen, and sending my goldfish to timeout in the bedroom removes the fish from what is essential to the fish's nature: water.
“And since the apostasy [the corruption of the fall] tyrannized over us unjustly, and, though we were by nature the property of the omnipotent God, alienated us contrary to nature”
Irenaeus is saying that to remove Adam and Eve from God‘s presence would be to remove them from Life. He even goes so far as to say that this would be unjust. He says humanity was created for relationship with God, created for connection to the Author of Life, and to remove them from the source of Life would be unjust.
In his book Christmas with Irenaeus, Mako Nagasawa says “The corruption of sin that has interloped in human nature reigned unjustly. Why unjustly? …Because the corruption alienated us from God contrary to our nature. Our nature is relational; we belong to God; we depend on God. Thus, the corruption was unjust.”[3]
I suspect I know what teenage Phil would have done with Eve. He would have named and shamed her. He would not have covered her shame, he would have left her naked and ashamed. He would have publicly uncovered her sin, so that it became a part of her identity. Yes, teenage Phil would have been just—retributively just—an eye for an eye. But what would teenage Phil’s justice have achieved? Teenage Phil would have made sure she remained stuck in the consequences of her actions. I would inadvertently have ensured that that one night defined the rest of her life. She would have remained confined in a prison of shame. Never able to recover. Never able to heal.
Teenage Phil’s definition of justice, what was right, did not have a view to restoration, healing, rescue, or mercy. Yet Irenaeus shows how Eve’s punishment—ejection from the Garden, may in fact have been a mercy. He suggests that mortality was a mercy. Where did Irenaeus get that idea from? Polycarp? The apostle John? If you’ve ever wondered why God ejected Adam and Eve from the Garden, the Bible tells us: so that they wouldn’t live forever. Otherwise “…he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22 NASB).
The Amplified Bible adds, they might “live [in this fallen, sinful condition] forever.” They had become corrupt and contaminated. Had they been able to eat from the tree of life, they would have remained in that corrupt and contaminated state perpetually. Removing access to the tree of life granted them death, a way out, meaning they would not live forever in shame. It provided a way for them to be reunited with God. But first, it was necessary for the corruption to die, so that they could be renewed, freed from corruption, freed from guilt, freed from shame.
For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. (1 Cor 15:53 CSB)
Paul has already fleshed out exactly how this works:
So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power… And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15;42-49 CSB)
God provided a way out. He didn’t leave her in her shame forever. He entered into her condition. He clothed Himself in her human nature. Humbling Himself, and entrusting Himself to be birthed and loved and cared for by a woman. And ironically, through His own death, he rescued her from death. In His humanity, he united her, and all of humanity to Himself. And He has raised us up, and has seated us with Him in the Heavens.[4] So that we might “be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world.”[5] In His death He condemned sin and corruption, so that if we have died with Him, we have died to sin, and we will be raised in Him.[6]
Right now as I write this, I'm trying to imagine how we as a church could have acted differently. As a church we failed. That young woman is gone. She left the church soon after and has disappeared. We didn’t provide restorative justice for her. What could we have done to help restore her relationship with the church? With God? How could we have helped her heal? What should we have done to help her remain as part of our church family, so that whatever shame she felt, whatever guilt she carried, wasn’t a barrier to her feeling loved and accepted by her church family?
I wonder what God’s justice looks like for the vulnerable? Is God more concerned with retribution? Or is God more like a Father with a daughter. But we know what God is like, don’t we? We have seen Him. Jesus said, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. He didn’t forsake us. He didn’t abandon us. He became one of us to restore us to Himself.
He didn’t just send us to therapy, or give us some good advice or a sermon. Rather, the Word became flesh and lived among us. In becoming one of us, He united us to Himself, and purified us; our hearts, our bodies. And He purified our conscience. “Our hearts have been sprinkled clean from a guilty conscience, and our bodies have been washed with pure water” (Heb 10:22 ISV).
To close, who better than Irenaeus:
For He came to save all through means of Himself...
He therefore passed through every age,
becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants;
a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age...
a youth for youths... thus sanctifying them for the Lord.
So likewise, He was an old man for old men... sanctifying at the same time the aged also...[7]
Footnotes:
[1] Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers by Philip Schaff: St. Augustine: Sermon on the Mount; Harmony of the Gospels; Homilies on the Gospels.
[2] St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke
[3] Christmas with Irenaeus, by Mako Nagasawa
[4] For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6 NLT)
[5] 2 Peter 1:4 KJV
[6] Romans 8:3; Romans 6:8; Romans 6:2; Romans 6:5
[7] Against Heresies, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
bro, you should write a book on Leviticus!