Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matt 5:29-30)

This text works with a point of view of that time according to which the very limbs of the body entice to sin: eyes, ears, lips, hands. The Markan parallel speaks of the foot as well (Mark 9:45). But why here in particular the right eye and the right hand? Very simply because everything “right” was considered by people of that period as better and more important. This makes the argument even more pointed: better to lose a part of the body, even if it is an especially important and precious part, such as the right hand, than with one’s whole existence to go to hell.

Plucking out one’s own eye, cutting off one’s own hand—the double saying speaks piercingly and with a fearful severity: better to be crippled and disfigured than to be in further danger of sinning! Matthew 5:29-30 is eons removed from the Greek ideal of the harmonic person, nobly formed in all respects.

The same kind of severity and pointed meaning is found in the so-called violence saying. In this case, by way of exception, I am quoting from the easily reconstructed wording of the Sayings Source:¹ “The law and the prophets [were] until John. From then [on] the kingdom of God breaks its way violently, and the violent seize it” (cf. Matt 11:13, 12 // Luke 16:16). There are very few sayings of Jesus whose meaning has been so long disputed among exegetes. This one has often been translated and interpreted in a negative sense: “From then on the reign of God is violated, and the violent plunder it.”² This would mean that the reign of God, as Jesus proclaims it, is being rejected and made an enemy by its opponents. They take it away from the people who listen to Jesus and who want to follow him.

From a purely grammatical point of view this negative translation is possible. But that does not say much. We need to examine the context: “the law and the prophets,” which extend to the time of John the Baptizer, are, after all, something positive. What comes after them, namely, the reign of God, is still more positive. Therefore there can be no question here of a violation of the reign of God, especially since there are no parallels in Jesus’ sayings for such a statement.

Moreover, if we note the provocative way Jesus constantly spoke, and if we pay special attention to the language of his parables, where any number of “immoral heroes” represent the kind of discipleship Jesus is demanding, it seems still more likely that we should interpret the “violence saying” in a positive sense, as the wording certainly allows: the reign of God is not violated; rather, it is breaking its way with power. No one can stop it, because it is God’s work. But only those who dare everything and put everything in play will have a part in it. They are like violent people who do violence to themselves and their own bodies. They are ruthless with themselves.

Another Jesus saying we have received in a number of variants speaks of the same kind of unconditional attitude: “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24).³ The background of this saying could be a fixed form of discourse that is multiply attested in antiquity. That is how generals addressed their soldiers immediately before battle: whoever fights at complete risk of his own life and so supports those fighting at his side will be rescued. But any coward who flees will lose his life, because no one will help him.⁴ If the motif of that kind of “general’s pep talk” has made its way into Jesus’ saying we would again have evidence that Jesus was more educated and knew more of the world than many want to allow. But quite independently of that, Luke 9:24 also reveals Jesus’ radicality. Those who want to follow him have to be ready to lose their lives. That is precisely how they will save them. Obviously this saying, which Jesus addressed to others, also reflects his own attitude: he was ready to give up his life.

Luke 9:24 and its parallels are not, however, exclusively interested in the surrender of life in death. After all, human beings are also desperately engaged in “saving” their own desires and dreams, their own guiding images and plans for their lives. But these very rescue actions cause them to lose their lives—namely, the true lives that existence under the rule of God would give them. “To lose one’s life” therefore refers not only to martyrdom but in given circumstances to the surrender of one’s secure bourgeois existence for the sake of the reign of God.