‘You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, “Raca,” is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Matthew 5:21-22 NIVUK
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matthew 5:27-28 NIVUK
‘It has been said, “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.” But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 5:31-32
I'm sure that anyone reading the title for today's meditation might have thought I was writing the screenplay to a Hollywood movie. After all, marriage for our stars, and even our leaders, is more a revolving door than ‘to death us do part’.
For most modern people, the three concepts I am about to describe are something of an anachronism – something belonging to a different time and place.
But let me tell you: that is one hundred percent not true. What you are about to see here is Jesus’ vision for the Kingdom of Heaven. It might seem hard, but I would ask you to keep an open mind and ask yourself if His vision is not better than what we have now. My contention is that it is.
You see, in all of these, Jesus is telling us to put into practice something every gardener knows how to do. If you discover weeds in your garden (and everyone does), simply cutting them back does no good. You have to dig them up by the roots to stop them from growing back.
We need this picture in mind to understand what Jesus is talking about here. He is saying that we should identify the sin in our lives and root it out before it has the chance to fester and grow.
James has this rather nightmarish vision of sin:
When tempted, no-one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
James 1:13-15 NIVUK
Jesus is saying that escape from this is possible, and that is by cutting the sin off at the root as soon as the temptation appears.
These three moral wrongs start with the most wrong of all (apparently): murder.
Whenever I used to meet students while evangelising at university, they would argue against the concept of being a sinner. They would say, ‘I haven’t raped or murdered anyone. I'm not that bad.’
Jesus takes the sin of murder right back to its roots: the root of anger towards another person. This anger is quite specific. As Barclay states: ‘So Jesus forbids for ever the anger which broods, the anger which will not forget, the anger which refuses to be pacified, the anger which seeks revenge.’
Some later manuscripts also contained the words ‘without cause’ here. The Greek indicates two things about justifiable anger here:
It has a just cause – not a fit of pique or personal offence, but rooted in injustice affecting other people too
It has a focused effect – its purpose is to produce something positive, not just to air a grievance
Paul adds a third point:
It has a short time span – we don’t allow it to fester or boil (Ephesians 4:26-27).
Anger is possible, but under these circumstances, quite unlikely to be permitted and highly unlikely to lead to murder.
Jesus, however, goes even further.
He says that we should think twice about insults that doubt other people’s intelligence, and avoid completely any that doubt their moral fibre.
He says that if we become aware that someone has an issue with us, then we should stop even the worship of God and make reconciliation with them a priority.
He says that if we are embroiled in a court case, we should seek to settle, because if we lose, the loss could be worse.
In all these, His teaching is not at all extreme. He urges us to spot the murder weed before it grows and yank it up by the roots.
Jesus then moves from murder to adultery.
Before we move any further, we need to remember when we do that, like murder, adultery was a criminal offence in Jesus’ day, and had been since the law was established by Moses (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18). There was simply no question of it ever being justified, tolerated or accepted. It was wrong. Period. And a capital offence (Leviticus 20:10).
Although our culture does not in any way equate the two, the Jewish mind would, as they both had the same severe penalty.
So, again, what Jesus is talking about here is attacking the sin at its roots.
Jesus talks about lusting after a woman, and says that if we do this, then we have already committed adultery with her in our heart.
That’s pretty radical.
Or is it?
There is a prohibition in the Ten Commandments against coveting (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21), and that included your neighbour’s wife. Jesus broadens it here to cover any woman at all.
Think about the implications of this.
It’s estimated that the porn industry is worth $1.1 billion in the US alone, and that approximately 37% (over a third) of the internet is taken up with porn.
Every single cent and every single bit of that is geared towards profiting from lust – mostly male lust.
David’s sin with Bathsheba was bad enough (2 Samuel 11:1-4). Now that same sin is repeated in billions of households across the world, in gadgets so small we can put them in our pockets.
And this crime of lust and adultery is like a drug that sucks you in deeper and deeper. These days perversions take place that turn our stomachs and make us sick, all because of lust.
Do you see now why Jesus says to cut it off at the root?
That’s why His teaching on sin is so apparently ruthless. He is not saying that we should literally mutilate ourselves to avoid temptation. What He is saying is that we should be utterly ruthless with the pathways that lead us to its door. That is how we stay well clear of the capital sins of both murder and adultery.
However, His third sin here is utterly shocking for our culture and requires further examination.
Firstly, marriage in the Bible is only ever between people of different genders (Genesis 2:24). There are no verses that can be used to support any other model for marriage.
When we talk about Biblical marriage, we are talking about between one man and one woman.
We must also be aware that we are not talking about the 21st century here. This prohibition was given in 1st century Israel. Marriage was very, very different then.
Women didn’t work and so often had no source of income on their own. They also had much fewer rights: a man could divorce a woman by writing her a certificate of divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1 – and even this is progressive compared to Sharia law, where a man can divorce his wife by simply saying ‘I divorce you’ three times.
This led to entirely abusive situations where men could plunge their wives into abject poverty with the stroke of a pen.
What Jesus is dead against here is not leaving an abusive or unfaithful marriage, but the plainly misogynist interpretation of Jewish law that left women vulnerable and destitute.
This interpretation shocked and surprised the disciples (Matthew 19:3-12).
However, the vision of marriage as a partnership based on love and not a business transaction gave rise to its elevation to its status as an image of Christ’s relationship of love with the church (Ephesians 5:21-33; Revelation 21:9-14).
So yes, it is clear that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:13-16). He hates it because it is not part of His plan for His people. He hates it because it is a violent tool, a blunt instrument, and, in Jesus’ day, something that caused immense harm. He hates it because it is not what marriage is for.
But there are, albeit rare, circumstances when it should be permitted.
I see no coincidence that Jesus added these few verses to teaching on murder/hatred/anger and adultery/lust. Aren’t these reasons why divorces take place? Like the teaching in these verses, shouldn’t we first try to resolve our issues instead of pressing the button and breaking apart those whom God has brought together?
Because this is Jesus’ point. His Kingdom is based on loving God and our neighbour.
Someone who loves does not harm.
So hatred, lust and divorce ought to be far from the front of our minds.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, these are incredibly challenging, highly counter-cultural words. Help me to apply them to my life and to be ruthless with the sources of temptation that would lead me astray. Help me to be faithful – first and foremost to you. Amen.
Questions
1. How can you prevent yourself from even being tempted to get angry without justification with someone else, let alone murder them? Reviewing the three elements of acceptable anger, have you ever been angry in this way?
2. How can you ensure that you are never led astray by lust into doing something you will regret?
3. How can you ensure that you don’t get involved in a divorce? What practical advice in these verses does Jesus provide that helps keep a marriage together?
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