Matthew 5:27-32 Diagnosis Adultery

This song was shown just before the sermon and ties in at the end:

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, we have been looking at how Jesus treats the law. As he said in Matthew 5:17-20, he did not come to set aside the law, but instead he came to fulfill it—not to relax it, but to teach it. Last week we saw how Jesus points to the heart of the commandment not to murder, and he shows how all of us are guilty if we have just been angry—just called someone a fool. 

In today’s passage, Jesus continues to tear down any vestige of self-righteousness we may cling to. In Matthew 5:27-32 Jesus points to the heart of the 6^th commandment—“You shall not commit adultery.”

Let’s look at our text:

27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'

 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

 31 "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'

 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Jesus continues in the same pattern we saw last week. He says to us, “You have heard that it was said…, but I say to you…” Jesus didn’t teach like the other rabbis. The other rabbis would say, “Rabbi Ben Judah says…, Rabbi Ben David says…, Rabbi Hillel says…, Rabbi Shammai says….” But no rabbi would dare to speak with the authority that Jesus did.

The First Diagnosis:

As Jesus speaks to the issue of adultery, he does the same thing that he did with murder. “You think you’re doing well because you’ve never killed anybody? Have you ever been angry?” Today we hear Jesus saying to us, “You think you’re doing well because you have never physically committed adultery, have you ever looked at a woman you aren’t married to with an impure thought?” Again, Jesus points us to the heart of the matter. Our physical actions matter, but they aren’t enough. There may be greater temporal consequences in this life for physically acting out, but in the heart, they both deserve the same punishment.

Now, let’s take a step back so we can be clear what Jesus is talking about. What is adultery? We often assume that adultery is merely a violation of marital vows—that it is extramarital relations with someone who is married. So, some might think that if they aren’t married, they don’t have to worry about anything. However, the command was never intended to be so narrowly defined, and if we define adultery so narrowly we are guilty of reading the commandment the same way the Pharisees did. Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 22-24 already expanded the definition of adultery to include all manner of sexual immorality.

When Jesus is asked about marriage and divorce in Matthew 19, he points us to the creation of human beings in Genesis 2. God’s plan for marriage—from the beginning—has always been that a man and woman would leave the households of their parents, be united in marriage, and be totally committed and faithful to each other with no rivals. So, if we want to know what adultery is, we must first see what God’s plan for marriage is. We find that in the Scripture reading from this morning in Genesis 2—

         “A man and a woman united as one flesh for life with no rivals.”

So, any deviation from God’s original plan is adultery.

This includes:

Sex before marriage—this is usually called by the name fornication; however, it is included as a violation of God’s plan for human sexuality.

Sex with someone who is married to someone else.

Sex after marriage with anyone other than your spouse.

Same sex relations

Incest

Pedophilia

And others.

All of these acts fall outside of God’s original plan for marriage and human sexuality and are condemned by the sixth commandment.

So, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall not commit adultery,” but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart.”

Jesus does not relax this command from the Old Testament, he restores it to God’s original intention. God is not just concerned with our outward actions, but with our hearts. So, just as Jesus said someone who hates his brother or calls him a fool deserves the same punishment as the law requires for murder, so anyone who has a lustful thought carries the same guilt as the one who has acted out in an adulterous way.

Jesus expands our definition of adultery even more. It now includes:

Wondering eyes that are looking for a woman to entice them.

Any impure thought about anyone of the opposite sex or the same.

Pornography of all kinds

         Magazines

         Movies

         Pictures

         Phone calls

Not just what would be obviously recognized as pornography, but we are surrounded by material in mainstream movies and on television, and even advertisements that use sex to try to sell us everything from a new car to a hamburger.

Each of these things are violations of God’s plan for human sexuality and they are dehumanizing. It dehumanizes both the one filled with lust, and the person who they lust after. First, God did not design us to gratify our lusts. He designed us to worship him. When we lust we leave behind the purpose and intention that God made us or. Then, as lust wraps its clutches around a person they begin to see human beings who were created in the image of God as merely objects to gratify their lusts. It damages our capacity for true meaningful relationships, because it warps our view of other people. Instead of a person to be loved, lust causes us to see people as commodities to be used.

The First Prescription:    

In the passage about murder, Jesus followed up his teaching with a remedy. In the case of hatred, Jesus commands us to be reconciled. He says that being reconciled is so important to him that he doesn’t want to see our hypocritical acts of worship until we are reconciled to one another.

Jesus does the same thing with adultery. He diagnoses the disease, and he gives us a prescription: Jesus demands drastic measures.

Jesus says: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

Jesus is saying to us, whatever it is that causes us to sin—get rid of it. Some would say that Jesus is just exaggerating here. They think he’s stating something drastic just to make a point but doesn’t really mean it literally. I don’t agree. Now hear me out before someone goes and pokes their eye out. If it were our eyes or our hands that caused us to sin, then Jesus is literally telling us that it would be better to go through life with one eye or one hand than to go to hell with our whole bodies—that is absolutely true! But it isn’t our eye or our hand that causes us to sin! It’s our hearts!

That doesn’t lessen the force of what Jesus is saying. He warns us that heaven and hell are on the line. We cannot hold on to our sin and coddle it like a pet. We have to take drastic measures. We have to put our sin to death.

Jesus may be calling you to do something drastic to save your own life.

Maybe he’s telling you to get rid of your cable TV.

Maybe he’s telling you to get rid of your computer or smart phone.

Maybe he’s telling you that you need to break off a relationship.

Maybe he’s telling you to get married.

You may answer, “you don’t know what you’re saying. I need cable TV so I can keep up with what’s going on in the world. I need my computer or smart phone so I can keep in touch with all my Facebook friends. I can’t break off this relationship, we’re in love. I can’t get married yet. I need to get a stable job first.”

         Jesus says, “Would you rather go to hell?”

You may ask, “are you saying I can lose my salvation?” No. I believe that when a person truly trusts in Christ they are changed and they don’t want to do those things anymore. We want to follow Jesus. We may fall into sin for a time, but our disposition is to repent. We don’t defend our sin and say that it’s ok. If you defend your sin against what Jesus is saying here then you don’t really believe the Gospel. The doorway into the Gospel, into being a Christian at all, is that we admit that it is wrong and deserving of condemnation. When believers who have fallen into sin hear the voice of Jesus saying this to them, they will respond with repentance. If they don’t they can have no comfort or assurance that they belong to Jesus.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.” If you don’t obey what Jesus is saying, how can you have any assurance that you are one of his sheep? We know that Jesus says that there will be many who will say one day, “Lord, Lord, I did miracles in your name.” And Jesus will tell them “depart from me you workers of iniquity, I never knew you.”

Jesus is pleading with all of us. Whether it is lust, or some other sin. Let go of your idol! Listen to me! Put your sin to death!

This doesn’t stop when we become Christians. It continues throughout our lives, and if we aren’t actively at work putting our sin to death, I promise you it is actively at work killing you.

The Second Diagnosis:

Now, some may stop the sermon here because Jesus moves from talking about lust to talking about divorce, but I’m going to address both parts today because both are talking about adultery.

After Jesus address the heart matter of lust, he turns to technicalities in the law. Jesus says, “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” This quote would have been a summary of the tradition based in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. The passage isn’t actually giving permission for divorce, so much as it is regulating it. Divorce seems to be assumed in a broken world. This is what it says:

1 When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

 2 and if she goes and becomes another man's wife,

 3 and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife,

 4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.

As you can tell when you read the passage, Moses is not so much allowing divorce as he is regulating it. It was assumed, because we live in a broken world, that sin would be introduced into a marriage relationship and divorce would often be inevitable. What Moses does in this passage is he gives a regulation to prevent a loophole for adultery. Basically, he’s saying you can’t get a temporary divorce so you can go have a relationship with someone else and then go back to your first spouse.

This goes along with how Jesus addresses the question later in Matthew 19. There he says that Moses “permitted divorce” but it wasn’t so from the beginning. Rather, it was allowed because of the hardness of people’s hearts.

So, divorce is included in Jesus’ list of what constitutes adultery. That is: Any deviation from God’s original plan of one man and one woman in covenant fidelity for the duration of a lifetime.

Jesus goes on. He says, “I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

The reason Jesus says that a man who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery is that it is assumed that the woman would remarry. In the economic situation of the day, it would be necessary for her to remarry just to survive. So, Jesus is saying that if she remarries, both her and the man she marries are committing adultery.

Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. There are a multitude of questions that this raises. What about an innocent person who was left because of the sin of their spouse. I am not saying that if you have been through a divorce that you are now committing adultery and that you should leave your spouse. Please don’t hear me or Jesus saying that. Rather, Jesus is revealing to us that this is yet another deviation from God’s original plan for marriage.

I think we can all agree with this intuitively.

No one begins their marriage planning to get a divorce. When we get married, we have all the hopes and dreams that we will spend the rest of our lives with the person we marry, that we will raise children together, that we will grow old together, and that we will be committed to that person. Divorce, just as lust, is a deviation from God’s plan.

We live in a broken world. God created man and woman in the beginning for paradise, yet we have all sinned. We have all earned death. We live in a world of sickness, pain, sorrow, broken bodies, and broken relationships. God’s design was for marriage between one man and one woman for a lifetime of fidelity, and yet God’s plan is distorted from even one impure thought, and oftentimes by things that are totally out of our control.

The Second Prescription:

We are all broken people. Whether you have cheated on your spouse, or merely entertained a lustful thought, no one who has lived past puberty has perfectly lived up to God’s original design for marriage.

That has been Jesus’ point as we go through each part of this section of the Sermon on the Mount. You haven’t murdered anyone. Have you held a grudge? Do you think you are righteous because you have never physically committed adultery? Think again. We have all sinned. We have all fallen short of the Glory of God, and there is but one remedy. Throw yourself on Jesus! He is the only remedy for the sin sick soul.

What Jesus makes clear in the passage we look at today, Paul says in Romans 3:21-25a:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it--

 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:

 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

 We are all sinners and we cannot keep the law. We are all guilty. We have all broken the commandments. But Jesus came and demonstrated God’s righteousness. He lived out every letter for us. He freely gives it to all who believe in Jesus. God counts us righteous as a gift—not something we earn through good works—but something that Jesus bought with his Blood. He satisfied the wrath of God that we deserve, and all we must do is believe.

So, for those of us who are believers here, let us again stand in amazement that God would give his only son for us. As the song we listened to before the sermon said, “The heart of a man is a maze within. So come light the way, illuminate sin. Nothing’s concealed, all is revealed. Jesus I yield to you.” It is a good thing in a believer’s life when he shines his light on us and illuminates our sin. Because for believers it ought to never cover us with shame. Rather, it makes us fall all the more in love with Jesus for what he has done for us.

For anyone here today who has not trusted in Christ, you will not escape God’s wrath apart from faith in him. Flee to Christ. Trust in him who gave himself for you. Turn away from your idol and embrace Jesus.

Listen to some more words from the song we heard before. “I was condemned under Your law. Rightly, I stood accused. I felt my need, my conscience agreed. I was without excuse.” Do you feel it? Do you feel the weight of the law? Apart from running to Jesus it will crush you. Look to Jesus. Say to Jesus with the words of that song, “Oh holy Judge, here is my heart. What can I say to you? I will not run, I will not hide. I know I’m safe with you.”

Matthew 5:21-26 Diagnosis Murder

Two weeks ago, we looked at Jesus teaching about the Old Testament. Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. He did not come to throw out the Old Testament as if it were obsolete, but he was what they pointed to all along. In that passage, Jesus said that whoever relaxed the least of the commandments would be counted least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In today’s text, Jesus begins to correct our misunderstanding of the law. In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows that the way that the Pharisees read the Law was insufficient. He goes back to the ten commandments and tells us how rather than being relaxed, they are ratcheted up. He says, “you have heard that it was said…, but I say to you…” in a series of six statements. Today we will look at the first.

Let’s look at our text:

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 

22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 

23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,

24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 

25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 

26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Jesus begins, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ His hearers were familiar with what it said. You shall not murder was found in the ten commandments in Exodus 20:13 and in Deuteronomy 5:17. As Jesus statement continues, he says, “whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” The later part of the verse refers to the consequences that are spelled out in the Old Testament for murder. And what are those consequences? Genesis 9:6 tells us that “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God mad man in his own image.” Clearly the Old Testament taught that the only appropriate consequence for murder was capital punishment. The reasoning for this is based in the fact that human beings are created in God’s image. Human beings are of inestimable value because we are made in God’s image and we were made to reflect God’s glory. To lash out in attack on a human being made in God’s image is to lash out in attack on God. Therefore, to murder another human being was the most serious crime and could only be justly punished by the most serious penalty—capital punishment.

It is not hard to understand this command. It is basic; it is clear. As it is written in the 10 commandments it contains no elaboration. It is simply, “You shall not murder.” This is accurately translated as murder and not as “you shall not kill.” There is a difference between murder and killing, and in Hebrew there is a different word for both. Within the 10 commandments, it does not use the word for merely killing, but it uses the word for murder—the deliberate and unjust taking of a human life. The Old Testament recognized that there were forms of killing that did not constitute murder. For instance, when soldiers fight in battle and kill, that is not considered murder, and when the rightful governing authorities carry out capital punishment, that is not murder either.

The only problem we have with this passage is that it is so clear, and it is so basic, that we are prone to read it just like the Pharisees did. We read it as though all it refers to are the actual physical actions of carrying out murder. Most of us, can sit back and say, “I’ve never killed anybody,” and we feel justified. We hear the command, “you shall not murder,” and we feel morally superior. “See…! I’m a good person. I’ve obeyed that command.” It is in our nature, that when we hear the commands that we have obeyed to begin to be filled with pride…to begin to feel as if we are better than those who have not. Just as Jesus turns our idea of happiness on its head, so he turns our image of goodness on its head.

Jesus finishes the thought he began in the previous verse. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder…,’ but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

With these words, Jesus dashes all our hopes of self-righteousness. We can be puffed up with pride and think that we are good, but Jesus shows us that we are not so good as we thought we were. While human beings look at the outside…at external actions and behavior, Jesus looks at the thoughts and the hidden recesses of our hearts. Jesus says to us, “You think you’re good. Have you ever been angry at someone? Have you ever called someone a blockhead—like Charlie Brown? Have you ever had anger rise up within you and you call someone a moron?” Jesus tells us that all these things fundamentally deserve the same punishment as murder. Jesus teaches us that the root of murder is anger within our hearts.

Sins are not content to be small. Every sin that we have dwelling in our hearts seeks to get out; they seek to be expressed in the greatest way that they can get us to act on. While we may think that our annoyance with someone is only a small sin, if it is allowed to fester and grow, and if we do not recognize it for what it is, our sin would take us all the way to our graves, and all the way to Hell.

We may think we are alright because our sins are small, or because our sins are more socially acceptable, but Jesus is speaking to us here a word of warning. He is warning us that carelessly calling someone a hurtful name can send us straight to Hell!

Jesus continues with an application: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

What Jesus is teaching us here is that reconciliation between one another is more important than our acts of worship. This is not new with Jesus teaching. It is rooted in the Old Testament as well. For instance, Isaiah chapter one says:

 11 "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

 12 "When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?

 13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,

 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

 18 "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

 19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

God hates hypocritical worship. What he primarily wanted in the Old Testament wasn’t sacrifices and offerings, but a contrite heart. The people in Isaiah’s day thought they could just keep on bringing their sacrifices and just keep on having their appointed festivals and feasts as if everything was ok, even though they were guilty of evil deeds. The LORD said to them that he hides his eyes from their worship so that he doesn’t even see it. The things the people were doing to appease God’s wrath wasn’t doing any good at all—rather, it was making it worse. He says “Your offerings and incense are an abomination to me.”

This isn’t because God didn’t require a sacrifice or offerings. They were doing exactly what they were told in the Law to do, but they were doing it as hypocrites. They were doing religious activities, but God saw their hearts.

And so for us, when we come to worship God and we have anger, bitterness, and resentment toward others, God will not see our worship. In fact, it makes our sin all the worse. We stand and sing the songs, and maybe raise our hands—and when we harbor resentment within our hearts all that religious activity just makes God even more angry with us. We put money in an offering plate to contribute to the needs of the church and to the cause of missions throughout the world, but if we stubbornly refuse to reconcile with another, we are only giving God hypocritical worship.

So, what does Jesus say to do? Drop your gift at the altar and go be reconciled to your brother. This is what the Christian will do. This is what it takes to obey the voice of Jesus. God wants us to be reconciled to each other more than he wants our worship.

Now I’m going to start meddling. What is it that people often do when they get personally offended in church? 1. We often do things like gossip. We spread it around, and we say “Did you hear what this person did? Can you believe that? I can’t believe he calls himself a Christian.” 2. Or we get upset and leave. You think of the past in this church. Think of all the people who were personally offended over one thing or another, and rather than be reconciled, they just left. They may have moved on to another church, but as long as they harbor anger toward people that offended them they are guilty of hypocritical worship. When you get upset, the thing to do isn’t to leave, it’s to be reconciled.

Jesus says to us, if you get upset with people, don’t gossip, don’t leave—be reconciled. Go to the person and talk it out. Maybe it was a misunderstanding? Usually it’s selfishness. We want our way so much that we are willing to disrupt our relationships with our brothers and sisters and in the process, we cut our connection with Him.

Then Jesus continues: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

There is a principle that things will go better for us if we admit our own faults openly instead of waiting for them to be exposed by someone else. My family and I were watching Leave it to Beaver this week, and one of the episodes illustrates this point. Wally and Beaver were left at home alone over night while Ward and June were going away for a business retreat. While they were alone, Beaver left the water running in the bathtub and it flooded over. Not only did it get all over the floor, but it came through the floor and came through the plaster ceiling and onto the kitchen floor downstairs. They cleaned up the mess so that it was barely noticeable, but the water coming through had weakened the plaster. When they were at the dinner table the next day they heard a crash and when they went to check what it was they saw that they ceiling had fell in. Wally and Beaver were then left with a choice, they could admit that it was their fault, or they could conceal it. They felt the weight of the choice and chose to tell the truth themselves rather than to let their father think that it was some other cause. You can imagine, the consequences that they faced, having told the truth, were lighter than they would have if they had concealed the truth and been found out later.

This illustrates a spiritual principle. There is a judgment coming when all of our sins will be revealed. Everything that we have ever done will be laid bare for all to see and we will answer to God for every careless word we have ever said. We will even answer for any time that we may have simply called someone a fool. God knows all things. He doesn’t just know what we have done and said, but he knows the thoughts and the intentions of our hearts.

With this judgment in mind, we have a choice, we can confess our sins now, repent, and accept the free gift of God’s forgiveness. Or, we can conceal our sin. We can put on a good image. We can show up at church and put on a good show before people, all the while hiding our hypocrisy and storing up greater wrath on our sins.

You can say to yourself, “I’ve never killed anyone.” You can feel good, prideful, and superior to those who have, but remember that God sees through our actions to our hearts. He sees that if we do harbor anger toward our brother, the only thing that separates us from someone who has murdered is that we fear what people will think, or we fear the external consequences. We are all guilty. We are all sinners. There is none righteous—no not one.

Look unto Jesus, for he has reconciled us to God. Only believe on him and his death can be counted as payment for your sins. 

(Preached on May 21, 2017)