Murder and Mental Attitude Sins. Matthew 5:21-26
The issue that we see here is that Jesus is talking about two
different interpretations of the Mosaic Law. He is going to challenge the
interpretation of the Pharisees, an interpretation that is somewhat shallow,
somewhat superficial. In contrast to it He is going to present a divine
viewpoint understanding of the mandates, the prohibitions and positive commands
that are in the Mosaic Law.
What had happened in the history of Israel since the return from
captivity in Babylon is that a desire sprang up among the religious leaders to
figure out some way to keep the people from violating the Mosaic Law. It was
their violation of the Mosaic Law, specifically in the area of idolatry as they
understood it, that led to their expulsion from the land in divine discipline
in 586 BC. So some 200 years after their return from
Babylon, which began in 538, especially during the period from about 250 BC
until the time of Christ, there was the development of what came to be known as
second temple Judaism, Pharisaical theology or rabbinical theology. Their basic
approach was that if there are 613 commandments in the Mosaic Law, then in
order to protect those from violation they would come up with various other
principles where if they weren't violated, then those inner 613 commandments
would not be violated. So they began to construct, as it were by analogy, a
fence of commands around the Mosaic Law. This first fence had been constructed
under second temple Judaism. A second fence was going to be constructed through
Mishnaic theology and Talmudic theology in the period after the destruction of
the temple in AD 70. We are just thinking about the development
of second temple Judaism.
So in one sense the Pharisees were multiplying the commandments.
In one sense they are expanding on the commandments, giving people more and
more regulations so that they could maintain a certain "purity" or
"righteousness". The problem was that the righteousness that they
were promoting, even though they had more and more commandments, was really a
superficial form of righteousness, a form of righteousness that looked merely
on the outside, on external behavior, rather than internal behavior. Jesus
challenges that in six contrastive statements, beginning in verse 21 of this
chapter and going down through the end of the chapter in verse 48.
As we look at this we have to understand the context. The Sermon
on the Mount is notoriously one of the most difficult passages to understand
because on the surface, especially in terms of how some of the terminology has
been translated, it appears to be presenting a works salvation, or at other
times it appears to indicate that a person is required to have certain
perfection before they are saved, or perhaps if they commit certain sins they
can lose their salvation. So we have to understand this context.
As I have been studying this I have realized that going back to
the introduction to this section and we look at the initial sort of prelude to
the sermon, the introduction to the sermon in the beatitudes, that in this main
body of the sermon there is a second introduction, as it were, found in vv.
17-20. I have highlighted a couple of words for emphasis. As Jesus is about to
challenge the rabbinical interpretation of the Law He wants to make it clear up
front that He did not come to destroy the Law or the prophets, but to fulfill.
What we see in the six sections is that He is showing what the true, genuine
fulfillment of the Law is in terms of its true application. But He uses this
terminology here, "I came not to destroy but to fulfill", and He uses
a similar form of the same word in verse 19 where He says, "Whoever
therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments". In verse 17 He
uses the word KATALUO twice, which means to destroy, to demolish, to
annul, to invalidate, to break, to abolish. Those are all various English words
that are used to translate this word KATALUO.
The root verb is LUO. It is intensified by the
addition of the preposition KATA. When we
get to verse 19 He says, "Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of
these commandments". He uses the root word LUO
at that point. But what this does is in terms of the language Jesus is using,
is showing that verse 19 is a direct outgrowth of verse 17. It begins with a
therefore. He is drawing a conclusion from what He has said in vv. 17, 18. So
v. 19 is not running off and talking about some other topic, it is continuing
along the same line. He says, "I didn't come to abolish or destroy
this", but in contrast He gives an example of some who do teach to abolish
or to nullify the commandments of God.
Understanding vv. 19 and 20 helps us to break out the
understanding of what Jesus is saying in vv. 21-48. Verse 19, "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments,
and teaches others {to do} the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches {them,} he shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven." We have covered this but as a reminder, Jesus is
contrasting two different groups. On one hand we have a group that seems to
minimize the application of the Law. They are trying to reduce it to just
something pretty simple and superficial rather than understanding the full
significance and import of the commandments. That really is going to be represented
by the Pharisees, by the Pharisaical teaching. He is not talking about them
individually in terms of their individual salvation status; He is talking about
what they are teaching.
So there is one group minimizing the
interpretation and application of these commandments. They are contrasted with
another group that is fulfilling the commandments. They are doing and teaching
the commandments. They will be called great in the kingdom of God. The first
group, because they are minimizing things, are really giving people excuses and
rationales for why people don't really need to fulfill the Law; they really
don't need to apply it in its true intent in their own lives, they can just
skirt around the edges as it were and not really obey it in its fullest intent.
Notice that Jesus is saying that people
in both of these groups are in the kingdom. What does that mean? That means He
is viewing both of them as having an eternal destiny in the kingdom of
heaven—the millennial messianic kingdom. Both groups are viewed here as
saved. He is not contrasting a group of those who are saved and are fulfilling
the commandments versus those who are not saved. The kind of righteousness that
is covered in v. 20 has to do with experiential righteousness.
This was a major issue in the New
Testament time between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Josephus writes in
Antiquities, Book 13:
What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees
have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their
fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is
that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances
to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are
derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it
is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the
Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace
obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side. But
about these two sects, and that of the Essens, I have treated accurately in the
second book of Jewish affairs.
So Josephus tells us
that there is this tradition, this oral law from the Pharisees, that they are
using as the standard accepted interpretation of Old Testament law.
So Jesus begins: Matthew 5:21 NASB
"You have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be
liable to the court.'"
He is referring
to this body of oral tradition that the Pharisees have been teaching and He is
going to contrast it with His own interpretation which begins in verse 22:
"But I say to you". The Pharisees are minimizing the Law. They are
saying that all you need to do is avoid the literal physical act of murder and
you are okay. It doesn't matter what mental attitude sins are associated with it;
it is just that literal physical act of murder that is wrong. They had
forgotten the point that James later makes in James 2:10 NASB
"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one {point,} he has
become guilty of all." What Jesus is going to point out is that no matter
how minor, no matter how "least" the commandment is, if you violate
it in the most simple, unobtrusive white lie, you are still guilty of violating
the entire Law. When we look at this from the perspective of God's justice we
see that all sin violates God's justice and God's righteousness and whether it
is a relatively minor abridgment of the Law that is as much a violation of the
Law and renders us just as guilty before God as if we have sacrificed our
children on the fiery arms of Molech. What Jesus is pointing put here is that
it is not just the overt sin; it is the mental attitude sins that produce the
overt sin that are the real danger.
NKJV "in danger of the judgment".
The word "judgment" there is simply the word indicating a judgment or
a verdict. It remains to be seen whether this is a divine judgment or the
judgment of a human court. The command that Jesus is referencing here is the
sixth commandment in Exodus 20:13: "You shall not murder". The old KJV translated it, "Thou shalt not kill", and
that has led to a lot of erroneous application. The word in the Hebrew ratsach does
not mean just simply to kill. It refers to homicide, to manslaughter, to
unauthorized taking of human life—unauthorized by the Mosaic Law. The Law
authorizes the taking of human life in certain circumstances. For example, in a
war it is authorized to take the life of the enemy. That was legal in the
Mosaic Law. It is legal to take the life of someone who is seeking to take your
life. Self-defence is grounded in the Mosaic Law and in the Judeo-Christian
heritage. That is the foundation for the second amendment in our bill of rights.
It doesn't give us the right to bear arms; it recognizes that we already have
the right to bear arms and that that right to bear arms shall not be abridged
by any act of Congress. That is grounded in the principle of self-defence,
which has its root not just in the Mosaic Law but before the Mosaic Law it was
legitimate to take the life of one in self-defence. Also it doesn't prohibit
execution for capital crimes. Execution for those who commit capital murder is
grounded in the covenant God made with Noah in Genesis chapter nine.
What about those
who are unjustly condemned? That is really simple. We are dealing with the
principle here. We are dealing with the fact that God is omniscient. Don't you
think that God knew that there would be court cases where innocent people were
wrongly convicted? And yet God in His omniscience and wisdom still delegated
the authority to take human life for capital crimes, so that individual cases
that are tragic are not worthy of negating the law without committing blasphemy
against the basic character and holiness of God.
Jesus is going to contrast the divine viewpoint here: Matthew 5:22 NASB "But I say to you that
everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and
whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the
supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty {enough to go}
into the fiery hell."
"But I say to you" –
emphasizing His own authority. This is one of the signs in Scripture that Jesus
understood that He was fully God. This is one of the things that we are told
here impressed the crowd because no one spoke with the authority that Jesus
spoke. Jesus said, "This is what you have heard the Pharisees say, but I
say to you": setting Himself up as an absolute authority, speaking as if
He is God Himself—and He is.
Angry "without a cause" [NKJV]
– there is a justifiable anger. But Jesus is not dealing with that; He is
dealing with unjustifiable anger. "You good-for-nothing" [raca in NKJV].
Raca is an
Aramaic term and is an insult, a term of derision. It is basically saying: You
are an idiot; you are an empty-headed fool, etc. It was a harsh statement.
"É supreme court" or "council" in NKJV.
The word there is Sanhedrin. "É whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty
{enough to go} into the fiery hell." The word "fool" is MOROS
from where we get our term sophomore [wise fool]. There is no "hell
fire" or "fiery hell" in the Greek. It says, "the Gehenna of
fire" and that is not what appears in most Bible translations and 98 per
cent of Bible dictionaries and commentaries. It is amazing how many people
assert that "hell fire" is what it means, with no evidence
whatsoever. Then there are those who make contentions such as that Gehenna began
to be used as a term for eternal damnation during the inter-Testamental period,
as indicated by a group of writers called the Pseudepigrapha. The trouble is
that 80 per cent of the references used to support that contention, those texts
that are cited, don't even use the word Gehenna. There are only about three that
actually use the word Gehenna and they were probably written much later in the Christian
era and were influenced by a post-Christian second or third-century distortion
than indicating an inter-Testamental belief that would have been commonly
shared with the disciples, with the Jews, when Jesus was talking. There is no
evidence at all that between the use of the term "valley of Hinnom"
in Jeremiah in the Old Testament and the time of Christ that supports the
contention that it had changed its meaning from the historical meaning of a
place of judgment, spiritual failure and divine discipline, to the idea of
eternal damnation. There is no support for it, but people cite things and they
say them but they are just reading a preconceived notion into the
evidence.
So what we see
here is three different situations. You will also hear that there is a
gradation here going through different levels of judgment. In fact, you can
read in some sources that this refers to different levels of adjudication; that
in the first case there is a danger of the judgment. This would be a lower
court reading. "In danger of the council" would be interpreted by
some to be the Sanhedrin, and then the final one is related in all views to
divine discipline from the Supreme Court of heaven.
However when we
look at this, in the first case we have someone who is angry (mental attitude
sin) with a brother without a cause. No human court can ascertain the mental
attitude state of an individual. No human court punishes for your mental
attitude. It is argued that none of these are related to human courts, they are
all talking about divine judgment. In the first case there is someone who is
angry without a cause, and he is in danger of judgment from God. Whoever says
of his brother raca
(that "You are an empty-headed idiot") shall be in danger of the
council. There is not just a human Sanhedrin, there is also the thought of an
ultimate council in the heavens, the council of God, the Trinity. Then the third,
"whoever says, you fool", shall be in danger of the Gehenna of
fire."
So what Jesus is
saying is that if you have a mental attitude sin of hatred toward a brother
that is just as much a violation of the Law and God's righteousness as murder.
So even if the Pharisees have minimized this, that is wrong; that if you are
guilty of the smallest violation of the Law, the least of the commandments, you
are guilty of the whole Law. He is saying that if you are trying to avoid
breaking the Law you have to keep the Law in its fullest extent. Otherwise no
matter what you have done in violation of the Law and no matter how small it
is, you are worthy of divine judgment, just like what happened to Judah from
the worst sins they committed in the Old Testament that led to their
destruction in 586 BC.
What we are
seeing here is perhaps a foreshadowing or hint that of you don't get it right
now by repenting and accepting Jesus as the Messiah and preparing for the
messianic kingdom, another judgment like the one in 586 BC will come. And that, of course, is what happened in
the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in AD
70. Therefore He is saying, as law-breakers even if it is minimalist, you are
no different from those in ancient Judah. The Jews of Jesus' day were in danger
of divine judgment personally and corporately just as the Jews of Jeremiah's
day were judged by God in the valley of Hinnom.
The valley of Hinnom
became known as a site where the worm lived. (The worm is "maggot")
It became a burial site. It was not used in the Old Testament as a reference to
eternal condemnation but as a place of divine discipline on the nation Israel
for their spiritual failure. This is what Jesus is warning: If you don't apply
the Law in its fullness, if you don't fulfill the Law, you won't have the kind
of righteousness necessary for the kingdom. And instead of the kingdom coming
in there will be divine discipline again. He is not threatening eternal
condemnation; He is threatening temporal divine discipline.
Jesus calls the
Pharisees fools in Matthew 23:17. Some people ask: Well, isn't Jesus
contradicting Himself? What He is talking about in Matthew 5:22 is insulting
somebody out of anger where it is motivated by a mental attitude sin. God calls
those who are apostates, those who have rejected truth. "The fool as said
in his heart, there is no God". Jesus uses the term "fool" not
out of a personal mental attitude sin of anger towards the Pharisees, but is
making a theological, doctrinal statement that they have divorced themselves
from reality by rejecting the truth of God's Word and they have become fools
who are spiritually blind.
He then goes on to describe a couple of
examples related to this principle. This is fairly easy to understand, unlike
what we have just looked at.
Matthew 5:23, 24 "Therefore if you
are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother
has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go;
first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your
offering."
This is a principle that we have
studied recently: that we are to seek peace with all people. We are to make
sure that not only do we have a right relationship and fellowship with God, but
also that we maintain a horizontal fellowship with those around us. If at all
possible we should seek peace with all men. So this is a picture of the fact
that if we are going to worship God (in the church age, if we are going to walk
by means of the Spirit) then we need to make sure that we are not giving a
cause of offence to those around us, if possible. Some people just walk around
looking for reasons to be offended. There is nothing we can do about those
kinds of people. But this is where we have created a conflict and we need to
resolve that conflict because as long as that conflict continues it is a sinful
situation.
Matthew 5:25 NASB "Make
friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so
that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the
officer, and you be thrown into prison."
This is a slightly different
circumstance that involves a legal situation and Jesus is using this to
emphasize the importance of making things right quickly, not letting things
fester. Basically you need to settle your grievance out of court and the
offender needs to remove the occasion for the other person's anger. Once you go
before the judge the decision may go against you and you will go through a lot
of red tape, a lot of complications, a lot expense. You need to settle out of
court otherwise the judge may really lower the boom on you.
Matthew 5:26 NASB "Truly I say to you, you will not
come out of there until you have paid up the last cent." The application
is: If you are not going to the Lord to seek forgiveness for sin, and you let
this continue and fester, then the long term consequences in terms of divine
discipline will be much worse than if you had settled accounts, both by resolving
the problem with your brother as well as resolving it before God through
confession of sin.
So the principle that we see in these
two examples is the same principle that we have from the Old Testament in Psalm
66:18 NASB "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will
not hear". Just because you are a nice person doesn't mean God is going to
hear your prayers. Just because you are a Christian doesn't mean God is going
to hear your prayers. If we have sin in our life that is unconfessed then Scripture
is very clear that God will not hear our prayers.