I have been reading over Matthew 5:27-32 very slowly, over and over, studying this section of the Sermon on the Mount concerning lust and divorce for the purpose of tracing out the prepositions for my New Testament I class.
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.
My friend and fellow seminarian Jeremy shared about the issues at hand earlier. When I was tracing these verses, what I realized was a pain-staking truth that I had never seen before. My spiritual lightbulb finally turned on immediately out of nowhere:
We can be completely blind, and amputated — and yet we can still commit adultery.
Indeed, if Jesus truly saw that literal mutilations and amputations would be able to rid us of evil, lustful and adulterous behavior, then he would have commanded us to do so. But Christ did not command us to do so, nor do we have any churches today — orthodox or heterodox — that calls its members to do so. Hence, the supposed command in verse 29-30 is a hyperbole that should scream at us to awaken us to the truth that the problem is in our hearts: “The root of sin lies in the heart, not in sense organs or limbs” (Doriani, 66).
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