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Matthew 5:27-30 Adultery of the heart
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17-06-2020 8:40am#1We're continuing the series in Matthew. The latest in the series can be found here, the first in the series can be found here.Matthew 5:27-30 wrote: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.
Jesus is continuing in the Sermon of the Mount that we began with in chapter 5. Jesus has been outlining what that means for us to "exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees". Jesus has been showing us the heart issues that lie behind the law that He wants us to explore. In the last passage we were thinking about anger and how that is the murder of the heart. Today we're thinking about lustfulness and how that is the adultery of the heart.
In the Ten Commandments God's people were told that they should not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14) but Jesus raises the bar. We can commit adultery in our hearts by lusting after others (verse 28).
You can also see how Jesus takes sin very seriously, even going to the point of saying that it may be worth losing an eye or an arm in order to stop us from sinning. Jesus highlights our disparity in how we view our sin. Sin is more serious than we think it is.
It is also worth pointing out here that both in this passage and in the last passage Jesus refers to hell and judgement. Our sin and rebellion can bring us there, hence why Jesus urges us to repent (4:17). Jesus is the one who will save us from our sins (1:21) and from this judgement. We'll see how that unfolds as we work through more of Matthew in the coming days and weeks.
Thoughts for prayer:
Father thank you for showing us that our sin is more serious than we think it is. Thank you for showing us the heart reality behind our sins. Please help us to resist temptation in this area and please help us to run to you in repentance and faith given that you are the one who will rescue us from our sins. Help us to treasure what you treasure and hate what you hate.0
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theological wrote: »We're continuing the series in Matthew. The latest in the series can be found here, the first in the series can be found here.
Jesus is continuing in the Sermon of the Mount that we began with in chapter 5. Jesus has been outlining what that means for us to "exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees". Jesus has been showing us the heart issues that lie behind the law that He wants us to explore. In the last passage we were thinking about anger and how that is the murder of the heart. Today we're thinking about lustfulness and how that is the adultery of the heart.
In the Ten Commandments God's people were told that they should not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14) but Jesus raises the bar. We can commit adultery in our hearts by lusting after others (verse 28).
You can also see how Jesus takes sin very seriously, even going to the point of saying that it may be worth losing an eye or an arm in order to stop us from sinning. Jesus highlights our disparity in how we view our sin. Sin is more serious than we think it is.
It is also worth pointing out here that both in this passage and in the last passage Jesus refers to hell and judgement. Our sin and rebellion can bring us there, hence why Jesus urges us to repent (4:17). Jesus is the one who will save us from our sins (1:21) and from this judgement. We'll see how that unfolds as we work through more of Matthew in the coming days and weeks.
Thoughts for prayer:
Father thank you for showing us that our sin is more serious than we think it is. Thank you for showing us the heart reality behind our sins. Please help us to resist temptation in this area and please help us to run to you in repentance and faith given that you are the one who will rescue us from our sins. Help us to treasure what you treasure and hate what you hate.
I think Jesus isn't suggesting we actually cut our hands off or pluck out our eyes. Although there will doubtlesly be a blind, one handed cult out there somewhere.
Sin infects us totally - and he has covered a number of bases: mind (as instigator of sin), hands (a symbol of the executor of sin, the physical body) and eyes, the organ through which 80% of our information comes from, with which we conceive of sin.
Since he speaks of our having to kill these elements and since we are infected throughout, it follows that he is saying that we must in fact, kill our entire self.
Whilst he might save us, the killing of self must come from us. He isn't going to cut off our hand for us. A not unimportant point.
Another piece in the overall puzzle as to our core problem: self direction. By killing our entire self, the entirety of our problem, self direction dies.
Upon which, we are born again. You must be born again but in order to be born again you must first die. Else there'd be two of you!
Spiritually speaking of course. Paul confirms this in Romans. "You died to sin..." he says to those who have been born again.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »I think Jesus isn't suggesting we actually cut our hands off or pluck out our eyes. Although there will doubtlesly be a blind, one handed cult out there somewhere.
I agree that it is hyperbolic language, but it is important not to water down what He is saying too early. It is intentionally extreme, but He is serious about sin. Sin is so destructive that we should nearly think to these extremes in our desire to repent and be transformed by Christ.0 -
theological wrote: »I agree that it is hyperbolic language, but it is important not to water down what He is saying too early. It is intentionally extreme, but He is serious about sin. Sin is so destructive that we should nearly think to these extremes in our desire to repent and be transformed by Christ.
I didn't water down what he said, I took what said, drew the obvious conclusion of it and in doing so, went super hyperbolic: kill yourself. Not just cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye.
To cut off your hand is to repent of what your hand can do. To cut off yourself is to repent entire. Or just repent - for he doesn't say to repent in part.
Nobody desires to cut off their hand. You do so when the consequences of not doing so are so disturbing and so painful that it's the only option left.
Ditto cutting off self. Which is cutting off self direction.
No desire to be transformed by Jesus is required. Occam's Razor would say the the desparation brought about by what your hand or entire self does is sufficient to produce the cutting off.
If you've heard of Jesus you might hope he will provide an alternative when and if you do. But since you have no evidence that he will (for how can you believe he will without evidence that he will - a few words on a page to the natural man does not constitute evidence) you are making a leap of blind faith regarding that element.
But since you don't have to have heard of Jesus to be saved, you only need to believe God, that's not all that relevant.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »I didn't water down what he said, I took what said, drew the obvious conclusion of it and in doing so, went super hyperbolic: kill yourself. Not just cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye.
I didn't say that you did water it down, but it is possible for us to do it. What I'm saying is that we shouldn't jump too quickly to point out that it is hyperbolic because we need to sit in the extremity of the language and consider it.antiskeptic wrote: »But since you don't have to have heard of Jesus to be saved, you only need to believe God, that's not all that relevant.
I think you're wrong here, but you ought to start a new thread as to why you suggest that we don't need to believe in Jesus to be saved at this point in salvation history.0 -
theological wrote: »I didn't say that you did water it down, but it is possible for us to do it. What I'm saying is that we shouldn't jump too quickly to point out that it is hyperbolic because we need to sit in the extremity of the language and consider it.
Well hopefully Matthew comes to determine it hyperbolic. For if it does not then we have little choice but to take him literally!
Since all our limbs and senses can be put to sinful use, there's a lot of cutting to be done (if your prepared to even go so far as to expand Jesus' amputation recommendation to all the bits of us that can be deployed in the service of sin).
NB: for all you men out there, we might have to extend to amputation to a particularly troublesome organ of ours in the sin-stakes.
You might keep this item in mind as you work your way through. Failing a Matthew-internal resolution, and without that, the necessity to start amputating all and sundry, we might come to view to worth of this non systematic approach of yours.
ThI think you're wrong here, but you ought to start a new thread as to why you suggest that we don't need to believe in Jesus to be saved at this point in salvation history.
Believing in Jesus (as commonly understood: in a man with that name who died on a cross. The person around whom this phenomenon, which the world since him has come to know as 'Christianity', is constructed) ...and believing in Jesus are two different things. He is the Truth. If you believe the Truth (and that statement comes with T&C's) then you believe in Jesus. You can believe in the Truth, without ever having heard a particular one of his many names (i.e. Jesus Christ). Any of his name's will do.
As for 'this point in salvation history'. That is a construct which suggests there is such a thing - that salvation is wrought in anyway differently now than it ever was. That is something you are assuming and isn't something I would be granting. I mean believing in God (Abraham) and believing in Jesus (say yourself). There isn't a difference, is there?0 -
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antiskeptic wrote: »Believing in Jesus (as commonly understood: in a man with that name who died on a cross. The person around whom this phenomenon, which the world since him has come to know as 'Christianity', is constructed) ...and believing in Jesus are two different things. He is the Truth. If you believe the Truth (and that statement comes with T&C's) then you believe in Jesus. You can believe in the Truth, without ever having heard a particular one of his many names (i.e. Jesus Christ). Any of his name's will do.
As for 'this point in salvation history'. That is a construct which suggests there is such a thing - that salvation is wrought in anyway differently now than it ever was. That is something you are assuming and isn't something I would be granting. I mean believing in God (Abraham) and believing in Jesus (say yourself). There isn't a difference, is there?
Again, I'd invite you to set up a thread about why you disagree with this method, or why you think the Bible isn't a progressive revelation. I.E That God speaks and as we learn more about Him we learn more about what He is like and how to respond to Him.0 -
theological wrote: »Again, I'd invite you to set up a thread about why you disagree with this method, or why you think the Bible isn't a progressive revelation. I.E That God speaks and as we learn more about Him we learn more about what He is like and how to respond to Him.
I'm not sure what the method is. You seem to want to let Matthew reveal what Matthew reveals on its own terms - no illumination or connection with scripture outside what we have covered already. You say we should go a study Romans for example, when I drew a connection between something in Matthew and something in Romans.
Yet you make constant reference to ideas that can only be obtained from non-Matthew scriptures. What is this method by which you refer to outside scriptures when you like and exclude outside scriptures when you like?
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Progressive revelation is one thing: more knowledge about the same thing is progressive revelation. Supposing there are two kinds of salvation: one not requiring (or being able to require belief in Christ on a cross), the other requiring it .. is an altogether different matter.
You are building your view based on this assumption of two salvations. Now you either do suppose two different modes of salvation or you don't. If not then you cannot sustain belief in "Christ on a cross" or "God who died for our sins" or all the other modern day variations on what is necessary for salvation as what is required.
Progressive revelation not equal to salvation progressing from one to another method.0 -
I've answered the question on when do we bring other Scriptures in on another thread. When I'm reading this passage, I want to understand how this passage works and what I can learn from this passage. That's the difference between Biblical theology and systematic theology.
Systematic theology would be "What does the Bible say about X?". Biblical theology is "What does this passage say to its hearers then, and to me today?".
I'm not going to go over this topic repeatedly. I understand you don't like this method. But I think it'd be better to contribute with a spirit of coming to a better understanding of what the this passage says and who Jesus is.0 -
theological wrote: »Systematic theology would be "What does the Bible say about X?". Biblical theology is "What does this passage say to its hearers then, and to me today?".
As explained in my recent reply, it isn't clear how this can work. His hearers then aren't necessarily believers. You are. What you hear is informed by other scripture. Those hearers not so informed. My contention is that Jesus is engaging in "law as a schoolteacher" work. Setting the bar impossibly high befitting that work. That is how hearers then, who don't have the benefit of our insights will take what he says - certainly, seeing as they haven't even got the tiny, ill-defined morsel of "savior" at their disposal as they sit listening.
Do imagine the scene. You are following Jesus for whatever reason. He is attractive, he speaks of things that nobody ever speaks about, he stands up to the Pharisees, the hypocrisy of whom people know of but are too frightened to speak out loud about, there is a buzz about him - he is said to perform wonders...
And so you follow. And find yourself at his feet on the mount. And he starts talking about the high bar being even higher.
What would you conclude, in all reasonableness?I'm not going to go over this topic repeatedly. I understand you don't like this method. But I think it'd be better to contribute with a spirit of coming to a better understanding of what the this passage says and who Jesus is.
What this passage say is either informed by scripture/knowing God/being a Christian. Or it is not. If it is, then you have to let scripture inform you. If not then you read it on it's own merits and draw a works salvation conclusion.
My criticism of your method arise more from a confusion as to your method. Do we park what we know at the door and read it as newbies (and conclude a works salvation). Or do we bring what we know with us and let that inform us as we read (and conclude Jesus' strategy to be "law as a schoolteacher". For we cannot escape the references to 'perform or else', but we know from elsewhere there is a way that deals with the fact we cannot perform).0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »As explained in my recent reply, it isn't clear how this can work. His hearers then aren't necessarily believers. You are. What you hear is informed by other scripture. Those hearers not so informed. My contention is that Jesus is engaging in "law as a schoolteacher" work. Setting the bar impossibly high befitting that work. That is how hearers then, who don't have the benefit of our insights will take what he says - certainly, seeing as they haven't even got the tiny, ill-defined morsel of "savior" at their disposal as they sit listening.
Easily, easily. We use what we've seen so far to build up what Matthew the author is conveying to use by how he has arranged his material. It is a text with design. It is arranged material.
It is not informed by Scripture outside of Matthew because we've seen this earlier in the gospel.
I agree with you that His hearers only know so much about Jesus at this stage in the gospel, but they are referred to as His disciples in 5:1 and they are following Him. Jesus is explaining to them what a life following Him looks like.antiskeptic wrote: »And so you follow. And find yourself at his feet on the mount. And he starts talking about the high bar being even higher.
What would you conclude, in all reasonableness?
You conclude that it is a bloody tall order given what you know about your nature, and you know deep inside that you cannot keep it on your own. You feel a tension at this stage an unresolved tension between 1. we are called to an immensely high standard and 2. that this is an impossible standard to reach humanly.
This tension is OK at this stage.antiskeptic wrote: »What this passage say is either informed by scripture/knowing God/being a Christian. Or it is not. If it is, then you have to let scripture inform you. If not then you read it on it's own merits and draw a works salvation conclusion.
I disagree with you. I'm only using what I've heard in Matthew so far to come to this conclusion at this stage.0 -
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