Matthew 5:21-48

In these verses Jesus deals with what the people have heard that the Law meant. Sometimes what they had heard that the Law meant is what the Law meant, and sometimes it’s only what they heard that it meant.

Therefore, when Jesus is negating, he is generally negating their opinion of what the Old Testament said. “But I say unto you,” reveals his matchless authority, but more, he is authoritatively pointing to the real direction toward which the Old Testament points.

We Must Be Careful with Anger

Matthew 5: 21–26: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’

The word here is literally murder or assassinate. It does not simply mean kill in general but murder. The reference is to Exodus 20:13, the sixth of the Ten Commandments. The person who murders will be subject to judgment, a legal proceeding in condemnation. That’s what they have understood.

Matthew 5: 22: “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

The reference to the brother as opposed to anyone may suggest he is specifically dealing with relationships in the Christian community. This person will be subject to judgment. So also the one who says, “You blockhead,” in some sort of condescending way, and even more so the person who turns and says, “You fool.”

Behind the murder proscribed in verse 21 is personal anger, deep, burning anger, and this is at the root of the commandment that is given, not simply the act of murder but the anger which leads to it. This leads all the way to punishment of hell.

The fire of hell here, the expression in the original, is gehenna, which comes from two Hebrew words meaning valley of Hinnom. Hinnom is a ravine to the south of Jerusalem where the refuse of the city was burned, and fires burned there continually. Therefore, it became a symbol for the place of punishment after death, hellfire. Now he says it’s not just murder, as if that’s the whole point of the proscription of the sixth commandment, but animosity, hatred, that leads to it.

You Say, But Jesus Got Angry

Jesus said to some of his opponents, “O fools and slow of heart to believe,” or turning on the Pharisees and saying, “You generation of snakes”?

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Luke 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

What shall we think of his anger in the temple when he knocks together some ropes and lashes out the animals and upturns the tables of the moneychangers? Is he not contradicting his own teaching?

Matthew 21:12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

Jesus was angry, why can’t I be?

There is a place for burning with anger at sin and injustice, but our problem is that we get angry not at sin and injustice but at offense to ourselves. It’s that sort of offense that arouses the animosity and hatred, which leads to murder.

When Jesus was reviled, he did not retaliate. When they scoffed him and blinded him and smote him and mocked him and planted a crown of thorns in his head, he could go to the cross and say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” All his anger was vented at the injustice and sin of the men, not at any personal offense. Whereas we are very quick to be angry when we are offended and affronted but very slow to be angry when there is sin and injustice.

That the text is dealing with anger in this personal area of relationship is clear from the two examples Jesus then gives.

The First Example verses 23–24: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Notice that the brother has something against you. You have offended him.

Jesus said, If you have offended him, it’s far more important that you be reconciled with your brother than that you perform your religious duty.

In fact, this means that if you have the cheek, the gall, to go and stand before God and offer hymns of praise to him when deep down you are a person who has caused resentment and hatred and animosity among others by your actions.

There is no case in which animosity is to be built up, it must be dealt with.

The second example.

Matthew 5:25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

The thing that is at stake is the matter of reconciliation with your brother is urgent. Don’t put it off, you may suffer a great deal for it.

No Place for Retaliation When Personally Abused

Matthew 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

This famous law is found in Exodus 21, Deuteronomy 19, and Leviticus 24, but in the Old Testament, this instruction was restrictive not prescriptive. It indicated the limits to which punishment should go. It did not necessitate that this punishment be enforced.

The reason is quite simple. It was a very good way of eliminating the possibility of blood feuds. Somebody cuts off my brother’s right hand, so then I want to go and knock off his head. Then there’s a war. But if the limit of the punishment is that the chap who knocked off my brother’s right hand gets his right hand knocked off, that’s it. That’s the end of the matter.

The difficulty is that as legalism developed, it became prescriptive and often exercised in the nastiest way.

It does not mean that there is not confrontation ever.

Paul says in Romans 13 that God gave the power of the sword to the state.

Romans 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Nowhere in the New Testament does either John the Baptist or Jesus or any of the apostles ever tell all of the soldiers to quit. He tells them to repent and to be content with their wages.

So there are difficulties with understanding this in a sweeping sense, yet at the same time it is not to be minimized. The failure to consider the context in any difficult portion of study may become a pretext for perverting this text into a proof text. It is when one just picks and chooses to make the scripture say what one wants it to say.

This Is All About Personal Insult and Personal Imposition

Jesus gives four more examples of this.

Example 1

Matthew 5:39 But I say to you, That you resist not evil: but whoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.

The word that is used is for a backhanded slap that is a gross insult. What you do in that case is you don’t take it as an insult and feel you have to retaliate.

Example 2

Matthew 5:40 And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.

In the Old Testament, it is considered so inalienable a possession that if someone were to give it to you as security on loan, you would have to give it back to him before nightfall so he wouldn’t be without it, yet here, if someone sues you for it, not only give him that but give him your overcoat too.

Here again it seems to be a question of a personal affront, a personal getting at you, he says let it go.

Example 3

Matthew 5:41 And whoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two.

The reference is probably to the Roman practice of commandeering civilians. By law, they could commandeer any civilian to help them out. If you have been commandeered, don’t feel as if you’re hard done by and personally insulted. Offer to carry it for two.

Example 4

Matthew 5:42 Give to him that asks you, and from him that would borrow of you turn not you away.

The New Testament makes it clear that the Christian has given over his rights to the Lord Jesus, and he is the one who will determine that justice will be meted in due course. Meanwhile, I am not to retaliate but to love, to forgive, and to walk the way Jesus walked.

We Are To Love Our Enemies

Matthew 5:43 You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.44 But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you;

The command to love your neighbor is found in Leviticus 19. There is no command anywhere in the Bible, Old Testament or New, to hate your enemy, but because the Scripture says, “Love your neighbor,” evidently, some Jews in figuring things out said, “Since it says neighbor, it probably means that therefore you can hate your enemy.”

This expression sons is like the expression sons in verse 9. This person takes on the character of God. God loves those who hate him; therefore, ought we not so to do also? After all, God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Therefore, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

And if you greet only your brothers … Not just with a greeting, although a greeting itself says a lot, but in the East a greeting has an idea of well-wishing, of good welfare to you. “If you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than the others? Do not even pagans do that?” In other words, this matter of love is so all-embracing Christians will stand out and be different.

Here the demand to love distinctively is undiluted by anything. So we come to the climax. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In the immediate context, it asks the searching question, “Is there anything different about me, or am I just like all the other neighborhood pagans?”

This is a challenge to make us go on with wholehearted devotion to the task of imitating God. The law of God pointed forward to Jesus. Jesus came, and with him the kingdom is introduced, and then he prescribes, and Christians are under that binding commandment. These are the standards, the norms, of the kingdom.

This matchless emphasis on transparent purity and unaffected holiness entirely precludes all religious hypocrisy or all spiritual sham, all paraded righteousness, all ostentatiously performed duties.