Matthew 5:27-30 27You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.” 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman in order to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be cast into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be cast into hell.
The heart of the of the Sermon on the Mount is what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to be like him and in fellowship with him, and how this relationship impacts how we live with others in a sinful world that seeks to destroy our relationship with God and with other people. Jesus follows the same type of pattern as the earlier passage.
First, he quotes a common understanding among the Jews of what would be considered righteous behavior. Legalists, like the scribes and Pharisees, would interpret the seventh commandment about adultery narrowly as the actual physical act. Adultery had serious consequences in Israel’s culture. Leviticus 20:10 states, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Proverbs 6:32 add, “He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.”
Second, Jesus gets to the heart of the issue in verse 28 by giving the kingdom principle that goes beyond the letter of the law. He basically says that adultery is really only the outward manifestation of a deeper problem. He gets to the root cause of why God gave the commandment. What is inside is just as important as what happens on the outside. We need to deal with the internal issue of lust because our actions come from our inner thoughts. God created us with the need for intimate relationships and to find fulfillment in marriage where we can give ourselves to another person without reservation. Looking at the wrong thing will cause a person to stumble. Stumble comes from a word often translated into English as “scandalize” (skandalizei) It gives the image of tripping over something, but the stumbling here is not purely accidental. It may be accidental and innocent to see another person, but the problem is when that innocent glance leads to spiritual stumbling.
The problem is that our eyes see someone who is not our spouse and we begin to see that person as a object of pleasure. The eye is given first because it is where lust begins. In 6:22-23, Jesus states that a bad eye leads to a body full of darkness. If a person cannot see, he or she will trip and fall. By taking care of the eye problem, the rest of a person’s body can be healthy. The eyes are the open doors to the soul. Temptation comes as something entices one of our five senses (touching, seeing, hearing, tasting, smell) to reject God’s holy desires for us and to follow after self-fulfilling desires. One sense that gets us in trouble a lot is our sight. So much good can come as we see our world and how God wants us to live in it. So much bad can also come when we allow our senses to be controlled by fleshly desires. Coveting is a good example of what the power of sin in our lives does: it wants something that someone else has in order to satisfy some selfish desire we have. A lustful look is the expression of a heart attitude that says in essence, “I would if I could.”
Third, Jesus illustrates the principle in verses 29-30 and what disciples can do to overcome the problem of lust. Jesus is using hyperbole to get his point across. He is not advocating self-mutilation but cutting out anything in our lives that will entice us to sin. Gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand will not solve the heart issue. God will give us the strength to overcome temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), but we must make decision to walk away from those things that entice us and stir our fleshly nature. We can stay away from lust by removing how it comes to us (1 Corinthians 6:18). Temptation must be taken seriously because by following through with it, a person is in serious danger of judgment.
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