One-eyed Jack

Meditation May 22 2020

Matt. 5:27-30

 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ^eBut I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Jesus now proceeds in his sermon to the seventh commandment to give the true interpretation of the commandment “You shall not commit adultery.” Some manuscripts include you have heard it was said to the ancients, usually translated as to them in old times etc. but whether included or not it is implied. Where else would they have heard it but from the Rabbis and what would one expect the Rabbis to be teaching except tradition. So; Jesus says, “You have heard it was said to the ancients, you shall not commit adultery; i.e.  the letter of the law referring narrowly only to the actual physical act of sexual immorality and that modified by the traditional spin that had been put on a writing of divorce

It seems abundantly evident that the original law regarding adultery that was given Moses applied equally to all, young or old; male or female. A later amendment was allowed granting the right to divorce for sexual sin by the wife – women were not allowed to divorce their husbands under any circumstances. The Rabbis had then allowed further dilution of the law so that it became allowable for a man to divorce his wife for no better reason than that she no longer pleased him – meaning almost invariably that someone else had caught his eye.

This is that to which Jesus is making reference when he says, “you have heard it said.” It was the law as taught to the people by the Rabbis and the other religious leaders and teachers. (A passing lesson to be learned from this is the danger one embraces when he fails to read the Scripture for himself or reads it only as interpreted by a particular theological position rather than searching the Scriptures, as did the Bereans, to see whether or not those things being taught were indeed what the Scriptures said. “To the law and to the testimony and if they do not speak according to that there is no truth in them.”)

As with the sixth commandment, Jesus says to the people gathered, “you have heard it said…but I. In the Greek, when Jesus says I, it is emphatic. When not emphatic, I is normally assumed but not written or spoken. For instance, Lego de would also be translated ‘but I say’. That would be more of the nature of, that was there opinion and here is my opinion.; However, when I is written or spoken as it is here, Ego de lego (I but say)  the I is an emphatic I, and until convince otherwise, I am convinced that when paired with de (but) it indicates an emphatic negation of the foregoing. This, it seems to me is the thing that was shocking to those hearing Jesus’ sermon. He was saying to them, I am the authority here. You have heard the Rabbis say but I am telling you that the contrary is what the law teaches.

The Rabbis had taught them that you shall not commit adultery referred only to the physical act of sexual unfaithfulness. I am telling you, Jesus says, is not the case. I am telling you that if you even look on a woman (or man) lustfully you have already committed adultery. It was in your heart, but it was adultery nonetheless. The command is not violated by simply being attracted to someone of the opposite sex. To find a person of the opposite sex attractive is built into us to carry out God’s directive to multiply and replenish the earth. That which is a violation of the law is the looking that “cherishes or indulges unchaste imaginations, desires, and intentions.” The temptation, the attraction is one thing and not a sinful violation; the indulging of the temptation, the yielding to it in the heart and imagination is another thing altogether and is a violation of the seventh commandment. Jesus was tempted in every way as we; yet, he was sinless because He did not yield to the temptations. If you see a beautiful, attractive man or woman, God made them attractive for good reason; however, if you yield to that attraction outside marriage, in the flesh or in your mind, if you indulge unchaste imaginations and desires, you have committed adultery.  We must never forget that is from the heart that the issues of life flow. (Matt. 15:19)

Victory of the temptations of the heart and the lusts of the flesh come only with labor and as often as not painful labor at that. But labor nonetheless we must. Christ’s sacrifice of Himself was to save us from our sins; not to save us in our sins. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue is sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Ro. 6:1) The Bible acknowledges that it is a war that goes on within, a struggle between the old man of sin and the new creature in Christ; a war between the Spirit and the flesh. (Ro. 7:23)

Therefore, Jesus says, if your right eye or you right hand offends you, pluck it out; cut it off. If a member of you body causes you to stumble or fall (the original meaning of the word translated offend) into sin get rid of it. Clearly Jesus did not intend this to be taken literally as some have done. A man with one eye out and a man with one hand may lust and sin as easily as a man with two eyes and two hands. The problem is the heart; not the eye or hand. Some commentators tend to make more of the eye and hand than I think is warranted, even going so far as to explain why the reference may have been to the right rather than the left. The reference to plucking out the eye or cutting off the hand, it seems to me is meant to emphasize the importance of subjugating the desires of the heart to yield to temptation. It is meant to symbolize the strenuous effort one should put forth in the struggle against sin.

The author of Hebrews writes,” In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” It may be as some suggest the reference is to those martyred for the faith. When the executioner’s rope is around ones neck the temptation to recant of one’s faith can be powerful. Be that as it may, it is better to obey than to save one’s life by sin. Or it may be, as other have suggested, a pugilist reference indicating the intensity of the fight against sin. Taken either way, the implication is the same as Jesus gives here; i.e. you must struggle against sin no only to the loss of goods and reputation, to submitting to taunts and reproaches and becoming a laughing, but you must resist temptation to whatever extent is necessary to avoid sin  Well may we be beat down in the struggle and, as it were, with bloody head rise to continue the battle determined we will yet prevail but let us do so with this hope "The athlete who hath seen his own blood, and who, though cast down by his opponent, does not let his spirits be cast down, who as often as he hath fallen hath risen the more determined, goes down to the encounter with great hope" [Seneca].