Matthew 5:22 Commentary and Bible Study

The sixth commandment includes a prohibition not just against the final act of murder but against everything that leads up to it. When God gave this commandment, as with all the commandments, he expressed it in terms of the last most obvious stage in the carrying out of sin. Israel was for the most part an unregenerate people, who lacked spiritual sensitivities, and therefore needed the prohibitions of the law to be given in the most concrete terms. But the law is spiritual and governs man’s thoughts and motives as well as his actions. Those who wanted to please the Lord must realise that there was no part of their being that was not under his government. They could not please him by restraining their outward actions, and at the same time giving free vent to their minds to rove anywhere. They must work back from the act of murder to see what came before it. There is a chain in every act of sin that begins much earlier, and, like a gardener, the believer removes the weed of sin by its roots when it first appears in order to really eradicate it. James describes this chain when he says, ‘But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (James 1:14-15)’ The seething heart that manages to restrain the final act of murder cannot please God. ‘But I say unto you’ – the same is found in verses 28, 32, 34, 39, and 44. It is this authority by which he opposes his word to all the teaching of the Pharisees, that so strikes his hearers (Matthew 7:28-29). What entitles him to speak with such authority? It is because he, the Son of God, brings truth from heaven to earth. True righteousness is very different from that taught by the scribes. Throughout his exposition of the law we see that Christ’s law is not like the laws of earthly governments. A ruler can only punish crimes that he can detect, and no human being can detect what is going on in another heart for it is hidden from him on account of the way God has constructed us. Earthly rulers therefore cannot make laws that govern men’s thoughts. But if God will judge us for what goes on in the heart even when it does not come to the surface in the actions, then he reads each one of us in our innermost being and he governs the inner man also. And of course it must be so. God did not just make the body, but he made the mind, the will, and the affections also, and he cannot be unaware of anything he has made. The righteousness required of the disciple of Christ is a righteousness that goes through and through. Anger naturally leads to murder, and if it does not go that far, then we can take no credit for what restrains it. What holds us back might be shame, or lack of practical means, or fear of punishment from earthly authorities, but if we allow anger to circulate in the mind and do nothing to fight against it, then how are we to be commended that it does not finally break out? It is the hand of men or the hand of God restraining us that prevents it, not our own powers. If we really opposed our own anger, we would oppose it as soon as we detected it, and certainly we can detect it long before any other human being, since we are uniquely aware of the secret workings of our own hearts. When Scripture sets before us the chain of events that James describes, it is so that we may oppose sin at its very first movement within us. There must be a resistance in horror and strong disapproval of these sins.Christ gives three examples of breaking the 6^th commandment. If there is an order here, then, as Ridderbos says, ‘the threefold warning does not point to three distinct levels of sin.’ The order is based, rather, on an increasingly severe punishment attached. He moves from judgment in general, to an examination before the Sanhedrin, the religious court, to the judgment before God on the last day. But all sin will be punished by God, and it is not as though some sins can be fully dealt with on earth by human justice. These are all the consequences of breaking the 6^th commandment, and they all need to be thought about; we will have to give account for every sin not repented of and forgiven.Anger without a cause is anger which has an insufficient cause to justify it. Such anger arises in the heart not because of some offence, but largely because of pre-existing bad attitudes which are looking for an excuse to boil over in rage against an adversary. If it is expressed, it may bring us before human justice. Anger is such a strong emotion that it may give pleasure to indulge it. It boosts a sense of self being in the right, and the strong response tells me how important I am. There is righteous anger and some may do things even at a personal level that make you angry, but the question is what do you do about it? The wrong response described here is that we despise and have no intention of forgiving, and we certainly will not consider mitigating circumstances. This is so serious that it is accorded the same punishment as murder. ‘Whosoever shall say, Raca’, which is an Aramaic word meaning worthless, empty, futile – you hold the other in contempt. You really mean it and have not just spoken in jest. Words matter to God. You are so angry for what they have done, that you will act as judge and jury; you have a settled contempt. You are blind to your own faults, and so it is really driven by pride. You cannot succeed because there is so little grace in you. As a Jew, you might be brought before the higher Sanhedrin court if it bursts out.‘Thou fool’ – in the New Testament this is pretty strong. This is not meant in a superficial sense as we may sometimes use it, but to say that a person is useless, an imbecile. This makes us liable to the judgment of God and hell fire, if we do not repent. Not just the outward sins but the heart attitudes will be dealt with at the judgment seat of Christ. ‘Look to your character’, says Christ. ‘Control these things, for sins of contempt are as serious as murder.’