City Life Starter

Written by Scott Fiddler

The Word

21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’

 22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; 

…

 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 lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 29 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

 30 “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

…

 48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:21-22a, 27-30, 48

Exegesis

In Book 3, Chapter 1 of Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis describes three parts of morality. The first is the morality of our outward conduct and how we treat one another. The second includes the morality of our heart and thought life that is unseen to the world, and the third is the morality of how we relate to God. Lewis then notes, “You may have noticed that modern people are nearly always thinking about the first thing and forgetting about the other two.” 

I’m interested here in the first and second parts of morality because I think it is these parts Jesus was getting at in the verses cited above. I’ve heard people say, citing these verses, that Jesus taught hate was the same as murder and lust the same as adultery. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just ask the family of a murder victim whether they would have preferred the perpetrator had merely hated or ask the wife of the adulterer whether she would have preferred her husband had merely lusted. 

Jesus’ point was that sin starts in the heart and we should take the sin of the heart very seriously, even metaphorically suggesting we take drastic measures (plucking out one’s eye or cutting off one’s arm) to remediate it. No person ever murdered who did not first hate nor has one committed adultery who did not first lust. If a man will not hate he will not murder, nor will a man who has conquered lust commit adultery. So, fight the battle on the field of the heart where the result of failure does not destroy lives and marriages. 

But as Lewis points out, modern man focuses on the outward part of the morality instead of the inward part and as a result he gets neither. He focuses on the morality others will judge rather than judging the morality others can’t see, not recognizing the former is determined by the latter and that whether a garden will yield a weed or flower is determined by which seed is hidden in the soil. 

Application

Jesus concludes by saying, “You are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But we miss the point by assuming “perfect” refers to our outward morality. Jesus is referring to the wholeness or maturity that occurs when the inner and outer morality are in alignment. We are mature when we do not merely abstain from murder and adultery but hate and lust, when we eliminate the dissonance between what is inside us and what we portray to the world, when we become like our Father in heaven. It is then that we portray to the world, in the truest sense, the image of God in man.

Prayer

Pick an area in your life this week where your inward morality is inconsistent with your outward morality and ask the Holy Spirit to convict you and guide you to be conformed in that area to the image of Jesus.