In the last few weeks we’ve seen Jesus teach the importance of Christians being counter-cultural. That means standing out and being different from the world around us. He didn’t mean that we should simply be different for the sake of being different. He also made it very clear that this is not so we can bring attention to ourselves.
Rather, the purpose is to show the world how much God loves human beings and how much our lives (and the societies we live in) can change for the better if we start to trust and follow him.
Throughout the rest of the chapter, Jesus gave several specific examples of how this might work in your life. For each example he took a commandment from the Old Testament law and showed what it really meant to keep that particular law.
We may often think that Jesus made our lives easier by fulfilling the Old Testament law so that we are not required to keep all of its bizarre minutiae for ourselves. However, as these examples will show, that may not in fact be true. Humans are very good at finding ways to re-interpret God’s commands so that we can make as little effort as possible and still call ourselves his children.
Michael J Wilkins in the NIV Application Commentary puts it like this:
The Pharisees had mapped out what they considered to be the proper course for attaining righteousness through their interpretation and application of the Old Testament. One facet of this regimen was a tendency to require legalistic, external obedience to the law without calling attention to an inner obedience from the heart. They were therefore “hypocrites” in their practice of the law … and were leading the people into hypocritical practices. Jesus here looks at several examples of how they do this and demonstrates how correct interpretation and application of the law must be based on proper intent and motive.
There’s been a murder
For the first example, let’s read Matthew 5:21-26:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny…”
Here Jesus takes a command from the Old Testament: “You shall not murder”. It’s probably one of the best-known commandments in all of the Bible, straight out of the Ten Commandments, no less.
Now some Bible translations may list this command in Exodus 20:13 as “you shall not kill”, but it’s referring specifically to unlawful premeditated killing of another human being (murder) as opposed to, say, accidental manslaughter or judicial execution of a condemned criminal or killing an enemy soldier in battle.
On the surface of it, this does not sound like a difficult command to obey. I’ve certainly never murdered anyone and I am fairly confident that I will go through the rest of my life without ever doing so. Hopefully you can say the same about yourself!
However, as Jesus points out, there’s more to the commandment than that.
Not so simple
It’s not enough simply to tick off this one as ‘done’ on the basis of never having deliberately taken anyone’s life. For Jesus, even just sitting around and fantasising about causing harm to someone counts as a failure to keep this commandment.
While I’ve never murdered anyone, there have certainly been times when I’ve secretly wished harm upon other people. People who have insulted me or threatened my children. People who have cheated me or stabbed me in the back. People who have cut me off in traffic or almost caused an accident.
Suddenly my spotless record where this commandment is concerned doesn’t look so good. How about you?
Some people might question Jesus’ words here. Surely, they might argue, thinking about hurting somebody isn’t nearly as serious as actually carrying it out. There is a huge gap between mere thoughts and real actions.
I think Jesus’ point may be that the more you allow your anger to fester, the more you allow yourself to indulge in revenge fantasies, the smaller that gap may become.
We need only look at the way the Western world is becoming increasingly divided over social and political issues such as climate change, LGBTQ and Donald Trump. A great deal of hatred is developing and many people are wishing harm upon those with whom they disagree. Sometimes that hatred spills over into actual violence and even murder.
Even if you are a Christian you cannot assume that you are immune from being caught up in such thinking.
Revenge fantasies
Revenge fantasies can take different forms. Some people might picture themselves using physical violence to administer a good kicking to the target of their anger. Others might imagine inflicting psychological damage on someone who has done them wrong, perhaps using well-chosen words to bring them down to size or destroy their reputation.
Jesus deals with both in verse 22, warning of judgement both for those who give into their anger and inflict harm, and those who use words to publicly destroy the reputation of others.
Wilkins suggests:
Anger alone is a violation of the law and was the original intent of the murder prohibition in the Old Testament. When we are inappropriately angry with people, we attempt to take their identity and value as God’s creature away from them, the ultimate form of which is the physical act of murder. The righteousness expected of God’s subjects is not only in avoiding murder but in eliminating anger from our relationships.
What was Jesus’ solution?
Reconciliation
Jesus urged his followers not to dwell on their anger and imagine their revenge, but rather to seek reconciliation.
He gave the example of a person coming to offer a gift at the altar, then realising they had a broken relationship with a fellow believer, and taking steps to mend it before returning to complete the offering to God.
R T France in the New International Commentary on the NT explains the extent to which this example suggests we should go:
This saying, presumably uttered in Galilee, thus envisages a worshipper who has traveled some eighty miles to Jerusalem with his “offering” (probably a sacrificial animal), who then leaves the animal in the temple while he makes a journey of a week or more to Galilee and back again in order to effect a reconciliation with his offended brother or sister before he dares to present his offering.
Jesus also gave the example of a person being taken to court by an adversary, with the advice to settle with them personally before the trial could begin.
His point here may be that it’s always best to seek reconciliation as soon as possible. Leaving the matter unresolved may cause resentment and division to grow, making the eventual reconciliation more and more difficult and messy to sort out.
In both of these examples, it appears that the person who did the wrong is the one responsible to initiate the process of reconciliation. This does not mean that the person who suffered the wrong must simply wait for an apology to come. In Matthew 18:15-17 Jesus gives instructions on how the offended party can try to approach the offender:
If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector
However it begins, the reconciliation process is always a two-way street. Sometimes there will be wrong on both sides. The party (or parties) who suffered the wrong must be willing to forgive and start afresh if offered a genuine apology.
We need to remember that God’s willingness to forgive you will depend on your willingness to forgive others (see Matthew 6:14-15).
Forgiving people isn’t easy – sometimes the things we do to each other are truly horrific – but holding a grudge and dwelling on anger and thoughts of revenge are never the answer. It’s not on us to decide who needs to be judged and punished. We can trust God to make those decisions.
Nihilist to Christian 