Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 188th episode. In this episode we’re going to continue our study of the book of Matthew. We’re in chapter 5. This chapter begins the Sermon on the Mount and in the previous study we covered Christ’s instruction to be salt and light as well as His ratification of the law. In this episode we’re going to study His exposition of the sixth commandment which forbids murder. We’ll see how this command contains God’s deeper concern for the danger unrighteous anger has on your heart. We’ll also see the importance of prioritizing healthy relationships and how religious ritual is ineffectual without this priority. Let’s begin by reading verses 21-26:
Mat 5:21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’
Mat 5:22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
Mat 5:23 “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
Mat 5:24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Mat 5:25 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.
Mat 5:26 “Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.
In every generation there exists those who twist or misunderstand the word of God. The worst generations tend to be the ones where these false teachers are also the most prominent religious leaders. The people who lived in this era faced some confusion when it came to the scriptures as well. The scribes and Pharisees, while being brilliant scholars, were also corrupt expositors of the law. This means they would use dubious interpretations of Moses and the prophets to make self-serving claims and give ungodly instructions. In the previous study we saw Jesus affirm the validity of the scriptures as well as their permanence. In this passage we see Him begin to unravel some of the popularly held misunderstandings which the people dealt with. He didn’t add anything new, rather He exposed the abuse of religious scholarship.
Jesus explicated restraints and limitations on principles where the false teachers had taken too much liberty. The reason He did this was because the people were missing the point of the law. The point of the law was and has always been spiritual. God cares about your heart and your eternity more than He cares about your observance of the law. I want to be careful here. I’m not saying you have permission to violate the law. I’m saying it’s possible to obey a misunderstanding of the law such that you appear righteous while your heart slides into corruption. A good example is how the Pharisees carefully observed all of the religious rituals while failing to love their neighbors. They used the law as a justification for wickedness in the more important areas. They weren’t seeing the big picture and if we’re not careful it can be easy for us to lose sight of it as well. Here we see Jesus expound on the sixth commandment so that we can get to the heart of the law.
First He reminded them of the commandment which was given to their forefathers the Jews. Thou shalt not kill. This was nothing new, Israel had known these laws for ages and they were the kind of laws which never became obsolete. It’s not a perfect one-to-one comparison but we see elements of God’s moral law reflected in the laws of nature. You didn’t have to be a follower of Judaism to understand that killing was wrong. The comparison begins to break down when considering the parts of the moral law which reflect the eternal mind because the eternal mind transcends the laws of nature. The knowledge of good and evil, for example, is not found in the animal kingdom. If a crazed person attacked you and cut off your arm you would seek vengeance or at least punitive measures. But if an alligator attacked you and bit your arm off – well then it’s just doing what alligators do. The difference in how you determine responsibility between a crazed person and an alligator is that a crazed person understands the knowledge of good and evil.
The reason for the biblical injunction against killing seems self-evident but it’s actually crucially important for a society to function. Genesis 9 says, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.” This idea of humanity being made in the image of God is the most fundamental reason killing is prohibited. The idea expresses that every human life has dignity, value, and is worth preserving. Once a society stops believing this idea they are not far from justifying genocide. Throughout the generations, Israel just believed the extent of this commandment was that intentional murderers were liable to face execution and less intentional killers were subject to the cities of refuge. A city of refuge was a place where a person could flee if they committed something like manslaughter until their case was judged as to whether or not it was a true accident.
Each principal city had groups of judges who sat at the gate and these judges held trials for murderers. If a person was found guilty then they were condemned and executed. The main issue with the Jewish understanding of the sixth commandment was how they thought it was merely external. They thought the whole purpose was to prevent the act of killing. But Jesus pointed out that the purpose behind the sixth commandment was not only to forbid killing, but it was also to restrain the wickedness of the human heart from which murders and wars were motivated to begin with. Contrast this spiritual insight with the political and municipal gloss of the Jewish teachers concerning this commandment. They were simply too shallow – they just viewed it as a commandment meant for governance and guidance of the courts and so they missed the spirit of the law entirely.
You can see how easy it would be to game the system here – especially in the ancient world before such things as surveillance and forensic science. If you were a Pharisee and all that mattered to you was perceived observance of the letter of the law, then you could kill whoever you wanted as long as you didn’t get caught in the act. But the point Jesus made was that if you even entertain to do such a thing then you stand guilty of violating the entire commandment before God who sees in secret and knows the motives of your heart. God’s commandments have a double-purpose in this way: one purpose is to stabilize societies by prohibiting undesirable external actions like murder, and the other purpose is to reveal our own personal need for a Savior as we continually (and too often shamefully) observe our own hearts falling short of God’s glorious standard.
Christ’s exposition of the sixth commandment shows us that the spirit of the law is much broader than its initial impression. He explains how unrighteous anger against another person is spiritually equivalent to murdering them in your own heart. This applies for any person who is the subject of your wrath – whether they are friend, enemy, family, inferior, or superior. We should note here that not all anger is unrighteous anger. There are valid reasons for being angry, for instance when a helpless person is being abused by the sin of another. In these cases such anger is not violative of the sixth commandment. Jesus is talking more about situations where your anger is a consequence of poor self-control and is not the product of good reason. A good example is when you’re angry with someone for making a mistake which you yourself could have easily made. Or maybe it’s a situation where the transgression could not have been helped. There are going to be many moments in your life where the worst parts of you will want to choose anger in situations where anger is not warranted. You must be vigilant of these occurrences and be careful to always choose humility and meekness.
In every situation it’s important to observe yourself and determine whether anger is controlling your decision-making process. So even in situations which call for righteous anger – it’s still a bad idea to allow righteous anger to dominate your own rationality. When you’re punishing your children or your employees – even if the punishment is justified – you should never deliver it in the midst of anger. You should always wait until the anger has subsided so that you can think and perceive more clearly. You also need to ask yourself if your anger is motivated by the proper goal. It’s a bad idea to express anger which is motivated by a desire to show authority, to gratify insecurity, or to satisfy a lust for revenge. Basically your goal with righteous anger should be to stop an injustice or to awaken repentance in the other person. Righteous anger should always be directed at building the other person up and not merely hurting them or tearing them down.
Matthew 15 says that murder proceeds forward from the heart and so mishandling anger puts you in danger of committing murder. And remember cowardice is not exculpatory in the eyes of Jesus. If you’re angry and the only reason you’re not murdering someone is because you’re afraid of getting caught – then you’re still guilty of murder in the sight of Christ. It’s also worth knowing that not all anger is explosive and violent in a moment. Not all anger is red hot in this way, but some anger is cold and corrupting. If you allow yourself to harbor illegitimate anger, it will start to inform your decision-making and it will motivate you to justify sins. Cold and corrupting anger, when stuffed away, becomes bitterness and resentment. Cain’s murder of his brother Abel began as anger in Cain’s heart.
Physical violence is not the only danger which emerges from improperly controlled anger. You can also cause a tremendous amount of damage to yourself and others through the use of your words. Language is an incredibly powerful weapon for both positive and negative impact. It might be the most powerful weapon. Many people don’t understand the power of language because of how easily language comes to us. It’s so easy to speak words that we often end up doing it without thinking and saying things we don’t mean which then gets us into trouble. There is perhaps nothing more consequential for shaping how your life turns out than your use of language. Anger is perhaps the cardinal enemy of the productive use of words. You live in a reality where you are absolutely at risk of burning your entire life down with a careless use of words.
When you sling accusations or hurtful names at a person as an expression of your anger you cause a lot more damage to your own life than you realize. You should view these hot-tempered words as smoke emanating from a deeper fire which is very dangerous for your spirit. It takes a lot of patience, a lot of forgiveness, and a lot of practice – but if you are able to cultivate the habit of being precise in your speech to the point where every word you speak in a given day is intentional and aimed at preserving the good – then you have a super power. There are few characteristics more Christlike than that and all of the people around you will love you for it. Now just because we should avoid angry accusations doesn’t mean we should stop calling out sin. Jesus Himself called people fools and snakes when the names were warranted. He was using His language to bring attention to issues in the hearts of others which needed correction. When this sort of thing is done in a measured, even-tempered fashion it can be productive speech.
Another dangerous element of thoughtless speech is something you might know as demonization. Any effort to dehumanize another person is both extremely hazardous and reveals the opposite of Christlikeness. Demonization involves categorizing another person or groups of people (usually by way of a name) in such a way as to inspire hatred against them. And before you start thinking you would never demonize someone – just remember the most notable historical cases of demonization always included a majority who signed on with it. If you had lived under The Third Reich as a German in Nazi Germany, then the chance you would have personally supported the Holocaust is greater than 80%. I think the reason otherwise normal people fall into the trap of demonization is because they are motivated by a spirit of fear. They are afraid of the people who they choose to demonize. They want these people extinguished from society because of the threat they believe these people pose.
By practicing demonization you’re determining that these other people are not worthy of respect and should not be loved. You’re trying to inspire a sense of disgust at them. At the deepest levels you’re also claiming that this person or these people are abandoned by God. That’s why culturally demonized people are persecuted without mercy and their persecutors often believe they themselves are acting by divine mandate to destroy them. Genocide and collective torture are broadly considered the worst atrocities in human history and every time they are preceded by demonization and demonization is nothing more than the malicious use of words. If you’re not careful your speech will corrupt yourself, your family, and your community. Your speech will murder your neighbor’s good name and Jesus declares in this passage that such verbal murder is evidence that you’d commit actual murder if it were within your power to do so.
During the time that Jesus gave this message the Sanhedrin, who were like a religious court, would punish you if they found you reviling an Israelite. Jesus mentions this punishment and takes it further by saying that anyone found guilty of calling his brother a fool is guilty enough to descend into the fiery hell. This sounds harsh, but He’s simply pointing out how rash anger is a common motivation for the worst kinds of sins. The Jews had three forms of capital punishment which were progressively more severe. First was beheading, second was stoning, and third was burning in the valley of Hinnom – which was reserved for extraordinarily heinous crimes. Jesus is indicating that unrighteous anger is sufficiently dangerous to cause sins which would incur any of these punishments including further damnation. Except in rare cases, rage is the dominant motivation in the most brutal of human behaviors.
If you struggle with anger, you should prioritize solving this problem above all others because it’s too easy to destroy your entire life with one wrong decision made while you are in the grips of rage. So the rule of the day is to always remain calm and preserve Christian love and peace with our brothers and sisters. But reality is sometimes we fail in this effort. Anytime there is a breach of peace, we should labor for reconciliation by humbling ourselves and confessing whatever fault we may have in it. We should make restitution and seek the pardon of whoever we hurt in accordance with the wrong that was committed. And we should do all of this as quickly as possible because until this is complete we are unfit for communion with God in His holy ordinances. What does that mean?
The two great commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. These commandments cannot exist independently of one another. A person who loves God will find it in their heart to love people as well – just as Jesus loves people. A person who hates people will struggle in their efforts to love God. No one’s saying you can’t be an introvert. It’s possible you have social anxiety and being around people drains you. That’s not the same as being filled with hate towards a person. It’s possible you really hate what a person has done to you or others, and again that’s not the same as being filled with hate toward that person. Part of worshiping God is coming before Him with a contrite heart, and you can’t do this while you’re focused on revenge or harboring some other kind of ill-will against your neighbor.
The rift in your spirit caused by the expression of unjustified anger is so damaging that the implication is you need to seek reconciliation with the injured party before even going back to church. But this doesn’t give you a free pass to stay away from church either – more on that in a second. All of this is because God cares more about the condition of your heart than He does the excellence of your religious practice. Religious practice, when properly ordered with a humble heart, honors God and is a good thing – but religious practice on its own is not sufficient if your spirit is being poisoned by anger, resentment, or hate. Scripture says God rejects the prayers of those who are possessed by these uncharitable qualities. God spoke to His disobedient people through the prophet Isaiah and He said, “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.”
God understands how important relationships and community are to spiritual well-being. He knows that if we don’t get these things right then we will become increasingly corrupt until we rebel against Him as well. That’s why Jesus is making clear the primacy of loving your neighbor before engaging in religious ritual. Earlier I said human strife is not an excuse to stay away from church though either. In this passage Jesus doesn’t give the people permission to leave the church and take their offering back home with them. He tells them to leave their offering at the altar and go make reconciliation with their relationships. It would be a terrible mistake to accept your heart poisoned with anger and then avoid church because of this acceptance. That’s one way to enter a negative feedback loop of destruction and malice. One sin never excuses another, rather they accumulate and cause further corruption. The spirit of this command is the urgency of reconciliation. Jesus is saying to leave what you consider valuable at the altar, go make restitution, and then come back for properly ordered worship.
It’s possible the other person won’t allow for a completed resolution to the quarrel. When this happens, the most important part for you is that you offered satisfaction and a desire to renew the friendship. If the ball is in their court and they reject you – such a thing need not damage your spiritual condition because it’s no longer your fault. If you’re the one who’s been wronged, you can stop the spiritual damage the moment you offer forgiveness and mean it. A good habit is to pray before you go to sleep and when you wake up every day. If you do this, in consequence you generate a daily rule that you must resolve your wrath before the end of the day. You do not let the sun go down on your anger. This doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to solve your relationship problems every day before you go to bed. Again, we’re focused on your own wrath here, not the dynamics of the relationship – although those are similarly important. All you can control is your own wrath, and if prayer from a wrathful heart is rejected by God, then instituting a habit of daily prayer before going to sleep is a good way to habituate taking proper care of your heart.
Walking through your daily life with a stubborn, wrath-filled heart is dangerous for many reasons – but let’s talk about two elements of this danger. The first element is temporal and concerns issues in this life. You can actually incur extraordinary costs upon yourself through unwillingness to apologize or admit fault. If your anger motivates you to battle-out an issue in court rather than seek amicable agreement, your anger could bankrupt you or land you in prison. You can burn bridges that you’ll never be able to rebuild in a few seconds of hot rage. It sounds insane to make yourself and your family pay huge, unnecessary expenses simply so you can gratify your anger – but people do this all the time. Prison is full of people who are longer in contact with the emotions which drove their crime – but the sentence remains. Entire wars have been fought because one side or the other couldn’t let go of the lust for blood.
It’s almost always the case that humble agreement and reconciliation is better than trying to dominate and demonize your adversary. When you choose wrath, if you win then you have to live with a defeated, resentment-filled person. If you lose then you have to face someone who is more than likely going to exact a harsher punishment for you than he would have had you sought a resolution. The second element of the danger is spiritual. In the same way that you are unfit to practice religious ritual when gripped by anger – you are also unfit to meet Jesus. Most of the time when we act out of anger we end up feeling ashamed of what we say or do. You wouldn’t want to have one of these meltdowns in front of a world leader or the CEO of a major company – imagine having one in front of the Creator of the universe. A heart possessed by hatred for your neighbor is a heart unsanctified by the Spirit of God. To pass away in such condition risks your eternity. Life is short and you don’t know how many days you have left, so let go of the ill-will before it costs you more than you’re willing to pay.
The urgency and importance of reconciliation ultimately stems from the gospel. We are born into sin and so we are born into a position which demands reconciliation with God. We don’t want to face Him in defiance by counting on our own self-righteousness. Job, who faced terrible tragedies at the hand of Satan which were permitted by God, said that we should yield now and be at peace with Him, thereby good will come to us. Jesus came to earth and sacrificed Himself so that our unrighteousness could be covered and we may be reconciled to God through Him. The wise person accepts this opportunity quickly and does not allow himself to sleep until it is done.
Jesus came to earth and He was rejected as a Savior, but He cannot be escaped as a Judge. Scripture says all judgment is committed to the Son and when that day comes the defiant will not be able to stand before Him. Murderers, rapists, genocidal authoritarians, all of them will say to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne.” Every knee will bow when the Lamb turns into the Lion. Angels are the officers of God and the wicked will be turned over to them. Hell is the prison where the unrepentant will pay divine justice which is a restitution that cannot be satisfied outside of Christ. Just as there is no good reason for you to continue another day with hate for your neighbor, so there is no good reason to continue in enmity with God. So much of your life and your potential is unknown to you until you see the truth of who Jesus is and who He designed you to be. And the glory of it all is that no matter what you’ve done or how many years you’ve failed, you can have a fresh start right now today because His grace is immeasurable and His love unfathomable.
Look to Jesus for your salvation and pray for sanctification that you may grow in Christlikeness and in your resilience to unrighteous anger. The Spirit of God will live in you, Jesus will walk with you, and He will give you everything you need.
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