Matthew 5:21-26 The Law Explained Part I Murder

Well, as a summary of how we came to this portion of scripture, last week, particularly in Matthew 5:20, Jesus made one of the most remarkable statements recorded in the Gospels. He declared that disciples of the kingdom that he came to inaugurate as the Messiah are to possess a kind of righteousness surpassing that of the Pharisees and the scribes; that is, the Jewish religious leaders. For those living in Jesus' time, as you might recall, this would have been taken as a shocking and seemingly impossible statement.

To ordinary people, the Pharisees were first in line for heaven (perhaps even ahead of the Presbyterians!). They seemed to be in a league of their own in their pursuit of righteousness and the things of God. In reality, Jesus exposes their spiritual bankruptcy as well as the Pharisaical religious system, which bore little resemblance to true biblical faith. In fact, for the remainder of chapter 5, part of what Jesus is doing is correcting the obfuscation that had been brought to the law of God by the scribes and Pharisees over previous generations. They had begun to portray the law as a kind of ladder to glory—one foot after the other, and eventually you'll make it.

They did not believe they were truly sinners deserving of God's wrath. They thought that Moses and the law could impart spiritual life to man. But how mistaken they were—and how mistaken many still are today. As Paul writes to the church at Rome, "because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). The scribes and the Pharisees, in their self-righteousness, believed the law of Moses came with power to keep it, rather than what it truly does when understood correctly, which is reveal a person's spiritual bankruptcy.

The kind of disciples that Jesus came to call are those justified by faith alone, just like Abraham, just like Noah, just like all of God's covenant people throughout redemptive history. Paul reiterates this point in Romans 3:28, "for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law." True religion has always been this way. It is false religion, which cannot save, that introduces and inserts human merit and righteousness into the equation. The man or woman of true faith in God recognizes that the kind of life that God created us and desires us to live is outside of ourselves—it's not in us. That life was in Jesus. And we praise him that Jesus has come as our representative, who stands in our place, both in the life he lived and the death he died.

So the person of faith, as opposed to the self-righteous, they echo the tax collector of Jesus' parable in Luke 18, "God be merciful to me, the sinner." That's what the life of faith does. This is why the Son of God has come to save sinners. He fulfilled the law, as we have seen. He carried out the law's expected end because man couldn't. He died the death the sinner deserved when he was crucified, and he underwent the judgment for our transgressions. He rose again to new life; death had no claim on the Lord Jesus. Now he lives, that we too might live in him and through him.

And so thus Jesus has begun and will continue in this chapter to explain how disciples should truly view the law and his commandments of the kingdom. Out of this new life we have in Christ, how then are we to live? How then are we to relate to God's commands? How then are we to obey the commands of Christ? When we clearly understand the commands of Christ, we see a way of life that is completely foreign to the scribes and Pharisees. As we take the commandments of God from the hands of Christ, he does not say to us, "Do this and you shall live." Rather, we take the commands from the hands of Christ; I said this last week, Jesus says, "Because you live, in me, keep my commandments," and that is worlds apart.

For Jesus teaches us that his disciples must look merely beyond keeping the letter of the law; they must move to the spirit of the law and seek with all their being to be pleasing to God out of transformed hearts. So we now arrive at the first of Jesus' six expositions on various aspects of the law of Moses. These serve as an explanation of his previous statement there in Matthew 5:20.

So, in essence, Jesus demonstrates how his disciples are to relate to his commands, and he does this in two stages. First, he will address the misunderstanding of the law caused by the obfuscation of their erroneous traditions, and we're going to see this repeated formula in the rest of chapter 5. Jesus is going to say, "You have heard that it was said." He's going to repeat this statement; in other words, he's going to say, "You heard your rabbis teach you this law." And then secondly, we're going to hear Jesus say, "But I say to you." Then Jesus will take the naked commands of the law this morning, beginning with murder, and he'll bring to light its deeper meaning and therefore application for how, as Christians, we are to relate ourselves to it.

The Letter Is Not Enough

Okay, let's move into our first heading, the letter is not enough. We come to Matthew 5:21. There we read, "Again you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder,’ and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court." So here, Jesus takes off the shelf exhibit number one or exhibit A. First, he states what the scripture says in the law of Moses: "You shall not commit murder." We understand that. Secondly, he gives a common interpretation of what that meant to the Jewish rabbis; they would say that law meant, "Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court."

Right away, it's worth remembering that Jesus affirms the divine inspiration of the law of Moses and the scriptures. We hear Jesus saying repeatedly of the Old Testament and his ministry, "It is written." These are not ancient texts to be discarded on the rubbish heap now that the Messiah is here; the Old Testament remains divinely inspired and relevant, so long as it is seen through the lens of Christ. Jesus did not come to annul the law or the scripture but to be its fulfillment. And so here he will correct the erroneous teaching of the law in Judaism at the time and, of course, by citing Exodus 20:13, "You shall not murder," Jesus affirms the transcendent nature of God's law regarding murder.

The Mosaic code as a whole is fulfilled—yes, the new covenant in Christ changes the application of much of the law; however, the principles, the underlying principles of the law are unchanging. They are eternal; they reflect the holy character of God and how man is to live. It was evil to commit murder long before the law was written on tablets of stone and given to the Israelites—it's written on man's hearts that this is the case.

The problem is in Jesus' day that the Jewish leaders did not perceive the real moral depth to the law. They truly thought they could keep it; they believed that if they did not murder anyone, they had fulfilled the law's requirement on this point. One more notch on their belt of righteousness: "I've never murdered anyone; I have never broken the sixth commandment," was their logic.

If you walked into a synagogue at the time and asked, "What is the sixth commandment about? What does it mean?" The answer would be that this law is all about behaviour: if you don't murder, you haven't broken this law. As another has said, "the Jewish teachers had taught that nothing except actual murder was forbidden by the sixth commandment." They understood it correctly by the letter, of course, but they fall far short of the moral depth to the commands of God. So this is the point where Jesus departs from the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus wants Christians to understand that the commandment, "Thou shalt not murder," carries far deeper transcendent meaning for his disciples.

The Spirit Of the Law

So, second heading, Jesus shows the spirit of the law. Now, we come to Matthew 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 to the fiery hell." So it's almost as if Jesus is saying, "Right, you are that if you commit murder, you'll end up in court, but that's not the half of the moral truth Jesus is saying!" The sixth commandment was not divinely inscribed on stone tablets that man might think he is a law keeper if he's not a murderer. The law was given to reveal man's guilt, or as Paul says, to increase the transgression, to drive man to his knees pleading for the mercy he so desperately needs by grace.

For one only needs to ask the simple question: if God hates murder, where does murder originate from? What does murder look like before it becomes murder? Before the knife is plunged, before the baton is raised, before the trigger is pulled, before the poison is added, what is murder but anger? What is murder but jealousy? What is murder but coveting? Now we see it: the sinful action stems from a sinful heart, and that's what Jesus wants us to see. The law on a single point has now exposed all of us.

So in Matthew 5:22, Jesus presents three layers of spiritual depth that we would see this fact. First, he states that to be angry with one's brother—meaning here, I take it, common man or perhaps those you are close with already—in different ways. Being angry with one's brother also makes one guilty before the court of law. Oh, you thought murder was the heart of the matter? How about we go to the source: anger in the heart.

Then Jesus goes another layer deeper; he says when we belittle someone with a type of language, "You good for nothing," we are guilty not just before the court but he goes to the next degree, the supreme court, deepening the metaphor.

Now people must be getting a little shifty at this point, a little bit uncomfortable, but Jesus is not done, and he goes to the superlative degree. When you call someone a fool, he says, this makes you guilty not just before the court or the supreme court, but again another layer higher to the fiery hell.

To disparage another person, he says, makes you guilty of hell itself—such is the heinousness and seriousness of sin.

Now we see just how erroneous the Pharisees and scribes' view of murder was: they had completely missed the spiritual moral reality of the law of God. So understand the metaphor here: Jesus takes us to a point where we realize that it's not just the action of murder that incurs the judgment of God, but defacing other people. It's ultimately sin in the human heart that we all have. When anger is externalized, it is sin; when anger is internalized, it is sin.

It's when your co-worker takes credit for an idea at your job, and you allow bitterness to eat you over because of it, and you seek ways to sabotage them subtly. You make yourself look better than them. Jesus' commandment here is saying to his disciples, "Not for you! Humble your heart; rid yourself of anger."

Maybe there's an inheritance dispute; one of your family members has passed away, and there's an inheritance left behind. Family members in the same church, and there's a long feud—Christ says, "No, it mustn't be that way for you."

You're in a bad mood; the kids are yelling and screaming in the car; someone cuts you off blatantly in traffic; you hit the roof and start verbally abusing this other person. No! It's the source of murder—it's that sinful heart condition, which when it's fully expressed is the action of murder. Christ says, "No, not for you!"

Remember that, for we are those who have died to sin in Christ. Jesus has freed us from the condemnation of the law to serve him under grace. And so Christ would have us throw off the old nature and put on Christ, or as Paul says in Ephesians 4:24, "put on the new self".

To live consistently with the new self, Jesus is calling for a deep and radical holiness, a pursuit of holiness, and this means getting to the moral root of the law and being taught by it what is pleasing and not pleasing to God for his people. And so here, harbouring anger or resentment for others is forbidden; it's not for us, it's not of us, it's not of Christ, it's not of God. This kind of anger is not for us; we're not permitted to run people down in front of their faces or behind their backs. We're not permitted to curse people in our hearts. Our Lord has shown us the full weight of the law.

Now, as an aside, it might be worthwhile to clarify one question that you might have. "Rhys, you say to me, the Lord Jesus became angry! Haven't you read Matthew 21? Jesus entered the temple; he drove out those who were buying and selling, and he overturned the tables and the money-changers and drove them out and all the rest." Or when Mark tells us in Mark 3:5 that Christ became angry after looking around at them, it says, "with anger he was grieved at the hardness of their heart." What do you say to this?

Well we must distinguish between righteous anger and unrighteous anger. I can say it no better than Don Carson: "Indeed there is a place for burning with anger at sin and injustice; our problem is that we burn with indignation and anger not at sin and injustice, but at offenses to ourselves. None of the cases in which Jesus became angry was his personal ego wrapped up in the issue. More telling yet: When he was unjustly arrested, unfairly tried, illegally beaten, and contemptuously spat upon, crucified and mocked—when in fact he had every reason for his ego to be involved—then, as Peter says, "He did not retaliate." When he suffered, he made no threats (1 Peter 2:23)."

And so Paul could say in Ephesians 4:26, "Be angry and yet do not sin." There is a righteous anger, but 99% of the time we find unrighteous anger in our hearts, don't we? So let's now apply what Jesus is saying here.

Jesus Applies the Sixth Commandment #1

Jesus gives two applications; here's the first. The question that we might pose is being answered here: "To what extent should the disciple of Jesus go in seeking to live at peace with one another and allow no room for the harbouring of unrighteous anger in the heart?" What's the answer? The answer is even to the extent that we would postpone something as sacred and important as the worship of God!

So we read in verse 23, "Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go first, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering." So here, Jesus drives home the critically important point that believers are to deal with conflicts between one another, no matter how subtle. One should even postpone worship until they have taken steps toward reconciliation. That is how important this is. Notably, if we look carefully at the language here, Jesus says that if you remember someone else—did you notice that in 5:23? If you remember someone else, another believer probably in view here, though we shouldn't limit it to believers—if you remember that they have something against you, postpone worship until you've attempted reconciliation with them.

The gravity of what Jesus is asking his disciples is underlined in the original context: this journey to reconcile with one's neighbour, without cars and so on, could entail a several-day excursion. It might mean abandoning their journey to the temple for worship, to travel for days—perhaps north of Jerusalem into Galilee—to be reconciled, to seek reconciliation with their brother. And only after completing this mission should they then return to complete their sacrifice of worship. Such is the priority of reconciliation in a believer's life. I think Paul wrote it quite concisely in Romans 12:8: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men."

So Jesus is not diminishing the importance of worship. Far from it; if anything, he's heightening our view of worship. But God wants us to live at peace with one another, to work out differences, to lay ourselves down just as Christ did for us, to show love to the unlovable, to turn the other cheek, to bear with others' faults, and pray that they would be with ours as well. This is the gospel-empowered radical view of holiness that the Pharisees and scribes knew nothing of. We want to squash sin in our lives; we want to kill it, we want to sever it.

Every time we harbor anger in our hearts, thereby violating the law, that's just more sin that Christ had to die for. Are we to live in that for which Christ had to die? Paul says in Romans 6, "May it never be!"

Jesus Applies the Sixth Commandment #2

So a final heading. There’s another point to make; it deepens our understanding still, but there's not too much in this final verse we haven't covered already, so I can be brief here.

So as in verse 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, the judge to the officer, and you be thrown in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent." Jesus here, it seems, pushes out the application beyond even between brothers—in other words, close friends or relatives, people we already care about. Here is a situation where the sixth commandment has a moral application for opponents, even at law. The picture that he's painting is that of two people at odds with one another, enemies over a legal dispute. They're on their way to the courthouse. Christ is pleading with the disciple to seek reconciliation even while they're on their way to that legal proceeding.

I'm told in the ancient world, or much of it, a debtor with unpaid debts could be thrown into prison and not permitted to leave until his debts were paid, which would have to be paid by a family member or other supporters. And so, says Jesus, our view of the sixth commandment ought to be so morally deep that even before our enemies have any chance to carry out whatever they intend against us, our goal should be always to make it right and to pursue peace.

So what is the meaning then? To summarize as we close: to quote Don Carson again, he says, "It simply insists on immediate action. Malicious anger is so evil, God's judgment so certain, that we must do all in our power to end it."

So our Lord has just expounded upon the sixth commandment. He has taken us beyond the letter to the spirit, and he is showing us how we are to relate to that law. So anger is not for us; reconciliation is the Christian way.