You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery.
The author of Hebrews wrote that "the law made nothing perfect" (see Hebrews 7:19). The law set a standard of behavior but did not address the heart. Jesus, in bringing the law to perfection, would address precisely that.
But I say to you,
everyone who looks at a woman with lust
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
We can imagine that people who cherish lustful thoughts, who view images that provoke lust, who entertain thoughts imagining illicit relationships, will eventually have a hard time even conforming to the external standards of the law. Those who allow their hearts to become adulterous are eventually going to have trouble avoiding the act itself.
Jesus commanded that we direct our focus inward, to seek to have hearts that are not violent or adulterous so that we can actually be nonviolent and chaste in actual fact. He knew that if our hearts were doing one thing but we were striving in a different direction with our behavior that was not a recipe for obedience or for righteousness.
If your right eye causes you to sin … if your right hand causes you to sin
Although it is literally true that we are better off without an eye or a hand than we are in burning in the undying fires of Gehenna it is not actually the case that our eye or hand causes us to sin. We cause ourselves to sin, that is, we choose it for ourselves. Therefore the what we must cut off and tear out is not first something external to us, but something within our hearts.
But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God (see Romans 2:29).
The law was powerless to effect this transformation in the hearts of women and men. And without such power, all the law could do was condemn transgressions that were all but inevitable by those who hearts remained impure. The complete transformation from the inside out, the divine surgery to heal the heart of mankind, was something that could only be done by Jesus in the power his his Holy Spirit. It was by his gift of the Spirit alone that our minds could be renewed and our hearts could be changed from stone to flesh. Jesus was the one alone who could write the law in our hearts (see Jeremiah 31:33).
After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.
When he heard this,
Elijah hid his face in his cloak
and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.
Jesus is different from all other interventions or strategies we might try to address the problem of sin. Only he himself moves our own will sweetly from within us. There is not violence our coercion, but rather something that is deeper in us than even our own hearts that begins to become the primary principle to guide of our lives. It is something precious, like the still small voice that spoke to Elijah. We tend to prefer fire and earthquakes, things obviously loud and self-evident. But it is by listening at this level of the heart, by being open at this level, that the deepest progress can be made in our own transformation into the new creations we are meant to be. Only then do we begin to believe that transformation is, first, possible and, second, worthwhile. But once it begins to take hold the teachings of Jesus will no longer seem to be crushing impossibilities. Even a lifelong devoted marriage will no longer seem, as it does to many in the world, as an unrealistic imposition. By the transformation he works in us we are made free to live in and for love.
Hear, O LORD, the sound of my call;
have pity on me, and answer me.
Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.
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