“If your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” (Mt. 5:30).
I do not believe I’ve ever seen someone walking around without a hand who claimed they cut it off to save their soul. Most who read these verses in Matthew 5 lean more toward hyperbole interpretation and less to a literal one. In other words, Jesus isn’t really telling us to cut off our hands, because if he were, we’d have a bunch of people running around missing their hands. So if Jesus is not literally telling us to cut off our hands when we sin, what is he trying to tell us?
The Sermon on the Mount is Matthew 5-7, and many believe that these chapters comprise the essence or core of discipleship. I tend to agree with that assessment. I’ve also seen how moments in these chapters resurface later in Matthew’s gospel. In other words, these chapters are both key to Matthew’s gospel and to the Christian faith.
Matthew 5:30 is part of five illustrations where Jesus exposes the unrighteous behavior of the Pharisees’ so-called “righteousness” (5:20). The Pharisees may not have broken the 6th Commandment, but the hatred filling their hearts could have led to murder (5:21-26). They may not have physically broken the 7th Commandment, but they wanted to (5:27-32). They created acceptable rules and reasons for breaking one’s promise (5:33-37). They advocated personal revenge (5:38-42). And they justified hating their enemies (5:38-48). Jesus wasn’t attacking the Law, but he was attacking the way they bent the Law to excuse their sinful behavior.
So as Jesus addresses adultery (5:27-32), he is combatting a twisted view of Scripture that rationalizes lust as long as one never physically commits adultery. Nowhere in the Old Testament was God’s intent to create a venue for sin. That in and of itself stands against his own nature. Moses never told Israel that it was ok with God for you to be driven by lustful desires as long as you never act on them. For those who actually believed and/or taught such a premise, they neither knew nor understood God.
Some two thousand years have passed since Jesus gave these instructions, and we find ourselves almost a world away from his original audience. If we compare modern American society to ancient Palestine, the moral decline is shocking. Redefining modesty, marketing products with sex, lewd images at our fingertips and an entire industry driven by pornography produces millions of dollars a year. No wonder lust is a losing battle. That said, compared to some ancient Gecko-Roman cities, America’s battle with the explicit sexual images might still be seen as tame. Either way, it’s still a temptation to battle.
Jesus’ teaching on lust includes two strong messages often glossed over. First, lust has eternal consequences. The call to gouge out an eye or to cut off a hand is clearly hyperbole, though the damage lust does to the mind and heart cannot be understated. Studies are confirming that the dehumanization of women through pornography deteriorates the relationship between the husband and wife. By continuingly going into such a dark place creates a foothold for darker thoughts to prevail. So Jesus says to take extreme measures to ensure your heart remains pure, because more is at stake than a moment of pleasure: your very soul is at stake.
Secondly, take responsibility for your thoughts. Jesus clearly puts the burden of purity, not on the women, but on the men, “. . . anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in her heart” (Mt. 5:28). While modesty, as well as the messaging sent through dress, is an important discussion to have, the focus of this text is on the man. We have the power to look away and to stop the fantasy before it even starts.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an eye gouged out or a hand cut off as a preventive measure of stopping lust from taking hold. I did hear about Billy Graham ripping the cable cord from his hotel room to prevent him from succumbing to temptation. He confessed that he’d rather pay for the remodel job on the room than to discredit his ministry and vow to his wife. Maybe that’s the extreme measures Jesus had in mind.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)