Are you a victim of adultery? Has your partner cheated on you? How do you cope with the anger? Have you forgiven your spouse? If you did, how do you cope with recurrence of the emotions of pain and anger?
Or, are you the guilty party? What was the price you paid for your adultery? Is there hope of reconciliation? What about guilt feelings? Have you confessed?
Let’s listen to the wise words of Jesus on this topic:
Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Matthew 5:30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT
Matthew 5:28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Fundamentally, Jesus’ discussion of the marriage relationship and its responsibilities is based on the Genesis account and not on the Mosaic law (see Deut. 24:1–4). Let’s read both of them:
Genesis 2:22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
Genesis 2:2 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Deuteronomy 24:1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house,
Deuteronomy 24:2 when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife,
Deuteronomy 24:3 if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife,
Deuteronomy 24:4 then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
In the original plan, marriage was intended to meet the need for companionship (Gen. 2:18), and to provide a home and proper training for the children that would be born. The home was thus established as an ideal environment in which both parents and children might learn of God and might develop characters that would measure up to the lofty ideals inherent in the divine purpose that led to their creation.
Matthew 5:28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Feminine beauty is a gift from a loving Creator, who is a lover of all true beauty. The pure appreciation of that beauty is both right and proper.
Furthermore, the attraction each sex has for the other was implanted within men and women by the Creator, and when operating within the limits ordained of God, is inherently good, but when perverted to serve selfish, evil interests, becomes one of the strongest destructive forces in the world.
Lust. Gr. epithumeō, “to set one’s heart upon [a thing],” “to long for,” “to covet,” “to desire.” “Lust” is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “pleasure,” “longing.” “To lust” for a thing is to experience an intense, eager desire for it.
Epithumeō is used in both a good and an evil sense. Jesus told the Twelve that with “desire” (epithumia) He had “desired” (epithumeō) to eat the last Passover with them (Luke 22:15). In its good sense epithumeō appears also in Matt. 13:17; Luke 17:22; Heb. 6:11; 1 Peter 1:12; etc.).
The related noun, epithumia, “desire,” is used similarly in Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 2:17. One of the Hebrew equivalents of epithumeō is chamad, “to desire,” “to take pleasure in.” Chamad is rendered “covet” in the tenth commandment (Ex. 20:17) and “desire” in Deut. 5:21 and Isa. 53:2.
Christ was doubtless thinking of the tenth commandment when He warned against looking “at a woman to lust after her.” In other words, the man who orders his affections and his will in harmony with the tenth commandment is thereby protected against violating the seventh.
Matthew 5:28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Heart. Gr. kardia, “heart,” here referring to the intellect, the affections, and the will. As a man “thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). Christ points out that character is determined, not so much by the outward act, as by the inward attitude that motivates the act.
The outward act merely reflects and activates the inward attitude. He who would commit a wrong act if he thought he could escape detection, and who is restrained only by that fear, is, in the sight of God, guilty.
Sin is first and above all else an act of the higher powers of the mind—the reason, the power of choice, the will (see on Prov. 7:19). The outward act is merely an extension of the inward decision.
Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
In ch. 5:28 Christ went behind the act to call attention to the motive that prompts the act, that is, to the attitude, or frame of mind, that gives birth to the act.
Here He goes behind the motive or attitude to point to the avenues by which sin gains entrance into the life, the sensory nervous system. For the majority the strongest inducements to sin are those that reach the mind by way of the optic nerve, the auditory nerve, and other sensory nerves (AA 518).
He who refuses to see, hear, taste, smell, or touch that which is suggestive of sin has gone far toward avoiding sinful thoughts. He who immediately banishes evil thoughts when, momentarily, they may flash upon his consciousness, thereby avoids the development of a habitual thought pattern that conditions the mind to commit sin when the opportunity presents itself.
Christ lived a sinless life because “there was in Him nothing that responded to Satan’s sophistry” (DA 123).
Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
It would, in one sense of the word, be better to go through this life blind or otherwise maimed than to forfeit eternal life. But Christ here uses a figure of speech. He does not call for mutilating the body, but for controlling the thoughts.
To refuse to behold that which is evil is fully as effective as making oneself blind, and has the added advantage that the power of sight is retained and may be applied to things that are good.
A fox will sometimes gnaw off its own paw, held fast in a trap, to escape. Similarly, a lizard will sacrifice its tail, or a lobster its claw. By the plucking out of the eye or the cutting off the hand Christ figuratively speaks of the resolute action that should be taken by the will in order to guard against evil.
The Christian does well to follow the example of Job, who “made a covenant with … [his] eyes” (Job 31:1 cf. 1 Cor. 9:27).
Mat 5:30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for
That is, as an instrument of evil desires (see on v. 29).
Mat 5:31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’
Divorces. Put away. Gr. apoluō, “to set free.” “to release.”
A certificate of divorcement. Gr. apostasion, from aphistēmi, “to separate,” The English word “apostasy” comes from the same root. As Christ later pointed out, divorce was not a part of God’s original plan, but came under the provisional approval of the law of Moses because of the “hardness” of men’s hearts (ch. 19:7, 8).
It should be emphasized that the law of Moses did not institute divorce. By divine direction Moses tolerated it and regulated it to prevent abuses. Christian marriage should be based on Gen. 2:24, not of Deut. 24:1.
Matthew 5:32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Adultery Gr. porneia, a general term applying to illicit sexual relationship. The liberal school of Hillel taught that a man might secure a divorce for the most trivial cause, such as his wife’s permitting his food to burn (Mishnah Giṭṭin 9. 10, Soncino ed. of the Talmud, pp. 436, 437; cf. MB 63).
The more conservative school of Shammai, however, interpreted the expression “some uncleanness” of Deut. 24:1 to mean “some unseemly thing,” meaning “immodest,” or “indecent” (Mishnah Giṭṭin 9. 10, Soncino ed. of the Talmud, p. 436).
But Jesus made plain that there should be no divorce except in the case of marital infidelity. The marriage relationship had been perverted by sin, and Jesus came to restore to it the purity and beauty originally ordained by the Creator. See on Deut. 14:26.
In the providence of God the marriage institution was designed to bless and uplift humanity. The companionship of husband and wife was ordained of God as the ideal environment in which to mature a Christian character.
Most of the personality adjustments of married life, and the difficulties encountered by many in making these adjustments, call for the exercise of self-restraint and sometimes self-sacrifice. True “love is patient and kind,” it “does not insist on its own way,” it “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7, RSV).
When Christians enter into the marriage relationship, they should accept the responsibility of applying the principles here stated. Husbands and wives who thus apply these principles, and who are willing for the grace of Christ to operate in their lives, will find that there is no difficulty, however serious it may appear to be, that cannot be solved.
Where dispositions are not congenial, the Christian solution is to change dispositions, not spouses.
Matthew 5:32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
A wife put away would naturally seek to find a new home. But by marrying another she would commit fornication, because her previous marriage was not validly dissolved in God’s sight (cf. Mark 10:11, 12).
Christ boldly set aside the rabbinical tradition of His day, especially that of the school of Hillel (see the foregoing under “Fornication”), which permitted divorce for any cause. It has been observed that no marriage existed among the Jews of the Mishnaic period from which the husband could not abruptly free himself in a legal fashion.
Jesus emphasized that marriage was divinely ordained and, when properly entered into, was divinely ratified. What God had joined together no rabbinical tradition or practice could put asunder.