Matthew 5:27-32
The Sin of the Wandering Eye (vv. 27-30)
The deeper correction
- “You have heard it Said…”
- “…but I say to you…”
The desperate conviction
- Discipline your eyes.
- Discipline your hands.
The Sacredness of the Marriage Covenant (vv. 31-32)
“You have heard it Said…”: permissive social compromise.
“…but I say to you…”: protect the sacred covenant.
- Adultery (Matt. 19:1-8)
- Abandonment (1Cor. 7:12-16)
- Abuse (Eph. 5:25-32)
More to Consider
The command to get rid of troublesome eyes, hands and feet is an example of our Lord’s use of dramatic figures of speech. What he was advocating was not a literal physical self-maiming, but a ruthless moral self-denial. Not mutilation but mortification is the path of holiness he taught, and ‘mortification’ or ‘taking up the cross’ to follow Christ means to reject sinful practices so resolutely that we die to them or put them to death. One wonders if there has ever been a generation in which this teaching of Jesus was more needed or more obviously applicable than our own, in which the river of filth (of pornographic literature and sex films) is in spate. Pornography is offensive to Christians (and indeed to all healthy-minded people) first and foremost because it degrades women from human beings into sex objects, but also because it presents the eye of the beholder with unnatural sexual stimulation. If we have a problem of sexual self-mastery, and if nonetheless our feet take us to these films, our hands handle this literature, and our eyes feast on the pictures they offer to us, we are not only sinning but actually inviting disaster. John Stott
Married or single, purity calls us to the highest regard for others, to see them as persons and not as bodies to be used for our pleasure. However, marriage is a covenant between two people for life, and adultery violates that covenant. Jesus expects His disciples to keep covenant in both deed and attitude. Myron S. Augsburger
