27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5: 27-30 ESV
Matthew 5: 27-30
17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit. 18Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;… 1 Corinthians 6: 17-19
You have heard - This gets repeated throughout Christ's sermon, and what follows is not wrong, "you shall not commit adultery", and that is in the 10 commandments, but the problem was that the Rabbis did not take the teaching far enough. God did not want mindless ritual tied to unchanged lives.
“I made a covenant with my eyes
not to look lustfully at a young woman.
2 For what is our lot from God above,
our heritage from the Almighty on high?
3 Is it not ruin for the wicked,
disaster for those who do wrong?
4 Does he not see my ways
and count my every step? Job 31: 1-4
You shall not commit adultery - This was a high crime in the OT law, punishable by death. The Jews, who sought to destroy Jesus, tried trapping Him with this very law. They brought out a woman who they had caught in adultery, hoping to get Jesus to speak against the law of the One Whom He referred to as His Father, or to get Him to stone the woman, which would have gone against Rome, for they had the power of life and death, Israel had forfeited her own sovereign rule to the nations ever since the time of the Babylonian occupation. She went from one pagan ruler to another, and now she was under Roman law. Jesus treatment of the situation is stellar, other worldly. He is God the Son so He has the power to forgive, and He is without sin, so He is the only One Who could have throne the stone base upon what He said, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." These men did not follow the law, for if they cared at all about the law then they would have had the man she was sleeping with there as well. The most incredible part is that Jesus sets her free, remember, earlier in this chapter, He says, "I did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill", so in forgiving her, letting her go, and telling her to "sin no more", He has taken her sin upon Himself, cleansing her of her past, and sending her out to live a new life. He is her redeemer.
'If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10)
"If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. (Deut 22:22-24)
Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent - Now Jesus moves the bar from where men hold it, and with men it is often a matter of whether we get caught or not, and that by our fellow human beings. The world has their bar for this, which is often solely a matter of consent, and or contractual agreement. In other words, if you are okay with me cheating then it is not cheating, so we have those, and I have known them even in the so called "church", who would view marriage in such a low sense as to call it "open", which takes away the two becoming one. There is also the bro code, where what happens in Vegas or on the road stays there, a place of legal indiscretion, a place of sanctioned sin. We help each other hide it, iron doesn't sharpen iron in such relationships. We say of our spouses, what he or she doesn't know can't hurt them. The church has gone so far as to make a place for people to feel comfortable in their sin, and has in essence become the new Vegas, where anyone who speaks out against sin is considered a bigot. We have made the new law, "whatever feels good to you, whatever you attach the word love to, the heart wants what the heart wants, and I can't help but do what I want to do, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else." Jesus does not comply with the law according to the Scribes, nor does He adjust to meet your unholy standard; He puts the bar in it's place, and reveals the right of the Creator, to look past the whitewashed exterior, into the heart of those He made. He is at the root, the place where the seed was planted, concealed and covered, the place from whence the tree grew and bore such fruit as murder or adultery. It didn't start with the act, it started with a thought that lingered upon a temptation, that took something beautiful and twisted it into something that God did not intend. Notice too, He doesn't say married woman, or any married man that looks upon, but He just says, "everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent", everyone, a woman. He has indicted every human being, leaving none righteous, not even one.
…8Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, even against your own brothers! 9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.…
11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6: 8-11
Already committed adultery with her in his heart - He looked, something came through the eyes, passed in front of him, but in his heart lays this sin, and now the perverse heart, with it's wicked intent, drives the eyes to search in such fashion as to appease his lust. He makes his members a slave to sin. This progresses in us, where we seek stumbling blocks, occasions to feed what God has deemed disgraceful. Men hold the remote in their hand, fumble through the channels, stopping when they find their pint of flesh. The internet has made porn ridiculously easy, and we say, "but I haven't actually gone out and cheated on my wife, I am just window shopping, not buying." God takes it to the heart, and this is where He is saying it is wrong, that you and I are corrupt. It wasn't till I was convicted of my sin, and came to a place where I didn't care so much about what men said or thought of me, but I hurt alone, by myself, before a Holy God, I grieved about the state of my inner being, and that's when things started to change. I stopped watching certain shows because they fed my lust. I stopped following certain of my acquaintances on Facebook, and asked to be remove from certain text chains. I expect the world to act like the world, but I claimed to be a Christian, yet I did not reign in my eyes, and now it hurt, all the sudden the jokes weren't as funny, and the pictures all seemed to shatter the image of God. Temptation still comes, but the thought of my Lord's displeasure is painful, and so I cry out, I plead, I beg for a new heart, a spirit of self control, I hunger and thirst for righteousness. As a man thinks, so shall he be, and so if you have entertained the lustful thought, then you are an adulterer, if you are angry with your brother without cause, or see him as less than you, you are a murderer. Is there anyone reading this who is not guilty? If you aren't then you aren't a sinner, and Christ only came to save sinners, that they may go and sin no more.
…38“Speak to the Israelites and tell them that throughout the generations to come they are to make for themselves tassels for the corners of their garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. 39These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the commandments of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes. 40Then you will remember and obey all My commandments, and you will be holy to your God.… Numbers 15: 38-40
If your right eye causes you to sin - If that is the cause, the root, then cut it out. I use to say it was little Calvin, the problem was that I was a guy and I had a male member which led me about, but if that's where sin comes from then there is an easy fix - be a eunuch, right? Christ has already stated where it comes from, it's from your heart, the mind, your very essence and person, and so the hyperbole removes the excuses. Look, the next is your right hand, so you touched someone else's wife, or you used that hand to steal, but what guided it, from whence did the direction come? Now we will say, but I was born this way, I can't help it, yes, I agree, in so much as you were born into sin, that you are of a sinful nature which is in every way inclined to do that which God has deemed evil. I agree that you are a sinner, and because of that you have become part of that verse which claims that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin is death. Now if you say, "no one can live up to God's standard, who could possibly walk past every temptation and not give in, not even give it a thought, not even a moments doubt about what God says is true happiness, not believe the serpent when he says, 'hath God really said'? " If you are saying that no one lives this way, and yet God is going to judge me according to a standard that I can't meet? Man, you are getting so close.
20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” Mark 7: 20-23
…23For this commandment is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way to life, 24to keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. 25Do not lust in your heart for her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes.… Proverbs 6: 23-25
…20Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God. 21God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5: 20-21
If it comes from the heart, your very being, who you are, then you need a righteousness from outside of you, and there was One Who did walk in accordance to the Spirit, Who did not lust, cheat or sin against God in any way. Therefore, this same Jesus, becomes the way by which all who believe in Him can become righteous. There are in Holy Scripture, prayers of past saints, those who were dead in their trespasses and sins, and just look, and consider this when you pray:
…9Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. 10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11Cast me not away from Your presence; take not Your Holy Spirit from me.… Psalm 51: 9-11
…23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139: 23-24
It was always about the heart.
…25I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.… Ezekiel 36: 25-27
And look how a heart after God deals with such temptations.
…7and after some time his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said, “Sleep with me.” 8But he refused. “Look,” he said to his master’s wife, “with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in his house, and he has entrusted everything he owns to my care. 9No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?”…
…10Although Potiphar’s wife spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be near her. 11One day, however, Joseph went into the house to attend to his work, and not a single household servant was inside. 12She grabbed Joseph by his cloak and said, “Sleep with me!” But leaving his cloak in her hand, he escaped and ran outside.… Genesis 39: 7-12
…20A large house contains not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some indeed are for honorable use, but others are for common use. 21So if anyone cleanses himself of what is unfit, he will be a vessel for honor: sanctified, useful to the Master, and prepared for every good work. 22Flee from youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.… 2 Timothy 2: 20-22
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