The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany is February 12, 2023.

Readings for Year A can be found here.

The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):

Matthew 5:21-37

5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’

5:22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

5:23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you,

5:24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

5:25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.

5:26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

5:28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his Heart.

5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

5:30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

5:31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’

5:32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

5:33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’

5:34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,

5:35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

5:36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

5:37 Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (as indicated below).

N.B.: This is another long post as there is much to explain.

Over the past two Sundays in Year A, the Gospel readings have come from the Sermon on the Mount, which continues today. Matthew’s version of it runs from Chapter 5 through Chapter 7.

Jesus built His sermon logically. He began with the Beatitudes, discusses His role and our role with regard to holy law and, in today’s reading, tells us how to obey the Commandments. Those in today’s reading were particularly violated under the rule of the Jewish system of His day.

Matthew Henry’s commentary says:

Christ having laid down these principles, that Moses and the prophets were still to be their rulers, but that the scribes and Pharisees were to be no longer their rulers, proceeds to expound the law in some particular instances, and to vindicate it from the corrupt glosses which those expositors had put upon it. He adds not any thing new, only limits and restrains some permissions which had been abused: and as to the precepts, shows the breadth, strictness, and spiritual nature of them, adding such explanatory statutes as made them more clear, and tended much toward the perfecting of our obedience to them. In these verses, he explains the law of the sixth commandment, according to the true intent and full extent of it.

However, John MacArthur takes our Lord’s intent even further, by pointing to our inner selves in relationship to the Ten Commandments, the moral law:

He’s saying, “Your standard is too low.  You only worry about murder.  God looks at the heart and says, ‘If there’s hate there, it’s the same thing.’  You only murder or worry about fornication.  God says, ‘If there’s lust in the heart, it’s the same thing.’  You see, God’s standard is an attitudinal standard.  Yours is only dealing with action.”  That’s the difference …

Now in selecting His illustrations He’s very careful.  First of all, He chooses two commands from Moses, from the decalogue, the ten commandments.  Thou shalt not murder.  Thou shalt not commit adultery.  Then, He chooses two other rather wider social commandments taken from other portions of the Mosaic writings.  Social relationships. 

He starts with the very firm ten commandments.  He broadens to social relationships, and finally He broadens to discuss the whole subject of love.  It’s almost as if there’s an ascending thing here.  He’s saying that it all begins at the foundation of life:  Murder and marriage, the organism, the individual, the organization marriage.  It all starts there.  Thou shalt not kill.  Thou shalt not commit adultery.  One is the right of the individual, and the other is the basic definition of the social system.  God has standards right there.  And they’re not only behavior standards in terms of what you do, but of what you think.

Jesus began with murder: it was said to those of ancient times — the Israelites — that ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgement’ (verse 21).

He said, ‘I say to you’ — emphasising that He was returning to God’s meaning — that those who are angry with someone will incur judgement; those who insult someone will be liable to the council and saying ‘you fool’ to someone will incur the fire of hell (verse 22).

Henry tells us how the ancient Jews kept that commandment:

… wilful murderers were liable to the sword of justice, and casual ones to the judgment of the city of refuge. The courts of judgment sat in the gate of their principal cities; the judges, ordinarily, were in number twenty-three; these tried, condemned, and executed murderers; so that whoever killed, was in danger of their judgment. Now this gloss of theirs upon this commandment was faulty, for it intimated, 1. That the law of the sixth commandment was only external, and forbade no more than the act of murder, and laid to restraint upon the inward lusts, from which wars and fightings come. This was indeed the proton pseudos—the fundamental error of the Jewish teachers, that the divine law prohibited only the sinful act, not the sinful thought; they were disposed hærere in cortice—to rest in the letter of the law, and they never enquired into the spiritual meaning of it.

MacArthur interprets the verse — and the others in today’s reading — as follows:

Jesus said, “It’s not only in God’s eyes the man who commits murder who is guilty, but the man who is angry is just as guilty, and just as liable to be judged.”  Jesus said that in God’s eyes, it is not only the man who commits the act of adultery who is guilty, but the one who allows the unclean desire to find root in his heart.  Jesus said that in God’s eyes it is not only the one who perjures himself, but anyone whose word is not his absolute bond.  Jesus said that in God’s sight it is not only wrong to divorce without a bill of divorcement, but it is wrong to divorce without a just cause.  Jesus said that in God’s sight not only is there to be justice, but there is to be mercy.  Jesus said that we are not only to love our neighbors, but God says we are to love our enemies. 

And what He’s doing is listing the law, stripping it of the traditional barnacles of rabbinic confusion, elevating it to where it belongs, and saying, “You cannot get away with justification on the basis of externals because you didn’t murder, or because you didn’t commit adultery, or because you didn’t divorce, or because you didn’t perjure yourself, or because you did what was just, or because you loved your neighbor.  That is not enough.  Those are only the externals.  The internals are what God is looking after” …

And so, you see, Jesus is literally hitting these Pharisees right between the eyes.  Their hearts were filthy while their deeds were religious.  And God looks at the heart. 

MacArthur also thinks that the phrase ‘it was said to those of ancient times’ refers to more than the Old Testament; it refers to rabbinical tradition:

… by the way, rabbis were called “fathers of antiquity” or “men of long ago.”  That was a common term for rabbis, and that is what our Lord is referring to.  “You have heard that it was said by the rabbis of old.”  In other words, this is a designation related to their oral teaching that glossed over the true law of God, that added their own thoughts to the revelation of the Old Testament.  And so Jesus is not contrasting the New Testament with the Old Testament, not contrasting His Word with God’s Word, but with the word of the rabbis, and their traditional interpretation which had been given to the people.

Henry explains the destructive nature of anger and malice to which Jesus refers, contrasting it to righteous anger:

Christ tells them that rash anger is heart-murder (v. 22); Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, breaks the sixth commandment. By our brother here, we are to understand any person, though ever so much our inferior, as a child, a servant, for we are all made of one blood. Anger is a natural passion; there are cases in which it is lawful and laudable; but it is then sinful, when we are angry without cause. The word is eike, which signifies, sine causœ, sine effectu, et sine modo—without cause, without any good effect, without moderation; so that the anger is then sinful, (1.) When it is without any just provocation given; either for no cause, or no good cause, or no great and proportionable cause; when we are angry at children or servants for that which could not be helped, which was only a piece of forgetfulness or mistake, that we ourselves might easily have been guilty of, and for which we should not have been angry at ourselves; when we are angry upon groundless surmises, or for trivial affronts not worth speaking of. (2.) When it is without any good end aimed at, merely to show our authority, to gratify a brutish passion, to let people know our resentments, and excite ourselves to revenge, then it is in vain, it is to do hurt; whereas if we are at any time angry, it should be to awaken the offender to repentance, and prevent his doing so again; to clear ourselves (2 Cor 7 11), and to give warning to others. (3.) When it exceeds due bounds; when we are hardy and headstrong in our anger, violent and vehement, outrageous and mischievous, and when we seek the hurt of those we are displeased at. This is a breach of the sixth commandment, for he that is thus angry, would kill if he could and durst; he has taken the first step toward it; Cain’s killing his brother began in anger; he is a murderer in the account of God, who knows his heart, whence murder proceeds, ch. 15 19.

In older translations, ‘Raca’ is used for ‘you fool’. Calling someone names is tongue murder, unless it is a form of mild correction:

He tells them, that given opprobrious language to our brother is tongue-murder, calling him, Raca, and, Thou fool. When this is done with mildness and for a good end, to convince others of their vanity and folly, it is not sinful. Thus James says, O vain man; and Paul, Thou fool; and Christ himself, O fools, and slow of heart. But when it proceeds from anger and malice within, it is the smoke of that fire which is kindled from hell, and falls under the same character. (1.) Raca is a scornful word, and comes from pride, “Thou empty fellow;” it is the language of that which Solomon calls proud wrath (Prov 21 24), which tramples upon our brother-disdains to set him even with the dogs of our flock. This people who knoweth not the law, is cursed, is such language, John 7 49. (2.) Thou fool, is a spiteful word, and comes from hatred; looking upon him, not only as mean and not to be honoured, but as vile and not to be loved; “Thou wicked man, thou reprobate.” The former speaks a man without sense, this (in scripture language) speaks a man without grace; the more the reproach touches his spiritual condition, the worse it is; the former is a haughty taunting of our brother, this is a malicious censuring and condemning of him, as abandoned of God. Now this is a breach of the sixth commandment; malicious slanders and censures are poison under the tongue, that kills secretly and slowly; bitter words are as arrows that would suddenly (Ps 64 3), or as a sword in the bones. The good name of our neighbour, which is better than life, is thereby stabbed and murdered; and it is an evidence of such an ill-will to our neighbour as would strike at his life, if it were in our power.

He explains why Jesus mentioned being liable to a council, or a court:

Some think, in allusion to the penalties used in the several courts of judgment among the Jews, Christ shows that the sin of rash anger exposes men to lower or higher punishments, according to the degrees of its proceeding. The Jews had three capital punishments, each worse than the other; beheading, which was inflicted by the judgment; stoning, by the council or chief Sanhedrim; and burning in the valley of the son of Hinnom, which was used only in extraordinary cases: it signifies, therefore, that rash anger and reproachful language are damning sins; but some are more sinful than others, and accordingly there is a greater damnation, and a sorer punishment reserved for them: Christ would thus show which sin was most sinful, by showing which it was the punishment whereof was most dreadful.

Jesus said that when offering a gift at the altar, if we remember that someone has a grievance against us (verse 23), we must leave our gift and go to be reconciled with that person, then offer our gift (verse 24).

He said that it is important to come to terms with that person sooner rather than later. He uses the analogy of being on the way to court with them to settle a grievance and reconciling before reaching the judge, lest a prison sentence await (verse 25). He said that the sentenced will never leave prison until they have paid the last penny (verse 26).

MacArthur explains:

Now what does He mean here?  Does He mean that the time will come when the person will die and you’ll never made it, be able to reconcile?  Does He mean the time will come when God will chasten you and judge you, and it’ll be too late?  Possibly both of those things.  He doesn’t really explain that.  But what He does say is this.  You can’t worship Me unless your relations are right.  So hurry, hurry and make them right.  Don’t let them go to the place where there will be a civil judgment made and somebody loses in the end.  Don’t let it go too far is the idea.  Don’t let it go to the place where God in, in judgment, moves in.  Act before then. 

And I believe in the final analysis, He’s saying that God is the real judge, and hell is the real punishment.  And if you don’t make things right, you may find yourself in an eternal hell with a debt that never could be paid. 

Now what He is saying, let me sum it up right now.  You Pharisees and scribes who are depending on your own self-righteousness, just because you don’t kill, you think you’re holy, let Me tell you something.  If you’re angry, if you’ve ever said a malicious word about somebody’s character, if you’ve ever cursed anybody, you’re like a murderer.  If you’ve ever come to an altar to worship God and had something against your brother, you are in danger of such judgment, such hypocrisy would be enacted in your worship that you leave that gift and run to make it right. 

MacArthur says that Jesus wanted the people — the Pharisees, in particular — to realise they cannot obey the law without God’s grace through His imputation of righteousness. We cannot do it on our own, because we will always fall short. Furthermore, we cannot be reconciled to God except through faith in Jesus Christ:

He wants to drive them to the fact that they cannot be righteous on their own, which will drive them to their knees at the foot of the cross to accept the imputed righteousness that only Jesus Christ can give.  You see?  Everything that He says here is to drive them to frustration and inadequacy so that they come to Him. 

He died our death.  He entered our hell that we might have righteousness.  You deserve death.  I deserve death.  You deserve hell.  I deserve hell.  We’re all murderers.  All the Pharisees were, the scribes were, and everybody is, and so Jesus went to the cross, died our death, suffered our hell, and offers us the gift of His own righteousness.  That’s the meaning of the gospel, see? 

And by the way, this is just one crime we’ve committed.  There are myriad more.  So we are brought again to the fact that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.  But the righteousness that we desperately need comes as a gift from God.  Paul calls it “the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us.”

MacArthur introduces the verses on adultery in the context of love of God and, following on, love of our spouse:

Did you know that the first four commandments relate to God, and the last six commandments relate to your neighbor?  The first four tell you how to love God, and the last six tell you how to love your neighbor.  Let’s look at them.  Exodus chapter 20, Exodus chapter 20.  And I’m going to go through this pretty quick, because I want to get done in a minute. 

In Exodus chapter 20 – now watch, stay with me – we find the listing of the ten commandments.  And I want you to see how these are nothing but an expression of love.  These are qualities of love.  Verse 3, first one, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”  You know what that means?  Love is loyal, that’s all.  Love is loyal. 

If I say to my wife, “Honey, I love you,” and then I tell her, “I also have three or four others that I love, too,” that’s not the kind of love she’s interested in.  Love is loyal.  That’s all He’s saying here.  Love is loyal to Him.  Having no other gods before Him.  You don’t say, “Oh, boy, am I really mad I only have that one God and everybody else in the world gets a whole bunch.”  No, no. 

There were some people who worshiped one God because they felt that they would be right in doing it.  There are other people who worshiped one God because they loved Him so much they were loyal.  I don’t worship just the Lord because I’m trying to fulfill some legal obligation.  I worship the one God because He’s the only one I love, right?  Love is loyal. 

Secondly, love is faithful.  Verse 4 – and this is the extent to which loyalty goes.  “Thou shalt not make unto thee any carved image, any likeness of anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy to thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” 

Do you see it there?  Again it’s love.  In other words, the point is love will be faithful.  Love will not make graven images.  Love will not go off and make a carved replica of some non-god.  Love is loyal and its loyalty extends into the future endlessly, and thus becomes faithfulness.  Toward God, then, if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we’ll love only Him.  If we love the Lord our God, we’ll love Him faithfully. 

Thirdly, the next commandment says love is reverent, verse 7.  “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.”  Listen.  If you love the Lord, will you take His name in vain?  If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength would you curse His name?  No.  So you see, love is loyal, and love’s loyalty extends into faithfulness, and love is reverent.  That’s all He’s really saying. 

And then a fourth one related to God in verses 8 to 11.  “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days shalt thou labour, and do thy work:  But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, maidservant, cattle, a stranger in thy gates:  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day:  wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” 

You know what that says?  Love is set apart, separated.  You know something?  If I love somebody totally, I am set apart to that person only, right?  If I say I love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, but I’m gonna take the one day I’m supposed to spend worshiping Him and go do something else, doesn’t say much for my love, does it?  So all He’s saying here – and this is so simple, people – love is loyal, love is faithful, love is reverent, and love is set apart.  Love separates itself totally to its object. 

You know, men, when you love a girl, finally you go to her someday and you say, “I want you to be my wife.”  What are you really saying?  You’re saying, “I love you so much I just want to separate myself to you, that’s all.  I’m not interested in any other woman.  I’m not interested in any other relationships.  It’s you that matters.”  That’s love.  So you see, this isn’t some legalistic code of externals.  This is merely a way to define love, love toward God. 

Jesus said, repeating ‘You have heard that it was said’ that you shall not commit adultery (verse 27). Emphasising again that He was returning to the original meaning of the Commandment, He began with ‘I say to you’, and said that anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart (verse 28).

Jimmy Carter was very fond of verse 28.

MacArthur examines our Lord’s intention:

… in verse 27, “You have heard them say, You should not commit adultery; But I’m telling you if you lust in your heart you are guilty.”  Why?  Because your attitude toward your brother is wrong.  You’re not pure, and you’re coveting something that isn’t yours. 

… Now when He gives the law here to the scribes and the Pharisees, what’s gonna be their reaction?  They’re gonna say the same thing the Jews of old would say, “We can’t keep that law.  It can’t be done.  We can’t do it.  We’re not that good.  We can’t love like that all the time.  We need help.  We can’t maintain Your standard, God.”  And that is exactly what He wants them to say. 

We don’t preach much on sin these days. More’s the pity, because it is central to our Lord’s teaching:

What Jesus is really doing is preaching on sin ...  If you don’t understand sin, you’ll never understand anything else in the Scripture.  Jesus spends a tremendous amount of time dealing with the problem of sin. 

People make fun of Evangelical pastors’ condemnation of sin. It isn’t funny. We mustn’t just read the Beatitudes and think we’re somehow covered by that. We need to learn how to live the Beatitudes. We cannot do that without heeding our Lord’s teaching on sin and abide by it through divine grace.

MacArthur has more on sin:

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the great preacher of England said, “You can have a psychological belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, but a true belief sees in Him one who delivers us from the curse of the law.  True evangelism starts like that, and obviously is primarily a call to repentance.” 

The apostle Paul said that we are to call men to repentance toward God and then faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.  And what Jesus is saying to these people is you may not have killed anybody, and you may not have committed adultery, but in your hearts you have been angry, and in your hearts you have hated, and in your hearts you have lusted, and you are as vile as a murderer and as an adulterer.  And in desperation they are driven to the need of an outside Savior who can change their evil hearts. 

Men can modify their behavior – believe it, they can.  Peer pressure, pride, all of those things, piosity, a fear of rejection can force people to behave in a certain way.  But only God can change a heart. 

There’s a third thought I had on this.  Unless we understand the truth about sin, we can never really understand salvation, we can never really understand proclamation, and we can never really understand sanctification.  Unless we understand the meaning of sin, we don’t know what it is to be made holy in Christ, do we?  We don’t understand the magnanimity of the change.  You don’t understand what God has made you in Christ unless you know what you were.  You can’t be thanking and praising Him for the glory of the transformation unless you know what it involved. 

MacArthur explains adultery in the context of our Lord’s teaching:

God’s law said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” Exodus 20:14.  Deuteronomy, where you have deutero nomos, the second law, it’s repeated in 5:18, “Neither shalt thou commit adultery.”  It’s very clear.  The Bible leaves absolutely no question about this particular sin.  The deed is condemned.  It is an evil deed … 

Now you’ll notice that in our passage in Matthew it was the leaders, the rabbinic tradition that said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”  They were right.  They weren’t wrong.  We aren’t implying that at all.  We are only saying they never went far enough.  They were right.  It was evil.  God did say, “Don’t do it.”  It was a serious crime, and still is. 

Now let me talk for a moment about the word itself, the word “adultery.”  It’s a very simple word.  The root means this, “unlawful intercourse with the spouse of someone else.”  That’s basically the technical meaning, a physical, sexual relationship with somebody else’s spouse. 

But most Bible scholars see it not only as a command not to engage in sexual activity with somebody else’s spouse, but see it in a general sense because the word is also used in a general way in some other sources.  For example, in some places the word means “to seduce or violate a woman.”  That’s very general, a married or unmarried woman.  Other places it is translated “to commit harlotry.”  So that generally, the word has been used to speak of any kind of illicit intercourse at all, and anything is illicit outside the bond of marriage.  And so primarily it refers to a sexual relationship that violates a marriage. 

But I believe it can – the spirit of it extends farther to include any kind of illicit sexual behavior.  And I think the wideness of it is indicated in what our Lord says in verse 28, where He says that “anybody who looks on any woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”  And the woman He speaks of here, He doesn’t say whether she’s married or not.  It’s so broad that anybody who lusts after any woman has committed adultery in his heart.  So the Lord is using the term in the broadest possible manner, anybody and any woman. 

Here is the deal:

Now let me tell you, people, this is a sin that really waves the banner today.  It’s as if we’ve just completely turned our back on this.  Somebody ought to read Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 before they ever engage in this.  Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 just speaks so pointedly to the devastation caused by the sin of sexual adultery or fornication.  It is a sin for fools …

And I don’t care if you’re engaged.  I don’t care if you’re going together.  I don’t care if you believe you love each other.  I don’t care whatever it is, apart from the bond of monogamous marriage, an act of sexual relationship is a heinous crime.  And we need to say it like that in our day because people don’t believe that. 

I know. It’s difficult. That’s all I’m going to say.

MacArthur explains lust in context:

So the deed.  But Jesus isn’t finished with the deed, He wants to talk about the desire in verse 28.  This is what He says, “But I say unto you.”  In other words, you went as far as you went, but you never went far enough.  You stopped with the externals.  “I say to you whosoever – ” anybody “ – looking on a woman – ” any woman “ – to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

Now this is a fascinating verse, and there’s much I want you to see.  The Lord forces the self-righteous to the fact that they’re not holy.  The Pharisees are saying, “We don’t do that.  We don’t commit that sin.”  And Jesus drives them right down into their hearts as if Psalm 66:18 became a reality.  “If I regard iniquity in my – ” what? “ – heart, the Lord will not hear me.”  God is always examining the sin of the heart.  It is the internal that breaks the relationship.  And so it is that Jesus says, “I am concerned about what’s on the inside.” 

Let’s look at the terms.  “But I – ” and it’s emphatic.  Eg is there, the pronoun is there, because He is saying, “I am the new authority.  You have had your authority to the rabbinic tradition.”  Sometimes it was true to Moses, sometimes it was not.  In this case it was true to Moses, but nonetheless He is referring to the rabbinic tradition.  “You have had that, but I am a new authority.”  And by the way, He said this in such an authoritative way that when He was finished with the sermon they were shocked because He spoke with such authority. 

I say that, pas ho, anybody whosoever looketh, present participle, “is in the process of continuing to look.”  Now mark that.  It’s continuous action, blepn, a continued state.  Do you see the idea?  It isn’t the inadvertent, accidental glance.  That’s not what our Lord is talking about.  It is the purposeful, repeated, lustful looking.  It isn’t the involuntary glance at all.  It is that which is purposeful. 

And by the way I’ll show you an interesting thing about this verse.  Listen to what He says.  “Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her.”  Now listen to this.  He doesn’t say, “commits adultery.”  No.  He doesn’t say that.  Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her commits adultery?  No.  He says, “Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his heart.”  Why?  Because it is the vile, adulterous heart that results in the wanton look, do you see?  The sin has already happened in the heart.  The adultery is conceived, and thus the look is prompted. 

That’s why you may find in this life that someone passes into your gaze involuntary and appears as a temptation from Satan, or maybe even trying to attract attention.  And an involuntary glance means you just resist and turn away.  But when you latch on, and you cultivate, and you pursue the desire, it’s because your lustful, adulterous heart has been seeking an object, and you fulfill the fantasy that’s already there in your heart. 

Jesus said that if your right eye causes you to sin, it would be better to tear it out and throw it away, doing without a bodily part, rather than have your whole body thrown into hell (verse 29).

Similarly, if your right hand causes you to sin, it would be better to cut it off and throw it away, doing without a bodily part, than have your whole body thrown into hell (verse 30).

Jesus did not mean that literally, although some believers throughout history have probably plucked out an eye or removed a limb. He said that to impress upon us how much God hates sin.

Henry says that our Lord’s intention is for us to seek Him and seek divine grace in order to avoid temptation:

… if this must be submitted to, at the thought of which nature startles, much more must we resolve to keep under the body, and to bring it into subjection; to live a life of mortification and self-denial; to keep a constant watch over our own hearts, and to suppress the first rising of lust and corruption there; to avoid the occasions of sin, to resist the beginnings of it, and to decline the company of those who will be a snare to us, though ever so pleasing; to keep out of harm’s way, and abridge ourselves in the use of lawful things, when we find them temptations to us; and to seek unto God for his grace, and depend upon that grace daily, and so to walk in the Spirit, as that we may not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; and this will be as effectual as cutting off a right hand or pulling out a right eye; and perhaps as much against the grain to flesh and blood; it is the destruction of the old man.

MacArthur explains why Jesus chose to talk about the right eye and the right arm:

To a Jew, the right eye, and the right arm, and the right leg were symbols of the best facility that a man had.  The right was always symbolic of the better of the two.  And He is simply saying, “There is nothing too precious to eliminate from your life if it’s going to cause your heart to be pandered in its adulterous desires.”  That’s what He saying.  If it means getting rid of your most precious possession, then get rid of it, even if it’s your right eye or your right arm … 

People come along and say, “Well, I’m leaving my wife.”  Why?  “Well, because I’ve found another woman.  We’re in love.  Oh, she means everything to me.”  Dump her.  Get rid of her.  You’re pandering your lust, condemning your soul.  What our Lord is saying is that nothing is precious if it affects your eternal destiny. 

Sin must be dealt with radically.  Paul says, “I beat my body to bring it into subjection.”  And so Jesus calls for immediate action.  He diagnoses the problem and says, “Pluck it out.  Cut it off.  Eliminate it, whatever it is in your life, whatever it is.  Whatever it is that feeds that heart of lust, whatever it is that feeds that adulterous thought, get rid of it.” 

If you go to a theater and you watch something that does that, don’t go.  Get rid of it.  If you have that problem with your television, get rid of it.  If you read things like that get rid of them.  If you’ve got magazine lying around with pictures like that,