It Begins In The Heart Series

Now, the severity of judgment seems to escalate with the words we use. To be angry produces the same judgment as murder, but when it escalates to insults like calling someone an idiot moves it to a higher court. The word “council” is the Greek word for Sanhedrin, the highest court in the land. And when we assassinate their character by calling them a fool or moron, then hell fire is the end judgment.

Jesus is saying that in the same way murder is judged, so will those how have anger issues towards others, and if it escalates into slanderous language, then the judgment will be worse.

This has caused a lot of problems with people who take this literally, like if you call someone a moron you’re going straight to hell. But what Jesus is doing is using graphic language to get our attention and to drive his point home. He is uses a hyperbole, and overstatement to shake us out of our complacency and self-righteous attitudes.

While we may not have committed murder, we shouldn’t think we’re safe from judgment, because if you have anger in your heart towards someone where you get to the point of assassinating their character, you’re just as guilty.

Now at this point I’m usually given the argument of it being “righteous anger.” What is “righteous anger.” Martin Luther may have given the best definition. He said it’s “an anger of love, one that wishes no one any evil, one that is friendly to the person, but hostile to the sin.”

In our modern day Christian ease language we’d say it’s anger that hates the sin but loves the sinner.

This is something I struggle with, especially when I see someone get the raw end of the deal, or when someone is judging others when they’re doing the same thing, which is called hypocrisy. This upsets me and I just want to take their heads off, or in Michaela vernacular, “I want to snatch them bald-headed.”

Now I try to rationalize it saying, “It’s righteous anger,” and it may be, but my attitude stinks, so it’s not so righteous as I would like to think it is.

Jesus then goes on to give two illustrations which reveal and interesting twist.

Read Matthew 5:23-26

Jesus isn’t dealing with our anger issues with others; rather it’s other’s anger issues with us that we’ve caused.

We’re far more likely to remember our anger against someone else and what they’ve done to us rather than what we’ve done to offend them that have cause them to be angry with us.

In the first example is that before we offer our sacrifices to God if we remember that someone has a problem with us, we are to go make it right by them before we offer anything to God. Remember the Great Commandment that the way we show God how much we love Him is by loving our neighbor as ourselves. So let’s not say we love God if we’re not being loving to others.

What this means is that if we remember that someone is upset with us, let’s not wait or put it off. We are to go immediately and make it right.