Affairs of the Heart
Matt. 5:27-32
5/20/07
PSCOC
Introduction: Letter of the Law vs. the Spirit of the Law
Last week in the NBA playoff series between the San Antonio Spurs and the Phoenix Suns, Robert Horry, of the Spurs, viciously fouled Steve Nash into the scorer’s table. Two other Suns left their bench. One to see Nash; the other left to confront Horry. Nash was okay. There was no pushing or punching. Horry was rightfully ejected from the game. Common sense would suggest that nothing else needed to be done.
But then the NBA commissioner, David Stern, enters the picture. The NBA has a rule that if a player leaves the bench area for a confrontation on the court, he will automatically be suspended for the next game. Horry was suspended for two games, but the two Suns were suspended the next game for leaving the bench. This included the Suns’ best scorer and of their best defensive players. Horry was only a bench player. Never mind that no punches were thrown. Never mind that the team that received the vicious foul is the team that was ultimately punished. Never the mind that this is the NBA playoffs and that the best series has been forever tainted. The Suns would loose the next game and maybe the entire series. But the letter of the law was followed and NBA fans around the world outraged.
David Stern has a lot in common with the Pharisees. They were excellent at adhering to the letter of the law, but they completely missed the spirit of the law and therefore they interpreted it erroneously for their selfish gains and to the pain of others. That is why Jesus told his disciples your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees. Today, we will see how Jesus addressed the spirit of the law when it comes to adultery and divorce, issues that hit close to home and close to our hearts. Jesus calls us to pure hearts and actions. He helps us understand the adulterer in each of us.
Move 1: Jesus redefines adultery (read 27-30).
Jesus came to fulfill the law not abolish it, so he is not changing it, but rather illuminating its true meaning. Nevertheless, he speaks with unprecedented authority as the ultimate authority on the law. “You have heard it was said…but I tell you…” The Pharisees were very content that they had not committed adultery as long as they didn’t sleep with another man’s wife. That was external righteousness. It didn’t matter to them who you ogled at and fantasized about. It didn’t matter if their view of women was nothing more than ‘eye candy’ as long as they didn’t actually have sexual union with them.
But for Jesus’ disciples that is not sufficient. Jesus commanded the purity of heart. As Bonhoeffer said, “Adherence to Jesus allows no free reign of desires unless accompanied by love.” You cannot love a woman while at the same time lusting after her when she is not rightfully yours. I know our culture basically equates love and lust, but Jesus calls it what it is, adultery.
It is in the heart that adultery begins and it is in the heart that adultery grows. It isn’t so much the point that it will ultimately grow to the point of sexual immorality, but that in fact it already is adultery. The eyes are the gateway of lust and lust is adultery. Jesus addresses his remarks to men, but of course it is possible for women to lust as well. Sometimes their fantasies may not be as sexually focused, but how many women have fantasized about what it would be like to be married to someone else? How many have actually desired it? Jesus addresses men, because in his culture women were devalued, and he would not tolerate that from his disciples, but please don’t think his words do not address women as well.
Move 2: Radical temptation calls for radical tactics.
Does it seem impossible not to ever look at another man or woman lustfully? I suppose for most of us we have proven it to be impossible. They once made fun of Jimmy Carter because he once said he had committed adultery in his heart. Never mind that concept comes from Jesus, to our secular world he was just totally out of touch. Jesus is not condemning sexual desire, but he is condemning allow that desire to rule our hearts and to reduce others created in God’s image as sexual objects.
We may have all failed in this regard, but that isn’t the point as much as it is recognizing what is happening in our heart, and struggling through the power of the Spirit to bring our hearts in submission to him. Do we also think that as long as we don’t have an actual sexual relationship with someone we are not sinning? The person who gets up in the middle of night when everyone is sleeping to look at porn is committing adultery. The person who shares intimate secrets with strangers on-line is committing adultery. The man who sexually fantasizes about the woman he shares an office with is committing adultery. Those desires do not have to rule us; rather Christ must rule in us. We must bring those desires in subjection to his rule.
What does Jesus mean when he says if your right eye and hand causes you to sin get rid of them? Well, I still have my right hand and eye and I can assure you it is not because I’ve perfected Jesus’ teaching here. There have been people that have literally practiced this. Their mistake is the same as the Pharisees. They think the internal can be controlled by the external (should be vice versa). The problem is the heart. All that Jesus means by speaking of removing the eye and hand is that we must get radical in dealing with our sin problem. It can destroy us. Jesus says in can land us in hell.
I have a single friend that knows that he cannot keep away from the temptation of pornography if he had internet access in his apartment. So, he doesn’t have it. He’s plucked out the eye and cut off the hand. He has disarmed that fatal temptation. But someone else watches a show that leads to impure thoughts and adultery begins to grow. Another refuses to give up reading material that fertilizes the adultery in their hearts. Another seeks to be near to someone that they can’t get their minds off. Jesus is saying be proactive and get radical to eradicate the sin of adultery in your life, or it will destroy you completely. How have you gouged out your eye and cut off your hand?
T.S.: Jesus not only redefined adultery, but he redefines divorce.
Move 3: Jesus redefines divorce (read 31-32).
It is not my purpose to deal with everything Jesus said about divorce or all that the NT says. I simply want to look at the issue in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, but let me tell you a couple of stories first, and you tell me if they are closer to how Jesus thinks or the Pharisees.
I once met a lady named Jackie that had been single for a very long time. In fact, I assumed she had never been married. She was in her seventies when I knew her. I found out that in fact she had been married in her early twenties. Shortly after her honeymoon her husband decided he had enough of the married life. He left her and she never saw him again. For the next fifty plus years she never remarried, because she believed that she would be condemned to hell for living in perpetual adultery.
A small church in a town I once lived came in contact with a woman who had been married for twenty years and had three children in this marriage. As she neared her conversion they discovered that she had a previous marriage. They told her that she had been living in adultery the last twenty years and they would not even baptize her unless she divorced her husband. So they snuck her and her three children out of their house without ever speaking to the husband.
Folks, if that sounds like the Jesus you know, I’m not sure we know the same Jesus. Yet people have used passages like this to justify such horrendous stories. Jesus is internalizing the law, restoring the spirit of the law. He’s not laying down new legislation to rigorously regulate divorce and remarriage. And there is no indication that Jesus or any other NT author believed that another divorce was the right way to fix an already broken situation. Nor was Jesus trying to sentence the woman from the other story to a life of penitent celibacy because her husband abandoned her. That’s the not the heart of Jesus and that’s not the intent of law.
Jesus quotes from Deut. 24:1 where it is stated that a man who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. Why? Because in that society a woman could be put away for any frivolous reason and she would have no way of providing for herself. If she wanted to remarry, the man who put her away could come back and claim her again, or claim her after her new husband had died and get any property she would’ve aquired. So a certificate of divorce made it formal. It had to be done in front of witnesses. Hopefully, it stopped the divorce altogether. But if it did not, it gave the woman the right to remarry and made it against the law for the original husband to marry her again, so that he cannot misuse and steal from her.
The original intent was to limit divorce and to protect the woman. Jesus assumes that law to be valid here, as well as assuming the woman will remarry. The Pharisees and others believed that you could be free of wrong doing just as long as you give her the piece of paper. Jesus says no way. You make her an adulterer when you do this. Obviously, Jesus was not saying that the woman who is put away is guilty of adultery morally, but rather that is what they do to their wives when they take this action against them. In the eyes of their society they’ve been an adulterer because people will assume that is exactly what took place, which Jesus gives as the only valid reason for this behavior. The man who marries such a woman will likewise be considered an adulterer, even if there is no actual sexual immorality on his part. In this case, all of this stems from the original husband.
No one is left untouched by adultery. Jesus is in effect saying that when you put away your wife, except for the reasons of unfaithfulness, that you are spreading adultery to everyone involved. If you walk in a house with a bomb and the bomb blows up, then everyone in the house was impacted by that act, not just the bomber. In effect that is what Jesus is telling his audience about divorce. It is the breaking of covenant and it is therefore adultery, whether you’ve got your legal papers or not.
Move 4: Holding to the ideal in the real world.
Jesus was not trying to somehow make it more difficult on the women who were the victims of frivolous divorce. He was not trying to outlaw remarriage. Remarriage was assumed in the law of Moses and it is here, but Jesus is doing what Matt. 19 makes even more clear. He’s holding up the ideal of marriage. A marriage should not be broken. Everyone involved is harmed when that happens. Women should be counterd as equal partners in a marriage not valued on the level of a legal piece of paper.
It is a fact that covenant is broken and divorces takes place. There are certainly some that probably should not remarry. But there is no one law to apply to every situation. What if my wife is drug addict and is dangerous to my children? What if my husband is physically beating me and my children? You can see the danger in trying to apply these words of Jesus as absolute laws.
On one hand we want to hold up the ideal. Marriage is for life. It is the forming of one flesh between husband and wife. We do not endorse the frivolous breaking of marriage vows. It is destroying our country and it can destroy the church. If you do not have intention of being married for life, then don’t do it. On the other hand, some of you have experience broken marriages. It is not the unforgivable sin. Jesus can forgive, heal, and give you a new beginning. For some it may include remarriage, but for others not.
Whatever our position in life; married, single, or divorced: we are called to live pure lives in relation to others in Christ. We recognize that God not only wants our physical bodies, but our hearts, and he calls us to be radical in eliminating the sin in our lives. He calls us that our married to fight for that relationship and not to perpetuate adultery in this world. This is the purity of life that Jesus has called his disciples to. May he give us strength to do just that.
Invitation: The pure life is the best life.
I know that some think it is better and less rigorous to not fight lust in their lives. But it will control you until it destroys you. God’s design for our desires is the better life by far, no matter what lie Satan tries to sell us. If you want to give your whole heart to Jesus, today, you can do that right now.
