NOTES for Mat 5:20-26
The Lord constantly speaks to His disciples about reconciliation because it is one of the essential conditions of life. Today, too, we read one such passage in the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord tells us that every anger people harbor against each other and every quarrel that finds no forgiveness lead to spiritual death and undermine the very essence of a person. Two characteristic and important points attract our attention.
First, there is the late Byzantine insertion in verse 22, where the word “without cause” was added to Christ’s words, “whoever is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.” That word is absent from ancient manuscripts, both in Greek and in other translations. This means that no anger is possible for a person trying to be a Christian. None at all, whether without cause or supposedly justified! We must therefore part with this experience, this feeling, and this state of spirit for good, unconditionally and irrevocably.
And there is a second important point. In verses 23–26, the Lord continues the preaching of the Old Testament prophets about God’s rejection of our prayers and offerings if we are not at peace with one another. Later He will return to this more than once and say that the Heavenly Father will forgive us as we forgive others. But this is what matters: it would be quite understandable, and fully in keeping with the Old Testament, if Christ had said, “if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember... that you have not forgiven your brother something...” If I do not forgive, the state of my heart is unworthy of the presence of the Almighty. This is, in essence, understandable. But Christ says, “and there remember that your brother has something against you”! Another person may think any kind of nonsense about you and take offense at any number of things! His resentment may even be unjust... And nevertheless it becomes an obstacle to my communion with God.
How terrible! Not only are we required to forgive, but these words deprive us of any right to expect others to obey God’s commandment and forgive our offenses. It turns out that responsibility for being forgiven by other people is laid not upon those who are offended, but upon us as well. So if someone has offended me, I must forgive. And if someone is offended with me, it is once again I who must seek reconciliation and forgiveness. This, of course, already resembles the Cross.