NOTES for Mat 5:27-32

Jesus' attitude toward fornication and adultery is the same as toward murder: if He equates hatred with murder, then He equates lust with adultery. As we can see, the reasons and logic here are the same: intention in this case too turns out to be even more important for the Kingdom than the act itself. And just as in the case of hatred, Jesus proposes a kind of 'work in advance': this, apparently, is how His words about the hand that causes stumbling and the eye that causes stumbling should be understood. Just as it is better to be reconciled with an opponent on the way to court than to inflame passions, so it is better simply not to let things reach the point of lust.

Of course, before us here is the development of a tradition that already existed in those days, based on the understanding that passion is easier to prevent than to fight afterward. It is enough to recall the words, well known to everyone then, of one of the great teachers of the Torah, Hillel, who said: passion first looks into your house like a passerby, then enters it like a guest, and in the end settles in it like the master. It was impossible to acquire the inner Torah without special work aimed at preventing sinful passions and intentions from appearing.

But the matter was not only the acquisition of the inner Torah: it too served only as a means for full life in the Kingdom. And for the Kingdom, where the quality of relationships determines everything, the prevention of sinful passions and intentions is extremely important. Of course, if we speak of the Kingdom revealed in all its fullness, then the problem of sinful intentions will no longer exist in it: for the human nature of its inhabitants will also be fully transformed, so that nothing sinful will have any place in their life.

But on the path toward the fullness of the Kingdom and the fullness of transformation, the problem remains, and Jesus reminds us of what can help solve it. He sets the spiritual bar as high as possible: for example, the prohibition of divorce, about which He speaks quite unambiguously, presupposes a quality of relationship unthinkable in our still untransformed world. Of course, the Savior understands perfectly that the right to divorce given to a person by the Torah is a concession to human sinfulness, capable of giving an extra pretext for the very sinful intentions that must be fought. And He does not want to leave His followers such a loophole. For in the Kingdom there are no trifles, and compromises are impossible here.

Jesus says that sin works within us, infecting our thoughts and leading to evil deeds. Our unfaithfulness is internal, not external. But: "I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord" (Ps. 115:4) - and Christ enters within us, driving sin out to the edge of our self. The outward person is wasting away, but the inward person is renewed day by day, receiving the kingdom of life.

Today's passage shows how seriously God takes us. Here Jesus speaks about what He would like us to be, without making any allowances for our weakness or infirmity. And as we honestly read these words, all we can do is be crushed: "I cannot do this. And I cannot do that. And I cannot do this either." So we read all the way to the last, forty-eighth verse, and almost with relief exhale: "Well, there, I told you I cannot!"

But, of course, here is also the answer to all our "I cannot." Only God can be perfect, and Christ's whole call to us is this: "Make room for God in your life, and it will become perfect!"

In conversations with the disciples and in sermons, Jesus often speaks about the Torah and its proper understanding. In the Synodal text the Torah is usually called the "Law," but, though such a translation is formally correct, it still does not fully convey the meaning of the corresponding Hebrew word. Torah is more than simply law in the sense in which we usually use that word, more than only legislation or the legal order defined by it. Torah also implies a way of life corresponding to the law, including the inner, spiritual state of a person that corresponds to such a way of life. In Gospel times, in the rabbinic environment and in the Synagogue in general, the concept of the "living Torah" had spread rather widely, and ideally every believing Jew was to become such a Torah. What was meant was a person's spiritual state in which the Torah becomes something inwardly inherent to him, defining the whole of his life in all its manifestations. This understanding was very close to Jesus; it is no accident that He Himself says that He came not at all to destroy or change the Torah, but to bring it to fullness (v. 17; in the Synodal translation this thought is conveyed by the word "fulfill").

And the first thing to which He draws His listeners' attention is their intentions, or, as psychologists say today, their intentionalities. If you hate, consider yourself a murderer (vv. 21-22); if you lust, consider yourself an adulterer (vv. 27-28). Otherwise, according to Jesus' word, our righteousness does not go beyond ordinary religiosity, it "does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" (v. 20), who, being deeply religious people, outwardly, on the behavioral level, of course kept all the commandments of the Decalogue.

But it turns out that for the Kingdom this is not enough. And this is not about requirements raised especially high in order to be "holier than everyone else." It is simply that in this world our spiritual quality and state determine our actions, while in the Kingdom our intentions do. One might say that in our fallen world we are what we do, while in the Kingdom we will become what we desire. And if, while hating someone, we refrain from murder for God's sake, this is a serious spiritual achievement for our fallen world. But for the Kingdom it is a failure. And the spiritual bar raised so high by Jesus is needed in order to protect us from such a failure.

Jesus teaches, "as one having authority," clearly moving sin from the realm of actions into the realm of thoughts. For us this is a hard saying: we can still somehow control our actions, but thoughts... It is like "not thinking about the white monkey" (remember the old fairy tale about how, in a certain situation, you could receive the fulfillment of all your wishes if only, at the most important moment, you did not think about the white monkey?)

But we can avoid thinking about the white monkey, if only we think about Someone else! We can avoid sinning in our thoughts if we think about Someone Sinless, Who is righteous and true.

And when do we think about someone constantly? When we love him. That is the whole secret.