NOTES for Mat 5:20-26
The Torah, the commandments given by God, were always understood as a guide along the path of righteousness. It is no surprise that Jesus turns to the Torah, or more precisely to the Decalogue, interpreting its commandments from the point of view of the Kingdom that He brought into the world. And from the point of view of the Kingdom, what comes to the foreground is not the action as such, but the intention standing behind it, the intention a person puts into the action he performs. If the intention is present, the mere fact that the action is performed or not performed changes nothing in principle. If, for example, a person hates his neighbor so much that he is ready to kill him, Jesus, as we can see, equates such hatred with murder.
At first glance, such an approach may seem too strict. But one must keep in mind that the inner Torah, about which many learned rabbis and teachers of the Torah spoke in those days, placed precisely intention first. Deliverance from evil intentions was considered the most important step on the path toward receiving the inner Torah.
But the issue is not only the inner Torah as such. The issue is also that intentions have special importance for the Kingdom. The substance of the Kingdom is the breath of God, and its fabric is formed by the relationships that bind a person both with God and Christ and with his neighbors. Not only the quality of a person's life in the Kingdom, but the very possibility of remaining in it, depends on the quality of relationships. That is why Jesus gives so much attention to intention: every one of our intentions, if we are inhabitants of the Kingdom, concerns not only us and the people toward whom it is directed, but also the whole Kingdom in all its fullness.