You Shall not Murder

Jesus then goes on to discuss particulars, starting with the Sixth Commandment, "You shall not murder." When He says "You have heard that it was said of old . . ." (Matt. 5:21; NKJV), the reference is to an idea stated in a tractate in the Mishnah entitled "Aboth" ("Fathers"). Aboth describes a chain of tradition that allegedly extends from Moses through a long succession of rabbis down to a certain Judah the Patriarch, who was the apparent compiler of the Mishnah in the Second Century A.D. The Pharisees in particular relied on this oral tradition to supplement their understanding of the Torah.

    What was said to "those of old" was "You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment." The first clause is, of course, the Sixth of the Ten Commandments, and is in the Bible. The second clause ("whoever murders will be in danger of the judgement") is a brief synopsis of the treatment of the subject in the Mishnah. The tractate Sanhedrin discusses a number of different scenarios and makes a pronouncement on each. "If a murderer had struck his fellow with a stone or with [an instrument of] iron, or if he had pressed him down into the water or into the fire and he could not arise out of it, and he died, he is culpable." But, "if he pushed him [and he fell] into the water or into the fire and he could arise out of it, and yet he died, he is not culpable" (Sanh. 9:1).

    But according to Jesus this misses the whole point. While the Sanhedrin obviously had to make decisions about the individual cases that came before it, what was largely missing in the legal discussions was the intent of the Law. The underlying principle of the law concerning murder was stated in Lev. 19:17,18: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord." In other words, the intent of the precept is not simply that we should avoid certain circumstances that might lead to the death of the victim, but rather that we should have an active concern for his wellbeing. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

    Jesus draws attention to the underlying motive of murder, which is anger. "But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment . . ." (v. 22). While man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart; and from God's perspective, the difference between the heart of a murderer and the heart of a person with "anger management issues" is virtually indistinguishable. If the only reason we do not act on our impulses is because we fear civil punishment, that hardly makes us moral persons. An evil desire springs from an evil heart, and the heart lies fully exposed to God's view.

    But it is not just a matter of escaping the censure of the civil authorities. It is ultimately God with Whom we have to do. Jesus reminds His listeners "Whoever says 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire." "Gehenna" (from the Hebrew for "The Valley of Hinnom") was a valley just outside of Jerusalem where children were once sacrificed by fire to the pagan deity Moloch. It was a vivid symbol of eternal punishment. The implication here is that we are not just dealing with whatever punishment the civil authorities might mete out. Rather we face an offended God Who is able to punish us in hell.

    Jesus then tells us what we must do. If we are making an offering at the altar at the temple, and we remember that we have offended someone, before we proceed with the offering, we should go and seek reconciliation with the offended brother, and then return to offer our gifts. In other words, the offering means nothing if our conduct is not right. Here Jesus is echoing the thought of Psalm 51:16,17). "For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and contrite heart – These, O God, You will not despise."

    In the sight of God a shallow religious formalism will not do. What God wants to see is a religious profession backed up by a right attitude and right behavior. It is the way we live that counts, not what we say. The danger of our time is to keep up the pretense of religious profession, while accommodating our lives to the secular and materialistic spirit of the age. We are deceiving no one but ourselves.

Jesus and the Torah

One of the most perplexing issues surrounding Christian ethics has to do with the relationship between Jesus' teachings and the Old Testament law. In Matt. 5:21-48 Jesus presents six antitheses in which He seems to be breaking with Jewish tradition ("You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you . . ."). Yet in the immediately preceding verses Jesus appears to be saying the exact opposite. He seems to be arguing for the permanence of the law.

    To understand what Jesus is saying it is necessary to understand the nature of the "Torah" or the Old Testament law. Ancient Israel was unique. It did have a code of civil laws much like most other nations in the ancient Near East, but what made Israel different was its distinctive worldview. Unlike the polytheism of the surrounding nations, the national creed of Israel posited a single, eternal, self-existent and all-powerful Deity, Who created everything else out of nothing. Israel was God's chosen people, bound to Him by a covenant. This means that the Torah was much more than just a civil law code; it was also a theological statement defining the relationship between Israel and God.

    By Jesus' time, however, there was the natural human tendency to think of morality in sociological terms. People's sense of right and wrong was largely determined by the mores of society. In the case of First Century Judaism the determining factor was often the Sanhedrin, a court that sat in Jerusalem and heard cases under Jewish law. The inevitable tendency of such a court was to focus on the civil aspects of the Torah. One was guilty ("liable to punishment") if he did thus and so, and was innocent if he did not. The determinations of the Sanhedrin were eventually codified in a Second Century called the Mishnah. The Mishnah, in turn, forms the basis for modern day rabbinical Judaism.

    What was all too easily forgotten in the midst of all the judicial activity were man's moral and religious obligations toward God. And it is at this point that Jesus enters the picture. Standing squarely in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets,, Jesus issued a ringing call for righteousness as a right attitude of heart before God. It is a call for justice and humanity in all our dealings with our fellow human beings. It is also a terrifying indictment of human society as it currently exists.

    Jesus made it very clear that His intent was not to set aside the law, but rather to fulfill it (v. 17). The law is a reflection of God's own righteous and holy character. As such it is permanent; it will never change. What Jesus did was to keep the law perfectly Himself, and to offer Himself up as a sacrifice for sins so that we could be forgiven even as He upholds the majesty of the divine law. The death of Christ was a demonstration of mercy combined with perfect justice. But His final aim was to promote holiness, not provide an escape from it.

    Jesus concludes the section by saying, "For I say, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (v. 20; NKJV). The Pharisees were a First Century sect of the Jews who were known for their strict interpretation of the law. But even they fell short of God's perfect standard of righteousness.

    The passage says a lot about our modern day, comfortable, middle-class Christianity. We often think and act as if the chief end of God is to make us happy. God is a kind of doting Father in the sky Who understands and forgives our weaknesses and failures. He simply accepts us the way we are, with unconditional love. But that is not what the Bible says at all. The mission of Jesus when He came into the world was to save us from both the guilt and the power of sin, and the end result should be lives transformed by God's grace. Anything less is a pious fraud, and a dangerous self-delusion. If we wish to enter the kingdom of heaven we will do well to take careful heed to what Jesus says.