Think not that I am come to make void the law or the prophets; I am not come to make void, but to fulfil.
The Sermon on the Mount had just described a blessedness unlike anything Israel expected. That raised an obvious question. If Jesus brings in something new, what happens to Moses and the prophets? His answer settles both the authority of the older Scriptures and the meaning of His own coming.
The verses before this describe a new kind of blessedness. That raised a worry for anyone taught to honour the law:
Here was a new kind of blessedness, quite foreign to the thoughts of Israel as a natural people. So how did the law relate to Christ's teaching and to the new state of things about to come in? Did not the law come from God through Moses?… Weaken the authority of the law, and it is clear that you destroy the foundation on which the gospel rests; for the law was of God as certainly as the gospel.
Commentators press for something wider than "keep":
To "fulfil" does not mean obeying at all. It simply means giving the fulness. The Lord, like the gospel, fully confirms the law as coming from God.
One writer draws it as a portrait matched at last by its living original:
The law was like a beautiful portrait, the portrait of a perfect man… When Jesus came every feature of it found living expression in Him. He was the original. He filled out its every smallest detail, brought out all its beauty and made it alive.
He names two things, and together they stand for the whole Old Testament:
"The law and the prophets" was the recognized phrase for the whole Old Testament. They belonged to a period already past, but they had not passed away with it… Christ did not come to destroy the law and the prophets. He came to fulfil, or rather complete — fill them out. What would the Old Testament be without the New? Very much like a finger, pointing into empty space!
By fulfilling them, He also vouches for them:
Read the Gospels with a simple heart, and you will find the whole life and teaching of Jesus woven through with the truth of the law and the prophets as we have them in our ordinary Bibles. To remove their authority, you would have to tear away all the revelation of Christ in them… He was born in Bethlehem, because by God's will the prophet had said so.
He is not defending the law as an outsider. He speaks about it as its Author:
We now see our Lord speaking as the One who is greater than Moses. Sitting on the mountain, He speaks with greater authority than Moses or anyone before Him, because He has greater authority. The One who speaks about the law and the prophets, confirming and expanding them, is the One who gave the law to Moses. His fingers wrote on the tablets of stone. His Spirit revealed the visions to the prophets.
What follows presses the law into the heart. That honours the law and leaves every hearer exposed:
He then presses the law home in its deepest spiritual meaning. He searches down into the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees and shows their guilt. He magnifies the law, but in doing so, proves all to be under sin. Then, in infinite love, He goes to the cross and bears the penalty of a broken law for all who believe on Him.
Some quote this verse to prove believers must live under the law of Moses. Commentators reply that fulfilment argues the opposite:
Now what Christ's fulfilling the law has to do with putting me under it I never could understand. I should have thought the opposite was true: if it is fulfilled, that is the end of the matter. He fulfilled the sacrifices in the same way, and all the more since He speaks of the prophets as well. The word "fulfil" is used of both, and that gives it a force quite different from what people try to make of it.
What He gives is not a lower standard but a deeper one, spoken on His own authority:
Our Lord is going to expand the great moral principles of the law into commandments that come from Himself, not just from Moses… He recognized the full value of the ten commandments. But He was about to open out the mind of God in a way far deeper than anyone had thought before.
- Fill, not kill — "Fulfil" does not mean obeying. It means giving the fulness, completing what the older Scriptures had only begun.
- Filled in Him — Every feature of the law found living expression in Christ. He was the original the portrait pictured.
- Filled out to the whole Book — "The law and the prophets" means the whole Old Testament. Without fulfilment it would be a finger pointing into empty space.
- Filled to the cross — He presses the law into the heart and proves all to be under sin. Then He bears the penalty of the broken law for those who believe.
- Filled, therefore finished — Since He fulfilled the law, this verse cannot put the believer back under it. His own words are now the deeper standard.
For verily I say unto you, Until the heaven and the earth pass away, one iota or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all come to pass.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord promises that His new teaching does not cancel the Old Testament. Two questions follow. What does it mean that the smallest stroke of writing is safe? And does that leave the Christian under the law of Moses?
(Older translations read "jot and tittle" and "till all be fulfilled" where the ESV has "not an iota, not a dot" and "until all is accomplished.")
The verse opens with "for," giving the reason behind verse 17. One writer says "fulfil" means more than a life of law-keeping:
There is no doubt that the Lord obeyed the law. But that is not what fulfilling means. He gave the law and the prophets their full scope. He did even more, for He revealed God in Himself by His words and His ways, and He made known those secrets of the kingdom that were entirely hidden in earlier days... But nothing in the new could weaken the authority of God in the old.
The two words at the heart of the verse are marks of handwriting, not points of doctrine:
The "jot and tittle" were the smallest marks in the Hebrew alphabet. The jot, or yodh, matches our "i" — a very small letter in Hebrew. The tittle was not a letter at all, but a small mark that told one letter apart from another. So we might put it this way: "not a dot to an 'i,' or a cross to a 't.'"
The promise reaches that far down: "inspiration is here claimed for even a single letter and even a part of a letter" (A. J. Pollock).
Many read the last clause as "until people have obeyed it all." One writer finds a different Greek word here than in verse 17:
Our version translates this as "be fulfilled," but it is a different word from the one just used. Such coming to pass could not mean the keeping of commandments. No one would speak of the ten commandments as something that had to come to pass. This coming to pass has to do with the law in its wider sense, which one would say must include the prophets as well.
"Until" implies a date. One writer places the full keeping of the law in the coming reign of Christ, not in Israel's past:
Nothing of the law will pass away until it is fulfilled in the millennium, in a way Israel's history has never yet seen. The words "till all be fulfilled" point ahead to the glorious reign of Christ as King. Then every Old Testament prophecy will come true, and every word of the law will be kept.
The Lord measures His word against heaven and earth, and His word outlasts them. One writer draws both comfort and a warning from that:
This is very sweet to us. What a priceless treasure we have in the word God has given us! It is steadier than heaven or earth, more solid, more lasting. That is what we have to build on for eternity! So how careful we should be never to corrupt God's word! The Pharisees cancelled it and set it aside by their traditions.
People often use this verse to argue that believers must still keep the law of Moses. One writer answers that a lasting law is not a ruling law:
No; the law stands in all its details. So it stands within all the limits it sets for itself, and for all the purposes it was given for, and for no others. This is simple enough to understand. Yet people who use words like these to lay the yoke of the law on the necks of Christians do not understand it.
Another writer says those who press this verse "only take what is convenient and ignore the rest." For the believer, he adds, "the law the law has been fulfilled in Christ" (A. J. Pollock).
If not one stroke can be dropped, then sin cannot be waved away. It has to be dealt with:
Nothing upheld the majesty of the law like the death of Christ. He kept it in full at every step of His life. He made it great and honoured it. Yet He bore the law's curse for those who had broken it... The law demanded what man could never give, and cursed him for not giving it. Grace first blesses a man, and then makes him able to do far more than the law demanded.
- Not one letter — the promise reaches the smallest letter and the mark that tells two letters apart. God's word is safe down to a dot.
- Not cancelled — Christ gave the law and the prophets their full scope, and nothing new He brought weakened the authority of the old.
- Not yet finished — "until all is accomplished" points ahead. Writers tie the full keeping of the law to the coming reign of Christ.
- Not a yoke — the law stands for the purposes it was given for and no others, so lasting does not mean ruling over the believer.
- Not ignored — Christ honoured every letter at the cross. He kept the law in full, then bore its curse for those who broke it.
Whosoever then shall do away with one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whosoever shall practise and teach [them], *he* shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.
Jesus has just said that not one stroke of the law will pass away. Now He turns from His own work to what His hearers must do: keep and teach even the smallest commands. That raises two questions. Which commandments are the "least"? And what does He mean by least and great in the kingdom of heaven?
Jesus speaks to people still living under the law of Moses — before the cross, and before anyone preached the gospel.
So in verse 19 He still speaks to them as the godly remnant — those who heard His voice and clung to Him. They were born of God, but under law, and still on this side of the cross and the blessings it brings to faith. He insists on obedience, first and last. Here He begins with the law. But even in this chapter He goes on to what He is saying to them, which people of earlier times never heard.
Older versions read "break." The word means to loosen a command's hold — to weaken its authority. Read this way, the verse is one of the strongest claims anywhere that the law came from God.
According to our Lord's teaching, the Law is so entirely divine that "it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one dot of the Law to become void" (Luke 16:16-17). So no one is to violate it: "Whoever relaxes [the Greek word is luo — to loosen, to weaken the authority of] one of the least of these commandments ... will be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:19). To assert the divine authority of the Law more strongly is impossible.
The teachers of Jesus' day sorted the commands into grades of importance. Jesus also draws a distinction. What He attacked was their choice of which commands to rank low.
The scribes counted 613 commandments in the Old Testament in all. They divided them into laws they thought were important and laws they thought were less important. The Lord also points out a difference when He calls the command to love God the great and first commandment. Yet He at once puts the command to love your neighbour on the same level (Matt. 22:36-40). In Matthew 23:23 He accuses the scribes and Pharisees of leaving aside the more important matters of the law — judgment and mercy and faith. Meanwhile they put great emphasis on applying the law of tithes to little things like garden herbs.
Commentators differ over which commandments are meant. Some take them as the law of Sinai; others notice that verse 19 drops the word "law" and says "these commandments."
It is also possible that the Lord, when speaking here about "commandments," was not thinking of the law of Sinai. He may have meant His own new commandments, which He was just about to announce in the "sermon on the mount"... They might still have seemed "least" to His audience. Yet they were the guidelines for how the disciples of Christ should behave in the kingdom of the heavens.
The verse joins doing and teaching. That pairing points straight at the religious leaders.
The end of verse 19 again shows the contrast with the scribes and Pharisees. The Lord later says of them: "So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practise" (Matt. 23:3). In Matthew 5:19 He links His promise to the agreement between actions and doctrine.
One writer takes "least in the kingdom" as a description of people whose place there is outward only.
The law was still valid then. So He says to the Jews here that anyone who thinks he can do away with any of it would be called the least in His kingdom. Comparing the two Scriptures we see that He speaks of people who only claim a place in the kingdom of the heavens outwardly. They have not really "entered in" (v. 20). When He appears in glory He will remove them from His kingdom in judgment (Matt. 13:41).
Taking the law this seriously does something to the person who tries.
This very attitude — doing and teaching the commandments — would of course lead a person to recognize his own need of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus. He would realize that he comes short when measured by the rule of law.
This verse is sometimes set against the teaching that believers are not under law. One writer answers that the two do not clash.
Teaching that we are not under law, and teaching men to break the commandments, are not the same thing. On the other hand, I can teach the commandments as part of the revealed mind of God. At the same time I can hold that I am not under the law.
- Authority. To "relax" a command is to loosen its grip on people — and no one may loosen what God has spoken.
- Smallness. The scribes put tithing herbs above justice and mercy. Jesus lets no one label any word of God unimportant.
- Agreement. Jesus ties the promise to doing and teaching. The leaders of His day preached without practising.
- Ranking. Least and great are places in the kingdom. Being "least" may expose someone who never entered it at all.
- Direction. Measured by this rule, everyone comes short, and that discovery is what sends a person to the grace of Christ.
For I say unto you, that unless your righteousness surpass [that] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
Jesus has just said He came to fulfil the law. Now He sets a bar that would have stunned His hearers. The most respected religious men in the nation did not have enough righteousness to get in. Two questions follow. What righteousness does He mean, and how could anyone ever have it?
These were not careless men. They were the recognised experts, and no one in Israel knew a higher standard.
Since the Babylonian captivity the Talmud has added a large collection of interpretations and rules on top of the law. The New Testament calls these "the tradition of the elders." The scribes knew the law and these human rules best, and the Pharisees kept them most strictly. In Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus pronounces a sevenfold "woe" over these men and their behaviour. It was marked by self-centredness and a concern for outward appearance. They might look devout and righteous to people, but before God their attitude could not stand.
Their fault was not carelessness with Scripture but the way they placed human tradition alongside it.
As undoing the word justly sunk one to be "least" in the kingdom, faithfulness to it raised to a great place there. Clearly then the righteousness of those who entered must exceed and excel that of the Pharisee (v. 20), who honoured tradition, the word of man, and so necessarily belittled God's word.
The disciples looked up to this religion. Jesus says it will not survive God's inspection.
They looked up with ignorant eyes to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Our Lord declares that this righteousness will not do. It goes up to the temple every day. It prides itself on long prayers, large gifts to the poor, and broad phylacteries. It will not stand in the sight of God. There must be something far deeper and more in keeping with the holy, loving nature of God. For with all that show of outward religion, there might still be no sense of sin and no sense of the grace of God — and usually there was none.
(Phylacteries were small boxes of Scripture worn on the body. The Pharisees made theirs wide so people would notice.)
The answer is not a longer list of duties but reality on the inside. The rest of the chapter shows what that looks like.
The Scribes and Pharisees were especially ritualist and external. This was letter, not spirit. Our Lord condemns a righteousness of mere outward acts. He insists on inward reality as essential for the kingdom of the heavens... As the Pharisees fatally narrowed the scope of Scripture, the Lord gave its fulness as none but He could. The first of these references is to the law of murder. But the Lord goes immeasurably farther for the kingdom.
Commentators differ on which righteousness the word "your" points to. Some read it as the righteousness lived out by those who already believe:
He does not mean the righteousness of God which He credits to those who believe on Him. The Lord Jesus, in the "sermon on the mount," does not preach the gospel to the lost, but speaks to His disciples. So "your righteousness" means practical righteousness. It shows in the lives of people He has justified through faith in Him, who follow Him by doing God's will.
Others read it as pointing the hearer straight to faith:
The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was mere self-righteousness, an attempted cover-up of their true character. We must have a righteousness that exceeds this. This is not explained for us here, but Romans 4:5 makes this far more clear.
Both readings agree on one thing. The verse gives the requirement but never says where to get it.
There is a great secret that does not come out in this sermon. First of all, there is a load of unrighteousness on the sinner. How is that to be dealt with, and the sinner made fit for the kingdom of heaven and brought into it? Through faith he is born again. He receives a new nature, a life that flows from the grace of God just as truly as Christ's bearing of his sins on the cross. There is the foundation of practical righteousness. The true beginning of all moral goodness in a sinner is the sense and confession that he has none — that he is bad. Nothing is ever right with God in a man until he gives himself up as all wrong.
The verse ends with the question of who actually gets in.
The question was raised: who is going to get into the kingdom? The answer is, "Unless your righteousness…" That is the character which suits the kingdom — not the Pharisees with their legal righteousness... We are born again, and so we see and enter the kingdom.
- Standard. The scribes and Pharisees kept the law and the tradition of the elders strictly. They looked righteous to people, but their attitude could not stand before God.
- Deeper. Jesus condemns religion of outward acts and asks for inward reality. He goes far beyond the letter of commands like the law of murder.
- Debated. Commentators differ. Some take "your righteousness" as the daily righteousness of those already justified. Others say it points the hearer to righteousness received by faith.
- Source. The sermon gives the requirement, not the remedy. New birth through faith gives a new nature — the foundation of practical righteousness.
- Entrance. The verse describes the character that suits the kingdom — and the first step into it is confessing you have none of it.
Ye have heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not kill; but whosoever shall kill shall be subject to the judgment.
Here Jesus quotes the law of Moses back to the crowd. Then He says something no teacher before Him had dared to say. Two questions follow. What exactly had the crowd "heard," and by what right does He add to it?
The crowd knew a longer sentence than the commandment God gave. One writer separates the two parts and shows what "judgment" meant:
The Lord Jesus begins the first of the six examples with the words, "You have heard that it was said to those of old." Those "of old" are not only the people of Moses' own day, because the words that follow add something to the original commandment. The crowd listening to the Lord Jesus had heard two things. First, God gave the commandment, "You shall not murder." Second, the scribes had probably added the rest of what they knew, "and whoever murders will be liable to judgment," some time after the exile in Babylon. "Judgment" here seems to mean the judges and officers named, for example, in Deuteronomy 16:18. Israel was to appoint them in every town.
The wording is deliberate. Jesus is not correcting God's commandment. He is correcting the teaching the scribes wrapped around it:
He does not once say: "It is written," not even when He quotes a commandment of the Old Testament such as in verses 27 and 38. With His sixfold reply, "But I say to you," the Lord Jesus did not want to set aside the inspired commandments of God. He meant to expose and judge the false interpretations and distortions of the scribes, and "the tradition of the elders" (Mark 7:3), which they valued so highly.
He begins with a commandment He Himself once wrote on stone. Notice how far its reach went, and where it stopped:
He takes some of the commandments which He wrote on the second table of stone. He begins with this one: "You shall not murder." Murder was the first terrible fruit after the fall, and it sprang from envy in the heart. The penalty of murder is the judgment. This, then, is the letter of the law. It dealt with the outward deed, but the heart itself it did not touch.
There is an order in the commandments Jesus picks up. Violence comes first, corruption after it:
Now He takes up the law in its various parts, at least what has to do with men. Here He does not deal with what touches God directly. He first takes up what flows from human violence, and after that the glaring example of human corruption. Violence and corruption are the two outstanding forms of human wickedness. Even before the flood this was the condition of men: "The earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence." Here, in verse 21, the light of the kingdom falls on the command against murder. The law took notice of this extreme form of violence. But our Lord gives it length, breadth, height, and depth.
The reply that follows this verse forces a decision about who the speaker is:
Eight times in this chapter He says, "I say to you." Six of those times the word "But" comes first, setting His statement against what the law had said. We may well ask: who is this who quotes the holy law of God, and then calmly says, "But I say to you"? He alters and enlarges the law — a thing no prophet had ever dared to do! Is this not terrible presumption, close to blasphemy? Yes, indeed, and only one explanation lifts this charge from Him. But that one explanation is true: here we have the original Lawgiver, who once spoke from Sinai.
Measured this way, the careful outward record of the religious expert is worth nothing:
As to the two commandments He quoted, His teaching is plain. God looks not only at the outward act but also at the inward attitude of the heart. He forbids not just the act of murder or adultery, but the hatred and the lust that the act expresses. Judged by this standard, who is going to stand before the holy demands of Sinai? The "righteousness" of the scribe and Pharisee utterly collapses.
- Said — the commandment against murder came from God Himself, written by Him on the second table of stone.
- Heard — Jesus says "you have heard," never "it is written." What reached the crowd carried the scribes' additions along with God's word.
- Judged — the added clause pointed to the local judges in every town. The law handled the deed, not the heart behind it.
- Answered — the original Lawgiver of Sinai speaks the words "But I say to you." From any other lips they would be blasphemy.
- Exposed — God weighs the heart, not just the act. The best religious record of the day collapses, and no one stands on his own righteousness.
But *I* say unto you, that every one that is lightly angry with his brother shall be subject to the judgment; but whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be subject to [be called before] the sanhedrim; but whosoever shall say, Fool, shall be subject to the penalty of the hell of fire.
The Lord has just quoted the commandment against murder and the penalty attached to it. Now He reaches past the deed to the feeling and the word behind it, and that raises a hard question: how can the sentence for killing fall on a flash of temper and an insult?
The words that open the verse are a claim, not just a comment. One writer notes how often they recur, and who has the right to use them:
The Lord Jesus now sets His own words against this commandment and its human addition: "But I say to you." These words occur five times in this part of the fifth chapter. He speaks with the same authority as the One who had once given the law, for He is the Son of God. Yet His words do not set the law aside. They stretch it to reach the condition of man's heart.
Another notes that the law was left standing, yet it never reached far enough:
The law and the prophets He had vindicated. All must come to pass. Yet the law made nothing perfect. He speaks Who is above the law and gave fulness to all on His own authority.
The commandment took hold of the extreme act. Christ takes hold of everything that act grows out of:
The law dealt with this extreme form of violence, but our Lord gives it length, breadth, height, and depth… He treats every kind of violence, feeling, and expression as now falling into the same class as murder in the sight of God. It covers anything of contempt and hatred, whatever expresses the ill feeling of the heart. It covers any putting down of another, the will to destroy others as far as their character or influence goes. All this is no better than murder in God's searching eye.
Commentators differ on the wording of the clause about anger. Some texts read "without a cause." Others read "lightly angry." One writer defends "lightly" as the original wording, and takes it to mean "even the remotest feeling of displeasure."
"Raca" and "fool" are not random insults. The Lord weighs each word and gives each its own penalty:
The one who called his brother "Raca" (Aramaic: "reka" — fool, lunatic) was liable to be called before the Sanhedrin (the supreme Jewish court at that time). Whoever said "fool" was liable to hell ("Gehenna"): eternal damnation. These three sins hardly differ from one another. If the last of them led to eternal damnation, then the others would do so as well. God does not look at the outward appearance but into our hearts.
The rising scale runs from thought, to a word of scorn, to a word of hate:
He judges men's inner thoughts. But if someone put such thoughts into words of scorn, branding another as "Raca" (vain or empty), he was in danger of being rightly called before the Jewish council to answer this serious charge. Worse still, he might put those thoughts into words of hate, calling someone a fool. If so, he was in danger of hell fire. A character that is hateful at heart has no faith: "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him" (1 John 3:15).
The three penalties come from the courts of that day:
It was not enough not to kill. To nurse anger or contempt was of the same character as murder in His sight. He expressed His judgment of it in the terms of the court proceedings they knew, in their local and higher courts. "The judgment" put men to death by the sword. "The council" (Sanhedrin) did it by stoning. And "the Gehenna of fire" would make the horror of it greater.
The verse is not a ban on all indignation. What decides the matter is what the anger is for:
The source, motive, and aim decide. If of God and for Him by the Spirit, anger has His sanction; if for self, it is evil that exposes to judgment.
One writer takes these words two ways — as coming judgment, and as present exposure:
No doubt this will be so when the kingdom comes to the earth; swift judgment will overtake the offender. But the words lay bare the heart. They show that men cannot stand in their own righteousness before God, who judges the heart. The believer shares the divine nature, and so is righteous and loves his brother. Only receiving eternal life, which is Christ Himself, can produce righteousness and love.
- Authority. "But I say to you" is the voice of the One who gave the law, not setting it aside but pressing it into the heart.
- Root. The commandment forbade the deed. Christ exposes the root — anger, contempt, the will to destroy another's name — and calls it murder in God's sight.
- Words. "Raca" and "fool" carry rising penalties: the local court, then the council, then Gehenna. Speech publishes what the heart holds.
- Motive. Anger of God and for Him has His sanction; anger for self exposes to judgment. The source, motive and aim decide.
- Result. The verse ends self-righteousness. No one stands before a God who judges hearts. Only eternal life received in Christ produces this love.
If therefore thou shouldest offer thy gift at the altar, and there shouldest remember that thy brother has something against thee,
The Lord is teaching how brothers should treat one another. A man at the altar remembers that his brother has something against him — so what does God want from him now?
The first hearers still lived under the temple sacrifices.
We should remember that the Lord Jesus was speaking to His disciples, and the temple sacrifices were still in place. Still, His words have something to say to us too.
The distance in setting does not empty the passage of value for a reader today. One writer insists the opposite:
But it is a serious mistake to think this undeniable fact takes away the profit of a single word for the Christian, though we now stand in a position of grace that could not exist then. There is the richest moral instruction for everyone who honours Him who spoke as no man ever spoke.
Our instinct says God comes first, so finish the worship and sort out the quarrel afterwards. The verse overturns that instinct.
A man brings a gift to honour God, and on the way up to the temple his conscience is at work. Then, at the altar, his conscience reminds him that his brother has something against him. We might have thought it must always be right to put God first: offer the gift, and then go and seek reconciliation with your brother. The Lord, who knows our hearts, shows that in these circumstances the gift is unacceptable.
Notice which way the complaint runs. The man with the gift is not the injured party. He is the one who caused the injury.
In Matthew 18:15 the matter is what I have against my brother, because he has wronged me, and I should go and tell him his fault. But here I know that he has something against me. The case is reversed. Pride shows itself as much as anything in refusing to admit when we are wrong.
That is why the command is so short and so hard. It leaves no room to wait for the other person to come first.
Perhaps it was only a misunderstanding, or I may have deliberately hurt a child of God, a brother or sister. Anyway, he or she has something against me. The Lord says in this case, "Go."
Some read "the altar" as the Lord's Supper. One writer disagrees, but still applies the verse widely.
"The altar" does not mean the Lord's table. Still, we should examine ourselves before taking the Lord's Supper, and we shall have a far deeper sense of grace if we do. These were legal sacrifices. But for us the principle applies whenever we come to God — even in prayer. "If I hold on to sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."
Does making it right with the person also make it right with God?
If I wrong another person, that wrong will interfere with my communion with God. Only atonement can restore that communion. Paying the person back is not enough on its own. It might satisfy the injured man, but it could not be the basis of restored communion with God… Still, if the question is an injury done to my neighbour, then repayment must come first.
The Greek word here is not the one used of a sinner being reconciled to God, and the difference shapes what the errand looks like.
The Greek word for "be reconciled" here is di-allasso. It is never used for a man being reconciled to God; that is a different word, kat-allasso. Di-allasso means both sides giving ground after both have been hostile — an idea that is not in kat-allasso. It seems that when believers quarrel or misunderstand each other, the Lord sees that there is usually, if not always, fault on both sides. Both need to give ground.
The same writer turns the verse around, to the case where you are the one holding something against a brother.
Certainly you ought to go to him, if you have anything against him, and be reconciled to him. But instead of this you turn your back on the altar and stay away with your gift of thanks due to God. What blindness — sinning like this against God and against your brother!
- Remember — what starts this is your own memory, not his complaint. You are the one at fault, and pride is what keeps you standing still.
- Leave — do not press on God a gift He will not take. He refuses worship offered while a wrong sits unmended.
- Go — the first step is yours. The word for reconciling expects both sides to give ground, not a verdict on who was worse.
- First — repair comes before sacrifice. Paying the person back never covers sin by itself, yet God will not restore communion while the debt is left unpaid.
- Then offer — the same rule covers every approach to God, prayer included. Sin kept in the heart stops the Lord from listening.
leave there thy gift before the altar, and first go, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
The Lord has just placed anger and contempt against a brother alongside murder. Now He presses the point into worship itself. A man stands at the altar with his gift when he remembers a broken relationship. What God tells him to do next is not what most of us would expect.
The teaching about anger does not stop at the heart. It demands action from the one who caused the injury.
The Lord spoke with an authority uniquely and emphatically His own. He was not content merely to condemn the hateful evil of anger in heart and word, even when it never becomes a violent deed. He goes on to carry out the revealed mind of God for the kingdom by requiring reconciliation if anyone has made his brother stumble. Throughout, disciples are in view, not mankind in general.
The scene is the temple. The man is on his way to honour God, and his conscience is already awake. Our instinct would be to finish the offering and deal with the brother later.
We are called to act, and to act as soon as we see there is a problem. A man brings a gift to honour God, and as he goes up to the temple his conscience is at work. Then, at the altar, he remembers that his brother has something against him. We might have thought it must always be right to put God first — to offer the gift first, and seek reconciliation with the brother afterwards. The Lord, who knows our hearts, shows that in these circumstances the gift is unacceptable.
The word behind "be reconciled" points at both people in the quarrel, not just one.
The Greek word for "be reconciled" is di-allasso. Scripture never uses this word for a man being reconciled to God. For that it uses a different word, kat-allasso. Di-allasso means mutual concession after mutual hostility, an idea absent in kat-allasso... It seems that when believers have a quarrel or misunderstanding, the Lord sees fault on both sides, usually if not always. Both need to make concessions.
God refuses the gift because of what He is building among His people.
Our Father will not value our offerings, as His children and worshippers, unless we are growing in affection for our brothers... Our Father is working to fill a kingdom with children and with brothers. Its citizens will know Him as their Father and each other as brothers... He says, in effect, "You must come to Me in the path of brotherly love. Otherwise I cannot receive your gift. My altar is indeed among you, but I cannot receive your gift while you have no love for one another."
The command is to go. It applies too when you are the one holding a grievance. Staying away from worship is a second failure.
So you certainly ought to go to him, if you have anything against him, and be reconciled to him. But instead of this you turn your back on the altar and stay away with your gift of thanks due to God. What blindness — sinning in this way against God and against your brother!
Does this verse mean you should stay away from the Lord's table? Commentators are careful here. They point to what Paul writes.
Some have asked what this means for us. If someone comes to remember the Lord in the breaking of bread, and remembers that another has something against him, should he not break bread until the matter is settled? Scripture does not put it that way. It says instead, "Let a person examine (or judge) himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Cor. 11:28).
Kelly points to the nation that heard these words. They were bringing offerings to that very altar.
What tenderness of conscience He looked for! Brotherly affection, humility, readiness to admit wrong, a desire to win back an offended brother... And the opposite was the case with the Jews. They were so absorbed in bringing their offering to the altar that they were blind to their wrong against Him who stooped to be their brother... They refused to be reconciled and kept on with their offering, however offensive to God. It was presumptuous sin, and high-handed self-will under a cloak of religion.
- Remember — conscience wakes at the altar, not before it. The wrong you forgot, God did not.
- Leave — the gift stays where it is. God will not take worship offered over an unhealed injury. The Father is forming a family, not collecting offerings.
- Go — the move is yours, whether you gave the offence or are holding one. Turning your back on the altar instead is a second sin.
- Be reconciled — the word means mutual concession after mutual hostility. Expect fault on both sides, and confess your own.
- Then come — the aim is a restored gift, not an abandoned one. On the Lord's Supper, writers point to self-judgment and eating, not staying away.
Make friends with thine adverse party quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him; lest some time the adverse party deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
The verse moves from anger to the law court. A man is on the road to trial with someone who has a claim against him. Commentators ask who that accuser is, what "the way" means, and whether the prison at the end is eternal.
One writer explains the custom behind the picture and the message it carries:
In the past it was common to keep a convicted debtor in prison until he had paid all his debts. The Lord speaks here in symbolic language: "There is an opportunity to make peace with the other side before it is too late, even though one might find this hard. But the time for reconciliation will cease. The one who is not prepared to act in this way will have to bear the consequences."
Commentators read the accuser in more than one way. One takes it as the Messiah Himself, whom Israel turned into an enemy:
The awful truth is this: their stubborn disobedience and blind unbelief made an adversary of Jehovah-Messiah, the very One who loved Israel and would die for them. His presence, if received, would have been their salvation and best blessing. Instead, because they utterly rejected and hated Him, it had to bring on the crisis that could not be avoided.
Another writer takes the accuser to be the law itself:
The "adversary" — the law, "Moses, on whom you have set your hope" — was bringing them to the Ruler or Judge, God, the Judge of His people. John the Baptist, and our Lord Himself, had been preaching as the accuser of the people. They showed them their sins and called them to repentance. But while this was the case, Israel was only "on the way to the magistrate." There was still time to be reconciled — by repentance and by accepting Christ as Messiah. This they refused to do... So the Lord's prediction came true: they were delivered to the Judge, dealt with judicially by God, who handed them over to the "officer" — the executor of His will; in this case, the Gentiles.
Christ Himself was the one walking that road with them:
So Jesus came, seeking an account of the fruit produced. "Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court." Christ was saying, I am still in the way with you. "Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The axe was laid to the root of the tree. So they had only one thing to do: agree with Him who had the right against them.
If the road ends with no agreement, the sentence follows. One writer marks out exactly what that sentence is:
So the case was just about to come before the Judge. The Judge would hand the convicted man over to the official, and he must go to prison until he had paid the last penny. This is no question of eternal judgment, but of God's moral government on the earth... The guilty debtor still lies in that prison, until his heart turns to the One he despised. Then the word will go out, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God... that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins."
This is where readers have gone badly wrong:
Wrong spiritual applications of the last part of this example have led to much confusion. The doctrine of "purgatory" is probably the saddest proof of that. Scripture nowhere teaches that a man must suffer a temporal punishment from God after death to be eternally saved. No; once death has come, the soul's eternal destiny is settled: a person is either eternally and perfectly saved, or eternally lost!
One plain lesson stands at the end of the road:
They were like men in danger of being called before a court. They had no answer to give that could ward off the punishment they deserved. Their only hope lay in making peace with their accuser before they stood before the judge. Once they reached that stage, they could expect nothing but judgment... At the judgment seat, whether of man or of God, no one brought there as guilty can expect mercy. So while they still had the opportunity, let them use it.
- Road — The scene is a debtor walking to court. The road is the only place where terms can still be made; after the verdict, the door shuts.
- Accuser — Commentators differ. Some read the accuser as the Messiah, whom Israel treated as an enemy. Others read it as the law, pressing its just claim.
- Quickly — The urgency is the point. While Christ was present, He was still "in the way" with them, and that was the day of salvation.
- Prison — The sentence pictures God's government on earth, not eternal judgment. The debtor stays until the discipline is complete. Then comes comfort.
- Warning — At the judgment seat no mercy is found by the guilty. The mercy is on the road — so use the opportunity while it lasts.
Verily I say to thee, Thou shalt in no wise come out thence till thou hast paid the last farthing.
The Lord ends His warning about settling with an opponent by shutting the prison door. No one walks out until he has paid the last coin. The picture raises three questions — who is the debtor, what is the prison, and does anyone ever come out?
The image comes from real courts, and it carries a deadline.
In the past it was common to leave a convicted debtor in prison until all his debts were paid (compare Matt. 18:30, 34). The Lord says here in symbolic language: "You still have the chance to make peace with the other party before it is too late. You may find this hard. But the time for reconciliation will end. Whoever is not prepared to act this way will have to bear the consequences."
Several commentators read the debtor as the nation of Israel. They refused to settle with their own Messiah.
I believe that Israel were guilty of that very folly — Israel as a people — that they did not agree with the adversary quickly. There was the Messiah. Being His adversaries, they treated Him as their adversary and by their unbelief forced God to be against them... They did not agree with their adversary quickly. So the judge could only hand them over to the officer, and into prison they went. There they remain to this day. Because they rejected the Messiah, the Jewish nation has been shut out from all the promises of God. As a nation they were committed to prison, and there they must remain till the last penny is paid.
The word "adversary" describes a relationship man created, not one that belongs to God's nature.
God is no adversary to man. For a poor sinner, it would be an entirely wrong thought that God needed to be reconciled... for the sinner is God's adversary... It is man who has made God a judge, not in His nature, but through man's sin. And here as to Israel, sin had made Him an adversary. They rejected Christ, and that rejection ended in the cross. Now they are cast out of their land — or, in the language of our chapter, "cast into prison."
The sentence here belongs to God's dealings with people on earth, and it has a stated end point.
This is no question of eternal judgment. It is God's moral government on the earth. Yet all of it is true of His people, found guilty and consigned to suffer long. In that prison still lies the guilty debtor, till his heart turns to the One he despised. Then the word shall go out: Comfort, comfort My people, says your God... that her iniquity is pardoned (Isa. 40:1-2).
"The last penny" sets a limit as well as a demand.
The uttermost farthing of the great debt of the people must be paid, but nothing beyond this will be exacted from them.
For centuries people have used this verse to prove a place of temporary punishment after death. One commentator shows that the idea contradicts itself.
Here the Catholics are inconsistent with themselves. If minor sins are forgiven in purgatory, this passage still speaks of the last penny being paid. Surely we cannot speak of a debt being forgiven and at the same time paid to the last penny.
The alternative offered is simple: the moment of death closes the question.
Scripture nowhere teaches that a man must suffer a temporary punishment from God after his death to be eternally saved. No; once death has come, the soul's eternal destiny is decided. A person is either eternally and perfectly saved or eternally lost! This verse therefore can only refer to circumstances on earth.
The force of the warning lies in one word: "quickly."
Thus Jesus came, seeking an account of the fruit produced. "Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him." Christ was saying, I am still on the way with you. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."
Law can only ever name the full amount. The cross settles it.
Under law, payment must reach the last penny. For the believer, the cross of Christ has paid it... The majesty of the law was never so upheld as in the death of Christ. He kept it perfectly at every step of His life. He magnified it and made it honourable. Yet He bore the law's curse for those who had broken it.
- Debt. The image is a court and a debtors' prison: the man stays locked up until he pays every coin.
- Adversary. God is no adversary to man. Sin makes man God's adversary, and Israel treated their own Messiah as an enemy.
- Prison. Commentators read this sentence as God's government on earth, not the final judgment. Israel's exile is the prison still standing.
- Limit. The debt must be paid to the last penny, but not one coin more. The sentence ends in "Comfort, comfort My people."
- Paid. Law can only demand the full sum. For the believer, the cross of Christ has paid it.
Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt not commit adultery.
The seventh commandment protected something God had guarded from the beginning, and under the law of Sinai it was enforced by the severest penalty. But the law reached only as far as the deed itself.
In the Old Testament, adultery — being unfaithful to your husband or wife to satisfy lust — had to be treated with great severity. Under the law of Sinai this sin had to be punished with death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22-24). First of all, the law gave God's rules for the outward and social life of His earthly people. That is why it punished only the completed act, even though the tenth commandment forbade coveting the neighbour's wife (as well as all his possessions, Ex. 20:17). If a Jew kept the commandment not to commit adultery, he was acting according to God's will... But merely keeping this and all the other commandments on the outside could not justify him before God.
The prophets had always spoken as messengers. On the mountain someone speaks in His own name, and the crowds noticed the difference.
The prophets of old had come before the people with "Thus says the Lord" on their lips... but in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus stood up and said, "I SAY TO YOU." His teaching astonished those who heard Him, for He taught them as One having authority... He is able to look behind the profession and all that is outward, and read the heart, which none but God can do.
Some have used this pattern — "you have heard... but I say to you" — as permission to replace old Scripture with newer ideas. Commentators reject that reading firmly.
It is a scandalous and immoral procedure. He was shifting the searchlight from the outward actions to the unseen inner nature... the Lord went deeper. He dealt with the hidden desires of the heart, with the nature that lies at the root of every wrong act and from which all evil deeds spring. He declared that God required truth in the inward parts. In his great repentance David learned that his nature was more terrible than his deeds. The law taught Saul of Tarsus the same needed lesson (Romans 7). This did not make void the law; it established its use as a searching, convicting power.
Another writer puts the same point positively: the law was upheld, not cancelled.
The law was content to forbid the actual act; the Lord went further, and forbade not only the outward act but the inward desire.
The next verse traces the sin back to its source. It also exposes what an honest person could only learn by trying and failing.
Because of the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees, the Jews thought that simply keeping the law on the outside was the way to be justified before God. Here the Lord points to the human heart and shows that adultery has its source there. This is not a "spiritualisation of the law," as some say. For the first time He reveals something that every honest Israelite had to learn by experience. Everyone who tried to keep the commandment "You shall not commit adultery" had inside them the very lusts that led to the actions God forbade. They had no strength to overcome them. The commandment even stirred those lusts up: "...for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'" (Rom. 7:7-11).
The warning is precise. It is not aimed at every glance a person cannot help.
The Lord is not speaking here about accidental, unplanned looks that a person can barely avoid. He means the deliberate look of lust... So the sinful thought in the heart comes before the deliberate look.
Nor may single readers assume the subject passes them by: "the word 'adultery' shows that either the man or both are married. Nevertheless, no unmarried believer should think that these words of the Lord have nothing to say to him."
The remedy He urges is drastic, and it works on the heart rather than on the body.
Anything in our walk, our ways, or our service that puts a soul in danger of giving in to these impure desires should never be spared. We must leave it at any cost... Cutting off these parts of the body pictures a heart fully exercised in self-judgment. Such a heart does not excuse itself by saying that it never committed the sin. It gives up whatever exposed it to that sin.
Outward respectability never reaches this standard.
Avoiding the act itself might satisfy a Pharisee or scribe. But the Lord could not do without truth in the inward parts... it is not the outside only that God regards, but the heart above all. Only a new nature delights in holiness. The person who has it by grace answers to the will of God his Father. He hates himself if he slips even into a wrong look, as something unworthy of his calling and hateful to Him who loves him.
- Root — The law punished the act. Christ turns the searchlight on the nature that produces it.
- Authority — Prophets said "Thus says the Lord." Here One says "I say to you," speaking as the God who reads the heart.
- Exposure — The commandment restrains lust, but it also uncovers it. No honest person has the strength to keep it.
- Cost — The answer is not the excuse "I never did it." It is self-judgment that gives up whatever exposes the soul to the sin.
- Remedy — Only a new nature, given by grace, delights in holiness and grieves even over a wrong look.
But *I* say unto you, that every one who looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus takes the command against adultery and pushes it past the act to the look, and past the look to the desire behind it. The question He raises is not "have I kept the rule?" but "what is in my heart when God looks at it?"
Because Jesus adds to what the law said, some conclude He was replacing it. One writer answers that objection using this very verse.
Take one example out of the seven times in that discourse when our Lord said, "I say to you." "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:27-28). Where is the setting aside of the law? No — He upheld it. The law was content to forbid the actual act; the Lord went further, and forbade not only the outward act but the inward desire.
The scribes and Pharisees — Israel's religious teachers — measured obedience by outward conduct. Against that background, the Lord's words did something no one had heard before.
Because of the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees, the Jews thought the mere outward keeping of the law was the way to be justified before God. Here the Lord points to the human heart and shows that adultery has its source there. He reveals for the first time something every honest Israelite had to learn by experience. Everyone who tried to keep the commandment "You shall not commit adultery" already had inside them the very lusts that led to the acts God forbade. And they had no strength to overcome them. The lusts were even stirred up by the commandment: "for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'" (Rom. 7:7-11).
The verse describes a look with intent, and that distinction decides how the words apply day by day.
This distinction is very important. Today we can hardly go anywhere without seeing the moral corruption of our time. We do not mean to see it, and it defiles us easily. The intentional covetous and sinful look is something completely different. No Christian can stop unclean thoughts rising in his mind. They become sin only when he turns toward them and gives himself to them instead of turning away. Covetous looks and unclean thoughts are sin. So it is also sin when believing women and girls stir them up by their dress and behaviour.
The same writer knows the opposite danger — a conscience so tender it condemns itself for what it never chose.
God-fearing Job said: "I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?" (Job 31:1). But some Christians are over-sensitive and over-anxious. Involuntary looks and thoughts weigh their consciences down. I would remind them of the well-known words Martin Luther wrote on this verse: "I cannot stop a bird flying over my head, but I can stop it building a nest in my hair or biting off my nose."
Advice to simply try harder fails at the exact point this verse targets.
It is sometimes said that deliverance from sin is a matter of personal effort, and that evil habits can and should be overcome by one's own firm resolve and perseverance. But this advice overlooks one thing. Willpower alone may check the wicked deed, but the sinful desire has already filled the heart. And divine holiness uncovers the secret source of inward evil. In God's sight, a foolish thought is sin. Our Lord condemns the lustful look and the adulterous act alike (Matt. 5:28).
What does work is a changed nature, and it shows itself in how a person reacts to even a single wrong glance.
The avoidance of the extreme act might satisfy a Pharisee or a scribe; but the Lord had to have truth deep inside a person. Only a new nature delights in holiness. The one who has it by grace answers to the will of God his Father. If he slips even into a wrong look, he hates himself for it, as unworthy of his calling and hateful to Him who loves him.
The verses that follow name the eye and the hand, and commentators read them as a call to cut off whatever leads that way.
Whatever in our walk, or in our ways, or in our service — whatever it might be that exposes a soul to the danger of yielding to these unholy feelings — should never be spared, but abandoned at any cost… The cutting off of these members pictures a heart thoroughly exercised in self-judgment; not excusing itself by saying that it had not actually committed the sin, but giving up whatever exposed it to that sin.
- Source. Adultery does not begin in the act; the Lord points to the heart and shows that the sin has its source there.
- Standard. The law forbade the act, and He forbids the desire behind it — not setting the law aside but carrying it inward.
- Sin. Unavoidable sights are not the issue. A thought becomes sin when you turn toward it instead of away.
- Strength. Willpower can check a deed, but not the desire that filled the heart first. Only a new nature delights in holiness.
- Surgery. The right response is unsparing self-judgment — refusing the excuse "I never actually did it," and giving up whatever exposes you to it.