Matthew 5:21–22

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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).

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 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.

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.