Christ and Swearing

Mat 5:33 Again, you have heard that it has been said by the ancients, You shall not swear falsely, but shall fulfill to the Lord your oaths.

In "filling in" the commandments, Christ moves from murder and adultery to trustworthiness. What is interesting about Christ's words here is his choice of words in describing the "old" version of the commandment before he extends it.

Christ doesn't repeat the form of the second commandment Exd 20:7. That commandment in common English translations forbids us "taking the name [of God] in vain." In the original Hebrew, this is the phrase "nasa' shem shav'," which means literally "to lift (or carry) the name falsely." This to me is covers a host of sins and among the worst of them is representing ourselves as doing something for God when we are in fact doing it for some other reason.

Christ comes closer to using the more specific formulation against lying Lev 19:12 of "swearing by the [Lord's] name falsely." In Hebrew, this is "shaba' shem sheqer," which has a cool sound, and means "swear not the name falsely."

The big difference here is that swearing specifically by the name of God isn't mentioned in Christ's version. Christ wanted to make it clear that the issue in the original commandment wasn't using God's name, which has come to take the term "swearing." Instead, he wanted to keep the focus more on honesty itself. The issue here is more clearly on fulfilling our promises. When we make a contract, we must honor it.

In the other versions, we might think the central issue is keeping only the promises that we make to God. By not mentioning God in the first part in connection with making the promise, Jesus tries to make it clear that his focus is on any oaths we make, not just those to God or that involve God. This is consistent with everything else in this section, which focuses on our relationships with one another rather than just our relationship with God alone.

In the last line, the connection is made between what we promise others and what we owe to God. What Christ is saying is that whenever we swear, to whoever we promise, we owe it to God to keep our oaths.

Christ Condemning Immorality, Homosexuality Connecting It with Idolatry

Mat 5:31 It has been said, whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce: Mat 5:32 But I say to you, That whoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whosoever marries a woman that is divorced commits adultery.

Christ makes it clear how important it is to keep together a marriage. Divorce is but one step away from adultery, which is Christ's second most series crime and one that leads to destruction. In our more "liberal" times, this commandment seems outdated, but, even though I have been divorced and married a divorced woman, my tendency after a life of experience is to agree totally that Christ was right to set the bar for getting a divorce very high.

Where does he set the bar? At what is called here "fornication" but which in the original Greek was porneia, a term which includes adultery (in Greek, moichao, which in narrowly defined as sex with another's wife) but which also includes other forms of sexual immorality, including homosexuality, incest, prostitution, and so on. (So those who defend homosexuality by saying that Christ never specifically condemned it, here is one example--and there are others.) This is the root word for the English word, "pornography." And lest you think that Greeks had a more "sophisticated" view of this sexual activity, this is the word that Demosthenes used to vilify a corrupt individual (speech 19, section 287), and Aeschines, another Greek orator, used it to describe the lewdness of another (speech 2). There are dozens of other words for sexual activity in Greek, including much more specific terms for various sexual acts than we have in English. It is interesting that the word chosen here is the most inclusive with clear sense of evil.

Most interestingly, in Greek porneia was also a synonym for idolatry, worshiping idols. This connects the worship of false gods with sexual immorality. Since we are discussing commandment here, this word connect adultery with the first commandment, worshipping false gods. Even the ancients Greeks thought of indulging in sexual immorality as a form of worshiping a false god (and they had many gods).

So, divorce was acceptable if your spouse had fallen to this level of degradation but is otherwise forbidden. The question is, why do we consider it so much more acceptable now? Studies show that people who divorce are generally unhappier five years after than those who stay married. No child of divorce has anything to say good about it. It treats our relationships as disposable. We cannot divorce our family, so it lowers the spousal relationship below that of "true" family. Christ will have more to say about this thinking later in the Gospels.

Plucking out Eyes and Cutting Off Hands as Religion

Mat 5:29 And if your right eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast [it] away: for it is better for you that one of your parts should perish, and not [that] your whole body should be cast into hell. Mat 5:30 And if your right hand offend you, cut it off, and cast [it] away for it is better for thee that one of your members should perish, and not [that] your whole body should be cast into hell.

Building on the last post regarding the inevitable consequences of our actions (where thoughts lead to actions), Christ makes another provocative, extreme statement. Since the topic is adultery, the plucking out an eye and cutting off a the hand leads directly to removing another body part following this train of thought. Did Christ really think that we should start lopping off our body parts if they give us an occasion to sin?

Again, the idea is that one thing leads to another. A thought leads to action. A look (the eye) leads to an action (the hand). But the process doesn't stop there. Wrong thought put us on a road that eventually destroys our entire lives. We don't even have to believe in an afterlife to realize that decisions that put immediate gratification first are highly destructive.

It is easier to stop thoughts than it is to stop physical practices. What Christ is saying, however, is that this is serious businesses, a matter of life and death, and a matter that transcends physical death. In that perspective, giving up a part of our life, something we enjoy. However, as Christ says, it is better to lose a part of our life than all of our life. The whole is greater than the parts.

Again, since the topic is adultery, look how important Christ views the relationship between spouses to the whole of our life. In Christ's view, our spouse's happiness is more important or should be than an eye or a hand. We have two hands and two eyes. If we lose one, we still have something of that power left. However, if we break faith with our spouse, we lose our connection to the opposite sex entirely. We are left without a connection to half the world.

I mentioned earlier that the first reference to genna, translated as "hell," clearly referred to the afterlife, but with this second mention, I am not longer certain that Jesus wasn't referring both to our physical body as well as our spiritual body. Everything foul was taken to the valley of Genna to be burned. That includes bodies of the diseased. I feel drawn to the idea that Christ included both ideas here. Our physical corruption is a shadow of our spiritual state. The physical burning of diseased bodies in Genna is a shadow of suffering in life beyond death of diseased souls.

Beyond Adultery: The Thought Police?

Mat 5:27 You have heard that it was said by the ancients, You shall not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say to you, That whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

We now progress to the second worst crime in Christ's list of commandments that he wants to fill in. How can we be sure that he didn't think much of adultery? Because it is the sin that he mentions most in the Gospels. He describes his generation (and all generations) as "adulterous" when he wants to criticize it. Here and later in Matthew, it is placed second, after murder, in his listing of sins, but in both Mark and Luke, it is placed first when he lists sins.

Why did he consider adultery, such a common things, as so evil? I think we only have to look at the previous section on murder to get a good idea. There, Christ puts good relationships among our fellow humans on a higher plane than worship. What is the most important relationship in our life? Our relationship with our spouses. If we cannot be true to the person closest to us, what can we be true to? For Christ, our keeping our marriage vows is the most important test of our character and, to a large degree, a key to bringing the dominion of heaven.

But how can we hurt our spouses by our thoughts? Even if we do look at others with lust, who is harmed since no one can know it except for ourselves and God?

The point is clearly that we must put our spiritual needs above our physical needs. This was, after all, the first temptation of Christ, and, after accepting our earthly mission, the first lesson that Christ's words teach us. We think of materialism as a very contemporary idea, but Christ realized the humans can too easily discount the reality of our spirit because our physical existence is so much more tangible. However, Christ clearly saw that our spiritual condition was more important. It is the content of our character that matters, not only to God, but to the quality of our life. This is the lesson of the Beatitudes themselves, which describe our spiritual journey through life and beyond.

Part of the reason why Christ believes that our inner, private thoughts are so important is because they shape our physical reality. Christ has laid our a plan by which everything becomes completed and perfect, where the world moves from the earthly to the heavenly, the temporal to the eternal. For Christ, the connection between what we think today, what we do tomorrow, and what happens to us the day after that was as tangible as anything in the material world.

When I suggested that this means that Christ believed in the "thought police" in this title of this post, I was being provocative. Just the opposite is true. Christ thought we should keep morality out of the hands of the state. Human judgment and justice is inherently flawed. Instead, the challenge is to police ourselves, and that starts with controlling our own thoughts.

On a personal note, recently I have begun to think about the value of prayer as a form of developing self-control. Scientific studies show that prayer is effective in ways that indicate a supernatural dimension, but I think prayer also has a psychological dimension where we can use prayer to program ourselves. By choosing to ask for God's help in certain areas, we are changing our character, which changes our behavior.

Were Courts as Bad in Christ's Time?

Mat 5:25 Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the street with him; lest at any time your adversary delivers you to the judge, and the judge delivers you to the officer, and you are cast into prison.
Mat 5:26 Truly I say to you, you shall be unable to come out of there until you have paid your last dime.

What makes this whole series starting with verse 21 so interesting is that Christ has been talking about the judgment of men, not the judgment of God. He starts talking about how murder leads to court. Then he predicts how even name-calling will one day (soon) lead to court action. Now, he discusses how disagreements lead to court action, which can lead to jail, which can lead to poverty, or more precisely, bankruptcy.

Here Christ is telling us that earthly justice is a dangerous thing. Even if we are innocent, it can be terribly costly. Was this as true in his day as in ours? Roman law was quite well developed in terms of contract law, property rights, family law regarding inheritence, and, of course, criminal law. There were, however, no laws against name-calling, which was the proximate topic to this discussion of problems between people.

What Christs wants us to know is that it is better for us, both spiritually and physically, to make our own peace in the world without relying on legal systems. As anyone who has had anything to do with the legal system can tell you, this advice is timeless. However, it is more than that. It is a condemnation of the whole idea that the law or the state can solve our problems for us. Christ is telling us that the world is made of individuals, not states, and that our individual relationships are what determine the course of our lives.

Why do we attach so much importance to politics when our personal relationships with one another are what really make up our lives? Yes, the government can take our money and perhaps give us some now and then, but that is a fact of life, like the weather. This doesn't determine our happiness. Our happiness comes from how we treat others and the relationships that arise from our treatment of others.

Is Christ Teaching to Put Men Before God?

Mat 5:23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you;
Mat 5:24
Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

In these two verses, Christ addresses our priorities. Remember, we are still working in the context of Christ filling in the commandment against murder. Also remember that this commandment against murder is the first commandment that Christ addresses, making it seem the most important, at least in his eyes. He does not start with commandments regarding our relationship with God. Rather he starts with a commandment about our relationship with other people.

Here, he makes that priority more clear. We should not put our religion or religious duties about our relationships with other people. This is a revolutionary idea and one that does not get nearly enough attention in the preaching of the Gospels.

What also makes this verse so interesting is its recognition of timing. In many, perhaps most, of Christ's words, there is a timeless quality that joins cause and effect, the young and the old, the crime and the judgment. It doesn't matter to Christ if repentence comes early or late. The relevant fact is that it comes. You would expect this from a mind that perceives the reality in the eternal moment, in which all of time is equally accessible.

However, here we have a clear setting of priorities: deal with earthly problems first and then worry about your relationship with God. God does not care about time. Humans, however, are bound by it. It is not that God is less important than other men, but that time is simply more important for humans. Hence, our priorities as far as timing must favor our duties to our fellow humans.

So much of what Christ teaches is counter-intuitive when we first hear it. I think that this is why most preacher don't talk about Christ's words as much as, say Paul's, because Christ is much more difficult. However, whenever we spend time thinking about what Christ says, we find unexpected depth in simplicity, and correct logic in what seems initially backward.

The Same Punishment for Name-Calling

Mat 5:22 But I say to you, That whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, "Raca!" shall be in danger of the high council: but whoever shall say, "You fool!" shall be in danger of hell fire.

In this passage, Jesus "fills out" the law in an most interesting way. It is as much a prediction as it is a description of the deeper law against "murder." Notice that Christ isn't talking about heavenly judgment here. As in the last verse, we explained that the term translated as "danger of judgment" just suggests that someone who murders might have to go to trial. Here, Christ says the same of "bad-mouthing others," that they will have to appear before earthly authorities for these "crimes." To make certain that those around him understood that this was an earthly judgment, he repeated the idea specifically refering to judgement by the "high council" specifically the Sanhedrin, the high court of his time.

How insane this must have seemed at the time, the idea that you could go on trial if you just called someone names. Indeed, this idea must have seemed insane until our own times, when political correctness has brought us to exactly that point. And though I don't approve of political correctness, Christ was clearly telling us about the progress of "the kingdom of God," where Christ's views of what was right and wrong would, over time, completely change the world. We clearly live on the cusp of that time.

Then Christ takes a step further, repeating the idea a third time, but now showing that this crazy-sounding earthly judgment was in conformance with heavenly judgment, saying that those who called others names would also be boudn, not to trial, but to genna pur, literally "the hell of fire," a specific reference to what happens in the afterlife and the first such reference to punishment in the afterlife and the first of many mentions in this section. Genna, is not a Greek word for "hell." (Our word "hell" comes from the Greek, helleboros, the hellbore plant that makes people insane.) Genna is from Gehenna, the name of the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the sewage, trash, dead animals, and everything foul was taken to be burned.

So in this one verse, Christ is predicting the future of society, connecting that future with heavenly judgment, and telling us that punishment is a part of the afterlife. These are major new ideas, even for our time, which make this an important verse in understanding Christ's words.

A Very Progressive Punishment for Murder

Mat 5:21 You have heard that it was said by the ancients, You shall not kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.

This is the first "commandment" in which Christ fulfils his promise made earlier in this sermon, that he will "fill up" the law. Why is this commandment first? Because it is considered the most serious of sins by "earthly" judgment. In my opinion, the purpose of this who section is to tell us how differently Christ defines our shortcomings from the way that the world views them. In that sense, starting with the most serious sin makes sense.

On the surface, what originally strikes me about this verse is how lightly it seems to treat killing. Christ does not say that killers are condemned, but that they are in danger of judgment. In the Greek, the punishment is even less threatening. The Greek enochos krisis means literally, "bound to judgment." Enochos doesn't mean danger but being bound or obligated to something, with the sense that guilt is an obligation. Krisis is a familar word, meaning, trial or judgment with the sense of separating things and distinguishing between them.

And what is being judged is not all killing but specifically "murder" from the Greek phoneuô and originally ratsach in the original Hebrew from the Old Testament. Both terms are different from those used for justified killing, such as killing people in war.

This lightness is intentional on the part of Christ. He wanted to make it clear that even murderers sometimes get away with it according to our worldly laws (O.J. anyone?). In many ways, he is predicting our modern era, where murderers are routinely pardoned and a progressive section of the population objects to judging criminals so harshly. This is very different from his own era, where punishment (if caught) was more certain and more severe.

The point here is to provide the basis of contrast for the next verse by which Christ proposes a different standard for our behavior.

"Danger" is from enochos, which means "having sworn" and "being bound by oath."

"Judgment" is from krisis, which means "separating," "distinguishing," "decision," "choice," and "judgement."

Entering into the Kingdom of Heaven

Mat 5:20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall never enter into the kingdom of heaven.

In the last post, we discussed the strange fact that Christ seems to say that people who break small commandments and teach others to do so still get into the kingdom of heaven, even if they are the least of those there. The conclusion we suggested was that the kingdom of heaven was a process of changing the world that includes both the good and evil and that in the process, people judge on another. However, here, Christ says that to get into heaven, our virtue must exceed that of others who obey at least the traditions of the law. What is going on here? Does heaven describe the afterlife or is it a process happening here on earth? Does it include only the virtuous or does it include everyone?

The answer requires that we think about the kingdom of heaven as a process happening here on earth that not everyone is aware of. We can all, good and evil, be part of the process, but not everyone is necessarily aware of it and driving it.

The term used here for "enter" is the Greek eiserchomai, which not only means to come into a place but also means entering into a state or condition, to come into existence, and to come to life. So what Christ is saying here is that both the good and evil are caught up in the net of the kingdom of heaven or planted in the field of the kingdom of heaven, but that only those who are virtuous are aware of what is happening and that only the virtuous are driving this process, that is, changing the nature of earth.

This idea is not that difficult if we just look at how much the world has changed since the coming of Christ. The moral questions that we wrestle over today were not even considered 2,000 years ago. Even the most tragic parts of modern history, such as the communist movement, has its foundations in Christian thoughts and ideals that are basically good. This goodness and the spread of goodness only arose from the coming of the kingdom of heaven. Christ was the catalyst that changed the world.

Commandment Breakers in the Kingdom of Heaven?

Mat 5:19 "So whoever breaks one of these smallest commandments and teaches others to do so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whoever shall keep and teach them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

This is an extraordinary verse because in the first part, Christ says that people who disobey small commandments (entole, meaning "orders," "command," or "rules," not nomos, meaning "customs," "tradition," or the "law") will be considered insignificant in the kingdom of heaven. Christ does not say that these people will be condemned for their transgressions, even though they teach others to copy them.

Like so much of what Christ says, this statement is challenging. The Greek word trnslated as "called" is kaleo, which means "to summon", "to call [by name]" or "to name." Is Christ saying that they will be named as insignificant by those who are in domain of God while the transfressors are not? Or is he saying that the transgressors will have the least stature of anyone in the kingdom of heaven, meaning that they too are among those in the kingdom of heaven?

I think the confusion arises from our idea that "the kingdom of God" refers to to the afterlife. As we have said before, the kingdom of heaven (basileia ouranos, literally, the dominion of the universe or universal) is never described by Christ as the afterlife. When Christ talks about the after life, he talk about the time when people have risen from the dead. The kingdom of heaven is something else. Christ spends a lot of time describing it, mostly as a process which will change the world, creating the basis for the separation of the good and evil at the end of that process. The kingdom of heave, for example, is like a field in which weeds are allowed to grow with the grain. It is a net that gathers up both good fish and bad fish. In other words, bad people are never excluded from the process. They are part of it. The power of God came into the world with Christ, creating this new kingdom where universal rules are recognized.

In that light, Christ's words make much more sense here. Among those who are part of the growing dominion of God, people will recognize that people who break small commandments and (and teach others that this is okay) are small people. One the other hand, those who keep and teach the commandments are the great people.

The Completion of All Things

Mat 5:18 "Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the law, until all is fulfilled."

I have been waiting for an opportunity to explain Christ's concept of "heaven and earth" in more detail. I have discussed this before in my initial post on the Lord's Prayer and my discussion of the kingdom of heaven, but there is more that must be said.

As we said earlier, light is Christ's metaphor for knowledge, however, in a larger sense, the term for earth (ge in Greek) used here also encapsulates the known part of our universe. Ge is the dirt we farm, our nations, the natural world, and human society. It is the same term used in "salt of the earth." However, it is a very different from the term use in "light of the world," which if you remember, was kosmos, a term which includes the aspects of both heaven and earth.

If ge is the known and natural, heaven, ouranos, is the part of the universe we cannot know. It is the unknown and unknowable part of God's domain. It is the mystery of the universe, the kosmos. This is true whether we are speaking of the physical heavens (the stars and galaxies) or the dimensions of nature that we cannot perceive. As our science has moved forward, we have learned much about the physical universe, but everything we have learned has deepened the mystery of nature, not resolved it.

So what is Christ saying here, that the law (nomos, discussed here) will not change at all until both what we know today and what we don't know today will pass away. This is very interesting because it predicts a time when we will be united with God (our father in heaven, that is, our father in mystery) in such a way that all mysteries will be revealed to us.

This is important because the word used for "all" here does not mean "all of the law." The Greek word used is pas, which specifically means each and every person and all things. And the word used for fulfilled is not pleroo, the term used in when Christ says he is here to fulfill the law, which mean to "fill up". The word translated here as "fulfill" is ginomai, which means "to become," "to be made", or "to be completed." So what Christ is saying specifically is the "all people (and all things) will become complete" and the end of time when the known, unknown, and the law all come to an end.

So in this line, Christ is giving us a glimpse of the destiny of the universe. The separation between heaven and earth, mystery and natural, will be erased. We and nature will become complete and no longer need any laws, but until then, we need every bit of law, especially in the sense of tradition, history, and divine guidance from scripture.

Christ is Filling up the Law

Mat 5:17
"Don't think that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill."

This is an very interesting verse if we look at the original Greek. Almost every word in it has a deeper, more interesting meaning that what we read in English.

First, "destroy" is the Greek word kataluo, which means to dissolve, destroy, or specifically, in the case of referring to laws or customs, to annul or abolish.

Next, the word used for "law" is nomos, which means habitual use or custom, much more than it means formal laws. It also means legal statutes or the law of God, but the idea is more of common practices, the way things are done today.

Finally, we have "fulfill" or in Greek pleroo, which means to fill full of something, like being filled full of food. It also means to impregnate or make complete.

In the original, the sense is that Christ's mission was to fulfill the prophecies, but looking more deeply at the words, Christ is also saying that his job is to fill out the customs and laws, to make them more complete. In other words, before Christ, there were good customs and practices, but he is coming to make them better or more complete. And if you look at what Christ said, as we will on this blog, you will see that he explains each of the ten commandments in more details and how they are misinterpreted.

God's will and the true good are what is real. Our laws, customs, and prophecies are shadows of what are real, that is, what is good or Godly. Christ came to fill out our idea of what was godly or good because it was incomplete.

The Beautiful Accomplishments that Magnify God

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

Christ continues to use light as a metaphor for knowledge, but here he makes an important connection between knowledge and action. He is saying that our knowledge of God leads directly to our accomplish great things. These accomplishments are what gives glory to our Father.

The original words translated as "good work" are kalos ergon, but these words don't quite carry the sense of charity that "good works" carries in English. Kalos mean "beautiful," "excellent," and "praiseworthy." It doesn't mean charitable or kind. Ergon means "business," "productivity," or "accomplishments." It doesn't mean any action but an act that requires effort or work.

It is in these great accomplishments (not simple acts of kindness) that we give to God. The word translated as "glorify" here is doxazo, which doesn't exactly mean "glorify" or "praise." Doxazo primarily means to think, imagine, or suppose. Secondarily, it means to magnify or extol, which is where we get the "glorify" used in the translation. The idea is that excellent accomplishments makes us think about God and imagine the greatness of God.

Personally, I have always had a problem with this "glorifying God" stuff, since humans can do little to add luster to God. The amazing universe glorifies God plenty. We can add little. However, our accomplishments can make people think about God.

Perhaps a better translation of this verse would be "Let your light shine before men so that they will see your excellent accomplishments and think about your Father in heaven."

Sharing Knowledge with the Household

"Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house."

Again, Christ continues talking about light as knowledge. Here, he makes it clear that knowledge should be shared, especially within a household. The Greek word for house is oikia, which means both the house itself and the people in it. Then, even more than now, households and families were considered the backbone of civilization.

However, for translators, this verse offers a specific problem. What is translated here as "basket" and in other translations is translated as "bushel" or "measure" is the word modios, which is a Greek word taken from Latin that is used for dry measure. It equals about a peck or say nine liters or a gallon and a half. The assumption is that Matthew used to term to refer to basket of that measure like we refer to "bushel baskets."