Matthew 5:27 - Meaning and Application

Here we have an explanation of the seventh commandment from the same one who gave the law, and so he was best able to explain it. This law against sexual impurity follows naturally after the previous one. The earlier command restrained sinful passions, and this one restrains sinful desires. Both passions and desires should always be ruled by reason and conscience, and if they are left unchecked, they are equally harmful.

The command is given plainly: “You shall not commit adultery” (Matthew 5:27). This includes a ban on all other acts of sexual impurity, along with the desire for them. The Pharisees, however, explained this command so narrowly that they said it applied only to the outward act of adultery. In effect, they suggested that if sin stayed in the heart and went no farther, God would not hear or care about it (Psalm 66:18). So they felt satisfied if they could say, “I am not an adulterer” (Luke 18:11).

Christ explains the command in its full seriousness in three ways. These would have seemed strange to people used to the traditions of the elders, who treated whatever they taught as if it came straight from God. First, he teaches that there is such a thing as heart-adultery, sinful thoughts and desires that never become outward adultery or fornication. The uncleanness that such thoughts bring to the soul is clearly taught here, and it may also have been pictured in many of the ceremonial washings under the law, when people washed their clothes and bathed their bodies in water.

“Everyone who looks at a woman,” not just another man’s wife, as some tried to limit it, “to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). This command forbids more than the act itself. It also forbids every desire for it, every inward longing for what God has forbidden. Lust is the first step toward sin, like sin being conceived before it is born (James 1:15). When a person entertains and approves lust, rolling it around like a sweet morsel, the heart has already committed the sin as far as it can. Nothing is missing except the chance to do it. As Ovid said, “The mind is debauched.” Lust is conscience pushed aside or made useless, silent if it does not speak against the sin, defeated if it does not stop it.

Christ also forbids every move toward this sin, including feeding the eye with forbidden sights. This means more than looking with the purpose of lusting. It also includes looking until lust is stirred up, or looking in order to enjoy lust where no further satisfaction can be had. The eye is a chief doorway for this kind of evil, as seen in Joseph’s master’s wife (Genesis 39:7), Samson (Judges 16:1), and David (2 Samuel 11:2). We read of eyes “full of adultery” that never stop sinning (2 Peter 2:14).

So we need, with Job, to make a covenant with our eyes (Job 31:1). We should agree with them that they may enjoy the light of the sun and the works of God, as long as they never settle on anything that would stir impure thoughts or desires. If they do, they must answer for it with tears of repentance. Why else do we have the covering of the eyes, if not to restrain corrupt glances and keep out defiling impressions? This command also forbids using any other sense to stir up lust. If tempting looks are forbidden, then unclean speech and wanton touching are even more so. These become the fuel and bellows of this hellish fire. Such commands build fences around purity of heart (Matthew 5:8).

If looking itself becomes lust, then those who dress, decorate themselves, and expose themselves on purpose to be looked at and lusted after, like Jezebel, who painted her face, fixed her hair, and looked out of the window, are no less guilty. Men may commit the sin, but devils tempt them to it.

Second, Christ shows how dangerous and destructive such looks and such behavior are to the soul. It is better to lose the eye or the hand that leads into sin than to go on in sin and perish forever. He teaches this in Matthew 5:29-30. Human nature quickly objects to this command against heart-adultery. It says, “That is impossible. How can anyone live by this? Flesh and blood cannot help looking with pleasure at a beautiful woman, and it is impossible not to lust and behave this way.” Reason alone will not easily overcome such excuses, so they must be answered with the fear of the Lord. Christ answers them that way here.

He calls for a severe remedy to stop these fleshly desires. If your right eye causes you to sin by sinful glances or staring at forbidden things, or if your right hand causes you to sin by sinful touching or improper behavior, and if it were truly impossible to control them, as people claim, then it would be better to pluck out the eye and cut off the hand, even the right eye and right hand, which are the more useful and honorable members, than to let them lead the soul to ruin. If nature recoils at that thought, then we must all the more resolve to keep our bodies under control, live in self-denial, watch our hearts closely, crush the first rise of lust, avoid the occasions of sin, resist sin at its start, and stay away from people who would be a trap to us, even if they are pleasant company. We should keep out of harm’s way, limit even lawful things when they tempt us, ask God for grace, depend on that grace each day, and walk by the Spirit so that we do not fulfill the desires of the flesh. That will be as effective as cutting off a right hand or plucking out a right eye, and perhaps just as hard on our natural desires. It is the destruction of the old self.

Third, Christ uses a solemn warning to press this home. He repeats it in the same words because we are slow to hear such hard sayings (Isaiah 30:10). It is better for you that one of your members should perish, even an eye or a hand, than that your whole body should be thrown into hell. It is not out of place for a minister of the gospel to preach about hell and judgment. He must do so, because Christ himself did. We are unfaithful to our trust if we do not warn people of the coming wrath.

Some sins must be fought with fear, especially fleshly lusts, or sinful desires of the body. These passions are so strong, like wild animals, that they cannot be held back unless a person is frightened by the danger of them. We cannot keep ourselves from a forbidden tree unless cherubim, with a flaming sword, stand guard over it.

When we are tempted to think it is too hard to deny ourselves and put sinful desires to death, we should think about how much worse it will be to lie forever in the lake of fire and burning sulfur. People do not really know, or do not believe, what hell is if they would rather risk eternal ruin than give up a base and beastlike desire. There will be torments for the body in hell, because the whole body will be cast there, and every part of it will suffer. So if we care about our bodies, we should keep them in holiness and honor, not in filthy desires.

Even the duties that feel hardest to our flesh are good for us. Our Master asks nothing of us except what he knows is for our own good.

Men’s divorcing their wives because they disliked them, or for any reason except adultery, was a violation of the seventh commandment, even though the Jews allowed and practiced it. This opened the door to adultery (Matthew 5:31, Matthew 5:32). We should notice, first, how the matter stood at that time. It had been said, not as a command from long ago, but as a permission, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” He was not to send her away in anger, by word of mouth, in the middle of a quarrel. He was to do it carefully, by a legal written document, witnessed by others. If he would break the marriage bond, he was to do it solemnly.

The law had helped prevent sudden and rash divorces. At first, when writing was less common among the Jews, this may have kept divorces rare. But later it became common, and this instruction about how to do it, when there was a real cause, was taken as permission to do it for any reason (Matthew 19:3). Our Savior corrected this by bringing marriage back to its original purpose. “The two shall be one flesh,” and so they are not to be separated easily. Divorce should not be allowed except in the case of adultery, because adultery breaks the marriage covenant. But anyone who sends away his wife for any other reason makes her commit adultery, and also the man who marries her after such a divorce.

Those who lead others into sin, leave them in sin, or put them where sin is likely, make themselves guilty of that sin and will answer for it. This is one way of sharing in the sins of adulterers (Psalm 50:18).