Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Scalpel of Grace: Radical Mortification and the Reality of the Snare (Matthew 18:8-9)

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The Scalpel of Grace: Radical Mortification and the Reality of the Snare (Matthew 18:8-9) · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine walking into a hospital emergency room with a raging,
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life threatening infection in your arm.
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Right. Something really serious.
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Yeah, totally. The room is cold, the
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fluorescent lights are humming, and the surgeon walks in holding
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your chart. And you're sitting there, you
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know, you expect a prescription. Precisely, you expect a
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treatment plan involving antibiotics and maybe some
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physical therapy. Sure, a standard medical
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response. But instead, the surgeon looks
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you dead in the eye and tells you that the only way you were
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going to survive night is, well, to amputate the limb.
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Wow, that is. That's heavy.
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No negotiation, no secondary options.
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That terrifying absolute medical reality is the closest modern
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equivalent we have to the way as Christ diagnosis the human
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spiritual condition it. Really is.
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It's a drastic comparison, but it's accurate.
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Welcome to a Reformed thinking. Today we were taking a deep dive
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into some startling words from the Gospel of Matthew.
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We certainly are, and to do this we're analyzing a pair of
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specific sources. Yeah, we have an analysis titled
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Radical Holiness in Light of Attorney and a sermon excerpt
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called The Scalpel of Grace. Two really intense pieces of
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material. Definitely the mission for our
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time today is to unpack Jesus terrifying commands in Matthew
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chapter 18 verses 8:00 and 9:00. Right where Jesus says if your
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hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.
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And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.
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I mean, this is not mild moral advice.
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Not at all. It is a call to violent,
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decisive action against human corruption.
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So to really grasp what Christ is demanding here, we need to
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set up a framework. We do.
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We have to establish a clear theological lens from the very
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beginning. And for us, that means looking
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through the lens of historic Protestant Christian doctrine,
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right? Specifically adhering strictly
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to the framework laid out in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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Which means we are holding 2 massive, seemingly opposing
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realities together in tension, right?
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Yes, 2 huge concepts. First we have the doctrine of
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total depravity. And just for the listener that
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acknowledges that human corruption infects every single
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faculty of our being. Spot on.
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Our minds, our wills, our affections, and our physical
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bodies. Nothing escapes it.
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It's a bleak picture, but then we have the second reality.
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Yeah, the staggering, unmerited grace of the cross of Jesus
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Christ. So we're going to examine the
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absolute severity of the moral law and the beauty of the gospel
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side by side. Because honestly, you cannot
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appreciate the cure until you have felt the full terror of the
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disease. OK, let's unpack this.
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Before we examine the surgical tools Christ demands we use on
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ourselves, we have to understand the specific trap he is
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describing. We really do.
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The imagery of cutting off hands and tearing out eyes is
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completely jarring to modern sensibilities.
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It sounds like a horror movie to be honest.
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It does, but it does not emerge out of a vacuum.
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Yeah, we need to look at the surrounding narrative context in
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Matthew chapter 18. Right to see the full picture of
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what provoked this extreme teaching in the first place.
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The context is essential for grasping the weight of the
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command. The chapter opens with a very
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specific dispute among the disciples.
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Yeah, they approached Jesus and asked him a question that seems,
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well, incredibly tone deaf in hindsight.
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They ask who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?
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Which is just wild, but you have to understand the sociopolitical
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climate of 1st century Judea to see why they asked this.
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Precisely. They were expecting a conquering
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Messiah who would overthrow Roman rule and, you know,
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establish A geopolitical empire. They are thinking in worldly
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terms, rank, prominence, administrative status.
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Who gets to be the Prime Minister of this new Kingdom?
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Yeah, and Jesus responds by entirely subverting their
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expectations. He calls a small child into
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their midst. And we have to remember, in the
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ancient Greco, Roman and Jewish worlds, a child was not
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sentimentalized the way children are today.
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Not at all. A child held zero social status,
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0 economic value and 0 political leverage.
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By elevating the child, Jesus is establishing that baseline
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humility is the absolute prerequisite for entering His
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Kingdom. He says that unless you turn and
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become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of
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heaven at all. Which had to be a huge blow to
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their egos. Oh, definitely.
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And and then he issues a warning that shifts the tone from gentle
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instruction to absolute terror. Yeah, he says that whoever
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causes one of these little ones who believe in him to stumble,
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well, something terrible should happen to them.
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He says it would be better for him to have a great millstone
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fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the
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sea. That is an incredibly violent
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image right off the bat. It really is.
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And we should pause to consider the physical reality of a
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millstone. He is not talking about a small
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grinding stone you keep in your kitchen, no.
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He is referring to the massive heavy stone wheels used in
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commercial grain milling. Right.
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The kind that were so large they literally had to be turned by a
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donkey. The sheer weight of that stone
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pulling a human body down into the black depths of the sea.
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The horrifying picture of execution.
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He is talking about the terrifying judgment reserved for
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anyone who becomes an outward public stumbling block to
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someone else. But then, right after
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establishing this outward danger, the text takes a sudden
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sharp turn. Yeah, he pivots the focus
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entirely. Yes, the pivot is striking and
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honestly, it's incredibly uncomfortable for the listener.
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Because he moves from warning against causing others to
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stumble to warning each individual about the causes of
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stumbling within their own personal life.
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Right. He forces the individual to look
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at their own capacity for spiritual ruin.
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He presses the matter inward. Because human nature loves to
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deflect, doesn't it? Oh, absolutely.
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We love to remain in the safe, comfortable position of
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condemning public scandals or corrupt leaders.
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Yeah, the obvious sins of other people while we carefully
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protect and spare our own private idols.
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But Jesus cuts off that avenue of escape.
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He turns the spotlight from the community back onto the
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individual's own physical body. That hits hard.
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It is so easy to point the finger at the false teachers,
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the corrupt politicians, the people out there causing visible
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harm. But Jesus brings it right to our
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own doorstep, he said. Look at your own hands, your own
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feet, your own eyes. And to really grasp the
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mechanics of what he's is talking about, we need to look
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at the original language. We do.
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The standard English translation usually says causes you to sin
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or causes you to stumble. But the Greek word underneath
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that translation reveals a much more sinister reality.
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What's fascinating here is the Greek word from the root noun
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Scanlon. Modern usage of the English word
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scandal usually suggests a public disgrace or ruined
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reputation. Right.
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Or a personal offense, right. But when we analyze Greek
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discourse and extra biblical Greco Roman literature.
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Particularly ancient hunting and trapping manuals, right?
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Yes, we see a much darker, much more mechanical picture.
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A scandal on was not simply a large stone you might
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accidentally trip over. It wasn't just an accident
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waiting to happen on a dirty. No, it was the trigger stick or
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the bait hook of a lethal engineered trap.
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So it was the specific mechanism designed to spring shut and
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catch an animal unawares. Leading directly to its death,
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it implies intelligence, design and lethal intent.
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So Jesus is characterizing sin not as a minor lapse in
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judgement or a character flaw. Or a bad habit that we just need
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to break. He is calling it a lethal trap
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designed by an intelligent enemy to destroy our souls.
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Precisely, it is a calculated ambush.
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That changes everything about how we view temptation.
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And the grammar Jesus uses in the specific sentence reinforces
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the absolute certainty of this ambush.
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Let's talk about the grammar. The phrasing in the original
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Greek is known as a first class conditional clause.
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Right, he says, if your hand causes you to sin.
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And in Greek syntax, a first class condition assumes the
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reality of the premise for the sake of the.
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Argument. It is not a hypothetical
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scenario. It's not like if perhaps on some
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rare occasion, your hand might happen to cause you to sin.
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No, the grammar assumes the reality.
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It is a guarantee. Jesus is stating that in a
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fallen world inhabiting fallen flesh, our members will
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inevitably and constantly become conduits for lethal temptation.
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A trap only works because the bait obscures the mechanism.
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That's a great way to put it. I think of a rusted bear trap
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sitting out in the woods. You don't look at the jagged
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steel teeth. Right, your brain hyper focuses
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on the meat placed right in the center.
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You know what a bear trap does? You know it shatters bone and
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destroys whatever steps into it. But the psychology of the bait
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takes over. Yeah, and you convince yourself
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that you are quick enough or clever enough to grab the treat
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without triggering the mechanism.
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The scandal on is an engineered deception.
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So the question we have to ask ourselves is if we know the trap
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is lethal and if we know the steel teeth are hiding right
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beneath the surface. Why do we constantly play with
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the trigger? Exactly why do we do it?
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Well, we play with the trigger because we severely
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underestimate the deceitfulness of our own hearts.
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And we overestimate our own willpower.
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Yes, we think we can manage the danger.
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We believe we can dabble and compromise without suffering the
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consequences. But knowing that the trap is
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lethal and inevitable changes our entire approach.
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It forces us to look at how these traps physically manifest
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in human agency, Which. Brings us to the specific bodily
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members Christ identifies the hand, the foot in the eye.
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Jesus maps out the entire geography of temptation, showing
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us how a spiritual failure becomes a physical reality.
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Let's examine how these members function together mechanically.
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Because sin usually follows a specific psychological cascade.
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Right. And the eye is almost always the
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entry point. The eye represents desire,
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perception, and inward temptation.
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The eye acts as a surveillance system for a corrupt heart.
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It scans the environment, sees something forbidden, lingers on
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it, covets it, and admires it. It captures the image and sends
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a hit of dopamine to the brain, igniting the affections.
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Once the eye has compromised the affections, the brain begins to
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rationalize. It creates A justification for
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the desire and this activates the foot.
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Right. If the eye is the surveillance
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system, the foot represents our path, our chosen course and our
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associations. It is about the physical or
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digital environments a person willingly enters.
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It represents habitual movement and settled direction.
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The foot moves the person into a setting that inflames the
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temptation the eye has already embraced.
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So a person sins not just in what they do, but in where they
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choose to position themselves. That is such a crucial point,
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and finally, that rationalized path leads to the execution of
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the ACT. Which brings us to the hand.
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The hand represents our deeds, our productivity, what a person
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actually grasps and performs. This is where the internal
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desire finally breaches into external reality.
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It is the sphere of active conduct.
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You can see this exact cascade in the life of King David in the
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Old Testament. Oh, that's a perfect example.
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His eye saw Bathsheba bathing. His mind rationalized his royal
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privilege. His feet walked the path of
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sending messengers to her. And his hand took her.
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The eye, the foot, and the hand all conspired to execute the
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sin. That historical example
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illustrates the cascade perfectly.
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The physical members operate in total synchronization to
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accomplish the will of the flesh.
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However, this brings up a massive theological objection
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that we must address. Right, because from a biblical
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standpoint, God created the physical body.
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In the book of Genesis, God declared all of His creation,
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including the human body and its material faculties, to be very
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good. So by assigning blame to the eye
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or the hand, some might argue that we are shifting the blame
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away from the human soul. And demonizing physical matter
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itself. Which sounds much more like
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ancient Gnosticism, which taught that spirit is good and matter
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is evil, than orthodox Christianity.
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I was actually going to push back on that exact point.
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It feels like a convenient excuse.
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Like saying I didn't want to steal but my hand just grabbed
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the money. Yeah, or I didn't want to look
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at that website, but my eye just wandered.
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If we blame the body parts, we alleviate the moral response
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stability of the person. How does historic Protestant
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theology reconcile Jesus's words here with the goodness of
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physical creation? Well, Jesus actually addresses
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this specific theological tension directly elsewhere in
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his ministry. Oh, right, in Matthew chapter 15
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verses 18 and 19. Yes, Jesus clearly states that
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what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and
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this is what defiles a person. He specifies that out of the
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heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual
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immorality, theft, false witness and slander.
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Jesus possesses perfect anthropological knowledge.
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He knows that sin originates exclusively in the heart.
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So the physical body is not inherently evil, and matter is
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not sinful. Right, the physical members are
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not the independent source of the corruption.
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Rather, because of the fall of man, our bodily faculties are
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hijacked. The Apostle Paul talks about
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this in Romans 6, warning believers not to present their
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members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.
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So the physical members are simply the obedient conduits for
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the heart's existing corruption. Exactly.
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They are tools. So the hand, the foot and the
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eye are functioning essentially as loyal employees of a severely
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corrupt. Boss, that's a good analogy.
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The heart is the executive giving the orders.
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The heart says I desire that object, and the hand obeys the
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command and reaches out to take it.
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The heart says I want to be in that specific compromising
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environment, and the feet dutifully carry the body there.
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The body parts are just carrying out the mandate of the inner
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man. Yes, they are the means by which
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the sin is actualized in the physical world.
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But because the members are the necessary instruments used to
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commit the treason, they must be dealt with severely.
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You cannot separate the instrument from the action.
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So if the heart is the root and the physical members are the
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necessary conduits, we have to ask how a believer practically
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and effectively fights back. Against this coordinated
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assault, yeah. Which leads us directly into the
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historic theology of mortification.
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We are talking about the application of the scalpel of
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sanctification to our daily lives.
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And to ground this concept of sanctification historically and
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theologically, our sources point us to the Westminster Confession
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of Faith. Specifically, Chapter 13.
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Did you use some context? If you're listening, the
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Westminster Assembly was a gathering of English theologians
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and scholars in the 1640s. Right during the incredibly
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volatile period of the English Civil War.
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These men met in the cold, damp Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster
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Abbey to meticulous keylessly draft a confession that would
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unify the theology of the church.
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They. Lived in an era of literal
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warfare, and they brought that vocabulary into their theology.
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Chapter 13 describes sanctification as a continual
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and irreconcilable war between the flesh and the spirit.
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This is not a treaty. This is not a peaceful
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coexistence where we manage our sin.
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It is a bitter lifelong conflict.
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The Westminster divine's understood a critical dual
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reality. Which is that while a believer
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is justified, meaning they're legally declared righteous
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before God the moment they exercise saving faith.
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They still possess remaining corruption in their flesh.
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The new nature created and sustained by the Holy Spirit is
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permanently at war with the old fallen nature.
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And this war requires violent, decisive action on the part of
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the believer. We see the necessity of this
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violence in the very verbs Jesus chooses to employ.
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The Greek verbs for cut off which is eckopsin, and throw
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away which is baal. Those are specific grammatical
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instructs known as second person aorist imperatives.
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Right. Yes, they are.
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Let's clarify what that grammatical term signifies,
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because it changes the entire tone of the verse.
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It really does. In English, a command is just a
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command. Clean your room could mean right
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now, or it could mean sometime before Tuesday.
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But the Greek language is much more precise about time and
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action. So what does the aorist
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imperative demand of the listener?
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In Greek, an aorist imperative demands decisive, urgent and
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immediate action. It is not a command to gradually
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begin a process of behavioral modification.
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Not at all. It is a command to strike a
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single definitive severing blow. Jesus is not saying slowly wean
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yourself off of the particular relationship that causes you to
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stumble. He is not saying try to
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gradually reduce the amount of time you spend looking at things
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that defile you. The grammar itself demands a
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violent immediate strike. He is saying sever the
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connection immediately and permanently.
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The terrifying thing about this requirement is how much it
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mirrors dealing with actual physical gangrene.
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That's a very apartment comparison if a.
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Patient comes into the hospital with gangrenous tissue in their
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leg. The terrifying nature of
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gangrene is that it often stops hurting.
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Right, it numbs the surrounding tissue as it kills the blood
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supply. But the surgeon knows that the
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dead tissue is actively poisoning the bloodstream.
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And if left attached, it will inevitably kill the patient.
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The surgeon does not suggest applying A topical antibiotic
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ointment and hoping it's better over the next six months.
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The surgeon amputates the leg. And the surgeon isn't acting out
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of cruelty or malice, they are undertaking A horrific action to
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save the patient's life. You don't put a Band-Aid on
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gangrene, you cut it off. The gangrene analogy captures
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the exact biological and spiritual necessity of the
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command. The numbness you described is
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exactly how sin operates on the human conscience.
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Yeah, it sears the conscience so that the person no longer feels
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the danger. But we must understand the
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theological function of this amputation.
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This radical action is not a form of asceticism meant to earn
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our salvation. No, we are not cutting off sin
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to impress God, to accumulate merit, or to pay the penalty for
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our own transgressions. Within historic Protestantism,
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derived largely from the thought of John Calvin, this practice of
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mortification functions as something else.
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It functions as what is known as the third use of the law.
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This is a massive theological concept.
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It really is. Let's outline the three uses of
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the moral law so you can track the progression of how God uses
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his own standards to shape human history and individual lives.
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The framework is quite elegant. The first use of the moral law
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is pedagogical. It acts as a mirror.
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Right. When a human being looks into
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the perfect moral law of God, it exposes their complete inability
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to keep it. Shattering their self
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righteousness and driving them to seek mercy in Christ.
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Then the second use of the law is civil.
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It acts as a curb. God uses the moral law, often
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through human government, to restrain the rampant outbreak of
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evil in society. Protecting humanity from
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destroying itself. And finally, the third use of
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the law is normative. It acts as a guide for the
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justified believer. It shows the Christian who is
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already saved entirely by grace, how to live a life of grateful
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obedience that pleases their Father.
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When Jesus commands us to cut off the hand, he is issuing 1/3
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use command to his disciples. It is an instruction manual for
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holy living, not a ladder we climb to try and reach heaven.
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Keeping that distinction clear is the only thing that protects
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us from 2 massive destructive errors that are absolutely
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rampant in modern theology. On one extreme side you have the
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error of antinomianism. The word literally translates to
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anti law. This is the toxic idea that
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because a person is saved by grace, the moral law has no
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bearing on their life whatsoever.
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It turns the grace of God into a license for immorality.
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It suggests that a Christian does not need to wage war
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against temptation or amputate any stumbling blocks, because
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God is going to forgive them regardless.
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It completely ignores the command for radical holiness.
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And on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the pervasive
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error of seeker sensitive pragmatism.
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This approach deliberately attempts to soften the absolute
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demands of biblical holiness. In order to make the Christian
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message more palatable, marketable and comfortable for
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the surrounding culture. It avoids preaching on texts
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like Matthew 18 because talking about cutting off hands or
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tearing out eyes is deemed offensive.
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Too demanding and bad for church attendance.
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It reduces the magnificent calling of Christian
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discipleship to mere therapeutic self improvement and life
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coaching. Both antinomianism and seeker
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sensitive pragmatism utterly fail to grasp the lethal gravity
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of the snare and the absolute necessity of the scalpel.
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They miss the point entirely. The pain of undergoing spiritual
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amputation is intense. It is agonizing to to
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permanently give up a relationship and ambition or a
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habit that your flesh desperately craves.
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Which begs the question, why would any rational human being
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willingly subject themselves to that kind of emotional and
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psychological agony? Our sources move the dialogue to
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the eternal stakes that make such pain not only tolerable but
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completely rational. We have to look at the calculus
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of eternity. Right.
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Jesus frames this entire terrifying discussion as a
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logical economic argument. He makes an argument from lesser
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loss to greater. Notice his repeated, deliberate
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use of the word better. He states that it is better to
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enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands and two feet
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and be thrown into the eternal fire.
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He is appealing directly to our capacity for rational thought
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and cost benefit analysis. Here's where it gets really
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interesting. It is a staggering assessment of
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value. Losing what is precious in this
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temporary life causes genuine grief.
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No one denies the pain of the loss.
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But losing your soul for all of eternity is infinitely worse.
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He's asking us to weigh a temporary agony against an
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eternal catastrophe. To understand the nature of that
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catastrophe, we return to the Westminster Confession.
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Specifically, chapter 32, which addresses the state of man after
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death. The confession affirms the
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biblical teaching that after physical death, the souls of the
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righteous are received into the highest heavens.
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While the souls of the wicked are cast into hell where they
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remain, and torments in utter darkness reserved for the
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judgment of the great day. Jesus uses a very specific Greek
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term to describe this destination, Jinan to Pyrus.
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Which translates directly to the hella.
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Fire. Let's trace the historical and
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geographical roots of that term Gehenna.
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Because it grounds the theology in a physical reality that his
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listeners would have immediately recognized with a sense of
22:25
horror. It refers to the Valley of
22:27
Hinnom, located just outside the walls of Jerusalem.
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The history of the Valley of Hinnom is one of the darkest
22:32
threads in biblical history. During the era of the divided
22:35
monarchy, wicked kings of Judah, specifically King Ahaz and King
22:39
Manasseh, use this valley as a site for horrific idolatrous
22:44
practices. They literally sacrificed their
22:46
own children, burning them in the fire to the Pagan God
22:49
Molech. It was a place of unimaginable
22:51
cruelty and national apostasy. Later, during the righteous
22:55
reforms of King Josiah, the valley was deliberately
22:58
desecrated to prevent it from ever being used for worship
23:01
again. It was turned into the municipal
23:02
garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem.
23:04
The fires in that valley burned continuously to consume the
23:07
refuse, the bodies of dead animals and the corpses of
23:11
executed criminals. Maggots and worms constantly fed
23:14
on the decay. Jesus takes that visceral,
23:16
terrifying, tangible image of a burning, rotting refuse heap and
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elevates it. To describe the permanent
23:23
eschatological reality of final cosmic judgment.
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He is utterly explicit about the existence of eternal conscious
23:30
torment. This historical and textual
23:32
reality directly refutes modern theological trends like
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universalism. Which posits that every a human
23:39
being will eventually be saved and reconciled to God.
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Or annihilationism, which claims that the souls of the wicked
23:45
will simply be extinguished and cease to exist.
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Those modern theological trends are born out of a desire to
23:51
soften the blow. The proponents of those views
23:54
think they are being more loving, more enlightened, and
23:56
more compassionate than Jesus himself.
23:58
But our sources point out the absolute unyielding compassion
24:03
inherent in Jesus's severe warning.
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Jesus Christ speaks of the reality of hell with more
24:08
sobriety, more clarity, and more frequency than any other figure
24:11
in all of recorded scripture. He actually talks about the
24:14
dangers of hell more often than he talks about the glories of
24:17
heaven. And true love does not conceal
24:19
mortal danger. Think about the analogy of the
24:21
Doctor again. Imagine a Doctor Who looks at
24:24
your MRI scan sees a massive fatal tumor aggressively
24:28
spreading towards your brain. But decides not to tell you the
24:31
truth because they want you to enjoy your weekend and they
24:34
don't want to cause you distress.
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That doctor is not exhibiting kindness.
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That doctor is guilty of murderous negligence.
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Jesus tells the absolute truth about eternal judgement so that
24:44
sinners may be terrified into fleeing from it.
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His severity in this passage is an expression of his profound, I
24:52
mean his immense mercy. He warns humanity because he
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possesses total knowledge of the absolute horror of the
24:57
destination, and he desires that we avoid it at all costs.
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When you look at the standard Jesus sets in these verses, it
25:05
is absolute perfection. The moral law demands flawless,
25:08
continuous holiness. And if total depravity is a
25:11
reality, which means every human being is thoroughly infected
25:13
with corruption. Then every single one of us has
25:15
hands, feet, and eyes that have consistently caused us to
25:18
stumble. Therefore, the law only succeeds
25:21
in exposing our total inability to save ourselves.
25:24
If literal physical amputation were the actual requirement to
25:28
earn entry into heaven, every single human being on Earth
25:32
would be consumed. We would all be nothing but
25:35
bleeding stumps and we would still be guilty because our
25:38
hearts would still be corrupt. So if the law only condemns,
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where is the good news in this text?
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This entire terrifying narrative climax only makes sense when we
25:48
arrive at the cross. We have to talk about the true
25:51
cosmic amputation. If we connect this to the bigger
25:54
picture, the moral law demands perfection, and when that
25:58
perfection is broken, the law demands blood.
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The theological analysis we are referencing reveal how this
26:04
terrifying text magnificently anticipates the Gospel of Grace.
26:08
The good news is found in the doctrine that theologians call
26:11
the Great Exchange. I want to make sure the listener
26:13
catches the magnitude of this substitution.
26:15
When we look back at the prophet Isaiah, specifically chapter 53,
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it provides A staggering prophecy about the Suffering
26:22
Servant. The text explicitly says he was
26:24
cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the
26:27
transgression of my people. Jesus was literally pierced,
26:31
crushed, and physically cut off. But he had no personal sin of
26:35
his own to amputate. His hands only healed, his feet
26:38
only walked in perfect obedience, and his eyes were
26:40
perfectly pure. He willingly bore the sins of
26:43
His people in His own body. He.
26:45
Bore the full weight of the penal consequence of the law.
26:48
On the cross, Jesus Christ endured the true gene into
26:52
pyros, the hell of fire in his own human soul.
26:56
He suffered the infinite, unmitigated wrath of God the
26:59
Father against human sin. He was entirely severed from the
27:02
Father's fellowship so that believers might be permanently
27:05
grafted into eternal life. We read in the Gospels that a
27:08
supernatural darkness fell over the entire earth at the hour of
27:11
his crucifixion. That darkness was not merely A
27:14
meteorological phenomenon. It was a physical, localized
27:17
manifestation of the eternal darkness and judgement he was
27:20
absorbing on behalf of his people.
27:22
He drank the cup of God's wrath down to the dregs so that there
27:25
would be not a single drop left for those who trust in Him.
27:28
That is a staggering reality that shatters human pride.
27:32
It brings us back to a sharp, non negotiable theological
27:36
distinction between justification and
27:39
sanctification. We must maintain this
27:41
distinction with absolute clarity where we lose the gospel
27:45
entirely. Believers do not amputate their
27:48
sins in order to gain their salvation.
27:50
They do not undergo the agony of cutting off their stumbling
27:53
blocks in an attempt to earn a right standing before a holy
27:57
God. Justification is the once for
28:00
all forensic declaration in the courtroom of heaven that we are
28:03
considered perfectly righteous in God's sight.
28:06
This declaration is made purely because Christ's perfect
28:09
lifelong obedience and His sacrificial substitutionary
28:12
death have been legally credited to our account through faith
28:16
alone. We undergo the pain of
28:18
amputating our sins because we are already justified.
28:20
We. Engage in the war of mortifying
28:22
sin because we are already permanently united to a holy
28:24
Savior who was violently broken for.
28:27
But I have to ask a question that naturally arises when you
28:29
grasp the totality of grace. And I know many of you listening
28:32
might be wondering the same thing.
28:33
If Christ already paid the entire price on the cross, and
28:36
if he was fully cut off as our substitute.
28:39
Securing our salvation completely and irreversibly.
28:43
Why must the believer still suffer the daily agony of
28:46
fighting sin? If the war is won, why doesn't
28:49
God just instantly remove the desire to sin the moment we
28:53
exercise saving faith? Why leave us in the trenches?
28:56
This raises an important question about the nature and
28:59
progression of our union with Christ.
29:01
When we are united to Christ by faith, the old man, our fallen,
29:06
corrupted nature, is definitively crucified with him.
29:10
The dominion of sin is broken. But the actual execution of that
29:13
old nature is a prolonged, agonizing process that spans the
29:17
entirety of our earthly lives. God in His sovereign wisdom
29:21
leaves a measure of remaining corruption in the justified
29:23
believer for several reasons. He does it to keep us constantly
29:26
independent on His daily grace. To train us in the rigorous
29:29
discipline of spiritual warfare. And to conform us gradually and
29:33
painfully to the image of his son.
29:34
Because the old man is fundamentally defeated at the
29:37
root, the believer now possesses the indwelling strength of the
29:40
Holy Spirit to strike back against corruption.
29:43
Before Christ we were slaves to sin.
29:45
We can only obey it. Now we have the ability to kill
29:48
it. We are not just pruning the
29:50
visible weeds of bad behavior anymore, we are pulling the
29:54
corruption up by the roots. Is agonizing, yes, but it is a
29:58
fight we now wage from a secure position of guaranteed final
30:02
victory. We wage this war because we
30:05
belong to a new Kingdom and a new king.
30:07
Our bodily members are no longer available to be used as
30:10
instruments of unrighteousness. They've been bought with an
30:14
infinite price. So let's bring this down from
30:17
the heights of systematic theology into the reality of
30:19
practical daily living. Let's bring the scalpel to the
30:23
Pew and apply these ancient metaphors to the realities you
30:27
face when you leave your house tomorrow morning.
30:29
The application of this text requires absolutely ruthless,
30:32
unflinching honesty with ourselves.
30:34
We have to confront the modern idols that dominate our culture.
30:38
The theological principle of the hand, the foot and the eye
30:41
remains the same today as it was in the 1st century.
30:44
But the instruments of our transgression look
30:47
technologically and culturally different.
30:49
If you are holding a smartphone right now or listening to this
30:52
on a laptop, you have to consider the modern eye.
30:55
There is arguably no greater, more pervasive snare for the
30:59
human eye in all of history than the idol of unfiltered digital
31:04
access. Specifically, the plague of
31:08
Internet pornography. Our society entirely normalizes
31:11
it, defends it, and profits off it.
31:13
But Jesus calls it a lethal engineered trap designed to drag
31:17
your soul into hell. If your eye causes you to
31:20
stumble through a screen, the biblical application is not a
31:23
vague emotional prayer promising God you will try to do better
31:26
next week. The application is radical
31:28
amputation. It means installing rigorous
31:31
unbypassable digital filters. It means giving an
31:34
accountability partner full access to your browsing history.
31:36
It might mean acknowledging your own weakness, taking your $1000
31:40
smartphone, throwing it in the trash.
31:41
And going back to a basic phone that can only make calls and
31:43
send texts. The radical nature of the action
31:46
proves the reality of the repentance.
31:48
We also must address the modern hand.
31:50
In our culture, this frequently manifests in the realm of white
31:54
collar workplace compromise. It could involve manipulating
31:58
financial spreadsheets to hide corporate losses.
32:01
Engaging in deceptive marketing practices to artificially boost
32:05
sales. Or exhibiting manipulative,
32:07
ruthless control over your employees to satisfy your own
32:10
financial greed. If your career advancement
32:13
fundamentally requires you to compromise your ethical
32:17
integrity, that job is a diseased hand that must be cut
32:20
off. It is far better to face
32:23
temporary financial hardship, to lose your status and to live in
32:26
obscurity in this life. Than to face the terror of
32:29
eternal judgement for the sake of temporary rotting wealth.
32:32
And then there's the modern foot.
32:34
This requires analyzing the physical and social environments
32:37
we willingly enter. Amputating the foot means
32:40
refusing to walk into spaces that normalize, celebrate or
32:43
encourage ungodliness. It might mean painfully turning
32:46
down invitations to certain social gatherings.
32:49
It might mean severing ties with a friend group that constantly
32:52
pulls you into gossip, slander or substance abuse.
32:54
It can even mean making the agonizing decision to walk away
32:58
from a church congregation that has embraced A seeker sensitive
33:02
pragmatism. A church that refuses to call
33:04
sin what it is and therefore leaves you vulnerable to the
33:08
trap. This naturally brings us to the
33:10
necessity of corporate church life and mutual responsibility.
33:14
We must remember that Matthew 18 is not just a manual for
33:17
isolated private piety, it is fundamentally a community
33:21
discourse. A church that takes the warnings
33:23
of Jesus seriously must be willing to exercise biblical
33:27
church discipline. If a member of the congregation
33:29
is living in blatant, unrepentant sin, the body of
33:33
believers must address it formally.
33:35
This intervention is never done out of malice or a desire to
33:37
control. It is done out of a desperate
33:39
desire for the individual's restoration.
33:41
And out of an absolute necessity to protect the little ones, the
33:45
vulnerable sheep in the flock from the contagion of stumbling
33:48
blocks. Mutual accountability is the
33:49
immune system of the Church. It is how the body protects
33:53
itself from the spread of spiritual gangrene.
33:55
So what does this all mean? Let me offer an analogy to
33:58
clarify the urgency of this reality.
34:00
Please do. Imagine maintaining a secret
34:03
habit that you know is destroying you, or insisting on
34:07
carrying a smartphone without any filters because you think
34:10
you can handle it. That level of presumption is
34:12
identical to leaving a loaded, chambered weapon sitting openly
34:16
on your kitchen table while young children are running
34:18
around the house playing. You don't just sit in a chair,
34:21
look at the loaded weapon and politely ask it not to
34:24
discharge. You don't attempt to manage the
34:27
risk while leaving the danger present.
34:29
You immediately unload the weapon.
34:30
You lock it up in a steel safe. Or if you know you cannot
34:33
responsibly control it, you remove it from your house
34:36
entirely. Because your life and the
34:39
innocent lives of those you love are actively at stake.
34:43
The eternal stakes involved demand nothing less than a
34:45
completely radical response. The mortification of sin is not
34:49
an optional advanced level course for a few super
34:52
Christians. It is a baseline necessity for
34:54
everyone who claims to be in Christ.
34:56
We are called to live lives of joyful, grateful and rigorous
35:00
obedience. Resting in the knowledge that
35:02
the Holy Spirit provides the necessary strength to make the
35:05
agonizing cuts that preserve our souls.
35:08
As we wrap up this deep dive into the severity and the grace
35:11
of Matthew 18, let's summarize the core theological themes we
35:15
have traversed today. We began by examining the lethal
35:18
engineered reality of the snare, the scandal on, and how sin
35:22
operates as an intelligent ambush against our physical
35:26
members. We discussed the absolute
35:28
rationality of radical mortification in light of
35:31
eternity. Understanding that the temporary
35:33
agonizing pain of losing a cherished sin is mathematically
35:37
insignificant compared to the eternal reality of the hell of
35:40
fire. And most beautifully, we looked
35:41
at the overwhelming truth of the gospel that Jesus Christ is the
35:45
one who is truly cut off and broken in our place.
35:47
Absorbing the infinite wrath we deserved so that we be legally
35:51
justified and practically empowered to fight sin.
35:54
We have established that the surgical, violent removal of
35:56
temptation from our lives is not an act of religious fanaticism.
36:00
It is an act of sheer spiritual sanity.
36:02
It is the only proper logical response of a human heart that
36:06
has been truly awakened to both both the legal gravity of sin
36:10
and the infinite magnitude of God's grace.
36:13
That sums it up perfectly. I want to leave you with a final
36:16
thought to Mull over in the days ahead.
36:18
Something very practical. It builds directly on the source
36:21
material we have discussed regarding the physical members
36:23
of the body, specifically regarding the physical elements
36:26
of our corporate worship. Consider the sacrament of the
36:29
Lord's Supper. When you gather with your local
36:32
church and partake in communion, think about the physical reality
36:35
of the elements. You reach out your actual
36:37
physical hand to take the bread in the cup.
36:39
You use your actual physical mouth to consume them.
36:43
You are taking the visible, tangible symbols of Christ's
36:48
broken, amputated body into your own physical body.
36:52
The very hands and mouth that once acted as willing
36:55
instruments of sin, that once eagerly reached for the bait
36:58
hidden in the trap. Are entirely repurposed by grace
37:01
into instruments of Holy Communion with the living God.
37:03
What if the next time a severe temptation arises, you
37:07
physically look at your hand or your eye and say out loud, These
37:10
have been bought with an infinite price.
37:12
They no longer belong to me. They belong entirely to the one
37:15
who was broken for me. That changes everything.
37:18
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
37:20
Go in peace and rest entirely in the grace of Christ.