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Holy Exaggeration: Hyperbole in the English Bible and the Seriousness of Christ’s Word · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. If a doctor looks at an X-ray of
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your arm, points to this jagged white line and says you know
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it's broken, the solution is pretty clean.
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Right, you just set the bone. Yeah, you set the bone, you put
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on a cast, the whole process is visible, it's categorized and
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it's actually comforting and it's straightforward kind of
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external nature. Oh for sure, it's something you
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can see and fix. But what happens when the
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ultimate spiritual doctor looks at you and prescribes the
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violent amputation of a perfectly healthy eye?
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That is a terrifying thought. It is today we were taking a
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deep dive into analyzing the startling severe commands of
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Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 verses 29 and 30.
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This is where Christ says if your right eye causes you to
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sin, tear it out and throw it away.
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And he says the same thing regarding the right hand.
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Yeah. The right hand, too.
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Yeah, this is a diagnostic landscape that is just
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terrifyingly internal. So our mission for this deep
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dive is to understand the severe compassion behind these verses.
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Which is so needed today. Definitely, we are pulling from
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2 extensive theological and expository essays that analyze
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biblical hyperbole because, well, the modern world loves to
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soften these texts. Oh, they love to round off the
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edges, right? We want to grasp the sheer
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weight of what Jesus is demanding without falling into
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the trap of literal physical mutilation, or, on the flip
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side, the trap of treating his words as harmless poetry.
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The contrast you draw with a medical diagnosis is it's a
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really good starting point because physical medicine deals
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with what can be seen and measured.
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Yeah, the tangible stuff. Right, but Christ is dealing
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with the invisible, lethal corruption of the human heart.
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Which is way harder to diagnose. Way harder.
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When people read the Sermon on the Mount today, they they often
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want it to be this collection of gentle moral aphorisms.
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Like a greeting card. Yeah, they want a philosopher
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giving advice on how to live a balanced life, but the Jesus of
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Matthew 5 is not a life coach. No, definitely not.
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He is speaking with absolute divine authority, and he is
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diagnosing a terminal spiritual illness.
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The essays we are looking at today make a rigorous case that
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to understand this text, we have to look at the original Greek.
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The historical context too. Yeah, the historical context of
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1st century Judea and the theological framework that
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protects us from misinterpreting his commands.
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I want to start by looking at the specific literary tool Jesus
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is using here, because it kind of frames everything else.
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We're talking about hyperbole, right?
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Holy overstatement. Yeah, in everyday English, we
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understand hyperbole as an intentional overstatement for
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force and vividness. It is not a deceitful
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exaggeration meant to trick someone.
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Right now, it's not a lie. Like when a mother looks at her
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kids and says I have told you 1000 times to clean your room.
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No rational person thinks she kept a literal Ledger.
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Right, she didn't have a little notebook marking down all 1000.
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Times, you know what I mean. The kids instinctively grasp the
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rhetoric. They know she means business.
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They know they're in trouble. Yeah, but applying that to
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Scripture makes people nervous. If we say Jesus is using
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hyperbole, are we giving ourselves a loophole to say, you
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know, he doesn't actually mean what he says?
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That is the natural fear, but it misunderstands how language
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works. God created language, and He
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uses all of its tools to communicate truth.
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He uses metaphor, irony, poetry, proverb and hyperbole to arrest
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the mind and Pierce the conscience.
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So it's a feature, not a bug. Yes.
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A basic principle of Reformed hermeneutics is that Scripture
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interpret Scripture. Unclear or highly figurative
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passages must be understood in light of clear, literal ones.
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OK, so how does that apply to the eye in the hand?
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Well, the Bible clearly commands the sanctity of life in the body
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in the 6th commandment. Furthermore, Scripture
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consistently teaches that sin originates in the human heart,
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not in the physical organs themselves.
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Oh, I see. Removing a physical eye doesn't
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actually remove a lustful heart. No, it doesn't.
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Therefore, Jesus is using holy overstatement to teach a sober,
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literal truth. The hyperbole does not dilute
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the truth, it amplifies it. So the figurative language is
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actually a spotlight. That's a great way to put it.
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The sources we are analyzing point out two major errors that
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readers fall into when they encounter the spotlight.
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They call them the two ditches on either side of the road.
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Let's talk about those ditches, yeah?
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Let's look at the first one, absurd literalism.
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Throughout history, there have been individuals, certain
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ascetic monks and fringe groups, who read these verses and
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actually maimed their physical bodies.
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Which is just horrific to think about.
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It really is. They operated under the
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assumption that the physical body itself is the root of evil.
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Which is an ancient heresy that creeps into the Church again and
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again. Gnosticism, right?
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Yeah. The belief that matter is evil
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and spirit is good is Greek philosophy, not biblical
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theology. When people fall into this first
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dish of absurd literalism, they wound the conscience and
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completely miss the actual target of Christ's teaching.
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Because they're focusing on the wrong part of themselves.
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Right. A physically blind person can
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still commit adultery in their imagination.
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A person without hands can still be full of malice and theft in
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their mind. That is so true.
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The sin is. Still, there physical mutilation
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provides a false sense of holiness.
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It looks rigorous, but it fails to touch the actual root of the
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problem, which is the corrupted human will.
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I can see how that error is devastating, but you know,
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looking around at modern Christianity, I don't see a lot
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of people amputating their hands today.
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No, it's pretty rare now. The second ditch seems far more
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common for US therapeutic evasion.
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This happens when readers see the hyperbole and use it as a
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shield to protect themselves from the sharp edge of
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obedience. They're trying to defang the
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text. Yeah, they say, Oh, Jesus is
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just using strong imagery. He just means we should try to
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be a little better or maybe set some healthy boundaries.
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That is the far more insidious error for our current culture.
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It comforts rebels. It turns the Thunder of Christ's
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words into a decorative suggestion.
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Decorative. Suggestion.
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Wow. The essays we are reviewing
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argue forcefully against this. They state that hyperbole is not
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not less serious because it is figurative.
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In fact, it is frequently more serious.
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It shouts what ordinary prose might whisper.
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Yes, if Jesus had said try to avoid things that tempt you, we
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would easily dismiss it. By commanding self mutilation,
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he destroys our ability to casually scroll past his words.
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He forces us to stop and reckon with the severity of the issue.
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He absolutely does. But that phrase from the text
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really caught my attention, turning Christ's Thunder into
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decorative poetry. It's a great phrase.
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Looking at the translation history of the English Bible,
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the early translators refused to do that.
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Translators like William Tyndale and the scholars behind the King
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James Version preserve the absolute shock of the original
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Greek. They didn't try to smooth it
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out. No, they use concrete violent
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phrases like pluck it out and cut it off rather than
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domesticating the text into the bland paraphrases like Remove
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the Temptation. Those early translators
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possessed a brilliant grasp of how language shapes the moral
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imagination. They understood that the English
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Bible needed to confront the reader, not coddle them.
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They wanted you to feel the weight of it.
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Yeah, by retaining the concrete, violent imagery of the Greek
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imperatives, they ensured the text landed with the weight
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Jesus intended. They knew that if you soften the
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verb, you soften the conviction. And conviction is precisely what
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Jesus was aiming for when he spoke these words on a hillside
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in Galilee. That was the whole point of the
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sermon. That brings up a massive
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question though. If hyperbole is meant to shock a
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specific audience, we have to ask why Jesus picked these
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specific body parts in that specific moment in history.
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Contest is everything. Right, so we are in 1st century
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Galilee and Judea. The people are living under
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Roman occupation, but religiously the audience is
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steeped in the legalism of the Pharisees and the scribes.
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What was the theological atmosphere that Jesus was
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stepping into the. Pharisees had constructed an
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elaborate, heavily policed theological system that was
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entirely external. They built what they called a
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hedge around the law. Focusing obsessively on
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observable behaviors. Right.
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In their teaching, as long as a person did not commit the
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physical, tangible act of adultery or the physical act of
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murder, they were considered entirely righteous before God.
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So it was just behavior modification.
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It was a religion of outward conformity.
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You could be seething with hatred, burning with lust, or
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eaten alive by greed, but as long as your hands and your body
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did not cross the physical line, the religious establishment
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declared you clean. I am noticing a pattern in the
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structure of Matthew 5. Jesus repeatedly uses this
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formula. You have heard that it was said,
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but I say to you. The antithesis, Yeah.
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He isn't tossing out the Old Testament law.
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He seems to be rescuing it from this shallow externalized
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interpretation the Pharisees had created.
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That is a critical observation when he says, But I say to you,
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he is speaking with supreme royal authority.
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He is the lawgiver interpreting his own law.
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Wow, that's a huge claim for him to make.
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It is. He traces the physical act of
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murder back to the internal root of unrighteous anger, and he
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traces the physical act of adultery back to the internal
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root of a lustful. Look, he completely exposes the
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heart corruption beneath outward respectability.
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He tells this crowd, who have been taught their whole lives
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that they are fine as long as they don't touch, that their
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very thoughts have already condemned them.
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So in that specific cultural and historical setting, why target
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the right eye and the right hand?
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If I want to shock someone today, I might tell them to
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empty their bank account or burn their smartphone.
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What did those specific members represent to the original Jewish
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hearers? In an agrarian 1st century
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society, the right side was universally viewed as a side of
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honor, supreme value, and physical strength.
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OK, so it's not just a random choice.
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Not at all. Your right eye and right hand
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were the primary tools of your livelihood.
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If you were a Carpenter, a fisherman or a farmer, losing a
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hand or an eye did not just mean acquiring a disability.
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It meant utter economic destitution.
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Yeah, it meant becoming a beggar reliant on the charity of
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others. It meant social devastation and
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a total loss of standing in the community.
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So by naming the right eye and the right hand, Jesus selects
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what a person would instinctively protect at all
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costs. He goes after the most prized,
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seemingly indispensable faculty as a person possesses.
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He is saying take the thing you think you cannot live without
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and destroy it. The historical force of the
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saying depends on the hearers feeling the absolute extremity
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of that loss. They would have gasped.
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Jesus is communicating that if even your most precious
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necessary asset must be surrendered rather than embraced
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as an instrument of sin, then absolutely nothing in your life
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can plead exemption. Nothing is off limits.
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No relationship, no job, no habit, no comfort is off limits
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to the scalpel of Christ demands.
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That's the reality of the text. I want to look closely at the
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grammar here because the essay spent a lot of time on this
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specific Greek syntax Jesus used.
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The phrase starts if your right eye causes you to sin.
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Right, let's dig into that. The essays point out that this
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is a first class conditional clause.
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Now when I hear the word if in English, I think of a
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hypothetical. Like a possibility.
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Yeah, like if it rains tomorrow, I will bring an umbrella.
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It might rain, it might not. Is that what Jesus is doing
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here? Is he describing A hypothetical
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scenario where an eye might occasionally slip up?
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Not at all. In Greek grammar, a first class
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condition assumes the premise is true for the sake of the
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argument. The syntax signifies a definite
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reality. Oh interesting, so it's not a
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maybe? Right.
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A better way to translate the sense of a first class condition
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into English would be since or assuming that Jesus is
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essentially saying assuming that your right eye causes you to
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sin, which we all know it most certainly does, then take this
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action. He is establishing a universal
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truth about the fallen human condition.
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That changes the entire tone, doesn't it?
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It really does. It is not a warning about a
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potential danger. It is a diagnosis of an active
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infection. Your eye does cause you to
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stumble. It's a given fact of human
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nature. It assumes the total depravity
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of the human condition. The eye is not a neutral
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observer, it is an active participant in rebellion.
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That leads right into the specific word Jesus uses for
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causes you to sin. The Greek word is scandalize I.
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You get the English word scandalized from it.
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Right, but the essays dive deep into its original literal
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meaning. It originally referred to a bait
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trap. The noun form scandal on
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referred to the trigger stick of a snare used to catch animals.
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The trigger stick, yeah. It is the specific part of the
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trap where the bait is placed, the part that springs shut the
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moment the animal touches it. Wow, that paints A vivid picture
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over. Time it came to me in a
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stumbling block or an offense that causes someone to fall into
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sudden ruin. It appears over 30 times in the
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New Testament, and it always carries the sense of legal
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entrapment. Think about how a snare actually
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functions. The animal isn't looking for
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trap, it's looking your food. It's hungry.
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It sees something desirable, something that promises
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satisfaction. The bait looks entirely
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beneficial, but the moment it engages, the trap springs and
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the animal is caught, leading to its death.
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And that's exactly what sin does.
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By choosing the word scandalize I Jesus is saying your own eye
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is setting a deadly bait trap for your soul.
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The psychology of the snare is terrifying.
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The eye gathers the visual information.
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It presents it to the heart as something desirable.
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The heart reaches for the bait and the trap springs shut.
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It is a fatal spiritual entrapment.
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And it happens in a fraction of a second.
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Jesus is warning us that our own faculties are weaponized against
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us. And his response to this
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weaponized faculty is immediate violence.
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He uses 2 imperatives, Tear it out which is XL and cut it off
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which is ecupsum. Strong words.
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Very What does the grammar of these specific verbs tell us
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about the timeline of our obedience?
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Both of these verbs are aorist active imperatives in the Greek
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language. The aorist imperative conveys
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urgency, decisive action, and absolute priority.
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So it's not a slow process. This is not a continuous,
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ongoing process of slowly pruning away a bad habit.
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It is a command for a definitive single strike.
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You do not negotiate with a. No, you do not put the bait trap
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on a five step plan for gradual improvement over the next fiscal
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year. You destroy it immediately
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because every second you tolerate it, your life is in
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mortal danger. Let's go back to the medical
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diagnosis analogy to look at the math of this situation.
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The moral arithmetic, yes. If a doctor says a patient has a
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highly aggressive cancer in their right arm and it is
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spreading fast, the rational response is amputation.
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To save the rest of the body. The patient doesn't say, but I
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really like my arm, let's just leave it.
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They recognize that losing the arm is the only way to save
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their life. The calculation is brutal, but
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it is simple. Christ is introducing A moral
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arithmetic here that seems completely backward to human
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nature. He sets lesser loss beside
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greater loss. He explicitly says it is
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profitable or better for you to lose one of your members rather
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than your whole body be cast into hell.
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Fallen humans constantly reverses calculation.
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Though all the time sinners think it is unbearable to lose a
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private habit, to cut off a toxic relationship or to give up
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a comfortable lifestyle. We cling to the cancerous arm
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because we like the way it feels or because society tells us we
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are entitled to it. We think the pain of the
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amputation is the worst possible outcome.
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Right. We are terrified of the loss.
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Jesus reverses our broken math, He says The truly unbearable
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thing is not the loss of your right hand.
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The truly unbearable thing is. Hell, that is a SO.
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Therefore, any temporal loss you suffer for the sake of holiness,
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no matter how painful, no matter how socially devastating, is an
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infinite gain. I want to focus on the specific
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destination Jesus warns about because he uses the word gehenna
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ah. Yes.
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Kenna. The essays provide a fascinating
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historical analysis of this term to the original audience
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standing on that hillside. Gehenna wasn't an abstract
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theological concept. It had a very specific,
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terrifying geographical and historical reality attached to
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it. Gehenna is a Greek
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transliteration of the Hebrew Gehennam, which means the valley
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of Hinnam. And where was that?
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This was a literal steep ravine located just outside the
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southern and western walls of Jerusalem.
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Its history was steeped in unimaginable horror.
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Dark stuff. Very dark.
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During the times of the Old Testament, specifically under
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the reigns of the wicked kings Ahaz and Manasseh, this valley
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was the primary site of abominable child sacrifice.
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Unbelievable. Israelites literally burned
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their own children alive to appease the Pagan God Molech.
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It was a place of supreme idolatry and death.
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Later, the righteous king Josiah deliberately desecrated the
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valley to stop these sacrifices. He turned it into a place of
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defilement. He wanted to make sure nobody
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ever there again. Right by the time of the 1st
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century, it had become the perpetually burning garbage dump
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for the city of Jerusalem. The fires were kept burning
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constantly to consume the refuse, the carcasses of dead
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animals and the bodies of executed criminals who are
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deemed unworthy of a proper burial.
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It was a place of constant smoke, rotting flesh and
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unquenchable fire. So when Jesus says cast into
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Gehenna, the people listening immediately picture this
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corrupted, burning valley of death just outside their capital
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city. He.
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Uses this visceral physical reality to describe the ultimate
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spiritual reality of eternal conscious punishment.
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He connects the physical to the spiritual.
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This is a point where the essays push back hard against modern
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theology. There are many voices today,
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including liberal theology and annihilationism, that try to
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argue hell isn't literal. They want to soften that
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doctrine too. Yeah, they say it's a metaphor
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for a guilty conscience, or that God just quietly extinguishes
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the soul so it ceases to exist. How does the logic of Matthew 5
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dismantle those modern theories? The essays maintain a vital,
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unyielding distinction. While the amputation of the eye
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in the hand in the text is clear hyperbole, the destination of
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Gehenna is an absolute, literal reality.
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That is a key point to grasp. Jesus is asserting his divine
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authority as the final judge over the entire person, both
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body and soul. Think about the logic, If hell
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were merely A metaphor, a temporary inconvenience, or just
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a quiet fading into non existence, then Christ demand to
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violently amputate a valuable member of your body would be a
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massive overreaction. Oh that makes so much sense.
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The math wouldn't work. The hyperbole only makes sense,
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and it only carries moral weight if the threat of final, eternal
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judgement is a literal, terrifying reality.
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You don't cut off your arm to cure a paper cut.
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No, you cut off your arm to cure a fatal disease.
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That makes the text incredibly heavy.
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Yeah, we are staring into the reality of Gehenna, and we are
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seeing the unyielding demands of God's law pressing inward.
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It is a crushing weight. The law isn't just judging our
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actions, it is judging our very thoughts, our secret desires,
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the things no one else sees. This exposes the theological
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concept of total depravity. Because the root is rotten.
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Because let's be honest, if physical amputation actually
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solved the problem, Jesus would require it.
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He would. If gouging out my eye actually
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made me pure, it'll be worth it. But a blind man can still lust
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in his mind. A man without hands can still
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murder someone in his heart. The sin is internal.
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If the standard is absolute, internal perfection and physical
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removal cannot cure a wicked heart, I am left in a state of
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absolute despair. How does anyone possibly escape
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Ghana? If the past message stopped at
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the command to mutilate, it would be nothing but a crushing
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weight. It would condemn every single
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person, whoever lived. We would all be without hope.
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But this is where the theology must pivot to the Christological
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fulfillment of the text. The severe commands of the law
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act like a relentless schoolmaster, designed to drive
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us to the cross. It points us outside of
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ourselves. Yes, the only hope for any
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listener is Jesus Christ himself functioning as our perfect
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prophet, priest and king. We have to look at what
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theologians call the active and passive obedience of Christ.
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I want to break those down, starting with his active
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obedience. How does his life answer the
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impossible demands of the Sermon on the Mount?
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Active obedience refers to the perfect, sinless life Christ
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lived on our behalf. Jesus is the only man whoever
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walked the earth with absolute purity of heart.
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He didn't just avoid the outward sin.
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No, he perfectly fulfilled the rigorous internal demands that
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he himself laid out in Matthew 5.
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He never cast a single lustful glance.
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He never harbored a single thought of unrighteous anger.
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His hands never performed a wicked deed.
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The ruler of this world had absolutely no claim on him.
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He achieved the flawless internal and external perfection
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that the law demands, and he achieved it as the substitute
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for his people. He lived the life we completely
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failed to live. And then there is his passive
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obedience, the ultimate amputation.
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Jesus commands his followers to accept temporal loss, to cut off
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their members, to avoid the wrath of God.
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Yet on the cross, the ultimate cutting off occurred.
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That's a striking connection. The Essays point to the prophet
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Isaiah, chapter 53, which prophesied that the Messiah
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would be cut off out of the land of the living.
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He was stricken for the transgressions of his people.
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He took the blow for us. On the cross, Jesus bore the
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full, unmitigated wrath of God. He experienced the terrifying
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reality of Gehenna in his own body and soul.
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He absorbed the eternal punishment so that his people
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could be completely forgiven. The terrifying warnings of
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judgement in the Sermon on the Mount find their complete,
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beautiful answer in the substitutionary atonement of the
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Savior. It all points to the cross.
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Because the believer is saved entirely by this incredible
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grace, the conversation has to shift to the daily reality of
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the Christian life. We still have to live in this
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world. Right.
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If I am forgiven, how does this grace train me to wage war
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against sin in my daily life? The practical application of
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this 1st century text is just as urgent for us today.
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The essays bring in a brilliant quote from the Puritan
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theologian John Owen, who summarized the Christian's
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posture towards sin. Be killing sin or it will be
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killing you. That is blunt.
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The justified believer, the one who has been saved by grace,
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must ruthlessly amputate anything that acts as a conduit
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or a bait trap for sin. You do not negotiate with a
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deadly enemy. You do not invite it into your
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living room and ask it to be polite.
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You kill it. Let's bring this squarely into
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the 21st century. The original audience had to
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worry about their literal right eye and right hand.
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Today, our right eye and right hand are very often digital.
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Are smartphones. Yeah, we carry glowing
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rectangles in our pockets that offer 1000 doors for the eye and
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1000 instruments for the hand. It is a massive struggle.
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The sources discuss the absolute plague of Internet pornography,
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which is devastating marriages, destroying minds and wreaking
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havoc even within the church. Jesus Christ is looking directly
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at the modern person holding a smartphone and declaring if your
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eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
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The application here is severely practical and it makes people
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very uncomfortable. People love their phones.
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They do. Radical action today means that
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if your device is a stumbling block, you get rid of it.
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You smash the smartphone and downgrade to a flip phone.
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You install strict unbreakable accountability software and give
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the password to someone else. If a television in your home is
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drawing you into worldliness or lust, you throw it in a
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dumpster. If a certain social media app
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feeds your envy, your anger, or your pride, you delete the
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account permanently. The world calls this extreme.
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The world calls it crazy. Christ calls it profitable.
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It's all about that moral math again.
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I can hear someone listening right now pushing back on this.
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They might say, hold on. If I throw my phone in the river
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and get rid of my Internet, am I not just becoming a modern
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version of that ascetic monk? Trading 1 ditch for another.
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Aren't we just trading a digital ditch for a physical one?
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Yeah, if I still have an imagination, throwing away the
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phone doesn't fix my heart. That is a crucial distinction,
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and it requires us to understand that difference between
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mortification and justification. OK, unpack that for.
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Us If you throw away your phone, believing that the act of
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throwing it away makes you righteous before God, you have
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fallen right back into the legalism of the Pharisees.
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You are trying to earn your salvation through behavioral
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modification. Well, yes, that is right.
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We are justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
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Our standing before God is based entirely on his righteousness,
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not our amputations. So why do we fight?
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If my standing is secure, why go to such extreme lengths to kill
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the sin? We fight from a place of union
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with Christ. The person who is truly born
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again possesses a new nature. That new nature fiercely
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despises the sin that nailed their Savior to the cross.
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We fight sin because we love the King who bled for us.
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Not to purchase a pardon we already possess.
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We throw the phone in the river not to earn heaven, but because
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the sin on that screen offends the God we love.
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Mortification is the fruit of a justified heart, not the root of
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it. That reframes the entire battle.
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It is driven by affection for Christ, not terror of the law.
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It changes everything. The essays also touch on the
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corporate application of this text.
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It isn't just about my private, individual fight against sin.
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This severe compassion applies to the entire Covenant
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community. It applies heavily to the local
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church. The essays note the absolute
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necessity of biblical church discipline.
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A congregation must not tolerate open, unrepentant sin within its
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membership, because to do so is to forget the holiness of God
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and to allow a little leaven to leaven the whole lump.
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It also applies directly to the family.
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Husbands and fathers are called to guard their homes against the
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spiritual poison of the secular culture.
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The sources actively reject modern speaker sensitive models
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of church that refuse to speak about sin, wrath and hell.
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They argue that failing to warn people about the reality of
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Gehenna is an act of supreme spiritual malpractice.
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You cannot preach the comfort of the cross if you refuse to
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preach the terror of the law. The cross makes no sense without
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the law. We have covered a massive amount
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of ground today. The hyperbole of Jesus, His
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command to pluck out the eye and cut off the hand is a spiritual
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scalpel. It is intentionally designed to
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devastate our self righteousness.
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To completely strip us of our pride.
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It exposes the deadly psychological bait trap of
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indwelling sin, and it destroys our illusions that we can manage
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our corruption. Most importantly, it drives the
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Sinner completely out of themselves and into the arms of
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Jesus Christ. It is at the cross, and only at
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the cross, that complete forgiveness and the actual
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strength to fight sin are found. The demands of the Sermon on the
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Mount are entirely impossible in our own strength.
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That is their design. They point us away from our own
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flawed efforts and direct our gaze to the perfect obedience,
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the substitutionary death, and the victorious resurrection of
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the Son of God. I want to leave you with a
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direct, challenging question, building on everything we've
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discussed today. Look closely at your own life.
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Identify your own right eye or right hand.
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Look at the things you cling to. What specific habit, device,
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relationship, or secret access are you fiercely defending?
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What are you calling necessary to your daily life, making
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excuses for it and protecting it from scrutiny when Jesus Christ
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is looking directly at you and calling it deadly?
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A question that demands rigorous, honest self
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examination. Thank you.
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For joining the conversation, we will see you next time.