Matthew 5:27-30
In Verse 27 Jesus uses the phrase, “You have heard it said” for the second time since Verse 21. What does He mean by this?
How many times does Jesus use the phrase “You have heard it said”, “it was said”, or “you have heard” in this chapter?
Is changing the law concerning adultery?
What does it mean to look on someone with lust for them?
What makes looking on someone with lust for them a sin of sexual immorality?
Who is able to judge whether a person commits a sin of lusting for someone so as to commit adultery?
What is the means by which we have to judge whether or not someone has committed adultery?
Why should this be a shock to the hearers of Jesus?
Does Jesus really intend for people to start chopping off body parts to keep from sinning according to Verses 29-30?
In Verse 29 Jesus uses the word skandalizō. This word is commonly translated as stumble. It means to trip over something because of entrapment.
Does Jesus want us to understand that parts of the body cause one to sin?
Are we to believe from the teaching of Jesus that literally removing parts of the body will prevent us from going to hell?
Where does sin originate in a person?
How is sin or righteousness regulated in a person?
Is sin a physical attribute or a spiritual attribute?
What remedies sin in a person?
How we do remove sin from ourselves?
What does it mean to repent of sin?
If adultery begins by looking on a person so as to lust for them then isn’t lust the problem as opposed to eyes?
If lust is a condition of the heart, then to be consistent, isn’t Jesus speaking of removing body parts symbolically as to removing conditions of the heart that cause scandal in our spirit?
Jesus speaks symbolically of removing an eye or hand so that the whole body is not destroyed. Peter speaks of the ending of this physical world in as much as all the elements of it are to be destroyed (2 Peter 3:10-13). We are to look for a “new heaven and new earth” in which spiritual definitions exist and not physical. We don’t know what these definitions are exactly (1 John 3:2) but we know that it is spiritual as God is spirit (John 4:24).
What is the hell that Jesus speaks of in Verses 29-30?
Is Jesus speaking literally of hell or a place that is referred to as a type unto hell?
If we are of mind to understand that it is better to lose an eye or a hand in order to keep our whole body from being destroyed due to judgment of crime against us, shouldn’t we understand the importance of the judgment against our souls if we do not put away parts of our spirit that bring us to condemnation (Rom. 1:18; 1 Peter 3:11,21; Eph. 4:31; Gal. 4:9; Titus 2:12)?
