Q: In Matthew 5:29-30, Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes. Isnt this rather harsh, and cruel?
A: No. Heres the text:
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Jesus is using hyperbole here, as He does in Matthew 18:8-9 where the same saying, slightly rephrased, appears again. And the literal idea here is valid: *if* our eye or hand were causing us to sin, it would be better for us to enter heaven without it than to enter hell with it. Surgeons amputate infected digits and limbs in order to preserve the rest of a physical body, which will almost certainly last for no more than a century. It would not be less justifiable than that to do the same thing to preserve a soul which will last into eternity. A careful consideration of the eternality of the spiritual qualtities involved during sin should motivate people to be careful about what they see and seize.
But the listener who stops there may miss Jesus real point. Such a listener has overlooked the If. This instruction is not the nemesis of any eye or hand. The man who blames his eye or hand for his sins is deceiving himself. The problem does not reside in his eye or his hand; it resides in his character and nature. /If/ the problem of sin could be solved by amputating a hand or removing an eye, it would be beneficial to do so, but everyone knows that the act of sin is not caused by ones eye or hand. This passage is not a call for amputation or eye-gouging, but for contemplation of where the causes of sin truly reside. The solution to the problem of sin requires a more drastic operation, upon the spiritual heart of the individual.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: No. Heres the text:
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Jesus is using hyperbole here, as He does in Matthew 18:8-9 where the same saying, slightly rephrased, appears again. And the literal idea here is valid: *if* our eye or hand were causing us to sin, it would be better for us to enter heaven without it than to enter hell with it. Surgeons amputate infected digits and limbs in order to preserve the rest of a physical body, which will almost certainly last for no more than a century. It would not be less justifiable than that to do the same thing to preserve a soul which will last into eternity. A careful consideration of the eternality of the spiritual qualtities involved during sin should motivate people to be careful about what they see and seize.
But the listener who stops there may miss Jesus real point. Such a listener has overlooked the If. This instruction is not the nemesis of any eye or hand. The man who blames his eye or hand for his sins is deceiving himself. The problem does not reside in his eye or his hand; it resides in his character and nature. /If/ the problem of sin could be solved by amputating a hand or removing an eye, it would be beneficial to do so, but everyone knows that the act of sin is not caused by ones eye or hand. This passage is not a call for amputation or eye-gouging, but for contemplation of where the causes of sin truly reside. The solution to the problem of sin requires a more drastic operation, upon the spiritual heart of the individual.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
