NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER FIVE

Part VI (con’t)

This is a section in the Mishnah where it reads: “If one says: I will sin and Yom Kippur will atone for me, Yom Kippur does not atone for him. For those transgressions that are between a person and God, Yom Kippur only atones for those transgressions that are between man and his fellow man, Yom Kippur does not provide atonement until he reconciles with his fellowman.”¹ Maimonides joins in agreement when he says: “Repentance and Yom Kippur only atone for sins between man and God; for example, a person who ate a forbidden food or engaged in forbidden sexual relations, and the like. However, sins between man and man; for example, someone who injures a colleague, curses a colleague, steals from him, or the like will never be forgiven until he gives his colleague what he owes him and appeases him. It must be emphasized that even if a person restores the money that he owes the person he wronged, he must appease him and ask him to forgive him. Even if a person only upset a colleague by saying certain things, he must appease him and approach him repeatedly until he forgives him. If his colleague does not desire to forgive him, he should bring a group of three of his friends and approach him with them and request forgiveness. If the wronged party is not appeased, he should repeat the process a second and third time. If he still does not want to forgive him, he may let him alone and need not pursue the matter further. On the contrary, the person who refuses to grant forgiveness is the one considered as the sinner.”² These same teachings are echoed in verbal teachings where it emphasizes the reconciliation process between neighbors.³

Verses 25-26: “Agree with the one who is against you while you are negotiating together, or he might take you to court. The court will hand you over to an officer who will put you in prison. I assure you that you will not leave there until you have paid everything you owe.”

Here we find the antithesis for any Christian who falsely complains of religious persecution because the loan company forecloses on their home or the bank repossess their car due to lack of payments. As believers we are to accept responsibility for our commitments and obligations. After all, unless we can prove we were forced to buy a house or pressured into purchasing a car, we created the debt so we should pay the debt. There is an interesting story about how David protected the sheep and shepherds of a rich man named Nabal, but when David later sent some of his men to see if Nabal would be generous to his men in light of what they did for him, Nabal acted as if David were nothing more than a nomadic nobody. But when Nabal’s wife Abigail heard about it, she prepared 200 loaves of bread, two full wine bags, five cooked sheep, about a bushel of cooked oatmeal, about 2 quarts of raisins, and 200 cakes of pressed figs, and set out to bring them to David. Her act of kindness kept David from following through with this vow he made upon Nabal’s rejection of his request: “I protected Nabal’s property in the desert. I made sure not one of his sheep was missing. I did all that for nothing. I was good to him, but he was rude to me. I swear, I won’t let even one man in Nabal’s family live until tomorrow morning.”⁴ Her quick thinking prevented a disaster for both her, her family, and David. This may have inspired Solomon to give some wise advice for everyone when it came to indebtedness. He said it should be avoided like a deer running from a hunter, or a bird fleeing from a trap.⁵

But as we all know, sometimes indebtedness is a necessity, because if you tried to save up the amount you need to purchase a house, by the time you reached that sum the price of the house would have gone up even more. What Jesus is recommending here was already a part of Jewish tradition. Whenever the creditor and debtor would attempt to negotiate a settlement, it was always a personal thing. But when an impasse developed, the creditor had no choice but to take it to the next level. The Rabbis tell us: “In monetary cases where admissions of liability and testimony regarding loans are heard by three judges, this procedure goes back with each generation, all the way to Moses.”⁶ This procedure is mentioned a number of times in the book of verbal teachings.⁷ One astute Rabbi explains: “When two people are involved in a dispute concerning a judgment, one states: ‘Let us have the matter judged here,’ and the other says, ‘Let us ascend to the Supreme Court, lest these judges err and expropriate money contrary to the law,’ we compel the latter litigant to have the matter adjudicated locally.”⁸ In other words, agree with your creditor before you are taken to court. This makes sense because you can bargain with your creditor, but you cannot bargain with the court. Therefore, Jesus was not instituting some new legal procedure here, but simply reminding His listeners of already established law.

Also, the officials that Jesus speaks of here were established back in Moses’ day: “Choose men to be judges and officers in every town that the Lord your God gives you. Every tribe must do this. And these men must be fair in judging the people.”⁹ One highly esteemed Rabbi notes that this should read: “Give yourself judges and law enforcers.”¹⁰ He goes on to explain, “This was to remind each Israelite that in the first instance he is to judge himself. If someone is not prepared to be critical of himself, how could he possibly be qualified to sit in judgment of others?”¹¹ This premise is illustrated in a well-known Jewish story about Rabbi Jannai who owned a tree that overhung a stone fence onto a street that passed close by his property, that proved to be an inconvenient nuisance to travelers. It just so happened that another man in the same town had a similar problem with a tree on his property. So some passers-by complained to the local council about this man’s tree, and so Rabbi Jannai was appointed as judge to hear their case. But before the hearing took place, Jannai ordered his own tree to be cut down so as not to be unfair in his judgment. Scholars say that Rabbi Jannai did this so as to be in compliance with the wise saying of another Rabbi who said, “trim yourselves and then trim others.”¹²

With this understanding of Jewish verbal teachings, Jesus recommended that when the burden gets too heavy, speak to the one who loaned you the money and arrange for a solution. If not, court costs and being out of work because of being in jail, will only make matters worse. Isaiah saw this same principle in a spiritual light. He says: “So you should look for the Lord before it is too late. You should call to him now, while He is near.”¹³ It can certainly be applied to every believer spiritually. One should not sit in judgment of other believer’s who’ve made promises they were unable to keep or obligated themselves to perform certain duties they were unable to carry out themselves, until you have checked your own record of promises and obligations to God to see if you yourself are lacking. Then Jesus tackles another problem that was out of control in His day.

Verses 27-28: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that if a man looks at a woman in lust and wants to sin sexually with her, he has already committed that sin with her in his mind. ”

Here Jesus again is speaking to a Jewish audience and refers to the Ten Commandments where He focuses on the 7^th commandment, the one following murder, which He dealt with previously. Jesus does not go into the punishment which was stoning to death. Rather, He points out the difference between the letter of the law or the intent of the law. In Jesus day, sexual relations between a married woman and any man not her husband was considered adultery. However, sexual relations between a married man and an unmarried woman was technically not adultery, but fornication. That’s why Jesus focused on the man in this discourse. Any man would certainly say, since I did not touch her or have any sexual relations with her, it was not adultery. But Jesus argued, the intent was there in the mind, therefore it was adultery of the mind, even though the body was not involved. While the act of adultery is clearly spelled out, the definition given here by Jesus is something that must be further explored.

As a matter of fact, God used this word to describe those Israelites who left Him to worship another god. In the Apocalypse of John we will see this word used extensively in regards to Babylon, the dragon, the beast and false prophet. In that sense, it means taking what belongs to God and using it to have social intercourse with sin and Satan. Some people today would like to add an addendum to this verse, to wit: “If you commit adultery in your heart you might as well go ahead and commit it physically since the sin has already been done and you stand guilty anyway, so the condemnation and punishment will be no worse.” We may conclude that no larger or more subtle trap has the devil ever set to snare God’s children. Committing adultery in one’s heart is a secret sin known only to the individual and God. Forgiveness can be obtained, and outside of you and God no one else needs to know. There is nothing in the scripture calling for restitution as a result of cardiac adultery. But once the physical act has been committed, though forgiveness may be obtained and restitution made, long will live the shame of the act because it is now shared by both the perpetrator and the willing recipient. Think twice, even a hundred times before converting a sinful thought into a sinful act. Solomon has a sobering warning: “A man who commits adultery is a fool. He brings about his own destruction. He will suffer disease and disgrace and never be free from the shame.”¹⁴