Matthew 5:27-32

2). God's Concern About the Purity of Women: What The Disciples' Attitude Is To Be Towards The Law Concerning Adultery, Divorce, and Sexual Attitude: The Need To Be Harsh with Themselves About Sin (5:27-32).

Continuing to deal with the commandments in the order given in Exodus 20 Jesus now takes up the question of the commandment about adultery, but it is should be noticed here that central to His concern is the permanence of marriage and the purity and oneness of a man and a woman within that marriage. That is why He is concerned about adultery and defines it so widely. And that is undoubtedly what He sees as central to this commandment (compare Matthew 19:3). For the reason why the thoughts of the person described are seen by Him as so heinous is because they indicate a readiness to interfere in God's purpose in creation, and the reason why divorce is seen as so heinous, unless there has first been adultery involved, is because it also equally interferes with God's purpose in creation. While He is therefore certainly concerned to prevent the disciples from sinning, He is even more concerned to establish the permanence and sacredness of the marriage relationship as seen in God's eyes, and to warn that it must not be broken.

Thus He describes two types of further ‘adultery' on top of actual adultery, types which would not have been seen as such by the Jews, and warns His disciples against them, indicating by His words that God had both of these in mind when He gave His commandments. The first case that He takes up is that of the male with the wandering eye who deliberately seeks to have adultery with women in his heart, or alternatively seeks to entice women into lustful response with his eyes, and the second case is that of the husband who divorces his wife when she is still ‘pure', that is, she has neither been unfaithful nor has degraded herself sexually. In both cases, says Jesus, their action leads to adultery, the one because the man's thoughts have been with the intention of interfering in a marriage relationship, and have, as it were, intruded on the woman's purity, thinking all the while in terms of trying to break her oneness with her husband, or have alternatively enticed the woman into herself engaging in impurity of thought, with a similar result, and the other because she will be left with little choice but to marry again, otherwise she would be found without protection or means of support. Thus she would have to have sexual relations with another man as a consequence, so breaking the God-ordained oneness between herself and her initial husband. It is with the intention of preventing these two types of adultery that He concentrates on what He deals with here. He is therefore concerned to look underneath the idea of a straightforward adulterous act that results in divorce and punishment, (in the same way as He looked underneath the commandment concerning murder), and consider the implications behind it. For what is wrong with adultery in His eyes is not just that it is a ‘sin', but that it hits at the very root of God's purpose of the making one of a man and a woman in marriage. While the Jews might see adultery as wrong because it might cast doubt on whether a child was really the true heir, to Jesus it was wrong because of its effects on the oneness of a pair united by God (thus He saw the man's adultery as being as bad as the woman's).

For as He will declare in Matthew 19:4, when God created man and woman it was that they might become ‘one flesh'. ‘For this reason a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24, compare Matthew 19:4). And Jesus adds in Matthew 19:6, ‘what God has joined together let not man separate.' This demonstrates that He considers that sexual relations are, for man, something very different than they are for animals. For man they are not just for rutting and producing offspring. They are intended to be a force that binds the man and woman together as one. (Thus the man who has sexual relations with a prostitute is made one body with the prostitute - 1 Corinthians 6:16). The importance that Jesus laid on this comes out here and in Matthew 19:4. To Him and to God marriage was a sacred union that nothing must be allowed to defile, and it is noticeable that Jesus lays as great a stress on this for the man as for the woman. So a man who goes astray in his thoughts, or leads astray a married woman by them, is in his heart attacking the very principles on which creation stands, and the same is true if a man divorces his wife other than for unfaithfulness so that another marries her. For then she is being made into an adulteress by both men. It is they who are guilty in this case.

We should note here also that in His words all the emphasis is on the failure of the men. It is they who entice her with their eyes, it is they who by divorcing her are seen by Jesus as causing the woman to commit adultery. The general tendency in Judaism was in fact the opposite. They tended to see the women as the ones who were mainly guilty of adultery. The man could be forgiven for his adventures, the woman could not be forgiven for responding. This is not to deny the fact that a man caught committing adultery with a married woman was in Moses' day sentenced to be stoned, and would be looked on at all times with great disapproval if he was found out, but simply to bring out that it was the woman who tended to carry the lion's share of guilt in these matters. As long as he left married women alone a man might sow his wild oats without too much disapproval, but a woman involved in a sexual liaison would be heavily frowned on. An adulterous woman was seen as a shame and a scandal, while an adulterous man might be seen as an adventurer. But Jesus was aware where the blame very often lay, and took up a very different view.

It should be noted again that what concerns Him is anything that might have the intention of interfering with a woman's purity and oneness with her husband. There is no suggestion that sexual activity is wrong in itself. Indeed within marriage it was actually God's intention from the beginning. His command had been to ‘Go forth and multiply'. And it was to be the binding force that bound a man and a women together physically, for they were to be made ‘one flesh'. But what He clearly condemns is anything that aims to affect the purity of either a marriageable or a married woman, and thus her oneness or prospective oneness with her husband. We may see as being in mind here, ‘blessed are the pure in heart'. Those who would ‘see God' must be faithful in maintaining the inviolability of the marriage bond. For to God permanent, lifelong marriage is seen as important. What Jesus is concerned about with adultery is thus its interference in God's purpose for creation. He sees it as breaking up the harmony of creation, and thereby lying at the very heart of man's rebellion against God. This idea of harmony is important all through this chapter.

It should be noticed that this was not a question of Jesus being influenced by Jewish opinion. Jewish opinion was in the main very different from this. The majority among the Jews would certainly have agreed that it was the woman's responsibility to be pure and faithful to her husband, but in their view the man could divorce his wife if he wished to, and if he did so there was no harm done. To them he had a freedom with respect to sexual matters that she did not have. Jesus squashes that idea once and for all. To Jesus both were equally responsible to maintain a pure marriage, with both being required to be equally faithful. Thus the wayward thinker, and the casual husband were both guilty before God. This is the ‘new' angle that Jesus introduced with regard to this Law. And yet He would have said that it was not new. In His eyes it had been intrinsic within the Law right from the beginning. It was only man's subsequent perversity that made it seem new.

Note On The Jewish Attitude to Marriage and Sexual Behaviour.

In the time of Jesus the general view among the Jews was that a man could indulge in sex outside marriage as long as it was not with a married woman, for this latter would be to trespass on the rights of her husband. However, if her family knew anything about it and were in a position to do so they could then demand that he marry her. But either way no great shame was involved for him. A woman, however, who behaved in this way would be deeply shamed. The Law in fact demanded that he then marry her (Exodus 22:16; Deuteronomy 22:28).

Furthermore in the eyes of most Jews a man could divorce his wife if he felt that he had some grounds for it, simply by giving her a certificate of divorce in the presence of witnesses and making clear his intention. But a woman could not divorce a man except by an appeal to a court. The court might in some circumstances require the husband to divorce her depending on the situation, but it was not something to be relied on. Normally therefore a woman was powerless to do much about her situation, and her only resort would be to her family.

But as we have seen Jesus indicates that God is far from agreeing with such ideas. He agreed with the requirement for women to be chaste and faithful, but demanded the same of men. And He further demanded that men should do nothing which might cause a woman to violate any vows made to her husband, whether she did it willingly or otherwise.

Furthermore, the Jews should have been aware of how seriously God treated divorce for no priest was to marry a divorced woman (Leviticus 21:14)

Respectable women were, of course, closely guarded in those days and would be required to be well covered up at all times. A respectable woman would not go out on her own, but would remain at home, and when she did go out she would be well covered up. And certainly in the Old Testament, while a betrothed woman might be found out alone in the countryside working, that would never be so of a married woman (compare Deuteronomy 22:22 with Matthew 22:25). In such circumstances she would be under her husband's eye. Thus there would not be as much temptation around for a man as there is today. The man who lusted after a married woman would therefore probably be going out of his way to do so. He would be deliberately out to attract a woman. Jesus, however made clear that that was totally unacceptable. No other Jew of Jesus' day took up Jesus' uncompromising position.

End of note.

It should be noted at this point that ‘and it was said' in Matthew 5:31 is adding on an addendum to 27-30, not commencing a new section. This is demanded by the grammar, the sense and the chiasmus. And it is confirmed by the fact that if it was not so it would also break the sequence of murder, adultery, false witness. Thus we should see five main headings and not six in the series.

Analysis of Matthew 5:27.

a “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery' ” (Matthew 5:27).

b But I say to you, that every one who looks on a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:28).

c And if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from you (Matthew 5:29 a).

d For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish (Matthew 5:29 b).

e And not your whole body be cast into hell (Matthew 5:29 c).

c And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from you (Matthew 5:30 a).

d For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish (Matthew 5:30 b).

e And not your whole body go into hell (Matthew 5:30 c).

b It was said also, ‘Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce,' but I say to you, that every one who puts away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her an adulteress (Matthew 5:31).

a And whoever shall marry her when she is put away, commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32).

Note that in ‘a' the command is not to commit adultery, and in the parallel the one who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. In ‘b' Jesus lays out a case and then says that it will result in adultery, and in the parallel He does the same. In ‘cde' and its parallel Jesus outlines what men should do in order to prevent adultery.

We again remind ourselves that in Matthew 5:27 we have the threefold activities related to adultery, firstly looking on a woman with lust in the heart (Matthew 5:28), secondly cutting off eye and hand (two alternatives) in order not to sin (Matthew 5:29), and thirdly the attempt to make an alternative attempt to commit adultery through unacceptable divorce (Matthew 5:31)