S.O.T.M. You Shall Not Murder [Matthew 5:21-26]

Today we come to the first of a series of six examples our Lord gives us of His interpretation of the law of God over that of the scribes and Pharisees. I will remind you that this is the way we will interpret the rest of this chapter and most of the remainder of the sermon on the mount. In a sense, the remainder of the sermon on the mount is an exposition on the amazing statement of our Lord, “that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom.” The contrast is not between the law given to Moses and the teaching of our Lord Jesus…that is in harmony…the contrast is between the false interpretation of the law by the religious leaders and the true teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s dive in to God’s word…stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 5:21-26]

Last year, in 2019, it was reported in America that there were 16,425 murders. That’s just homicides it doesn’t include abortion which is murder as well. But homicides alone, 16,425 last year…and that number is actually down from previous years. While California had the most number of homicides last year with 1,690, Louisiana was considered the most dangerous state by percentage of murder rate per 100,000, 11.9% compared the the least dangerous state Maine with a murder rate of 1.5%. Missouri had the eighth most number of murders but was the third highest in percentage with a murder rate of 7.9 murders per 100,000. If you do the math that means 45 people were murdered every day last year…and that’s just those recorded, I wonder how many murders went unsolved and were not even recorded?

In the scope of the world, in spite of what some people would like you to believe, the US is actually low on the violent crime and murder rate. For example, Guyana has a murder rate four times that of the US but comes in at number 10 on the most violent countries. Venezuela is number one with a murder rate of 56% per 100,000. Whiles those numbers are startling we are not really surprised because murder is common around us. It’s become so common the murders that happen each day rarely even gets reported on. We’ve just kind of gotten accustom to it. Which is a sad state for sure. But my question for us this morning is this…who is a murderer?…if I don’t kill someone, have I kept the command, you shall not murder? If we just look at the act alone we’ll answer yes…but if we look at the attitude behind the act…we’ll answer…no. Remember…Jesus is teaching us the attitude behind the act matters as much as the act itself. What were...

The scribes and Pharisees attitude towards the law

Remember the formula used by our Lord to teach His listeners was, “you have heard for those of old [tradition says] verses, but I say to you [the law of God really teaches this]. Same formula, same principles in the next six examples. The scribes and Pharisees were guilty of reducing the law of God and the demands of the law of God. Here is a perfect illustration of that. Jesus says “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.” It’s important we approach this the right way. “You shall not murder” is one of the Ten Commandments, and if the Pharisees taught “you shall not kill” what possible criticism could there be from Jesus on this point? The answer is..they added something to it.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.” But you might say, ‘but didn’t the word of God say, whoever kills shall be in danger of judgment?” And the answer is yes, it did say that and you’ll find it in Numbers 35:30-31. So then what is wrong? Context. The answer is by putting these two together they had actually reduced the real meaning of the law and weakened the whole injunction…how?

They had made the punishment for murder, breaking the law, a civil matter only as opposed to a divine matter of judgment. ‘Whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.’ The ‘judgment’ there means the local court. The result was that they were merely teaching, ‘You must not do murder because if you do you will be in danger of being punished by the civil magistrate.’ That was their full and complete interpretation of the great commandment which says: Thou shalt not kill. In other words they had emptied it of its truly great content and had reduced it merely to a question of physical murder. They did not mention the judgment of God at all.

It was only the judgment of the local court that seemed to matter. They had made of it something purely legal, just a matter of the letter of a law which said: ‘If you commit murder, certain consequences will follow.’ The effect of this was that the Pharisees and scribes felt perfectly happy about the law on this point, so long as they were not guilty of murder. For a man to commit murder was, of course, a terrible thing to them, and if he did do so he should be arraigned before the court, and the judgment suitable to such a crime should be handed out to him. But, as long as one did not actually commit the act of murder, all was well, and he could face the commandment, ‘you shall not murder’, and say to himself, ‘I have kept and fulfilled the law.’

But our Lord Jesus comes in and says, “no, no, no, you’ve missed the point of the law completely.” It’s here where we begin to see clearly the concept of righteousness and the law according to the religious leaders of Jesus day. They had reduced and confined the law of God so much that it was no longer the true law of God. They had reduced the law of God to the point where it could be easily kept, that’s why you had people, like the rich young ruler, who came with the attitude of “I have kept the law of God perfectly my whole life.” Or so he thought anyway because of the teaching of his day. They thought as long as you kept the letter of the law you were fine…but our Lord exposes the fault in that way of thinking.

The spirit of the law matters as much as the letter of the law

The law says, “you shall not murder”; but that does not only mean “you shall not murder”. To interpret it like that is merely to define the law in a way which enables us to escape it’s demands. When in fact we may be guilty of the most grievous sin. Our Lord explains…murder is prohibited by God, but so is anger in your heart towards a brother. I know the authorized version says, ‘angry without a cause’, but without a cause is not in the original translations. The idea Jesus is portraying is anger period, justified or not, doesn’t belong in the heart of a believer.

Here’s essentially what our Lord is teaching. The religious leaders taught if you committed the physical act of murder you would be judged by the court and the sentence was death. This was true and established by God, but Jesus said if you hold anger in your heart toward another, it’s the same as physically killing them. It’s at this point where we really begin to see the spiritual content of the law. We know if you commit murder a court will find you guilty and you will be judged…but no court of man is going to find someone guilty because they are angry with someone, right?

It’s at this point where we begin to see the meaning of the words of Jesus when He said He came to fulfill the law. In the law given to Moses all this spiritual content was there, this is nothing new, Jesus isn’t teaching something new. The tragedy of Israel was they missed it. Friends and we as Christians can easily fall into the same trap of missing the spirit of the law. For us as Christians to harbor anger in our hearts is, according to our Lord Jesus Christ, is to be guilty of something which, in the sight of God, is murder. To hate, to feel bitter, to have this unpleasant, unkind feeling of resentment towards a person with or without a cause is murder. You should not be angry with anyone, especially with those who belong to the household of faith, this is reprehensible in the sight of God. Yet I’ve seen it in our own Baptist denomination where believers have this angry and bitterness towards one another, dragging each other into civil court for various reasons…friends this is not the way Christians should behave period.

Our Lord then builds upon this idea, there’s a progression here in this teaching. Not only is murder prohibited. Not only is anger in your heart toward someone prohibited, so is expressions of contempt towards others. [open disrespect] Jesus says “And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council.” “Raca” means “worthless fellow” it’s an attitude of contempt or disrespect and there is that tendency in all of our hearts to harbor this attitude towards others. To dismiss someone with this attitude to say ‘Raca” “worthless fellow” and I’ve heard ‘Raca’ before…you probably have too…it most likely didn’t come out ‘Raca’ perhaps some other four letter word but you know it was when you heard it. Those disrespectful, rude, scornful words towards others, I think of the political world, they say ‘Raca’ to each other often. We’re guilty of if as well friends.

You ever notice how often our Lord pointed out this type of thing? When the religious leaders would talk about murder, and robbery, or drunkenness our Lord would include things such as evil thoughts, wicked speech, strife, deceit, and many other things as vile as murder and the like. The point is this, contempt, disrespect, scorn, derision is the very spirit which ultimately leads to murder. Friends, while we may not have or ever will commit the actual act of physical murder, how often have we murdered one another in our minds and hearts? We may not have destroyed someones life physically, but are there not many ways to destroy someones life short of murder? We can destroy a man’s reputation through gossip, we can shake somebody else’s confidence in him by whispering criticism or by deliberate fault-finding. That is the kind of thing which our Lord is here indicating, and His whole purpose is to show that all that is included in this commandment: ‘You shall not murder.’ Murder does not only mean destroying life physically, it means so much more trying to destroy the spirit and the soul, destroying the person in any shape or form.

Our Lord takes it a step further, But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. This means an expression of abuse or the vilifying of a person.Murder is prohibited, anger in you heart is prohibited, Contempt towards people is prohibited, so is bitterness and hatred finding it’s expression in words. I believe as we see this teaching of our Lord unfold we really begin to see how essentially important for the present day Christian. It speaks to you and me today, it searches us to the depths of our being. Here we are not only confronted with the physical act of murder, but also with the feelings we regard in our hearts towards others. We may be in fact murdering people every day in our hearts! That’s convicting.

Does this mean anger is always wrong and prohibited? No. Our Lord displayed anger towards the religious leaders often and in Matthew 23 the series of woes pronounced upon the scribes and Pharisees was that of final judgment…was our Lord not authorized to pronounce such judgment? Of course He was. He offered them time and time again the gospel, they had every opportunity to repent and turn to Him, but they rejected Him and would not turn from their sin. What our Lord was denouncing was self-righteousness and the rejection of grace, God always denounces this. Our anger must only be against sin; we must never feel angry with the sinner, but only full of sorrow and compassion for him. ‘Ye that love the Lord, hate evil’, says the Psalmist.

We should feel a sense of anger as we view sin, hypocrisy, unrighteousness, and everything that is evil. That is the way, of course, in which we fulfil the injunction of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: ‘Be ye angry, and sin not.’ The two things are not incompatible at all. Our Lord’s anger was always a righteous indignation, it was a holy anger, an expression of the wrath of God Himself. Let us remember that ‘The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’ (Rom. 1:18). ‘Our God’, against sin, ‘is a consuming fire.’ There is no question about this. God hates evil. God’s anger is displayed against it, and His wrath will be poured out upon it. That is essentially a part of the biblical teaching.

The more we grow in Christ, the more anger we shall feel against sin. But we must never, I repeat, feel anger against the sinner. We must never feel angry with a person as such; we must draw a distinction between the person himself and what he does. We must never be guilty of a feeling of contempt or abhorrence, or of this expression of vilification. We must be clear on these things. ‘Do not imagine you are clear simply because you have not committed murder.’ What is the state of your heart? How do you react to things that happen? Do you find yourself flaring into a raging temper when a person has done something to you? Or do you sometimes feel anger against a person who really has done nothing to you at all? These are the things that matter to God. So what practical steps can we draw from this that might help us not murder people in our hearts? Remember one of our principles from last time...

Our attitude towards the law should not be negative, but positive

Our Lord says this, “Therefore [the connector of what was said] if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” This is a very significant and important statement. Not only are we not to harbor murderous and evil thoughts in our heart against another; but the commandment not to murder really means we should take positive steps to put ourselves right with our brother.

The danger when approaching the commands is that we may stop at the negative, and feel that, as long as we have not actually committed murder, all is well. But there is a second stage which we have forgotten. ‘All right’, we say, ‘I must not actually commit murder, But I must also take steps to be in right relationships with others, and I must not say these unkind things against people. I must put a guard upon my lips; , James wrote that great section in his Epistle about taming the tongue, though the thought is there I must not say it.’

But there is where we tend to stop and say: ‘As long as I do not say these things all is well.’ But our Lord tells us that we must not stop even there, we must go further, we must not even harbor the ill thought and the feeling in our heart. To many of us look past this important teaching of our Lord. The moment these ugly, unworthy thoughts come into their hearts we should switch their minds to something positive and beautiful and pray the Lord take them from us, we must take every though captive to obedience in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We tend to think, I can have the thought as long as I don’t express it. But we can’t stop there, we must take steps to remove the thought completely, and and we must not only repress these unkind and unworthy thoughts, says Christ; we have to do more than that. We must actually take steps to remove the cause of the trouble; we must aim at a positive goal. We have to reach the stage in which there shall be nothing wrong even in spirit between our brother and ourselves. Seek to live peaceably with our brothers and sisters.

Our Lord enforces this in regards to our worship, there is a subtle danger in the spiritual life, a terrible danger of trying to atone for moral failure by trying to balance evil with good. Trying to cover up moral failure with ceremonial sacrifices. We are just as guilty of this as Christians today friends. How often do we come to worship or come to serve the church in some capacity when we have relationships that are broken and we are at odds with people. Or we are harboring anger and resentment towards others, maybe even other brothers and sisters in the church. But yet we justify ourselves and our broken relationships with worship and serving God…balancing evil with good. We say well I did my part I asked for forgiveness but I haven’t made things right with the other person. Friends, Christ says, “I don’t want your worship if you have relationships that need mending.”

This is hard I know, but, in the sight of God there is no value whatsoever in our act of worship if we harbor known sin in our hearts. The psalmist said “if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” If you’re trying to worship God knowing there is sin you have not confessed, knowing there is relationships that needs mending…then your worship is useless. If you are not speaking to someone or harboring anger towards someone it’s an obstacle between you and God. I’ve heard people talk about increasing our worship in church, how do we increase our worship? And they usually attribute increased worship with more of a certain type of music, or more aesthetics, or the right type of lighting, or something…you want to know how to increase our worship? Quit harboring sin in your heart towards others. You cannot be right with God until you put yourself right with man. The reason why...

We should be right with man is because of our relationship with God

Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.

Man is made in the image of God therefore we always remember our relationship to God when dealing with other people. This is just our Lord’s way of saying when we are dealing with people, who we may be offending, or who we may be wronging in some way, or we may be hurting through our words or actions, remember how precious man is to God. Remember God is the judge, but God is also the justifier. God makes the demands upon us, God has the power of all the courts of heaven and earth. God’s law is absolute and God demands His children should be right with others. What do we do? Come to an agreement quickly, settle it at once. Maybe there is a relationship with someone in your life that needs to be made right…go do it immediately. You may not be here tomorrow, they may not be here tomorrow and the problem will never be fixed.

I thank God for this clear teaching of our Lord because, as a follower of Christ I want to grow in Him more and know Him more and learn more about God and grow deeper in my relationship with God and Christ tells us plainly if you want to do that. Acknowledge your sin, confess it completely, humble yourself before God, and get right with others.

You and I and all mankind had a sin debt we could never repay to God. We broke God’s holy law. But God, rich in mercy, sent His Son into the world to pay that debt we could never pay, to atone for the sin we could never atone for, Christ has cancelled our debt completely through the shedding of His blood on Calvary, even while you and I were enemies of God, hateful to others, and desperately wicked. And it is precisely because of this amazing gift of grace that I should and can forgive others absolutely.

But His terms have not changed, we must acknowledge and confess our sins completely, we must humble ourselves and repent of our sin, and we must be in right relationships with others. Friends I urge you this morning, and don’t delay make sure our relationship with God is on His terms and not our own terms. If there are relationships in your life that need reconciliation, start right now by confessing and repenting before God and go make it right.