Sermon Tone Analysis

A Christian's Righteousness: Avoiding Anger & Lust

November 17, 2021

2. In Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus places murder and unrighteous anger in the same category.

How are they related?

Here is where the KJV has different wording:

How did this happen?

Newer manuscripts include this “without a cause” — not OLDER manuscripts copied closer to the time of the original.

I heard, but cannot verify, that King James wanted this addition.

According to the KJV, “whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment,” but the phrase “without a cause” is a later addition to the Greek text, designed to make Jesus’ words more tolerable.

The other man’s anger may be sheer bad temper, but mine is righteous indignation—anger with a cause.

But Jesus’ words, in the original form of the text, make no distinction between righteous and unrighteous anger: anyone who is angry with his brother exposes himself to judgment.

There is no saying where unchecked anger may end.

“Be angry but do not sin,” we are told in Ephesians 4:26 (RSV); that is, “If you are angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin; let sunset put an end to your anger, for otherwise it will provide the devil with an opportunity which he will not be slow to seize.”

How are murder and anger related?

Generally before the DEED of murder is committed there is the FEELING (thoughts, etc.) of anger.

If you watch enough murder mysteries you find they are always looking for the MOTIVE behind a murder.

Anger is one such motive.

But there are others that are equally evil, such as ...

Greed, lust (not just sexual), pride, etc.

Question 2. The scribes and Pharisees were evidently seeking to restrict the application of the sixth commandment to the deed of murder alone, to the act of spilling human blood in homicide.

If they refrained from this, they considered that they had kept the commandment.

And this apparently is what the rabbis taught the people.

But Jesus disagreed with them.

The true application of the prohibition was much wider, he maintained.

It included thoughts and words as well as deeds, anger and insult as well as murder.

Sam Storms goes further by writing:

Jesus makes it clear that simply because you don’t commit the act of murder, you have not thereby exhausted what the law was ultimately designed to accomplish.

The Pharisees mistakenly thought that so long as they did not take another human life they had discharged their obligation to their fellow man.

They believed that as long as their hands did not perform the outward act the inward attitude of the heart was irrelevant.

But Jesus says: “You have been led to believe that it was sufficient simply not to kill.

You have been led to believe that your responsibility to others was fulfilled in the observance of the external letter of the law alone.

But I say to you that the thoughts and intent of your heart is no less important in the eyes of God.”

In other words, the attitude is equally as important as the act.

Anger, says Jesus, is incipient murder!

Real righteousness does not consist in merely abstaining from murder.

Real righteousness, the righteousness that must characterize the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, extends to the motive in your heart.

Says MacArthur:

“It is possible for a person who has never been involved in so much as a fist fight to have more of a murderous spirit than a multiple killer.

Many people, in the deepest feelings of their hearts, have anger and hatred to such a degree that their true desire is for the hated person to be dead.

The fact that fear, cowardice, or lack of opportunity does not permit them to take that person’s life does not diminish their guilt before God” (293).

Jesus is focusing on the source of our behavior.

It isn’t enough to focus on what we do.

He wants to focus the light of God on who we are.

If we are prone to anger, what are our feelings towards others?

How is our heart relating to Jesus?

What do we need to do about that?

In Matthew’s gospel, “brother” (v.

22) consistently means a fellow member of the believing community, i.e., a disciple of Jesus (see 5:44; 7:3–5; 12:49–50; 18:15, 21, 35; 23:8; 25:40; 28:10).

“Jesus does not thereby imply that it is all right to be angry against those who are not believers; rather, he applies his injunction first of all to those against whom anger is most inappropriate.

That is to say, it is particularly bad for Christians to get angry at other Christians who have themselves also been spared God’s wrath” (Blomberg, 107).

The Sermon on the Mount (A.

The Principle Is Announced—5:21–22)

Two words in Greek for anger: (a) thumos = quick burst of temper; the anger that surges and then subsides (as, for example, when we experience an explosive loss of temper);

and (b) orge = the deep-seated animosity that seethes; the long-lived anger over which a person broods and nurses and will not let die.

This is the anger that we fan continually, taking it from a smoldering ember into a raging fire of bitterness and resentment.

We devote energy to keeping the anger active and intense: we constantly remind ourselves of how wrongly we have been treated by others.

It is this latter anger that Jesus has in mind, although he certainly would not approve of the former either.

“Our problem is that we burn with indignation and anger, not at sin and injustice, but at offence to ourselves.

In none of the cases in which Jesus became angry was his personal ego wrapped up in the issue.

Not all anger is evil, as is evident from the wrath of God, which is always holy and pure.

And even fallen human beings may sometimes feel righteous anger, although, being fallen, we should ensure that even this is slow to rise and quick to die down (James 1:19 and Ephes.

4:26-27).

The reference of Jesus, then, is to unrighteous anger, the anger of pride, vanity, hatred, malice and revenge.

James 1:12–20 (NASB95)

12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.

15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

19 This you know, my beloved brethren.

But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

3. A. B. Bruce writes: "Raca expresses contempt for a man's head = you stupid!; [fool] expresses contempt for his heart and character = you scoundrel!"

Why do you think these thoughts and words would be murder in God's sight (Matthew 5:22)?

Storms says:

There are times when Jesus labels people fools, there are times in Psalms and proverbs we see the word used.

But Jesus is not talking here about stubborn rebellion against God or about theological foolishness.

He has in mind the deliberate and malicious belittling of a person’s dignity as a human being.

He is describing that demeaning, denigrating disdain and contempt for another person.

This is a verbal assault on their dignity as someone created in God’s image.

If “raca” belittles the person’s mental strength, “fool” attacks his/her moral substance and personal value.

Says Willard: “In anger I want to hurt you.

In contempt [which, being worse, is embodied in the use of the terms “raca” and “fool”], I don’t care whether you are hurt or not.…

You are not worth consideration one way or the other.

We can be angry at someone without denying their worth.

But contempt makes it easier for us to hurt them or see them further degraded” (151).

And then Jesus talks about hell:

A third term to note is “gehenna” (translated “fiery hell” in v. 22), a reference to the valley immediately southwest of Jerusalem that is still visible from the Mt. of Olives.

At one time it was there that human sacrifices were made to the pagan deity Moloch (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chron.

28:3; 33:6; cf.

Jer.

7:31; 19:5ff.).

When King Josiah brought religious reform to the nation, Gehenna was condemned and came to be used as a garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem.

In addition to common refuse, the corpses of criminals considered unworthy of burial were piled there.

The smoldering fires of Gehenna never went out, its flames fanned and endlessly stoked by the continuous supply of refuse.

In Jesus’ day, Gehenna was a visible representation of Hell.

Cf.

Mark 9:47–48.

Gehenna is used 11x in the synoptic gospels, always on the lips of Jesus.

But how can Jesus speak of such severe punishment for mere verbal assault on another person?

I would challenge the adjective “mere”!