Introduction

One of the first Dekker and Perreti books I read was House. In this book of Christian fiction, two couples find themselves stranded in a house which is tormented by a serial killer. In the opening scene, after they realize they’ve been locked in this house against their will, a can tumbles down the chimney and falls out. Etched on the can are three rules: 1. God came to my house and I killed him. 2. I will kill anyone who comes to my house as I killed God. 3. Give me one dead body, and I might let rule two slide

The couples find themselves being forced to try and murder an innocent young girl, though they refuse to do so. At one point when they come face to face with the main antagonist he says this, ““Most people are quite dense. They like little white houses and big stained-glass churches and prefer to do their killing with looks and words behind one another’s backs.”

He paused.

“Welcome to my house. No secrets allowed. Here we all do our killing with guns and axes and knives. It’s more bloody than what most people are accustomed to, yes, but it’s far less brutal.”

In a dark and twisted way, this serial killer wants the desires of one’s hearts to become a reality. Yet, in a cutting way, it shows the reality of a lot of gossip, and backbiting, and greed and envy. We’d rather that person just be dead. But consequences often keep us from taking things that far and so instead we insult, spread rumors, take passive aggressive steps in their face, anything to cut them down without pulling out an actual knife. Then we justify ourselves by saying we caused them no physical harm.

But Jesus’s teaching gets to the heart of the matter. Matthew 5:21–26ESV

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

prayerDefining Anger

You may know the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. a child was told not to watch cartoons on the TV until he was done with his homework. The mother came back to watch her child watching cartoons on his tablet, with no homework done.

The child had kept the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.

So, the mother amends the statement by telling the child to finish his homework before watching cartoons. This time the kid gets around it by watching baseball. Once again, he had complied with the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law as his mother intended.

“The frustrated mom could have said, ‘Don’t do anything until you finish your homework,’ but the child, taking it literally, could then claim to be unable to open his book bag to get his homework. Obviously, focusing on the letter of the law can be a tactic to negate the intent or spirit of the law.”

And this is what the Pharisees were known for: using the letter of the law to neglect its intent. Jesus just told us that our righteousness must go beyond that of the Pharisee, and now he is telling us how. He opens, “You have heard that it was said. . .” This passive brings us to the question, “From where did they hear this?” It would not be from a causal Old Testament reading in the home, because that would be an extreme rarity to have a personal copy of the written text. The people would hear the law taught by the Scribes and Pharisees.

The simple command the Pharisees taught was “whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” And this is rightly understood as “murder” not mere killing. The great sixth commandment in the Bible does not preclude, as some try to argue, self-defense, just war, or hunting. In other words, it does not prohibit all types of killing, as the pacifist would argue, but it prohibits murder. Which in a way brings us to the heart of the commandment, because that discussion brings to the forefront the intent of the killing.

Which, in the U.S., we even distinguish between degrees of murder.

First-degree murder: This is the most serious charge, requiring proof that the killing was premeditated, deliberate, and done with malice aforethought. Examples might include a planned assassination or a killing that occurs during the commission of another serious felony.

Second-degree murder: This charge applies when the killing was intentional but not premeditated, meaning the perpetrator had the intent to kill but did not plan it in advance. An example might be a heated argument that escalates to a deadly confrontation.

Third-degree murder This is considered the least serious murder charge and usually involves reckless behavior that results in death, without the clear intent to kill. Some states might classify certain felony murders as third-degree murder.

“Murderers” it was taught, accd. to v. 21, “will be liable to judgment.” This “judgement” refers to a human court of law. If the person was found guilty of murder, they would be sentenced to death. Of course, during this time, only the Roman authorities could legally enact the death penalty. Just like the kid who wanted to watch cartoons, there are a lot of ways you could potentially ignore the spirit of this law while obeying its letter. This is what marked the Pharisees of Jesus’s day. I think about the interaction with the man who was born blind. The Pharisees refuse to listen to actual testimony and have created such an environment of fear that the blind man’s parents refuse to testify beyond, “He is of age, ask him.” But Jesus gets to the heart of the matter in v. 22

“But I say to you. . .”

We will see this phrase 6 times in the sermon on the mount. It’s important to note that Jesus is not going against the Old Testament or its authority which he just defended. Rather, he is going against the Old Testament as interpreted by the Pharisee. Notice also the authority of Jesus. He is not basing his interpretation on other’s, rather Christ is the final authority on the true understanding of the law. He continues in v. 22:

“Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. . .”

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called 4 Loves in which he explained four Greek words for love and their different nuances. By and large, these nuances did not carry on into Jesus’s or the apostles’ day. However, most commentators argue that there was a difference between two words for anger. One is orge, the other is thumos. One commentator quoted a bunch of Church Fathers (who spoke Greek) on this very topic:

Origen, “Thumos differs from orgē in that thumos is anger rising in vapor and burning up, while orgē is a yearning for revenge.” Jerome said, “Thumos is incipient anger and displeasure fermenting in the mind; orgē however, when thumos has subsided, is that which longs for revenge and desires to injure the one thought to have caused harm.” The Stoic Diogenes Laertius defined orgē as “a desire for revenge on the person who seems to have caused injury wrongfully.” Gregory Nazianzus wrote that “thumos is the sudden boiling of the mind, orgē is enduring thumos

Charles L. Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 109.

Anger, in this context, is the hateful rage which seeks to justify vengeful actions.

It is not as though Jesus expects his followers to become numb and unfeeling robots who are programmed to perform tasks and human interaction at any cost. People have ability to bottle up emotions such as anger and tuck them away. This is not what Jesus is teaching.

Rather, it may be helpful to translate this as “wrathful” “furious” or “rage.” Feeling slighted by another person can lead to anger. But the anger can subside. When someone pulls out in front of you in traffic you may get angry. But that anger can subside as you think, “Well maybe they didn’t see me.” Or that anger can turn into this rage when you make that personal in your mind. Then you start to, like I often do, ride their bumper. Or maybe you justify taking some revenge. This is the rage which Jesus condemns: that which seeks to justify vengeful actions.

This is what murder is: a vengeful action. You see, all this started when we took God off the job of determining good and evil and decided to pick it for ourselves. So whenever someone does us wrong, our inner sense of getting even is not driven by God and his law, but our own vengeance. And so, we kill to settle a score.

But murder has a lot of strings attached to it: jail time, the death penalty, etc. So instead we do everything else before we get to that point: bruise, abuse, insult, and justify ourselves by saying now we’re even and “At least I didn’t kill them. But Jesus goes further to the heart continued in v. 22Even insults

“Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘you fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

What Jesus does here is quite amazing. Murderers are to be liable to judgment. “Judgment” refers to the lower courts, set up in each town. But there is a higher court. A Supreme court, so to speak, and that is the Sanhedrin. What crime would be so heinous that it would go straight to the Supreme Court? This seems unthinkable how our court system is set up. It would sound just as unthinkable for a common person in Jesus’s day to end up before the Sanhedrin. And yet, Jesus says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council—that is, the Sanhedrin.

But then, he takes it a step further and says, whoever says ‘you fool’ will be liable to the hell of fire: not just the highest human court, but the highest divine punishment.

Vengeful actions include even insults.

Jesus just equated murder to saying, “You’re stupid!”

And you may be feeling like the original audience to Jesus’s sermon. One commentator writes, “To Jesus’ listeners the threat of such severe punishments for mere feelings and insults probably seemed so extreme that it bordered on the ridiculous”

Charles L. Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 112.

And it almost does seem ridiculous, but it gets at the heart of the law. Now, we don’t want to misapply Jesus’s teaching. We don’t want to focus so much on the letter that we miss the spirit. Jesus is not trying to outlaw good-natured teasing. I’ve had people who take the word “Fool” or “stupid” out of their vocabulary and treat it like a curse word in fear that uttering it will send you to hell. But Jesus does this very thing in Matt. 23:17Matthew 23:17ESV

You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

What matters is not so much the words as the intent of the words. Is the intent harm and destruction in order to get even? Then the words are murderous. Is the intent to open the eyes of the blind or for their ultimate good? Then the words are permitted. When Christ utters the words, “You blind fools!” He’s not trying to get even with someone, he’s trying to guide them to see truth.

At the same time verbal abuse is a reality. Words have power. Think about the amount of suicides caused by verbal abuse. There are studied that show links to suicide from cyberbullying. In other words, someones actual words have lead to someone’s death. It’s almost as if what Jesus was teaching is true.

Any ill-natured words intended to get even with that other person is the same as murder: insults, death wishes or threats, sarcasm, gossip, slander. And again, I’ve heart people attempt to outlaw all sarcasm. But I think you have the same thing with sarcasm: some ill-nature, some good-natured. And I’m never sarcastic. But sarcasm certainly can be a tool to evade true intent and stab with the dagger in the back. It’s certainly like that fictional character said, “Welcome to my house. No secrets allowed. Here we all do our killing with guns and axes and knives. It’s more bloody than what most people are accustomed to, yes, but it’s far less brutal” Consider the irony of that statement “Far less brutal.” You kill with a gun, pull the trigger and its over. You kill with your words and now its expending all your creative and emotional energy over a long period of time to destroy this one person until you meet your own definition of getting even.

If you come away from hearing all this with an immense amount of guilt, then you have heard correctly. When I considered Christ’s words, an immense amount of guilt came over me. My words, my thoughts, my wants, are often so contrary to this ideal of kingdom living. When I consider the full implications, I feel as though I fail so often. And yet, I want it, I want this righteousness, I want this justice to flow in the land, not my invented and twisted sense of justice. Christ inoculates this sense of getting even with the correct path: reconciliation.ReconciliationMatthew 5:23–26ESV

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

In the Kingdom, reconciliation is the means of getting even, not revenge.

In stead of expending our energy on the way people have wronged us and getting even, we should expend our energy on the people we have wronged. Have you ever done something to hurt another person —whether intentional or not—and then you can’t think about anything else except how you wronged them? It’s happened to me before. There’s been a few times where I’ve spent the day apart from someone I’ve wronged, spent the whole day thinking about my terrible action, formulating an apology without excuse making, went out of my way to apologize, only to get, “Oh, I didn’t see that as offensive” or “that didn’t hurt my feelings.”

I’ve also faced several times when I was completely ignorant to the fact that I had wronged someone. Then when confronted, having to apologize not only for the action, but not realizing how wrong I came across.

I give these examples to say to you, the aim of the Christian life and our interaction with one another may not be perfect, but it has a completely different character. It is one marked by reconciliation, not revenge. You’ve probably been familiar with the post-apocalyptic genre. It seems a lot of times when anarchy reigns, the main thing that marks any social interaction is taking advantage and revenge. This is not so in the Kingdom. Kingdom interaction involves mutual benefit and reconciliation. The only one who has earned the right for revenge is the one who had never done any wrong at all. Romans 12:19ESV

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

For all of our hatred and murder and insults we deserve death, and truly we are in danger of hellfire. And perhaps this has left you feeling guilty. Put what is most unique in all of this is that only is God just in bringing about wrath for our sins. He is also just in providing the reconciliation we need.Romans 5:6–11ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The fate of hate is judgement, eternal judgment. Judgement brings guilt, but guilt does nothing if we do nothing with guilt. My own anger, own attitude, my words, insults, hateful sarcasm, causes me to realize my need of Christ. And I pray that it does the same for you.