Well, this afternoon we are continuing in Matthew chapter 5. We're going through the historic faith commentary series, Matthew Volume 1. And we're right in the middle of chapter 5, which puts us at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount into some very meaty parts. I guess the entire sermon is meaty. But we get into what are sometimes called the hard teachings of Jesus about being angry, not to be angry with our brother.
But I say to you, " Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger of the judgment. " And that's reading from the New King James. And there's been a lot of discussion in kingdom circles and other circles as well. Should that read without a cause? And some Bible translations don't have that phrase in there without a cause. It just says, " Whoever is angry with his brother will be in danger of the judgment. " And it may read that way in some of the other books of the New Testament.
But in Matthew, it says in most Bibles without a cause. And I was curious on this because I have a lot of friends who say that shouldn't be in there without a cause. We're not supposed to be angry at all because anytime you get angry, there's a cause for it. So that excuses all anger. So I was really interested in what the early Christians had to say for this and also looking at the Greek. Now, in the Greek, it doesn't say without a cause.
It just has a single word, eike, which isn't anywhere else translated without a cause. It is used in the Septuagint in the Old Testament. And it also appears six times in the New Testament in addition to here in Matthew. And then these other parts in the New Testament where it uses eike. Again, that's just a single word in Greek. It's E-I-K-E in the Greek using English lettering. It's translated in vain to be angry in vain. And in the Septuagint, it's used in Proverbs 28:25 plus other places.
And that proverb reads this way in the Septuagint. An unbelieving man judges rashly, and the Greek word is eike, and they have rendered it rashly. But he that trust in the Lord will act carefully. So they are understanding eike to mean rashly. And when you read that whole verse, it's contrasted with somebody who acts carefully. So yes, rashly would be the opposite of doing something carefully. If you do it rashly, it means you aren't giving any thought to it.
So I think a better way to translate that Jesus is saying whoever is angry with his brother rashly will be in danger. In other words, without a cause, yeah, maybe that's a poor English rendition because that widens it too much. To say you can't ever be angry is perhaps undoable. And the Bible talks about God being angry. Of course, His anger is righteous, and so often our anger isn't. But even Paul says, " Be angry, but do not let the sun set in your anger.
" So there is a place for righteous anger, for parents to be angry with their children. Now, not all Greek translations have that word or Greek manuscripts, I mean, have that word, eike there in Matthew 5:22, the first part of 22. Some of them, it's omitted. But the majority of Greek texts have that word in there.
So somebody said I heard from someone that they asked me they said that they had heard that King James put that in there because he was angry maybe with his literal brother or something like that with somebody. And so he wanted them to put without a cause in there to justify himself. Well, this didn't have anything to do with King James. It's in Bible translations before he ever was born. So that's total myth, that part of thing. But no, it's in the majority of Greek manuscripts have the word eike in there.
And when we look at the early Christian writings all the way back to the year 160 in the work of Tatian where he did what's called today a harmony of the gospels. It was called his title was the Diatessaron. And when he sums up the four gospels and he has this, he has the word eike in there. And that would date back to about the year 160. Irenaeus, when he quotes it, he has it in there, Commodian, Cyprian, and then Augustine well, Augustine even, who you might expect or may not. I don't usually quote Augustine.
John Chrysostom, who I respect a lot, in his Bible, it read that way. So sometimes it's rendered without it or it's quoted without it. But a lot of the major writers, their Bible text, had it in there. So I think it makes sense to include it. So Jesus is saying that all rash anger needs to be taken away from us. There is a controlled, a righteous anger that shouldn't be something very often that comes up in this, but perhaps at times. But we need to be very, very careful on that.
And then he goes on in that same verse, " But I say to you, well, whoever is angry with his brother, to use the word rashly, will be in danger of the judgment. " And then he continues. " And whoever says to his brother, Raca will be in danger of the council, and whoever says fool will be in danger of hellfire. " Hellfire there is Gehenna in the Greek. Now, the way this was taught to me originally, and I find this in most commentaries today, most sermons that I've heard, that, okay, this is three levels.
And I've taught on this verse, and this is the explanation I've given. As I've mentioned, I learned a lot of things in compiling this commentary where I had to look at verses that maybe I'd skipped over when I first read them or I forgot. There was so many things to learn when I read the early Christian writings that you know I didn't remember or recollect everything I had read. And so, yeah, for years, I've been teaching, okay, Jesus is pointing to three levels kind of going up a pyramid.
The first one is if you're angry with your brother, and he says, " If you do that, you'll be liable danger of the judgment. " Okay, danger of being taken before a judge, that you're angry with your brother. And then the next step is if you call your brother Raca, then you're in danger before the council, which I always explained because commentary said that that meant the Sanhedrin, that they could take you before the High Council.
And then if you said fool, then you're liable to Gehenna, to hellfire, to eternal punishment. So that's the way I'd understood it. And so I was a little surprised. None of the early Christians saw him saying three different things here. They saw this kind of the common Jewish pattern of parallel teaching that all three of these are basically the same one. They're all talking about eternal consequences.
And you know I not only read the early Christians in preparing for this commentary, but I read the early Jewish writings from this period and the early Roman writings. I studied a bit on Roman law. And neither the Jews nor the Romans and I think I could say probably no human society has had a law that if you're angry with your brother, they could take you before the judge.
I mean, courts would have to stay open 24/7 for all of the cases in there that someone didn't do anything to you, but they were just angry if you could take them to court for that. That's absurd. The human laws do not punish internal things if you're jealous, if you're angry, if you are unforgiving. No, there's no punishment in human law. The government has enough on its hands just to control our actions. It can't control our inner thinking.
So no, that's absolutely false that you could be taken before the judge in ancient Israel if you were angry with your brother. And then if you called your brother Raca, and I've heard all kinds of explanations of Raca. Finally, when I was working on this, I found somebody who actually knew what it meant, who heard it spoken, had used the word probably, and that was John Chrysostom.
He grew up in Antioch in Syria, where most people speak Syriac, which is a form of Aramaic, the same language that most of the Jews in Jesus ' Day would have spoken. And he gave actually an explanation of this. He said, " This word raca is not an expression of great disrespect. Rather, it is one of minor contempt or a minor affront on the part of the speaker. " When we Greek speakers give orders to our servants or to any subordinate person, we might say, " Away with you, " or, " You, go tell a certain person.
" But those who speak the Syriac language say Raca, using Raca instead of you. So yeah, Raca was like saying, " Hey, you. Could you get me something? " you know It's not the most polite thing you could say. But imagine going before the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish council, and saying, " My brother, " he said, " Hey, you, " you know and is like, " Come on. " I mean, you know the high Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, they couldn't fool with things like that. They had more important things on their hands.
So no, you couldn't take someone to court for saying that, and certainly, you couldn't for saying fool. And I've heard it explain that you know fool is the worst thing you can call someone you know because Jesus says you're in danger of hellfire. Well, he was saying that of all three of these things. The early Christians understood him to be saying, " You're in danger of the judgment, the eternal judgment. You're in danger of the council, " meaning Jesus and his angels that he talked about in Matthew 25.
And you're in danger of hellfire. It's all the same thing. If you're angry with your brother without a cause or rashly angry, if you say something even mildly contemptible to your brother, if you scorn him, you know hey, you, you know, or you fool or that sort of thing. It's not that word fool. He was picking something very mild. In other words, if it's wrong to say fool, it's even more wrong to say idiot, to say all kinds of vile things about him. He's saying, " Don't even say the mildest term.
" So he wants us to always speak very respectful to our brothers and sisters, to all human beings. That was the point of this teaching, that we don't get to call people all the kinds of names that are common out there in the world. That in the Christian church, in the kingdom of God, whether we are talking to some fellow citizen of the kingdom or we're talking to someone out in the world, we should always talk with respect and not contempt. So it's a very high teaching indeed. Okay. Now, of course, we fail.
I mean, Jesus ' teachings, they are difficult to live on a daily basis without ever stumbling, without violating them. And so that's why the next part of the sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, " Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. " He starts it off with therefore.
So he's just been giving the teachings about being angry, about using words of putting down your brother or sister. And now he says, " If your brother has something against you. " So this could be anything, but it could be, " Hey, you were angry with your brother on some occasion. You called your brother a fool or something a whole lot worse than that on some occasion, and he may be angry with you for doing that. Maybe he should get over his anger. " But Jesus puts a responsibility upon each of us.
Not only should we make peace with our brother and if our brother offends us, go and talk to him about it. But if we know somebody is upset with us, that we have wronged them or they imagine that we've wronged them, and we think we're innocent. We still have the responsibility to go and make peace with our brother. He didn't imagine that in the kingdom of God, there never would be conflicts and clashes. There never would be hurt feelings. He knew that all of those things would be there.
But he has a lot of teaching about the importance of being peacemakers, of making peace with our brother and sister. And the onus is always on us. If someone has offended us, we need to go and talk to them and bring out the fault and make peace with them. I mean, first of all, if we can just forgive, that's what we need to do. Forgive them. But if we find we're having trouble forgiving or if it's something that shouldn't just be forgiven, that is important, a serious wrongdoing, then we go and talk to them.
At the same time, if we're happy with everyone else, but we know someone's not happy with us, then we have that same responsibility to go and talk to them, to make peace with them. And we don't get to imagine that we have committed no wrong because all of us are at fault in some respect. If there's a conflict between two people, 99.9% of the time, there is fault on both sides, maybe not equal fault.
But we should always be able to say, " Yes, I'm sorry for what I've done, " even if maybe inside we think the other person was more liable than we were. It makes me think of something really, really foolish I did when I was about 20 years old. My best friend, he and I had some kind of clash. I don't even know what it was about. I don't even have the slightest recollection of what the TIFF was about. But we were both mad at each other. Didn't talk to each other for a few days.
And finally, the other brother came to me and he said, " David, you know we need to get this thing settled. " And I just want to say I'm really sorry for my part in this. I apologize for you know whatever it was that he had done, and I asked for your forgiveness. And so you know I told him, " Yes, I accept your apology, and you are forgiven. " And I stopped right there. Well, he looked at me for a while and he said, " Well, I think you owe me an apology as well. " And this is the foolish part.
And I said, " I don't think I owe you an apology. I don't see where there was any wrongdoing on my part. " He said, " Well, of course there was. I've apologized to you. " I said, " Yeah, because you were in the wrong. And I accepted your apology. " But I said, " I don't have anything to apologize for. " And then he said, " Well, then I take back my apology. " I said, " Well, you can't do that. You've already given it. That's okay. I'm going to take it back.
" you know And so then we argued about whether he could take it back or not. And the thing is, I still remember this. Probably he's forgotten it, but I remember it 50 years later with Shame. I was like, " I can't believe I was such an idiot that I did something like that when I was 20, that I wasn't willing to say, " Would you forgive me for whatever my role in this was? " And I was so full of pride that I thought, " No, there was no wrongdoing on my part. " Like I said, I'm sure he's forgotten about it.
And I'm glad I remember it because it's a reminder to me of just how silly we Christians can be when we refuse to make peace with our brother and refuse, even if we can't see very much of wrong on our part, that we're not willing to say, " I'm very sorry for where I've wronged you. " Because I'd say nearly always, there is going to be something we did wrong if there's a conflict between us and somebody else. So Jesus wants us to have peace.
Now, the next verse, again, the early Christians saw the next one relating to what we just talked about about somebody having something against us. Jesus said, " Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest at any time your adversary delivers you to the judge, and the judge delivers you to the officer, and you are cast into prison. Truly I say to you, you will by no means come out from there until you have paid the last penny.
" Now, I think I found one or two early Christian writers who understood this in a fairly literal sense, talking about someone was taking you or you were going with them with some kind of dispute. You were going before an earthly judge. But most of them understood this to be talking about our heavenly judge, who it will be Jesus Christ, and that our adversary could well be somebody who has something against us. He just said, " Make peace with your brother.
If your brother has something against you, lay your gift before the altar. " And they understood that to mean before you have communion or even before you pray, or at least do it quickly before you pray very much. I mean, maybe you should pray you know beforehand, but there is a heavenly altar that we appear before our Father, and he's not going to listen to our prayer if someone has something against us to make peace. And so that was one understanding of this.
And Chrysostom says this, " What does he mean by agree with our adversary? He may mean to consent with our adversary and thereby be willing to suffer wrong. " Or he may mean to plead our case as though we stood in the shoes of our adversary. So in other words, try to look at things from the side of our adversary or opponent or other brother or sister. That if they have something against us or there's a conflict between us and somebody else, try to look at things from their point of view.
And maybe be willing to even argue, " Hey, you know okay, I think you're right on that. " Not saying it insincerely, but actually trying to look at it and viewing it from their side and being able to honestly repent and ask forgiveness. Now, he says to do it while you are still on the way.
And again, most of them understood this, like I say, in a sense of eschatology that we're talking about the judgment day, that on the way means right now before we die, while we're still here on the earth, it's going to be too late on judgment day, " Oh, my brother had something against me. Excuse me, Christ. I need to go make peace with my brother. " Too late when it comes to judgment day. Do it now while we're still on the way, while we are still in this life.
If anybody has something against us, a brother or sister in Christ, a neighbor, a workmate, whomever it may be, make peace with them, get things settled while we're still on the way. Otherwise, being cast into prison until we've paid the last penny, they understood in the same sense of being cast into outer darkness, being cast into the second death, the lake of fire. In other words, receiving eternal punishment.
And so to make peace right now, or we may be facing that, Jesus took all of these things seriously, things that we think are minor things. Being angry rashly, calling someone something minor like stupid or fool, not reconciling some minor dispute with our brother. Jesus is saying, " Hey, I look at these seriously. The world may not. But to me, in the kingdom of God, these are major offenses.
" And so they felt like, " Yeah, you're going to be cast in the outer darkness, and you're not going to get out until you pay the last penny. " In other words, until you atoned for all of your sins. Well, you can't do that. There's no way we can pay back the debt we owe God. So that's eternal. You're cast into prison forever because you're never going to be able to pay your way out. You can pay it while you're still here on the earth by making peace with your brother. So that was totally new to me.
And perhaps it is to many of you listening to this. All right. Moving through the last half of Matthew 5, every single part of it is meaty, looking at a woman to lust after her. That's maybe the one verse that is still applied very literally today. And I'm glad it is taught, I think, in most churches quite seriously on looking at a woman, looking at pornography, that sort of thing. So I'm not going to dwell on that, but yeah, Jesus is saying this is really serious. Like I said, thankfully, that's taught seriously.
Unfortunately, what follows it generally isn't taught very seriously, and that's what he says about divorce and remarriage. He said, " It has been said whoever puts away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce. " He just says it has been said. Well, it's right there in the law, in the Mosaic Law. But I say to you, whoever puts away his wife except for the cause of sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.
So this is one of those teachings where he is fulfilling the law of Moses in the sense of filling it out, making it more complete. The law of Moses allowed something that was given to the Israelites only by permission. It was not God's eternal will for mankind. In the beginning, there was no such thing as divorce. It came in later on. We don't know exactly when. He allowed it for the first time in the Mosaic Law. But from the beginning, it was to be permanent a man and wife getting married.
And so Jesus brings us back to that original provision given to Adam and Eve. And he then reduced the Mosaic Law. It just says if he finds something wrong in her, which some rabbis admirably interpreted to mean sexual immorality, but others interpreted very liberally. Well, yeah, if she burns dinner, whatever. No fault divorce, basically. And Jesus said, " No, only for Pornea, " which means sexual immorality. It can mean adultery. It's a very broad word. It can apply to premarital sex.
It can apply to adultery after marriage. I know some very well-meaning Christians who are upholding Jesus ' teaching, they say, " Well, he only meant for immorality during the engagement period, that if a man found that his bride-to-be was guilty of immorality, fornication during that period, then he could divorce her under Jewish law where he had to divorce her, " or that's at least the term that is used, but that he can't divorce her once they're married. And like I said, their heart is in the right place.
They're wanting to uphold what Jesus said, but none of the early Christians understood Pornea in that sense. They understood it in the sense of sexual immorality, including adultery after marriage. But it's a very narrow exception. In the Mosaic Law, only a husband could divorce his wife. A wife could not divorce her husband. She could leave him. She could go back to her family, but she couldn't divorce him. Jesus didn't expand that. He reduced it.
He kept it just a husband divorcing his wife, but he reduced it down then to if she commits adultery. And the early Christians understood Pornea is not just a single act of adultery, but she's living immorally. She's basically sleeping with other men continuously that then he had a responsibility to put her away. Otherwise, he becomes guilty of her sin if he's allowing this as head of the household. He had the responsibility. But Jesus didn't say anything about being able to remarry.
And the early Christians did not understand remarriage to be included in this. So he had to punish himself getting rid of his wife but then not being able to remarry to hold out forgiveness to her for her to come back to him and for him not to get remarried during that time. Now, it is so strange that today this is taught and you will find this in almost any commentary from the 19th century forward through today that somehow Jesus was expanding the teaching on divorce.
I mean, the early Christians would have just been shocked. You mean you thought he was expanding it? They all say that, " Oh, Jesus were under the law of Moses, only a husband could divorce his wife. " Well, under Jesus ' law, a wife can divorce her husband as well. In other words, he expanded it. He did no such thing. He says nothing in any of his teachings about a wife divorcing her husband other than well, and Mark and Luke does, other than to say it's wrong.
Because under Roman law, under Jewish law, a wife could not divorce her husband, as we've said, under the law of Moses and there in the land of Judea. But if a Jew lived in Rome and wanted to not live by the law of Moses, under Roman law, a wife could divorce her husband. So Jesus does bring that up, and he makes it very, very clear. Let me see if I can find the quote there from Mark. Yes, Mark 10. He says, " Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, period.
" I mean, Mark doesn't even mention the exception. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. So he's saying, " Yeah, even under Roman law, even though you can divorce your husband, if you do that and remarry, you commit adultery in doing it. " And Jesus, not only did he limit a husband divorcing his wife to just Pornea, he also said that if the wife remarries, who has been divorced, she commits adultery, and whoever marries her commits adultery.
So he's really narrowed this thing down. And you know the church followed that. After Constantine, even when the church became lax in so many areas, they upheld Jesus ' teaching on divorce. It wasn't until the Reformation that then you start seeing different groups and sects and churches saying not the Roman Catholic Church, but other ones saying, " Oh, yeah, it is okay to divorce under certain circumstances and to divorce and remarry. " And so you have that happening.
And then today, like I say, it almost has the same amount of divorce and remarriage in the church as it does in the world. Okay. Moving on. And that's, like I say, one of the teachings that's being ignored today. His teaching on swearing is likewise ignored. I've given messages on that, also on divorce.
Non-resistance from verse 38 on is all talking about non-resistance and all the different forms of it, of not returning eye for eye, tooth for tooth turning the other cheek, loving your enemy, giving to him who asks, etc. And again, teachings that have been totally ignored ever since the time of Augustine. He said he didn't mean that literally. And that's how both Catholics and Protestants have taught.
Since then, only a few groups like the Waldensians and Anabaptists and some others have taught no, he meant just what he said. And of course, that's what the early Christians taught. There is one I wanted to comment on that I was taught a myth when I was young and I still hear it today. And that's where he said, as part of his teaching on non-resistance, " And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.
" So like I said, you not only turn the other cheek, give to him, you ask, but if someone is going to grab you and say, " Okay, you know mow my yard for me or you know do whatever. Carry my load. " He said, " Go ahead and do it. " In fact, if he says, " Carry it one mile, " go ahead and do it too. I'll read to you what John Chrysostom says on this. He says, " What was true concerning blows about turning the other cheek and concerning our goods, give to him who asks, is likewise true here.
He has directed us to act in the same manner. He essentially is saying, " Why do I speak of blows and property? Even if your enemy wants to make use of your very arms and legs for toil and exhausting work, and this unjustly, again, conquer him by exceeding his unjust desire. For the word compel means this, to drag you unjustly without any reason and for the purpose of despite. So he's saying, " Yeah, even this person doesn't have the right to do this. He's just being a bully.
Go ahead and not only do what the person says, but to do even twice as much. " And that's really, really taking non-resistance to the nth degree. But this is a commandment of Jesus, not just a recommendation or a suggestion that this is something that we should do. Fortunately, today, it probably wouldn't happen as much in the literal world as it did back then. But still, no, we get called on to do things that, " Hey, that person doesn't have the right to demand that. It might be our brother or sister.
Maybe they're not going to physically demand it, but they're going to maybe expect it of us, and we don't think they have any right. " Well, Jesus says, " Do what they ask. In fact, do even more. " Now, the myth I said that I had been taught was that in the days of Jesus, a Roman soldier had the right to compel any Jew to carry his load a mile. And so Jesus was saying, " No, go two miles when he does that. " And I've taught that many times.
Well, that would have been an application if it were true, but none of the early Christians know anything about that. None of the Jewish writers talk about Roman soldiers having that right. And certainly under Roman law, there's nothing in Roman law that says a soldier had the right to grab someone and tell them to do that. Now, I have no doubt that Roman armies, when they were coming into an area, yes, they would demand things. They would demand horses, food.
I don't doubt that they would ask someone to carry something for them and all that. So yes, that would happen, but it wasn't that there was some law that gave a Roman soldier that right. So that's just you know one of those myths that pops up in a commentary. And pretty soon, people think it's true, and they preach on that like I did at one time in my life. So he's talking about any situation where that might come up.
And then, of course, he ends on the teaching about loving our enemy that would make war something that a Christian couldn't possibly partake of. And Christians followed that up until the time of Constantine. They even followed it for a few decades after Constantine made Christianity a legal religion.
But then as he started favoring Christians and became somewhat of a Christian himself, Christians thought, " Well, maybe it's okay to join the army and fight against the pagans, not against another Christian, but against the pagans. " And then that got expanded to fighting against heretics. And before long, Christians were killing fellow Christians.
But even his latest Chrysostom, who is in the fourth century, who was after the time of Constantine, even as you can see, he was still teaching this as a commandment that Christians should follow. But Augustine then came up with this rationalization that, " No, Jesus is only talking about the inward thing, to love your enemy as you're thrusting a sword into him, that you shouldn't have these hateful thoughts towards him. You should love him as your brother.
" But you're having the war because he or his country, they've done something wrong, and they deserve punishment. So you know as God's executioner, you deliver that, but you should have the right attitude. And of course, that's total nonsense that you know of course, you're going to develop hatred, and you're going to do it out of furiousness. And everybody in any war, each side thinks right and justice is on our side. Both sides of the Civil War and the United States thought that.
Both sides of World War II, World War I, I mean, any war you can think of. No one thinks, " Oh, we're wicked, and we're doing this because we're wicked people. " They always think they're in the right. So basically, Augustine just wiped away so many of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. He did that with regard to swearing oaths. Chrysostom says, " Even if someone demands it, you don't do it. It's wrong to swear an oath.
" Augustine said, " Well, it's better not to, but if someone demands you to do it, well, then, okay, well, then the evil is on him and do whatever he says. " And so like I said, he gutted the sermon on the Mount. And ever since the time of Augustine, both Catholics and Protestants have ignored most of the teachings, I should say, all of the teachings anytime that they are inconvenient, then they get ignored or explained away.
But the historic faith is that Jesus meant exactly what he said that these are the eternal laws for heaven and earth, however they might be applied in heaven. I mean, angels still have to deal with other angels. They have the capacity to sin. So Jesus doesn't want unforgiveness or anger, you know that sort of thing anywhere, heaven or earth. And so these aren't just special laws that nobody can possibly live by, but laws we're expected to live by.
Even though we're not going to live by them perfectly, it's why in the Sermon on the Mount, he gave us the Lord's prayer, where we pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors or forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us because he knew we would have sins every day. Every day, we would need to ask forgiveness. So it's not a matter about sinless perfection.
It's a matter of being obedient citizens of a new kingdom and being thankful that we have such a merciful Lord that even if we come back day after day being guilty of some of the same sins, that we have a Lord that forgives us if He knows that we have a repentant heart and we truly are trying to overcome these weaknesses in our life.