Jesus Definition of Murder (Part 1)
Matthew 5: 21-26
A few years ago, on a Monday night in August 1999 in a quiet country area of Norfolk in the South East of England, two burglars broke into a farm to try and steal whatever they could find of value. The owner of the farm, a man called “Tony Martin”, got very upset because he had already been broken into that year several time and because of that stormed downstairs with a loaded illegally obtained shotgun for which he did not have a licence, and by the way he had also sawn it down which was also illegal. What happened next is not of dispute he shot the burglars. One burglar, a teenager, was killed on the spot, and another older one was injured. According to him the gun accidentally went off the burglars said he deliberately shot at them several times as they tried to escape. Both were hit and as I said one died. He was initially charged with murder, but it was subsequently reduced to manslaughter. The country was divided between those who thought Martin was a murderer and those who thought he was just defending his home. Our judicial system recognizes a distinction between manslaughter and murder, so the question is when is killing somebody actually murder or when is murder, murder. Lawyers would answer that question one clearly defined way. However, Jesus would answer it another, in a completely different way as a matter of fact.
I want us to look at a type of murder which does not actually kill anyone. A concept that Jesus is talking about in this passage. Now you’re probably sitting there thinking I have never killed anybody, and I don’t ever intend to. Maybe you don’t even know anybody that’s killed anybody why should you be interested in this. Well, you should be interested because of the way Jesus handles the subject here, because it applies to all of us. So, when turn to Matthew chapter 5, well, I assure you this is as pertinent to situations we all face all the time. As you will recall we’ve been looking at the Sermon on the Mount and I have suggested that the text for the sermon on the mount is chapter 5 verse 20 where Jesus says;
“Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven”.
Jesus has been talking about two kinds of righteousness an external kind of righteousness which solely deals with actions and an internal kind of righteousness that focuses on attitude.
What he does at this point in his message is he gives six examples of this difference between external and internal righteousness. He deals with the subject of murder which is the one we’re going to look at today. He will also then deal with other action and emotions like sexual immorality and divorce. In each of these cases he’s talking about the difference between the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees and make comparisons on how a righteousness based on external actions equates to a righteousness that consists of an internal attitude. So, with that in mind let’s look at his first example which has to do with murder, and he says in verse 21
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.
(Matthew 5: 21)
The first thing he does is introduced to us the commandment that we are dealing with. What is the commandment well that’s simple, do not commit murder. The real problem is who does he say is quoting this commandment and what they mean by it. There are two possibilities one is that he’s talking about the 10 commandments as written down by Moses. The second possibility is that he’s not talking about the Mosaic law at all, he’s talking about the traditions that were built up around the mosaic law. I am of the opinion as are most who study this passage that he’s not talking about what Moses wrote in the original commandment, he’s talking about, but the Pharisees added later. This is obvious because firstly he says in verse 20 I’m talking about the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees and you gotta have greater righteousness than that. But the real clincher is this he says in verse 21 “you have heard it said. This clearly a reference to the oral tradition that built up around the Mosaic law. If Jesus was talking about the Mosaic commandment itself he would have said it is written.
So, he is not talking about the commandment in isolation he's talking about what the interpretation the Pharisees made of it in his day and what they taught. Now here’s the problem with what the Pharisees said about the commandment, thou shalt not murder, they said it only applied when someone took out a knife and trust in somebody’s chest or some such other act of violence that lead to another person’s death. Which then became if you didn’t do that sort of thing you were right before God. In other words, their interpretation of the Mosaic law was that if you hadn’t committed the literal physical act of murder everything was OK. In their teaching physical act exhausted the interpretation of what Moses had to say, not just for this commandment, but for all of them.
I find it interesting that is always the commandment that people always land on if they want to tell you that they have lived a good life. I don’t know how many people I have heard say over the years, well I’ve never killed anybody. I don’t know why they always land on that one, why don’t they land on well I never stole anything, or I never lied or I never coveted anything, it’s always but I never killed or hurt anybody so I must be OK with God, completely ignoring the wider picture. This is what Jesus is dealing here, the idea that the commandment, every commandment is exhausted when you say I never physically done the thing the commandment mentioned.
What happens next is after mentioning the original commandment Jesus offers a clarification. Look at verse 21 again “you have heard that it said you shall not murder whoever murders shall be in danger of judgment”. Now he gives an added clarification.
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister without cause will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
(Matthew 5: 22)
The clarification is simply this, Jesus is saying the Pharisees are teaching an external type of righteousness and that all that matters are your actions. But Jesus comes along and say, no, what is important is your internal mindset, because it is the mindset that will give birth to the external actions. In verse 20 he said, “you have heard it said”, referring to the oral teaching of the Rabbi’s and religious teachers and in his clarification, he says, but now, “I say to you” and that’s significant. It’s significant for the simple reason that in Jesus’ day the religious leaders of his day who taught the Law of Moses would never have said anything like, “I say to you”. They would have said something like, well this person has this interpretation and I have another interpretation that disagrees with that. Bible experts say the language Jesus uses here says that he is assuming authority the likes of which the people in Israel had never heard before. He spoke as one who had the right and the authority of God to say what he said. He did not try to explain his position he didn't have to explain how important what he said was, because he spoke as one who had implicit authority.
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount which is in chapter seven we are told that the people heard what Jesus enthusiastically because he didn’t speak like the others, he spoke with authority, and this use of language here is part of it. Jesus comes and says, I say to you, and what follows is his clarification of this whole issue of murder. And clearly, he’s saying here that anger qualifies as a breaking of this commandment. But he says more than that because he says in verse 22 if anyone who says to his brother, raca, shall be in danger of answering to the court and whoever says you fool is in danger of hell.
So, his clarification is in three parts. There are three ways that he clarifies the original commandment of, thou shalt not murder” and I want us to look at all three of these of the next couple of episodes.
The first is an attempt to highlight unreasonable anger. He said whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of judgment. By the way let’s remember he said if you murder, you are already in danger of judgment if you’re angry without a cause you’re in danger of judgement because he’s equating anger with murder. That doesn’t mean that all anger is wrong, as a matter of fact Jesus himself got angry in Mark chapter three where we are told in he looked around at them with anger and was grieved by the hardness of their hearts. When Jesus sees people behaving with a hard heart he got angry. In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul commands us
In your anger do not sin: do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
(Ephesians 4: 26-27)
So, it sems it’s OK to be angry sometimes, but certain types put our eternal souls in danger. Paul here warns us of the danger of letting normal anger fester into something more toxic like resentfulness. So, the kind of anger that Jesus is warning about here is what I’m calling unreasonable anger. Sometimes you are angry and sometimes you ought to be, there is an anger that comes from feeling a righteous indignation at the hard heartedness of others. You ought to have that at times and that’s legitimate.
The keyword here is Jesus is saying if you’re angry with your brother without cause. Then this is unreasonable anger, you have no grounds for being angry and that case you ought not be angry. Let me pursue this a bit further there are two different Greek words in the New Testament that are translated anger or wrath. One translated properly means hot tempered, it’s an outburst of anger. Somebody once describes this type of anger as being like dried straw on fire it quickly flares up and just as quickly dies down. You may know some people who can just blow up like that, people say those type of people have a short fuse, they blow up but then 20 minutes later they are sorry they got angry. Well, that’s one word that’s used in the New Testament when describing anger.
There is another type of anger and that is a deep-seated feeling of hostility, it is a long-lived anger. It is the anger a person nurses it and does not let die down, perhaps the word that best describes that type of anger is bitterness or resentment. Well, that’s the word and the type of anger that Jesus is using here. When you get bitter you feel as an attitude of hostility and growing resentment toward this other person without a cause then Jesus says you are in danger of judgment.
One other little comment here the little phrase without a cause means with no reason or with no purpose is also used to mean inconsiderately or carelessly. Hence, I call this unreasonable anger because there’s no good reason at that moment why you should be angry in that particular situation. You have just carelessly allowed anger to be you default response. There are two kinds of people in the world, and I believe we are all drawn towards one of these two personalities in a greater or lesser degree. Some blow up and some clam up and both are wrong, but it important to recognise that anger is not just the obvious explosion of anger I’m talking about something that may be very deeply grained inside.
The truth of the matter is we all get angry, sometimes without a cause and this says if your anger is without a cause and just a deep-seated resentment that you escape the judgement of this commandment. It’s interesting Jesus uses the idea of a sibling, a brother, in this case as an example here. I believe that is because the Lord knows we are most likely to struggle with this this type of anger with those we are closest to. We often hold grudges and are ruled by our passion not our reason when it comes to those who are closest to us. And that again is why I’m calling this unreasonable anger the anger takes over and then effects your emotions, leading to this type of resentful anger.
Plato likened the human condition to like being a chariot driver whose task it was to drive horses one of which is wild and rebellious and the other gentle and obedient, To reins the wild one in and give free rein to the other. Plato called the one that was gentle reason, and he called the other horse that was wild and rebellious and out of control passion.
That’s what happens when this anger takes over, it is the passion emotion twisted out of shape to the point where reason doesn’t maintain control anymore. Often when anger enters the scene nothing could be done right or rationally, it can even lead to a sort of temporary insanity.
I came to the conclusion that Jesus is warning us that if you allow this type of anger to fester you become unable to think straight. Which warns me that none of us have the luxury of letting these three emotions linger.
People who are angry don’t think straight, that can lead them to developing a resentment born out of fear. It very hard to maintain balanced decision making when you are feeling afraid. Don’t ever make any major decision while you are fearful, sleep on it, as Ephesians suggested, and if it’s really bad sleep on it a week and if it’s really, really bad sleep on it a month. Then talk to somebody who is objective and reasonable. Jesus says that if you do this you are in danger of judgment. As you can imagine there’s two ways to interpret that some say that this is not human judgment because human courts don’t judge anger and others point out that the idea here is that you’re liable to some kind of legal charge then you are no doubt guilty of this type of anger. This is why it uses the example of the local court that was made-up of the village elders. We even know from historical writing outside the scripture texts that at that time if a village had less than 150 people in it they had three elders who made decisions when there was conflict between people. If it had more than 150 people, they had anywhere from 7 to 23 elders depending on the size of the population who sat in a local council and made decisions on disputes between people.
They fact that the use of the term “Raca” which is an expression of contempt might suggest you could end up before the local council for expressing this type of anger, accused of something similar to what we would today call libel. Be that as it may Jesus says if you do this, you’re in danger of judgment. I personally suspect that he’s talking about the judgment of God and the stuff about the local council is only to give the people he is speaking to a context to exactly what he means. I base my opinion on the other judgments that he mentioned in this passage
The big point here is Jesus is saying that God judges’ anger. Jesus is teaching that there is a type of murder that does not involve killing and all you have to do is be angry because Jesus equated anger with murder and one form of that is unreasonable anger. There’s a second and third form of anger mentioned her, and we will look at those in the next episode.