The Internal Law About Anger

 

Our Lord states his main principle in the prior verses (Mt. 5:21-22). Then in verses 23-26, he gives two examples in practical life of what he means. In both, he illustrates the inescapably internal nature of the law of God.

 

First let’s understand the principle: Anger and insult toward humans are like murder in God’s sight. They all violate the application of the sixth commandment. Jesus begins v. 21 by citing what was told by people long ago, which the Scribes still quoted during his time. Citing the sixth commandment from Exodus 20:13 he said, “Do not murder.” Murder is a better translation than “Thou shall not kill,” for God does not issue the absolute prohibition against taking human life in every circumstance. Rather God forbids murder or homicide. In the same Mosaic Law, there are exceptions made for self-defense, just war, and capital punishment. So the sixth commandment forbids the wanton taking of another’s life for personal revenge.

 

The Scribes and Pharisees were aware of this and even said if anyone murders “he will be subject to judgment” (21) by a local tribunal. However, these externalists were guilty of seeking to restrict the application of this law to the overt deed of murder alone—only applying it to the literal crime of murdering in cold blood. As long as a person refrained from this kind of murder, the Pharisees permitted them to harbor feelings of hatred, to issue insults, and, while doing these things, to still be within the parameter of the sixth commandment. They made the sixth commandment an external law only and disregarded its internal application. Jesus taught that the true extension of the sixth commandment applied to thoughts and words as well as deeds, to anger and insult as well as murder.

Jesus says to us today, as he did to Pharisees, if you think yourselves far removed from murderers – you who are free from actual bloodshed – have you not hated, insulted, or wished someone dead? A murderer actually carries out this wish. But you have the same kind of anger as a murderer, and this is sinful also in the eyes of the Law-Giver. You can even murder with your words!

 

Jesus did not contradict God’s sixth commandment but the Pharisees’ relaxation or restriction of it. You see, they were actually lessening the demands of the Law, and Jesus the Law-Giver knows that the Law was intended to cover our internal lives also. The Pharisees had also reduced its punishment to “local tribunal,” replacing God’s capital punishment. So Jesus says in verse 22: “But I say not only is the murderer subject to the judgment, but anyone who is angry with his brother is also subject to the judgment.” Jesus, rather than weakening the commandment, strengthened it and enlarged it.

 

There are two Greek words for anger. One word refers to an anger which blazes up quickly like the flame of passion, igniting everything around it. This type of anger does not involve premeditation. It is emotional anger, an outbreak. That’s not the word used here. The Greek word used in these verses for anger refers to a long-lived anger. It is a volitional anger in which a person nurses his wrath to keep it warm. This anger is not allowed to die. Jesus equates this type of anger as needing the same judgment as murder. In our Lord’s eyes, just as in 1 Jn. 3:15, “anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” We may not actually murder, but have we ever nursed thoughts against people which are as foul as murder?

 

Jesus restates the principle again in v. 22 in terms of insult. First. He cites the existing restriction. In his time if one Jew called another Jew raca, then he would be judged by the Sanhedrin – the highest court in Jewish Law.

 

Raca (even the tone of voice growls contemptuously) means knucklehead, idiot, nitwit, or some equal insult to a person’s intelligence or mental capacities. The Jews said that if anyone insulted in this manner, he was guilty. Yet many other insults could be given as long as one did not criticize another’s intelligence. (Think of how many other names we could create that would be the modern equivalents of raca.) But Jesus extends the law’s application far beyond mere insult to intelligence. He further says, “Anyone who says you moron (the Greek term refers to a rebel, one who does not profit from the available knowledge) or you whose whole character is flawed, you will be in danger of the Gehenna, the fire of hell. Jesus said a just punishment is reserved not only for calling a person Raca, but also for calling him “idiot, moron, or stupid.”

 

Behind all this is Jesus’ view of human beings as created in God’s image. Do you remember why murder was prohibited? Back in Genesis 9:6, God says murder is wrong because humans are made in the very image of God. So when we insult others out of anger, we do the same thing. We denigrate something that God has made as the crown of his creation. When we call someone an insulting name or when we’re angry with another, our attitude is that they are not worthy, either of life or the image of God. With our words we condemn others, as well as our own hearts. Those who stand for the dignity and sanctity of human life based on the sixth commandment must also refuse to insult a person made in the image of God.

 

When we’re angry, don’t we wish those persons harm or even death? This is what leads to murder, just as lust leads to adultery. Not only is the end-product of murder wrong, but this whole beginning is wrong also.

 

When we insult, we view the objects of such contempt as being inferior and not real worthy of being called human, created in God’s image.

 

Jesus teaches us that the judgment thought to be reserved only for the actual murderer in reality hangs over the heads also of those who are angry with their brothers and insult them. If our inner lives were X-rayed, we might all appear to be convicted murderers; that is why we need a Savior. Christ says that it is Pharisaical to think that only murder is punishable, but other hatred and insult coming from unbridled passion is acceptable. Jesus teaches that the Law is not focused just on external acts, but applies equally to the internal heart of the matter. 

 

Jesus is here stressing the priority of right relationships within the church and kingdom of God. It is not enough, he says, that you simply avoid fighting, quarreling and actual murder. One is guilty before God if he hates his brother or insults his character. Of course murder may cause irreversible pain and loss, while simple hatred does not appear to have that effect; these sins do have greater or lesser consequences, to be sure. But it is a sin to hate someone internally. What is required for the kingdom of God is reconciliation or right relation. Many churchgoers are guilty here.

 

Jesus’ morality in the first Gospel may sound different from what the world teaches, and it may stand in judgment of our thought life. The law intends to invade like that. We shouldn’t try to escape the force of what Jesus is saying or rationalize it away. That is what the Pharisees did.

 

The spirit of the Pharisee is to look for loopholes.  He looks at God’s law and sees it as something that will make his life less good. If you ask, what’s the minimum I can do and keep God’s pleasure, you might be flirting with Pharisaism. 

 

Test yourself with Anger. The results – according to Jesus’ standard – may be sobering.