Matthew 5:21-32 Bible Study Notes for 10/21/2007
Matthew 5:22 (New International Version)But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[a]will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, [b]' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell. Footnotes:
| Matthew 5:22 (King James Version)But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
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The Commentary in the leader guide mentions that the words "without a cause" follow brother in many manuscripts. The Commentator goes on to say that they provide a good interpretation of Jesus meaning, since not all anger is sinful. While I have to agree that there are times when anger is justified, I disagree that adding "without cause" is a good interpretation of Jesus meaning. I don't think Jesus intended to weave a loop hole into his message here. Let me give you two reasons why I think that this is a bad interpretation.
All manuscripts are not created equally. When translators of the Bible seek to create an English translation from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, they have to decide which manuscripts they will translate from. There are thousands of manuscripts containing copies of the original Biblical writings. We do not have any originals, i.e., from the very pen of Moses, or Matthew, or Paul. It is probably good we don't because some would tend to worship the manuscript, the very paper and ink itself, and make an idol of it. So we have to translate from copies. To do that we have to ask ourselves which copies most nearly represent the original, since the copies have minor differences.
1. There are a lot of general rules that help scholars decide which copy of a manuscript is more trustworthy. One is the age of the manuscript. If they can determine how old a manuscript is, then those that are written earlier are assumed to have been through less generations of copying, and thus had less opportunity for changes to have occurred. Most early translations of the Bible are based on manuscripts that were produced several hundred years after the originals. They were the oldest manuscripts that were available at the time of these translations. However, in recent years archaeologists have discovered older manuscripts. The older manuscripts do not have the words, "without cause", and as a result, neither do the newer translations.
2. Two more rules in determining which manuscript to rely on when translating a passage are to choose the shorter passage and the more difficult passage. The reasoning here is that the scribes who made copies of the scriptures were meticulous not to leave anything out, but occasionally one might add "commentary" to help the reader understand. Likely a scribe who knew about the wrath of Jesus when he cleansed the temple might feel a need to harmonize this teaching on anger with Jesus later behavior. Therefore the scribe might add "without cause" to show what he believed Jesus meant. Unfortunately, he might also have added it to justify in his own mind the anger he had toward some person at the time he copied the manuscript.
Adding "without cause" makes the teaching meaningless. All of us feel we have a just reason to be angry, whether we do or not. If we didn't feel that way, we wouldn't be angry to start with. If we want to see this fleshed out in the life of Jesus, we have to look past the cleansing of the temple, to the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus. In all of these abuses he certainly had a right to be angry. They lied about him, they abused him, they insulted him, and they murdered him. Did he have cause to be angry? Certainly. Do we see him responding in anger? Absolutely not. We are told he was silent before his accusers. The words he utters on the cross are a combination of prayers and demonstrations of concern for others. He offered salvation to the penitent thief on the cross beside him, he instructed John and Mary to care for one another in his absence. He prayed for those who carried out his crucifixion, because they were unaware they were slaying the Son of God. He loved and prayed for his enemies, even at his worst moments in life.2. Two more rules in determining which manuscript to rely on when translating a passage are to choose the shorter passage and the more difficult passage. The reasoning here is that the scribes who made copies of the scriptures were meticulous not to leave anything out, but occasionally one might add "commentary" to help the reader understand. Likely a scribe who knew about the wrath of Jesus when he cleansed the temple might feel a need to harmonize this teaching on anger with Jesus later behavior. Therefore the scribe might add "without cause" to show what he believed Jesus meant. Unfortunately, he might also have added it to justify in his own mind the anger he had toward some person at the time he copied the manuscript.
If we believe that Jesus did not leave a loophole here, then how do we deal with the apparent anger of Jesus toward his accusers (Mark 3:5), or his anger in cleansing the temple. What about the command of Ephesians 4:26 that we should "be angry, and sin not"? First of all, I think we have to be careful of using the anger of Jesus as a justification for ourselves to be angry with others. Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus anger was the wrath of a righteous God towards sin. It was righteous indignation. In our own lives we will find that the closer we come to God, the more offended we are by sin, the more angry we are at the oppression and injustice we see in the world. Jesus was not addressing being angry at sin, but being angry at a brother. While the term "brother" in the New Testament normally refers to a fellow believer, this was shared early in Jesus ministry, before there was a concept or question in people's minds about whether they "believed" Jesus was the Messiah. For most he was simply a rabbi teaching the true meaning of the scriptures. More likely "brother" here meant "fellow Israelite" or "fellow man". In a sense he was saying that your anger should not be directed at people, but at sin.
It is a fine line to separate how we feel about sin from how we feel about sinners. But it is exactly what God does and expects of us. His Word tells us the He is holy and righteous and hates sin. The same Word tells us that he loves sinners so much that he gave his only begotten son that they should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus condemned the legalism that said you can't heal a man because it would violate the sabbath. He condemned the profaning of God's temple by making it not only a marketplace, but a "den of thieves." But he loved the very people who committed these acts. He wept over Jerusalem, because he wanted the people he loved to be saved from the sin that he so hated. It is anger toward men that seeks to destroy life. But anger toward sin itself, while loving the sinner, seeks to save life, for the wages of sin is death.
To further illustrate, even though we see Jesus' wrath in cleansing the temple, we do not see him hunt down those who had been conducting business in the temple after they left. His focus was on eradicating the desecration from the temple, not seeking vengeance on those who had been selling there. Our focus should not be on seeking vengeance against those who have harmed us, but on protecting others from harm, and even on seeking reconciliation with those who have offended us.
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