There are a few difficult passages in the Sermon on the Mount, especially if you are of the persuasion that we have to take everything that Jesus said literally.
Take some time to read Matthew 5 v 27 to 30 just now.
Now answer me this question, “Have you seen many one eyed and one handed people in church recently?”
No, then we are not taking this passage literally!
But of course we are not meant to take it literally I can hear you say, that would be silly.
Of course it would be silly, Jesus is not telling us to mutilate ourselves, He is “raising the bar” of the Law thus showing us that we can never save ourselves.
We could never fulfil the works of the law in our own strength and just in case we did think it possible, Jesus made it even more difficult.
So instead of actually doing things to break the law Jesus was now saying we just need to think them.
He then says that instead of failing we should pluck out our eye and cut off our hand.
This is of course a picture of the requirement for a Saviour due to the fact that we cannot achieve righteousness in our own strength and works.
We do not take these verses literally, we use them as a picture to highlight the awesome truth that we are saved and made righteous through faith in the works of a Saviour, through Jesus.
The good news is that we live under grace and not law and are no longer tied to performance as a means to righteousness, we are in bondage to righteousness by faith.
Speak this out today…..”Thank you Lord that I live under grace and not under law”.
Matthew 5 v 29…..And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell
Heilan Word Ministries 