Covenant Marriage
“‘If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.’”
Today’s Text: Matthew 5:27-37 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
Should we understand Jesus’s teaching here literally? The knee-jerk reaction of most evangelical Christians would be “No. We should not understand Jesus’s teaching here literally.”
Perhaps that perspective is right, considering God’s grace to sinners who repent. If people understood this text literally, pretty much everyone would be walking around with both eyes gouged out, both hands cut off, and more!
The Apostle John wrote that there is “a sin that leads to death”—that is, only one sin that leads to death. And that sin is “blasphemy against the Spirit” (Matthew 12:31; also, Mark 3:29).
What is “blasphemy against the Spirit?” In the context of Matthew 12:31 and Mark 3:29, it would seem to be calling the good work of God evil, specifically, attributing the work of Christ to the devil.
When we think about that more deeply, the sin that leads to death is to deny that Jesus is the Son of God and to deny that He came to redeem our souls. And that makes perfect sense. Denying Christ leads to death, that is, hell.
Anyway, if we should not understand Jesus’s statement literally, then that means that Jesus was exaggerating. But some people have a very difficult time accepting that Jesus would ever exaggerate, or use humor, or use any kind of figurative language at all. And that is because they have not thought really deeply about everything that Jesus said in the Gospels.
He did exaggerate, He did use humor, He did use figurative language.
Even so, I would suggest that we should understand Jesus’s language here more literally than not (and it is a spectrum, not on or off). Because the point that Jesus is making is not to gouge out our eyes if we look at someone lustfully or cut our hands off if we commit adultery. That is an exaggeration.
In the context the passage, Jesus is saying that if the lustfulness of our hearts causes us to commit adultery, it is better to live with no eyes and no hands than to go to hell. That is absolutely, literally true.
The question He forces us to ask is this: Is committing adultery an unforgivable sin?
No. Even adultery is not an unforgivable sin.
However, if we consider adultery to be a good thing—or even if we do not consider adultery to be evil—that would be to deny the good work of God. Adultery basically rejects what God has ordained as good from the very beginning—that is, the marriage covenant between one man and one woman (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:23-24).
That same exact logic applies to the allowance for divorce. If we consider divorce to be a good thing, then we are denying the good work of God. Divorce basically rejects what God has ordained as good from the very beginning.
The exact same logic applies to the sin of sexual relations outside of marriage. If we consider sexual relations outside of marriage to be a good thing, then we are denying the good work of God.
That is why, most of the time, sexual relations in the Bible assumes marriage, and vice versa. If two people have sexual relations, in God’s eyes, they are effectively married. No ceremony or legal document is necessary. The sexual relationship seals it.
And that exact same logic applies also to homosexuality. Homosexuality fundamentally rejects what God has ordained as good from the very beginning—the marriage covenant between one man and one woman.
It’s always bothered me a bit, though, that Christians tend to focus their wrath on the sin of homosexuality but are way more open minded when if comes to the sin of adultery. And they are completely ho-hum when it comes to sexual relations outside of marriage.
And so here’s the thing: When we reflect on the nature of the marriage covenant in the Scriptures, we realize that the one flesh of husband and wife is the very foundation and basis for God’s singular plan to fill the earth with His glory in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families—the church—that is, His great commission.
Let us not consider to be good—or even OK—those things that defy God’s great plan of salvation for the world in Christ Jesus. In specific cases, though, all our sins are forgivable for those who repent and trust in Christ.
Father, You set Your great plan of salvation for the world into motion from the very beginning, and You have done so through the institution of covenant marriage between men and women. We confess that we have allowed the devil to deceive us so that the holiness of covenant marriage between men and women has been distorted and corrupted. Forgive us. Save us. Guide us and teach us so that we, Your people, may return to what You have established as good. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
