You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus continues to reveal the fullness of the Law by addressing the deeper movements of the human heart. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you…” (Mt. 5:27–28). With these words, Christ does not abolish the commandment but calls us beyond its external observance to its true spiritual intent. What was once understood as a prohibition against physical betrayal, Jesus now identifies as a matter that begins within—the realm of desire, thought, and intention.
To look upon another person with lust is not merely to notice beauty or to experience natural attraction. Rather, it is to reduce that person to an object of self-gratification. Jesus warns that such a gaze already commits adultery in the heart. This was not foreign to Jewish wisdom—Job declared, “I have made a covenant with my eyes” (Job 31:1), and Sirach cautioned against gazing upon beauty in a disordered way (Sir. 9:8). But Christ goes further. He insists that the inner disposition of the soul matters just as much as outward action. In doing so, He calls every disciple to a renewed purity—a wholeness of body and soul that reflects God’s own holiness.
To emphasize the urgency of this call, Jesus uses stark and startling imagery: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out… and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Mt. 5:29–30). These are not literal commands, but vivid hyperboles—exaggerations that were a familiar teaching method in ancient Palestine. They were designed to awaken the conscience, to stir the heart to seriousness. The point is not to mutilate the body, but to illustrate just how radical and decisive our response to sin must be. Anything that leads us into serious sin—even something as close to us as an eye or a hand—must be cast aside. Nothing—no matter how precious or seemingly indispensable—should be allowed to separate us from God.
Jesus underlines the stakes by warning that it is better to lose a part of the body than for the whole to be cast into Gehenna. Originally a valley outside Jerusalem associated with child sacrifice (cf. 2 Kgs 23:10; Jer. 7:30–33), Gehenna became, in Jewish thought, a powerful symbol of final judgment—the place where one is definitively cut off from God’s presence. When Christ speaks of Gehenna, He is not using metaphor lightly. He is pointing to the real and eternal consequence of sin when left unchecked. But His goal is not to frighten us into obedience. Rather, He calls us to choose love freely, to respond with our whole heart, and to live as those who desire God more than anything else.
The teaching then turns to marriage and divorce: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’” Under Mosaic Law (cf. Deut. 24:1), a man could issue a certificate of divorce if he found something objectionable in his wife. This legal formality was meant to prevent abuse, but by Jesus’ time it had been manipulated to justify almost any reason for dismissal. Christ corrects this distortion and reaffirms the sacredness of marriage. He insists that divorce, when not based on unlawfulness, leads to adultery when one remarries.
This clause—“except in the case of unlawful marriage” (Mt. 5:32)—has been widely discussed. The Greek word used is porneia, a term that, in context, likely refers to marriages that were invalid from the start: unions contrary to the moral or ritual law, such as incestuous relationships forbidden in Leviticus 18. These were not true marriages in the eyes of God and could therefore be dissolved. Jesus is not offering a loophole, but defending the sanctity of the marriage covenant as intended from the beginning—“the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).
The early Church took Jesus’ words seriously. The Didache, one of the earliest Christian writings outside of Scripture, reaffirms the Lord’s command against lust and unfaithfulness, and the Church Fathers consistently taught that Christian marriage reflects Christ’s faithful love for His Church (cf. Eph. 5:25–32). They understood that fidelity is not merely a legal matter, but a witness to divine love.
In all of this, Jesus is inviting His followers into a new way of life—a life not ruled by impulse or self-interest, but one shaped by interior transformation. Sin must be taken seriously because it damages the soul and disrupts our communion with God. But obedience must be rooted in love, not fear. Love for God inspires the desire to guard our hearts, discipline our thoughts, and remain faithful in our relationships. The goal is not only to avoid Gehenna, but to enter the joy of God’s Kingdom with a heart that is free, whole, and filled with divine charity.
Lord Jesus, purify my heart and renew my mind. Teach me to love as You love—with reverence, faithfulness, and mercy. Let me never take Your commandments lightly, but embrace them as the path to true freedom and peace. Amen!
Sources
- McSorley, Joseph. An Outline History of the Church by Centuries (From St. Peter to Pius XII). 2nd ed., B. Herder Book Co., 1944.
- Orchard, Bernard, et al. A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. Feb. 1953.
- Chiu, José Enrique Aguilar, et al. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Paulist Press, 2018.
- Faculty of the University of Navarre. The Navarre Bible: New Testament Expanded Edition. Four Courts / Scepter, 2008.
- Faculty of the University of Navarre. The Navarre Bible: The Pentateuch. Four Courts Press, 2017
- Brown, Raymond Edward, et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Prentice Hall, 1990.
- Charpentier, Etienne. How to Read the Old Testament. Translated by John Bowden, 1981.
- Komonchak, Joseph, et al., editors. The New Dictionary of Theology.
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