Today, Jesus is talking more about the heart. Just as anger and bitterness come from the same place in the heart as murder, Jesus tells us that lust comes from the same place in the heart as adultery.
There is a dangerous sexual attitude floating around the culture and even in the church culture today that says it is ok to look as long as we don't touch. But Jesus says this attitude is spiritually deadly. The person who indulges immoral sexual fantasies in his heart but never acts them out physically is not morally superior to the one who acts them out. Morally they are exactly the same because the real issue is what's going on in the heart.
Jesus nails this thought down with an astounding (almost outrageous) assertion that is almost always misunderstood. He says that if the eye causes us to sin, we should pluck it out -and if the hand causes us to sin, we should cut it off. I have heard legalistic preachers and teachers suggest that Jesus is literally advocating that if we struggle with sin, we should maim ourselves. (Although we rarely see blind preachers with no arms) And I've heard critics of Christianity use this to demonstrate what a brutal, horrific religion Christianity actually is. Christianity is not brutal nor horrific, and Jesus is not advocating that we maim ourselves.
What Jesus is very graphically wanting us to grasp is that even if we horribly maimed ourselves, we would still have these sin problems because sin does not originate with our eyes or our hands. A person could pluck out both eyes and cut off both hands and lop off a foot for good measure and still lust. Eyes and hands and feet don't cause lust. Eyes and hands and feet don't cause murder. Sin is a heart problem.
We don't need radical eye surgery or radical limb surgery -we need radical heart surgery.
Jesus, our Great Physician, is the only one qualified and able to perform the spiritual surgery that is needed. The solution to our deadly heart condition is to unconditionally and unreservedly surrender our hearts to Jesus. There is no other treatment available.
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