AN AUTOPSY ON MURDER

Matthew 5:21-26

 
Good morning.  If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 5.  This morning we will be reading verses 21-26.  Last week we said that Jesus in this sermon on the Mount is acting as a lawgiver.  And this morning we are going to be getting into some of the specific laws.  Today we are going to deal with the 6th commandment, specifically.  Thou shalt not murder.

But I just want to reinforce the idea of his being the ultimate lawgiver.  In the following section, Jesus is going to use the phrase, “you have heard it said…but I say to you.”  Now right there you should see the authority he is invoking.  When he says, “But I say to you,” he’s setting himself out as the expert on the law.  It is his word that is to take precedence over any other teaching out there.

You might even go so far as to say that he’s pulling out the Son of God card.  In the OT we heard, “Thus says the Lord.”  Now here in Jesus we are hearing “Thus says me (i.e. Jesus).”  I don’t doubt that this might have raised a few eyebrows back at the time. 

But we know that it is perfectly legitimate.  Jesus is God in the flesh and his authority does have the final and ultimate say.

But knowing that this is the Word of God, let us then give our highest attention to it.

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire.

​So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. 
Matthew 5:21-26 ESV

Introduction
You might say that we come this morning to a crime scene.  There’s a very real sense in which we should rope off the area with some yellow caution tape.  That’s because a murder has occurred in our text.  Actually, it is a murder of the text.

Maybe you’ve heard people misuse Scripture and you’ve thought, “That was just so wrong.”  You might even think that they have so misunderstood the text that they murdered it.

Well, that’s basically what had happened to God’s law at the time of Jesus.  So many people had so mangled the meaning of Scripture, that Jesus had to come along and straighten it out. 

And that’s an important thing to understand.  Jesus isn’t giving new laws.  Jesus is simply clarifying what the law had always intended.  He’s basically giving us a divine commentary on what had been laid down in the law of Moses.  Because the text had been so abused (and because the religious leaders at this time had basically killed the text), Jesus lifts up his voice to offer a word of clarity.

But you know what happens when there is a murder.  When a person is pronounced or found dead, they have to call in the Coroner.  And he takes the body and performs an autopsy.  In other words, he does a thorough examination of the deceased person.  And as a result of his inquest, he can determine the cause of death and if any other kind of foul play might have been going on.

But that’s what we want to do today.  I’d like to say that in this passage Jesus performs an autopsy on the 6th commandment.  He takes the topic of murder and really provides us with a thorough examination of what we really are supposed to understand about the subject matter.

And what I want you to understand is that there are 4 basic things about murder that we should take to heart.  He says that when you talk about murder you need to think about its root, route, relief, and result.
 
I. Its root
When you are doing an autopsy, one of the things that you do is open up the cadaver.  They check one’s organs and muscles and the condition of the heart in order to determine the cause of death.
That’s what Jesus does here.  He goes to the root of the sixth commandment.  Or, you might say he opens up our chests to talk about what is in our hearts.  

And he says that the root of murder is the anger that is found in the heart.  Jesus says, “But I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” 

Now, understand that Jesus is talking about unjust anger, or sinful anger.  As a matter of fact, you may have a translation that says, “anyone who is angry without cause.”  There’s a textual variation here.  It’s likely those words were put there to try and help us understand what kind of anger Jesus is talking about.

This is where we need to remember that not all anger is evil in and of itself.  Anger is actually a good thing.  As a matter of fact, anger is an attribute of God.  So when there is some kind of sin or (when we are offended) a righteous response is to become angry.

But what Jesus is talking about is sinful anger.  It is when we express our anger in a sinful way or we are angry for all the wrong reasons.  So, if we become overly angry or are excessively harsh with our anger.  It’s when we are quick to become angry or fly off in a rage.  Those are examples of sinful anger.
This is what murder really is all about.  Murder is just sinful anger in its ultimate form.  And Jesus exposes that. Murder is just sinful anger in full bloom.

And this is where we need to see that it’s not just the outward act.  That was the error people were making in Jesus’ day.  They thought they were doing okay because they were not killing anyone.  And they would be the first to say that anyone who kills, should go to court.  But that’s why Jesus does this autopsy.  He wants to show that it’s ultimately not about the poison that we may use to kills someone else.  It’s really about the poison that already exists within us.  It’s about our sin and the corrupt nature of our hearts.  He wants to show us that every one of us is guilty of violating the 6th command because we all have the root of murder in our hearts.

Which leads us to our second point.  Now that we grasp the root of murder, we should better understand the route of murder.

II. Its route
Look at what Jesus says in the rest of verse 22.  He shows us that murder doesn’t just pop out of nowhere.  There’s a distinct path that it takes.

First, he says murder can be reduced to anger, as we just saw.  But then he goes on in the second half of that verse to talk about a guy who insults someone.  Some of your versions will have the word Raca.  It’s an Aramaic word that means emptyheaded or stupid.  Basically, it’s a playground insult. It’s the kind of insult that any kid might call one of his peers.  He gets mad at Joey and calls him a name.

But you’ll notice that Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to gives another example of an insult.  He says, “Anyone who says, ‘You fool!” will be liable to the fires of hell.”  There are a number of commentators who believe that this insult is much more severe.  To call someone a fool was to call them an unbeliever or an apostate.  It was like saying they were damned.

So, there’s a progression.  First there’s the anger.  It is indulged and comes out as a little insult.  Then, since it’s not crucified, it boils up a little hotter and you react with even more indignation.  Your words are even more bitter and more biting. 

And what do you think happens after that?  What’s in the heart and in the mouth eventually comes to be expressed in the hand.  It becomes homicide.

Now you understand what Jesus is doing.  He’s doing and autopsy.  In an autopsy you might see where the bullet penetrated and follow its course through the lung and see how it ricocheted off of the spine.  Or you can see the entry wound and then see that the exit wound is so much bigger.

Jesus is here tracing the spiritual developments of murder.  It starts in the heart; it starts with anger.  There are angry thoughts.  Then there are angry words.  The hatred grows until it reaches fullest and ugliest form, which is the actual act of killing someone.

I want you kids to recognize this.  Sin is never static.  It is either growing or it is diminishing.  And the only way to keep it from advancing to greater stages is to be actively crucifying it. 

That was the case with Leo Held.  For the most part, Mr. Held seemed the paragon of a responsible, respectable citizen.  He was a church-goer, a school board member, a boy scout leader.  Certainly he bickered occasionally with his neighbors, drover a little too aggressively to work and back, and fretted a bit too much about his job as a lab technician.  But no one would have realized it when one day he drove his wife to work and dropped off his kids at the school and then marched into his workplace with two pistols (a 45 automatic and a Smith and Wesson 38).  He unloaded his weapons upon his coworkers.  It was reported that he defied them by saying, “I’m not taking any more of their bull.”

Now, think about this.  Think about how it transpired.  Did he wake up one morning and say, “I think I’m going to flip out today.”  Of course not.  He had traveled down a long route of anger and bitterness.  He had had problems in the car pool because of his rage on the road.  He was bitter over his coworkers who were promoted to positions over him.  He feuded with his neighbors over burning leaves.  That fretful day had only come after traveling down a long road of anger.

So, young people, I want you to pay close attention to this.  You must understand that anger has a way of evolving.  It doesn’t just stay the same.  Every time you snap at your parents, every time you lash out at your siblings, every time you sneer (be it with your eyes or in your heart), you have to beware.  You may be on that route of sinful anger.  And it needs to be halted right there.  It needs to be crucified.  If sinful anger is not killed, it can potentially become a killer.   

Which then makes you ask, what do you do with your anger?  If we don’t want anger to be expressed sinfully, how should we express it? 

That’s where verses 23-25 come in.  Jesus here talks about the relief of murder
 
III. Its relief  [23-25]
In verses 23-25 Jesus talks about reconciliation.  And you’ll notice that he starts with the word “so” or “therefore.”  He’s still talking about the 6th commandment.  He’s still talking about sinful anger and murder.  But he’s now flipping it around.  The best way to stop sinful anger from progressing and keep yourself from cultivating a murderous spirit is through the process of reconciliation.

Think about it this way, if you call someone a name or punch them in the nose, has that really solved anything?  Can you even say that it has made you feel any better?  You might feel victorious, you might feel a sense of pomp where you can say, “Well, I showed him!”  But you’ve not really taken away the anger have you?  You haven’t really dealt with the problem.  That’s what this is ultimately getting at.   
And so the way you stop that anger and keep yourself from letting it go to the next level is by seeking to reconcile with the people you’ve offended.

Hopefully you see how this fits in with our study in the beatitudes.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall become sons of God.  The peacemaker is the one who is fulfills the 6th command.
But notice how important this reconciliation process is to Jesus. This reconciliation process is actually more important than coming to church. 

Look at what he says in verse 23.   “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Now, we might make that mistake that we mentioned last week.  You remember we talked about laws that are more weighty than others.  We might think, “Well, going to church is more important than making amends with our brother or neighbor.”  But that’s not true.  Jesus doesn’t want your worship if you are in sin. 

As a matter fact, he says it is impossible to worship God aright if you are the cause of broken human relationships. 

Well you might say, “Well he started it!  I never would have popped him if he hadn’t dented my car.”  That doesn’t matter.  Your sinful reaction has only made things worse. 

And Jesus says that if you have caused a breach in a relationship (whether it was the initial breach or by a sinful response where you compounded the sin and made the breach all that much more worse), then you have the responsibility to do something about it.  You need to start the reconciliation process and at least seek forgiveness for what you did.  You might not be able to fix their sin, but you can certainly fix yours.

And in verse 25 he talks about how you shouldn’t fiddle faddle around.  He says, “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison.”

In other words, if you are in sin and you don’t repent of it in a timely fashion, that’s just another violation of the 6th commandment.  The longer you wait, the more grotesque that sin becomes.  So you have to repent in a timely fashion.  There’s an urgency to it.

That’s exactly opposite what we normally say, isn’t it?  We say, “Time is the greatest healer.”  If we ignore it long enough, it will go away.  That’s hogwash.  That’s not how we are to live.  We are to deal with our problems, especially when it comes to anger. 

You have to think of it like your shoes.  If you’re shoe is untied, do you just leave it like that?  You can.  You can ignore it.  But eventually its going to trip you up. It might not be right away, but it will eventually happen.  What’s the best thing you can do?  How can you relieve yourself from the pain of tripping and falling over?  As soon as you realize your shoe is untied, you should get down there and lace it back up.

That’s what relationships should be like.  That’s what the Lord requires in the 6th command.  Don’t let that anger go on any longer.  Get over there and ask forgiveness for what you’ve done.  Relieve the tension by getting that relationship laced up as fast and as best as you can. 

Now, there’s one last thing that we need to mention in this autopsy report.  We’ve looked at a number of things so far.  We’ve seen that murder has a root and a route.  We’ve seen its relief too.  But we need to take note of its result.

IV. Its result
Maybe you noticed, but Jesus isn’t for lack of talking about the consequences of violating the 6th commandment.  In verse 22 he’s talked about the fire of hell, that is Gehenna.  Gehenna was a valley just outside of Jerusalem where they used to practice child sacrifices.  They would offer their children to Molech there by heating up a statue of Molech and placing their babies in its hands so that they would be scalded to death.

This was later turned into the place where the people of Jerusalem would dump all their trash.  It was filled with worms and maggots as all the garbage rotted.  And they lit it on fire to burn away the waste that was thrown there.  This putrid place became a symbol of hell and the curse of God’s wrath.
And in the very last words of our passage Jesus says, “If you don’t reconcile—if you don’t deal with your sinful anger through this process of reconciliation, do you know what will be the result?  You’ll be thrown into prison and you’ll never get out.”

Now, this won’t be the last time Jesus talks about hell.  He actually has a lot to say about the subject.  But this is what you have to understand, this is not something you should simply brush to the side.  Don’t think to yourself, “Naaa, it’s not that big of a deal.”  It is a big deal.

He’s been talking about anger.  And he wants us to understand how serious sinful anger really is.  And it’s such a big deal that the consequence is having to face God’s anger.  It’s like Jesus says, “You think your sinful anger is hot?  You think that how you break out in a rage is bad?  Well, it’s nothing compared to what God’s righteous anger is like.”  That is anger in its most intense and concentrated form.

And so Jesus uses this as a warning.  We are to see the need to repent and be dissuaded from letting sinful anger linger along in our hearts.

And we can remember too that this is where our redemption from sinful anger starts.  It is in the fires of hell.  You remember that Jesus died for sin.  He underwent the wrath and curse of God.  And so upon him was poured the curse which is due to our sinful anger. 

And it is only because he took that curse and provided a life free from sinful anger that we can gain freedom from it.  Christ delivers us from the pain of hell and his Spirit can enable us to begin gaining victory over sinful anger. 

I mean this is our only hope.  Since this does abide in our hearts, there’s no other way we can deal with it. 

And that’s the great thing about this autopsy on murder.  The Corner who performs the autopsy is one who doesn’t just major in death.  He’s all about resurrections.  He’s all about new life.  And Christ gives us the remedy because he can take the dead, murderous heart and change it.  He can make the angry person into a peace maker.

And as we put our faith in him, we can trust that we can see sinful anger crucified more and more.