Matthew 18:8-9 Cut It Off and Throw It Away

“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”  Jesus in Matthew 18:8

“(The) Son is exalted when we cherish him above all things, especially when ‘all things’ are about to be snatched from us, including our life on earth,” (John Piper, Filling up the Afflictions of Christ, p. 82).  

"This man at the back of the knave started tearing at his face and I realized he was gouging out his eyes…I carried on celebrating Mass but a lot of people had left because they were so shocked.” (Father Lorenzo Tanganelli, speaking of a man who took these verses literally near Pisa, Italy; www.nbcnewyork.com October 3, 2011)

As Jesus teaches in Matthew chapter 18 about the seriousness of sin, he turns the focus to the individual in these two verses.   Not only should we not be a stumbling block to others, we should separate ourselves from those things and activities that cause us to sin.    Jesus said, “And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire” (v. 8-9).  

A similar teaching in Matthew’s gospel appears in 5:29-30.   It is important to note that preceding those verses is the teaching that the heart, not the action, is the root of sin (see 5:21-22; 27-28; see also Mark 7:21-22). Additionally, if we did pluck out our eye then “the church would be,” according to Bryant Wright our pastor in Atlanta, “full of one-eyed sinners.”  Nowhere in Scripture does the early church literally model cutting off a hand or tearing out an eye.  It is incorrect to isolate Jesus’ words here and conclude that sin is only skin-deep.

But these verses about cutting off hands and poking out eyes are a part of Holy Scripture.  Therefore we must pursue their meaning since “All Scripture is inspired by God…” (2 Timothy 3:16).  Their meaning is found when one realizes Jesus frequently used hyperbole, employing exaggerations and even impossibilities, in order to stress a teaching point (i.e., “moving mountains” in 17:20 or a camel going through “the eye of a needle” in 19:24). 

Our lives on earth are temporary yet our relationship with Jesus will last forever.  What are the idols in our lives that keep us from living with an eternal perspective or finding our deepest joy in Christ?  Let’s identify them and sever them.  Those idols can take many forms for us today.  They may be materialistic, political or lifestyle pursuits that become a greater passion to us than Christ and His kingdom.  I have heard recently about a pastor who told his congregation to delete their facebook accounts because the rekindling of old romantic relationships via facebook was destroying marriages within his church.    “If facebook causes you to sin…”

What about TV or the internet?  Food or sports?  Money, sex and power?  Do we create boundaries in our lives to protect us from “the sin which so easily entangles us” (Hebrews 12:1, NASB)?   I installed accountability software on our family computers because I know all to well the lure of dark places.   I want our family’s joy and treasure to be in the Lord.  Therefore I want to cut away any stumbling block that may hinder my family or me.

Stephen Arteburn in his excellent book, Every Man’s Battle, says there are three “gates” that we must guard in our pursuit of purity.  We must guard our eye gate (what we see), our mind gate (what we think), and our heart gate (what we adore).  These are valuable tools for me as I am confronted daily by the world’s temptations. 

Even though this passage uses hyperbole, there is one part of this passage that is not a hyperbole:  eternal fire.  The Greek word for hell is gehenna, which in turn comes from the Hebrew for “Valley of Hinnon” a ravine used for garbage that was continually burning, located just outside Jerusalem. Therefore some argue that Jesus is merely referencing a trash dump and not a literally place of eternal judgment.   Yet the theme of the eternal fire of hell is found throughout Scripture. (See Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:43, 48; Matthew 3:12, 25:46; Revelation 20:10, 14-15).

The point of this passage is that sin has severe consequences.  These consequences are so dire that a loving God humbled himself and paid the price for our sin in his body.  Yet those who have rejected God’s provision will justly be thrown into the hell of fire. May we not forsake our Lord’s teaching and may we treasure him above all treasures.  May we cut away any branch that fails to lead us to a deeper knowledge of our greatest joy, our Lord!