The motives matter just as much as the actions (Matthew 5:27–30)

3 min readMay 5, 2022

“27 “You heard that it was said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone that keeps on looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If, now, that right eye of yours is making you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost to you than for your whole body to be pitched into Ge·henʹna. 30 Also, if your right hand is making you stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost than for your whole body to land in Ge·henʹna” (Matthew 5:27–30).
The spiritual heart is the spiritual inner part of a person, made of reasoning, words and actions (good or bad). Without using the expression of spiritual circumcision, Jesus Christ explained what makes a person pure or impure, because of the state of his spiritual heart: “However, whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and those things defile a man. For example, out of the heart come wicked reasonings, murders, adulteries, sexual immorality, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man; but to take a meal with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Matthew 15:18–20). In this case, Jesus Christ describes a human being in a condition of spiritual uncircumcision, with his “foreskin of the heart”, with his bad reasoning that makes him impure before God and not fit for life (see Proverbs 4:23): “The good man out of his good treasure sends out good things, whereas the wicked man out of his wicked treasure sends out wicked things” (Matthew 12:35). In the first part of Jesus Christ’s statement, he describes a human being who has a spiritually circumcised heart.
Jesus Christ emphasized the intentions or motives that may precede these serious sins. Thus, he showed that to avoid reaching such extremes, it is necessary to act upstream. For example, to avoid anger, hatred and resentment and later, possibly homicide, Jesus Christ showed that personality conflicts must be resolved as soon as possible in order to avoid a deadly degradation of the human relationship. As far as the outcome or end result of a situation is concerned, Jesus Christ showed that it is not only the committed sin that is serious, but the intention, even if it did not happen materialized, as in the case of adultery.

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