What Does Matthew 5:28-31 Mean? Are We to Cut Off Our Offending Body Members?
1) Direct answer
Matthew 5:28–31 lifts the commandment to the heart level. Jesus says lust itself is adultery in the heart, and He tells us to deal ruthlessly with whatever causes us to stumble. He is not commanding literal mutilation, but a radical cutting off of the things and paths that feed sin. And in verse 31 He corrects the loose practice of divorce: marriage is holy; to put away a spouse without the one scriptural cause leads to adultery.
2) Scriptural explanation
- “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (v.28). The Bible also says, “Out of the heart proceed… adulteries” (Matthew 15:19). So the root is inside.
- “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out… If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off” (vv.29–30). This is strong language showing the costliness of true repentance. Elsewhere the same warning is repeated (Mark 9:43–47).
- “It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement” (v.31). In the very next verse Jesus tightens this to God’s standard: “Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery…” (v.32). He points back to God’s original intention—one flesh, not to be broken at will.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- Now notice: it isn’t the ball of the eye that sins; it’s the desire in the heart directing the eye. Pluck out one eye, can the other still lust? Cut off a hand, does that remove the thought that drives the hand? You see, the body is the instrument; the heart is the master. So Jesus calls us to “cut off” the causes and the channels—habits, places, screens, relationships, clothing, conversations, any path that feeds the fire. It’s better to lose a thing than to lose your soul.
- The true cure is an inside work: repent, believe the Gospel, and let God cleanse the heart. “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Make a covenant with your eyes like Job did (Job 31:1), and walk in the Spirit so the flesh doesn’t rule you.
4) Reinforcing statement
Jesus magnified the law to the inward man. Not three steps of self-mutilation, but one decisive surrender: cut off the stumbling blocks, and let God change the heart. Guard the marriage covenant as God does, and treat sin so seriously that nothing is too costly to lay aside to keep your soul.
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Questions and Answers, part 2
54-0103E §64
Feminish hair... A man shouldn't have long hair, 'cause it's feminish, way down long like this. But He just cut it off here at His shoulders, the way they'd cut it off, around His head, just bob it off like that. That was short hair. So, ladies with hair to their shoulder, it's still short hair. Now, I don't say that would send you to hell or take you to Heaven. That don't have nothing to do with it. But the order of the church is for women to have long hair. That's right; that's right. And to enter the church... A...
It is I, be not afraid
60-0329 §6
For instance, if I cut my hand, there's not a medicine in the world to heal my hand, now---a common knife cut. If it'd heal a knife cut in my hand, it would heal a knife cut in my coat, it would heal a knife cut on this desk. Then you might say, "Brother Branham, medicine wasn't made to heal your coat. It was made to heal your body." All right, if I would cut my hand and would fall dead, and they'd take me out to the undertaker's establishment and embalm my body with a fluid that would make me look natural for fift...
Jehovah-Jireh, part 2
64-0403 §89
If I cut my hand tonight, and stand here with a cut hand, there isn't a medicine in the world can heal my hand. We ain't got a medicine that heals. No medicine heals. Any doctor will tell you that. It just keeps clean while God heals. It can't build tissue. If I cut my hand and, "Oh," you say, "Yes, Brother Branham, there's medicine that will heal that." All right, I want to know what it is. Let me show you. If I cut my hand and fell down dead here, a doctor could come and embalm my body, and make me look natural f...
Questions and Answers, Part 3
64-0830M §116
...s, sir! If a woman, her hair isn't long enough, she wants a switch of hair in it, I'd say, put it on, sister. If a man takes bad colds and things, and wants some way---even to his appearance to his wife, if he wanted to wear a hair piece, do it. Yes indeedy. Nothing wrong with that (no, sir!) no more than you would be your teeth, or artificial arm, or anything else. If nature has some---taken something from you and it's so handy you go ahead, that's perfectly all right. But it says here, "Can we take our hair on or...
Taking God at His Word
53-1103 §8
By His stripes, we were: were is past tense, is that right, brethren? We were healed. When? Nineteen hundred years ago. Every sinner in the world was forgiven of every sin they ever did, nineteen hundred years ago. Is that right? He's--He's the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, is that right? Then everybody was forgiven back yonder, nineteen hundred years ago, but it'll never do you any good, until you accept it as your personal Saviour. Then when you accept it, Jesus doesn't come and die again for...