Matthew 5:17-30
We cannot read these verses from 17 onwards without a feeling of apprehension. It is not only that the Lord asserts here that He has not come to destroy the formidable law of God which condemned us all, but that here He is giving a far more exacting interpretation of the divine will. Up till then a scrupulous Israelite could hope to earn eternal life if he had (more or less) kept all these things from his youth (See Mark 10:20). The words of the Lord Jesus now leave him under no such illusion. If such are the requirements to meet the holiness of God, who then can be saved? Yes, the full measure of divine justice was there in that incomparable Man. But the same Person who had come to declare it had also come to fulfil it in our place (v. 17; Psalms 40:8-10).
Judaism of old was not concerned with what God thought of anger or impure thoughts. It only condemned their extreme expression: murder and adultery. By contrast, the Lord’s commandments go back to the source of these guilty deeds and make us aware of what is in our hearts, which are capable of the same things (Matthew 15:19). For before we can begin to speak of grace we have to understand how much we need it.