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In Matthew 5:30, Jesus says “...if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” This actually is rooted in the early Jewish interpretation of the Law that God gave them as part of His Covenant. The idea is that on a human body, everything below the torso should be regarded as subject to corruption. Thus, things like masturbation involve touching that part of the human body, and therefore triggers a sin.
But if we take Jesus literally, any sin which a hand may cause, such as theft and murder, would subject the hand to being cut off. But in practice, if Matthew 5:30 were followed to the letter, there would be a lot of God-fearing people walking around without at least one hand! In the passage before, Jesus says the same thing about the eye. Almost makes you wonder if people walking around with eye patches had sinned!
But is that the end of the story? Is that our fate? Maybe not necessarily, for as Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s Glory, that would mean that nobody would gain admittance into Heaven. It would mean that God would not allow the man next to Jesus on the cross who acknowledged Him, to be allowed into His “Paradise.” Yet he is there to this day, for anyone who enters Paradise lives forever.
So, what is it that might enable people to have sinned, to end up in Paradise? It is asking God for His forgiveness. But does one have to cut off his hand when he asks God for forgiveness? Is there anything in the Bible that would implicitly or explicitly save his hand from being cut off?
What may be promising is that nowhere in the Bible does it imply that your hand is to be cut off if you sin. The verses in the Psalms which involve having asked God for forgiveness say something like ‘I asked you for forgiveness of my sins, and you oh Lord did.’ There are no verses which say anything that resembles ‘I cut off my hand that sinned and I asked you for forgiveness of my sins and you oh Lord did.’
There is also Psalms 139:14 which says, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...” Wonderfully made for what? To dismember ourselves? Would we in effect be mocking God by dismembering what He created on us, thereby committing another sin?
There are commentators who write that Matthew 5:30 should not be taken literally, rather, the price of sinning with the hand is COMPARABLE to having it cut off. The ones I came across did not provide a basis in the Bible or in the Catechism for their interpretation. Seems to me that asking God for forgiveness might be a way of saving your hand, but I don’t know for sure.
But if we take Jesus literally, any sin which a hand may cause, such as theft and murder, would subject the hand to being cut off. But in practice, if Matthew 5:30 were followed to the letter, there would be a lot of God-fearing people walking around without at least one hand! In the passage before, Jesus says the same thing about the eye. Almost makes you wonder if people walking around with eye patches had sinned!
But is that the end of the story? Is that our fate? Maybe not necessarily, for as Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s Glory, that would mean that nobody would gain admittance into Heaven. It would mean that God would not allow the man next to Jesus on the cross who acknowledged Him, to be allowed into His “Paradise.” Yet he is there to this day, for anyone who enters Paradise lives forever.
So, what is it that might enable people to have sinned, to end up in Paradise? It is asking God for His forgiveness. But does one have to cut off his hand when he asks God for forgiveness? Is there anything in the Bible that would implicitly or explicitly save his hand from being cut off?
What may be promising is that nowhere in the Bible does it imply that your hand is to be cut off if you sin. The verses in the Psalms which involve having asked God for forgiveness say something like ‘I asked you for forgiveness of my sins, and you oh Lord did.’ There are no verses which say anything that resembles ‘I cut off my hand that sinned and I asked you for forgiveness of my sins and you oh Lord did.’
There is also Psalms 139:14 which says, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...” Wonderfully made for what? To dismember ourselves? Would we in effect be mocking God by dismembering what He created on us, thereby committing another sin?
There are commentators who write that Matthew 5:30 should not be taken literally, rather, the price of sinning with the hand is COMPARABLE to having it cut off. The ones I came across did not provide a basis in the Bible or in the Catechism for their interpretation. Seems to me that asking God for forgiveness might be a way of saving your hand, but I don’t know for sure.
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