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.
Ask a Follow-up Question
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.
The Rejected King
60-0515M §43
Now why is that? Please pardon this rude and most rude expression. I do not mean it to be mean; I say it from love. But the Holy Spirit says it's wrong for our women to cut their hair, and it's wrong for our women to wear little shorts and slacks and to make up their lips and face with paint. The Holy Spirit says it's wrong, but we want men to tell us that it's all right. As long as we follow "me and Samuel." They like to live through six days any way they want to, and go to church on Sunday morning; and a fine int...
Expectations
51-0714 §20
Now, let's take this case now of Simeon. Now, he was a righteous old man. He believed that God was going to let him see the Christ before he saw death. Now, let's say he's eighty something years old. And then He had another witness there. There was Anna the prophetess at the temple, John the Baptist, and Joseph and Mary, and many of them: a remnant. God has always had a remnant somewhere. And He's got a remnant tonight. Don't you believe that? Now, tonight, His remnant are composed of His body, His spiritual body h...
The Great Commission
57-0804A §21
Now, the doctor moves an obstruction. All right, then God develops cells and heals it. As I've said many times, "Any medicine that would heal a knife cut in my hand, would heal a knife cut in my coat, if the medicine heals knife cuts." But there's no medicine that'll heal a knife cut. You say, "Well, now, it wasn't made for your coat, Mr. Branham. It was made for your hand." Then, if I cut my hand, fall dead, and they embalm my body with the fluid that makes me look natural for fifty years, and they sew it up, give...
Discernment of Spirit
60-0308 §64
Now listen. In closing, I'll make this last remark. Many are sick and weakly among you, and many are asleep, spiritually dead, because they don't have discernment of the body of Christ. This sick body that we got! God help us to have spiritual discernment of that revelation of the kingdom of God and of the love of God in our hearts, shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, to try to put our arms way out, say, "We are brethren." See what I mean? And every little gift that you have, don't use it to try to make it some great so...
The principles of Divine healing
51-0923 §26
Now, we know that medicine was made for the body. But now, for instance, I'd cut my hand here, and I would fall down dead on the platform, and they could take me down to the undertaker morgue. They had a fluid, that they could embalm my body, that I would look natural for the next fifty years. And we would send--or even take me to Mayo's Clinic, and let them dress that hand every day for fifty years, put all the salve, and mercurochromes, and penicillin in my body that could be, and in fifty years from today, that...