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.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 5:E-45
The members of the virgin bride will love Him, and they will have His potentials, for He is their head, and all power belongs to Him. They are subject to Him as the members of our bodies are subject to our heads.
A thinking man's filter
65-0822E §35
Now, this is going to be a little bitter maybe to somebody, but when she started through God's filter, and it says in there for them not to cut their hair, then what? She lodges on the other side. If it said it's a sin for a woman to do such and she's dishonorable to do such... If she wants to... He said ... "Well, she's got to have her hair cut." Said, "Then shave it off then." And said, "We know that that's a shame for a woman to have a head shorn"; said, "Then let her have her head covered." And her hair is her...
Show us the Father
63-0606 §82
Oh, what a disgrace it is today, that men and women who claim to be sons and daughters of God, with the nature of God in them---ministers in the pulpit claiming to be sons of God---and deny that there is a divine healing, denying there's an operation of the Holy Spirit! What a shame it is for our sisters who claim to be saints of God cutting off their hair, and putting their clothes off, and acting the way they do. How ... what a shame it is for our churches to permit men that's married two or three times to be dea...
Contending for the Faith
56-0200 §6
I've often made this statement, that you couldn't ... that you could not by any means... If a serpent ... or, some animal had his paw in my side and was cutting into my side and killing me. There's no need of me trying to cut his paw off; just hit him in the head. Kill his head, it kills the whole body. Well, that's the way it is with divine healing. When Jesus dealt with sickness or sin at Calvary, He had to deal with the head of it, which was sin. And doing so, He dealt with sickness with it. He didn't have to cu...
Revelation, Chapter 4b Twenty-Four Elders
61-0101 §107
And when you walk through that, then He goes into the heart and there's where He's throned. That's the Holy Spirit in you. Jesus said, "It'd be far better that a millstone was hanged at your neck, and you was drowned in the depths of the sea, than to even offend one of these little ones that believe in me." Not do them any harm; just even to bring offense to them, just upset them about something. It'd be better that you had your own self drowned, or never been born on the earth, than even to bring an offense to one...