“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:27, 28)

We remind everyone of the two different views under discussion. One view states that Christ, in the But I say unto you statements, is contrasting his teaching with that of Moses. He is giving his church a higher standard than Moses gave the people of Israel. The other view insists that Christ in no way is contrasting himself with Moses, but merely is giving the true meaning of the law of Moses and thereby refuting the distortions of Moses by the Pharisees.

The latter view, which is the classical Covenant Theol­ogy view, has some serious problems. Let me list a few of them.

The first problem is the failure to deal with exactly what Jesus said. The actual words, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” which Christ compares with his teaching, are neither an addition to the law of Moses nor a distortion of the words of Moses in this commandment; they are the exact words that God himself “said to those of old.” Our Lord quotes the specific words of the seventh command­ment exactly as God wrote them on stone in Exodus 20:14 and then says, “But I say unto you.” He makes a deliberate contrast between what God said in the seventh command­ment and his own teaching on the subject of adultery. How are we to understand this verse and the comparison that Christ makes between his teaching and the words “Thou shalt not commit adultery”?

Most commentators committed to Covenant Theology ignore the fact that the words Christ uses in this text to set up the comparison are the very words written on the Tab­lets of Stone. They further ignore the fact that there is not a word in these verses or in any of the surrounding texts about any distortion of these words by the Pharisees. We have to read that idea into the passage. Covenant Theology disregards the format that Christ uses later in the Sermon on the Mount when he does contrast the behavior of his followers with the behavior of the hypocrites and the hea­then (6:1-18). In that passage, we find distortions addressed directly: “you must act in this manner, not in that manner as the hypocrites or the Gentiles do.” In chapter six, Christ explains acceptable practices, names the distortions, and identifies those who practice the distortions. It is all very clear and we do not have to read anything into the text. However, that is different from his approach in the But I say sections of chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount. Covenant Theologians must ignore what Christ actually said and read something into the text that is not there. They build their position on an unwarranted assumption with no textual proof. They treat the very words that God wrote on the Tablets of Stone as rabbinical distortions of Moses. Nowhere in the text of Matthew 5:27, 28 does Jesus men­tion either the Pharisees or their teaching. He does not mention or imply how they supposedly had distorted what Moses said in Exodus 20:14. The idea that Jesus is con­trasting his teaching with distortions of Moses by the Pharisees is foreign to the biblical data.

Covenant Theology adds to their problems by building their position on an ambiguity in the original language of the text. William Hendriksen, himself an eminent Covenant Theologian, clearly sets forth this problem in his comments on Matthew 5:21.

The formula, “You have heard that it was said” presents a difficulty, since the following phrase, considered by itself, can be translated either “TO the men of long ago” (RSV: “TO the men of old”) or “BY the men of long ago.” Many translators and commentators prefer TO. Several others favor BY. According to the first view, Jesus meant that Moses in the law said something TO the fathers, and Jesus now “assumes a tone of superiority over the Mosaic regulations” (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures, Vol. 1, p 44). J. Jeremias … expresses the same view in even stronger language when he states that “Jesus establishes a new divine law when he opposes his ‘But I say unto you’ to the Word of Scripture.”^[1]

Hendriksen then proceeds to give his reasons for reject­ing the majority of commentators, including the highly respected Southern Baptist Greek scholar, A.T. Robertson. It appears that Hendriksen’s Covenant Theology influences what the text has to mean. He may be right, and men like A.T. Robertson, one of the greatest Greek scholars of his day, may be wrong. It may be true that all Christ is doing in the Sermon on the Mount is refuting the misunder­standing of the Pharisees. In such a case, the text would have to say “by the men of old” and it would mean, “You have heard the distortions of the seventh commandment given by the rabbinical fathers.” However, there is no hint of that idea in the text. One arrives at such a view only by theological implication and not by exegesis of the biblical texts. One must assume that Christ is not quoting the sev­enth commandment in Matthew 5:27, even though he uses the exact words of the Decalogue. One must also imagine that Christ, in some oblique way, really is referring to the Pharisees’ faulty appli­cation of the seventh commandment.

All agree that Christ is contrasting himself with some­thing taught either “by” or “to” those of old. That must mean that Christ is contrasting his teaching with “that [teaching] of old.” That “teaching of old” could refer either to the Pharisees’ teaching or to what Moses and the other biblical writers taught. If Christ means “by the people of old” then it is possible, but not at all certain, that Christ is referring to the teaching of former Pharisees and rabbis. However, if Christ means “to the people of Moses’ day,” which is the view of A. T. Robertson and most commenta­tors, then our Lord has to be referring to the seventh com­mandment that God, through Moses, spoke “to the people” in Moses’ day. He has to be contrasting himself with Moses and not with the Pharisees. If this majority view is correct, the case for our position is established.

The third problem with the view under discussion is in­surmountable. If we draw our conclusions out of the words in the text itself, it is impossible to have Christ contrasting himself with anyone but Moses. If Christ is indeed con­trasting what he taught with the Mosaic phrase “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” then the text makes sense. To insist that Christ is contrasting his teaching with distortions of the Pharisees, we must furnish proof that the Pharisees actually taught it was acceptable to look and lust as long as one avoided the physical act of adultery. No such evidence exists in either biblical or secular sources. Such assump­tions can neither be drawn nor supported from the text of Scripture. They flow from eisegesis; they put words into the mouths of both Christ and the Pharisees that Scripture nowhere mentions. If, on the other hand, the text means that Moses spoke to the Israelites, giving them this com­mandment concerning adultery, then Christ is indeed con­trasting his teaching with the law of Moses. If that is the case, A.T. Robertson is correct in saying, “Jesus now as­sumes a tone of superiority over the Mosaic regulations.” J. Jeremias also is correct in saying, “Jesus establishes a new divine law when he opposes his ‘But I say unto you’ to the Word of Scripture.” Christ is clearly raising the law to a higher level.

I am not a linguist, but if many translators, linguists, and commentators, including a scholar of the caliber of A.T. Robertson, are correct in favoring to instead of by, then they already have established our position. Covenant Theol­ogy’s position is textually possible only if someone who immediately succeeded Moses (“said by those of old”) taught others a distortion of Moses’ true teaching. In that case, the distortions precede the rabbis and Pharisees, and Jesus is correcting a misconception of long standing. If this were so, we would need textual evidence from the Old Testament Scriptures that would prove that from Moses’ day to Christ’s day, all of Israel labored under a misappre­hension about Moses’ law concerning adultery.

Some readers may be saying, “John, did no one ever teach you that logic demands that the greater always includes the lesser? Did you never read Thomas Watson’s rules of interpretation? If adultery is a sin, then everything that leads to or in any way causes adultery is also a sin. Looking on a woman and lusting after her is nothing less than mental adultery.”

I have read Watson’s list of interpretive rules and agree that all of them are logically sound. However, I must add that I do not believe the Bible was written in such a way that only lawyers and logicians could understand it. Wat­son’s rules may all apply when I am seeking to understand my personal relationship and walk with God, but they cannot be used to make laws that are intended to be used by a civil judge in governing society.

Those who disagree with my position will say, “It is true that Moses did not actually say in his commandment that prohibits adultery that it meant more than just the actual act of adultery. However, we can be sure the command­ment was meant to include ‘looking on a woman and mentally lusting after her’ as committing the sin of adultery in the heart. That fact is automatically and logically de­duced by applying the rule that the ‘greater includes the lesser.’”

We agree that one may deduce, by using the rules of logic, that “looking and lusting” is indeed a sin. According to this rule of logic, the greater sin of adultery includes the lesser sin of looking and lusting. Apparently, no one had taught Moses this rule, because he adds the tenth com­mandment, forbidding covetousness, which he explains includes coveting your neighbor’s wife (Ex. 20:17). Surely, if the greater includes the lesser, the commandment for­bidding coveting someone else’s wife is redundant. Moses already implied it in the seventh commandment. In fact, we can deduce the entire tenth commandment from the sev­enth commandment. If adultery includes looking and lusting (covetousness), the greater sin of wanting someone else’s wife includes the lesser sins of wanting anything that belongs to another. We can also deduce the eighth com­mandment from the seventh. Adultery is stealing some­thing that belongs to another. If stealing the sexual relationship from a marriage is wrong (the greater sin), then all other forms of theft must also be wrong (the lesser sins).

For the sake of argument, let us assume, in spite of evi­dence to the contrary, that the greater includes the lesser does apply in this case. How would that affect our discus­sion? That would mean that Christ, in Matthew 5:27, is not claiming any unique or personal authority in his But I say contrasts. Neither is he correcting a distortion. He is merely giving the Pharisees a lesson in good logic. Any philoso­pher could have pointed out that the Pharisees’ teachings fell short of Moses’ true intention as easily as Christ did. According to Covenant Theology, Christ is appealing to logic as the foundation of his statement, and is not appeal­ing to personal authority. He is accusing the Pharisees only of ignorance of good logic in their failure to apply correct reasoning to the stated truth in the commandment. Thus, Christ is merely the latest and the greatest rabbi giving us, by good logic, the true interpretation of Moses. In no sense did he speak with the authority of a new lawgiver. If this view is correct, then Christ is merely one rabbi using good logic to extend the teaching of other rabbis. He is merely the interpreter of the truth for us, but in no sense is he a giver of new truth. If such is the case, then Christ indeed points us to Moses as the final moral authority, and not to himself, as the church’s final authority on morality, and his reference to himself (but I say) is meaningless.

All of the above assumes some things with no proof. First, it assumes that the Pharisees actually taught it was not a sin to look and lust, but only to commit the outward act of adultery. In that case, it makes perfect sense to have Christ refuting their false teaching. But to believe that, we must prove the Pharisees actually taught it was acceptable to “look and lust.” This we cannot do. Neither biblical nor secular literature reveals that.

While we are assuming things, let us assume that the Pharisees were good logicians and knew the “greater in­cludes the lesser.” There is some evidence for that. How­ever, if that were the case, the Pharisees could have said, “We already know it is a sin to look and lust. We studied logic too. Tell us something we do not know.” If this were the case, they would have compiled a long list of various conditions that constituted adultery, and an equally long list of things that were not yet adultery, such as how many seconds you could look before you crossed the line. It is vital to see that if the Pharisees knew “the greater includes the lesser,” they would indeed have taught it was a sin to “look and lust,” and Christ’s words are meaningless. There is no contrast in his statement; they would already agree with it.

We have every right to insist that Covenant Theologians show us from Matthew 5:27, 28 exactly how the Pharisees were corrupting the clear commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” If Christ’s But I say unto you statement in Matthew 5:28 contrasts his teaching on adultery with the distortions of the Pharisees, exactly where are those distor­tions recorded? If such evidence cannot be found, and it cannot, then one of the essential points needed to prove Covenant Theology’s major thesis concerning the But I say unto you statements is based on an unproven theological assumption.

I think it is fair to say that we simply cannot square the doctrine of the Decalogue as God’s full and final word on ethics and morality with the But I say unto you contrasts spoken by our Lord in Matthew 5. The Tables of the Cove­nant did indeed contain the highest expression of both the law of God and his holy and sovereign character ever given up to that point in history. However, they are not THE eternal and unchanging moral law of God. They are not the last and final word on morality and holy living. Once a person accepts that erroneous view, it follows that no one, even Christ himself, can in any way change or add to the law of Moses inscribed on the Tables of the Covenant as recorded in Exodus 20. This is classic Covenant Theology. For proponents of New Covenant Theology, or anyone else, to suggest that Christ is a true new lawgiver who replaces Moses in exactly the same way that he is a true new priest who re­places Aaron is to earn the odious label of antinomian. Covenant Theology, to be consistent, must view any change of any kind to anything written in the Decalogue as antinomianism.

One’s personal theology affects the way one approaches a particular passage of Scripture. This is especially notice­able in a passage such as the Sermon on the Mount. Cove­nant Theology’s view of Christ as the true interpreter of Moses contrasts sharply to the crowd’s response at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew writes that the crowds were amazed at Jesus’ teaching, because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law (Matt. 7:28-29). If Christ merely were showing the logical implications of what Moses had said, he would not have stood apart from the usual group of rabbis; after all, a rabbi’s job was to explain what the law really meant. Christ would have been just another rabbi in a long line of teach­ers of the law: one among many, but certainly not one who was distinct as a different kind altogether.

Regardless of what view we take, we must admit to certain facts. If, in Matthew 5:27, Christ is merely showing the true intention of the law of Moses as it concerns adul­tery, then he is claiming neither scriptural authority nor any unique personal authority for his own state­ment. He is merely showing his disciples the Pharisees’ mistake in logic. Christ does not quote any other Old Testament Scriptures for support of his contrast (scriptural authority), nor does he state that he is refuting a wrong interpretation of Moses (personal authority). If Christ is only refuting a distortion of Moses by showing what Moses actually taught, then why does he not quote from another part of the law that proves what Moses really did mean?

This is what Christ did in Matthew 4 with Satan. When the devil misapplied an Old Testament text, our Lord re­sponded by quoting another Old Testament text that clari­fied what God really meant. Would he not have done the same thing here if there were any Scriptures that presented the law of Moses as teaching the same thing that he was teaching? He could have used the tenth commandment. This would have been doubly appropriate if Christ’s pri­mary purpose in the Sermon on the Mount was to interpret Moses correctly. Either Christ must quote Moses to prove the validity of his correction, or his statement must stand on his own authority as the new lawgiver. If the first is true, then Christ is merely the greatest scribe and inter­preter of Moses. If the second is true, then Christ is exactly what we have said he is; he is the new lawgiver.

We must understand and accept that Christ is contrast­ing his rules for his spiritual kingdom with Moses’ rules for a theocratic kingdom, and that both kinds of rule are “holy, just, and good.” God ordained both, in their own time. This passage (Matt. 5:27, 28), correctly exegeted in its larger context (Matt. 5:1-7:29), shows that Christ not only is ap­peal­ing directly to his own authority as the Son of God to interpret and apply Old Testament Scripture in a new and higher manner, he also is giving new Scriptures that contain new law. Christ is declaring his own authority as the new lawgiver. He does not appeal to the Old Testament Scrip­tures for his authority or his message, nor does he merely appeal to good logic to prove his point. Christ is giving new and additional Scriptures that reveal new and higher law found nowhere in Moses. Unlike the other rabbis, our Lord never once appealed to another rabbinical writer to support any of his statements. He appealed either to an Old Testa­ment text or to his own authority given to him by his Fa­ther. He always said either, “God said” or “I say.” This is a key point in this discussion; what is at stake is nothing less than the full and final authority of Christ as the new and final lawgiver.

The correct way to approach Matthew 5:27 is to let it mean exactly what it says. Let it contrast the difference be­tween rule under the law of Moses and rule under the law of Christ without in any way suggesting that Moses and his law were wrong. Christ can be truly greater than Moses was without demeaning or depreciating either Moses or his law. Allow Christ to make laws that are higher and more spiritual than the law of Moses. Let Christ be a true prophet, who gives new laws, and not merely a scribe or rabbi who may only interpret law already given by Moses. Let Christ define adultery in new and higher terms than Moses did. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” has a higher and deeper meaning when applied by Christ under the New Covenant than it ever could have had to hard-hearted sinners when it was merely written on stone. Only under the New Covenant do we learn that God designed mar­riage to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church (Eph. 5:22-33). Moses, under the Old Covenant, could not appeal to the cross; his appeal was to the physical redemption from Egypt. The ground of both the motive and the duties enjoined on the church in this age of the Spirit is embodied in the truth and power of grace that comes to us through the New Covenant estab­lished by the redemptive work of Christ.

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