While we cannot heal our hearts by the mutilation of our own bodies, we must never forget that Jesus came to heal our hearts through the mutilation of his own body. Gouging out our eyes, or cutting off our hands, could never cleanse the impurities of our hearts; however, Jesus’ broken body and shed blood is the only way to purify our souls.

In view of the serious nature of sexual sin, Jesus urges extreme measures: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And 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” (Matt. 5:29–30).

This is a challenging message because Jesus’ meaning is so clear: we must do whatever it takes to avoid the sin of adultery. It would be better even to cut off members of the body rather than be thrown, body and soul, into hell forever.

Still, this passage always raises the major question: is Jesus really calling us to mutilate our bodies for the sake of the kingdom? There are two unsatisfying ways of answering this question.

Bad Interpretation #1: “Don’t Take it Literally”

The first unsatisfying way to interpret this passage is simply to insist on a non-literal interpretation: “The point of these admonitions is clear without pressing for a literal understanding of the words.”1 This approach seems to make some sense in that it relieves the difficulty of such a horrifying duty.

This approach does not work well, though, when we remember the overall point that Jesus is making throughout this section: the requirements of the law reach infinitely further than any of us would imagine. If it is true that anger renders us liable to the death penalty (Matt. 5:22), is it so outlandish to believe that we should rather cut out our eyes and cut off our hands rather than go to hell?

We cannot smooth out this passage simply by wishing away its offensiveness. We need a better explanation for what Jesus is saying than to simply wave the difficulties away as “non-literal.”

Still, it is also an unsatisfying interpretation of this passage to do precisely what Jesus suggests here. We never read in the Bible anywhere else of people gouging out their eyes to prevent themselves from lusting.

In the only passage that comes even close to suggesting such an action, Paul commends the people of Galatia for their willingness to gouge out their eyes for his sake—but with an acknowledgement that it would not have helped anything (“if possible”), and that they did not ultimately do such a thing (“you would have”; Gal. 4:15).

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