“Jesus says to us today, as he did to Pharisees, if you think yourselves far removed from murderers – you who are free from actual bloodshed – have you not hated, insulted, or wished someone dead? A murderer actually carries out this wish. But you have the same kind of anger as a murderer, and this is sinful also in the eyes of the Law-Giver. You can even murder with your words!”

Our Lord states his main principle in the prior verses (Mt. 5:21-22). Then in verses 23-26, he gives two examples in practical life of what he means. In both, he illustrates the inescapably internal nature of the law of God.

First let’s understand the principle: Anger and insult toward humans are like murder in God’s sight. They all violate the application of the sixth commandment. Jesus begins v. 21 by citing what was told by people long ago, which the Scribes still quoted during his time. Citing the sixth commandment from Exodus 20:13 he said, “Do not murder.” Murder is a better translation than “Thou shall not kill,” for God does not issue the absolute prohibition against taking human life in every circumstance. Rather God forbids murder or homicide. In the same Mosaic Law, there are exceptions made for self-defense, just war, and capital punishment. So the sixth commandment forbids the wanton taking of another’s life for personal revenge.

The Scribes and Pharisees were aware of this and even said if anyone murders “he will be subject to judgment” (21) by a local tribunal. However, these externalists were guilty of seeking to restrict the application of this law to the overt deed of murder alone—only applying it to the literal crime of murdering in cold blood. As long as a person refrained from this kind of murder, the Pharisees permitted them to harbor feelings of hatred, to issue insults, and, while doing these things, to still be within the parameter of the sixth commandment. They made the sixth commandment an external law only and disregarded its internal application. Jesus taught that the true extension of the sixth commandment applied to thoughts and words as well as deeds, to anger and insult as well as murder.
Jesus says to us today, as he did to Pharisees, if you think yourselves far removed from murderers – you who are free from actual bloodshed – have you not hated, insulted, or wished someone dead? A murderer actually carries out this wish. But you have the same kind of anger as a murderer, and this is sinful also in the eyes of the Law-Giver. You can even murder with your words!

Jesus did not contradict God’s sixth commandment but the Pharisees’ relaxation or restriction of it. You see, they were actually lessening the demands of the Law, and Jesus the Law-Giver knows that the Law was intended to cover our internal lives also. The Pharisees had also reduced its punishment to “local tribunal,” replacing God’s capital punishment. So Jesus says in verse 22: “But I say not only is the murderer subject to the judgment, but anyone who is angry with his brother is also subject to the judgment.” Jesus, rather than weakening the commandment, strengthened it and enlarged it.

There are two Greek words for anger. One word refers to an anger which blazes up quickly like the flame of passion, igniting everything around it. This type of anger does not involve premeditation. It is emotional anger, an outbreak. That’s not the word used here. The Greek word used in these verses for anger refers to a long-lived anger. It is a volitional anger in which a person nurses his wrath to keep it warm. This anger is not allowed to die. Jesus equates this type of anger as needing the same judgment as murder. In our Lord’s eyes, just as in 1 Jn. 3:15, “anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” We may not actually murder, but have we ever nursed thoughts against people which are as foul as murder?

Jesus restates the principle again in v. 22 in terms of insult. First. He cites the existing restriction. In his time if one Jew called another Jew raca, then he would be judged by the Sanhedrin – the highest court in Jewish Law.