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"If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.
And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." (Matthew 18:8-9)
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This has been mentioned before in Matthew 5:30 in the context of lust and adultery (better to cut off your right hand). If these were literal instructions history would be full of maimed and crippled Christians.. You can tell how severe sin and hell are when Jesus describes such extreme countermeasures. 13 chapters ago Jesus explains that the sin that starts in the heart is just as bad as what your eyes and hands can do. It's not as simple as decapitating parts of your body that are more sinful.. it's tossing the entire thing out and starting life again (John 3).

'Entering life' is a pretty unique way of talking about the kingdom of heaven. And from the way Jesus explains it, it's not just a final-day-entry kinda thing. We step into the kingdom now, we become the kingdom, we grow into the kingdom, and then Jesus comes and completes the kingdom. We can't enter the kingdom of God's people with things that cause us to sin. Our repentance, baptism and our 'death to sin' are so that we don't bring them along into the new life, because if we continue to let it happen, we not only cause ourselves to sin again but we can also cause others to sin as well (verses 6-7).

Description

"If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.
And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." (Matthew 18:8-9)
-
This has been mentioned before in Matthew 5:30 in the context of lust and adultery (better to cut off your right hand). If these were literal instructions history would be full of maimed and crippled Christians.. You can tell how severe sin and hell are when Jesus describes such extreme countermeasures. 13 chapters ago Jesus explains that the sin that starts in the heart is just as bad as what your eyes and hands can do. It's not as simple as decapitating parts of your body that are more sinful.. it's tossing the entire thing out and starting life again (John 3).

'Entering life' is a pretty unique way of talking about the kingdom of heaven. And from the way Jesus explains it, it's not just a final-day-entry kinda thing. We step into the kingdom now, we become the kingdom, we grow into the kingdom, and then Jesus comes and completes the kingdom. We can't enter the kingdom of God's people with things that cause us to sin. Our repentance, baptism and our 'death to sin' are so that we don't bring them along into the new life, because if we continue to let it happen, we not only cause ourselves to sin again but we can also cause others to sin as well (verses 6-7).