“You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raca! shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, You fool! shall be in danger of hell fire.” Matthew 5:21-22
The words “You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment” fit our natural mind. Our natural mind tends to think in categories and slots. It has a formed concept about our behavior according to those categories. We feel that if we do not do certain things, we are okay.
So we live in this “okay” mode. We live according to general categories, which become the teachings by which we judge ourselves. But now the Lord is saying,“Formerly, you lived according to these fixed teachings, but now that you have Me, you are to live according to the feeling of life that is being reproduced in your spirit. Now that My life is being reproduced in you, you are finding that you have ambivalent feelings. Your feelings are split between your concept and My life that is rising up in you. Your concept is limited, guarded, calculating, and motivated by self-preservation. But My life is transcendent.
My feelings are beyond your thought about the way to live and react to things. Your standard of judging things is far below what I am doing within you. You are satisfied with yourself because you do not kill. The category for killing has been checked off in your mind. But you are not aware that I am in you and that I am not tolerating hidden anger. You have lived by the law, but now I want to teach you to live by Me. You live in a general way. I live in a fine, detailed way.”
In Matthew 5:22 the Lord says, “But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raca! shall be in danger of the council.”
“Raca” means empty-headed person. It is a term that expresses contempt. By this we can see how fine the Lord’s life is. He goes from anger to a form of that anger expressed toward others. Then the Lord continues by saying, “But whoever says, Moreh shall be in danger of the Gehenna of fire.” From anger to Raca to Moreh. Moreh means fool. It is an outright statement made in a very deliberate way toward a person. Just one quick remark out of our mouth does not match the transcendency of His life in us. By saying these things, the Lord reveals that His life is transcendent in its fineness.