<p>5:29&nbsp;<em>And if your right eye causes you to stumble</em>- To make to stumble, not to give umbrage. The eye must surely be understood in the context of :28. It could be that the Lord specifically has sexual sin in mind. It is His form of &quot;Flee fornication&quot;. Paul saw Mt. 5:29, 30 in a sexual context (= Col. 3:5); which fits the context of Mt. 5:28.</p>
<p><em>Pluck it out</em>- The Greek word is every other time translated to save or deliver.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>And throw it away -</em>&nbsp;The Lord taught that we should cut off those parts of our lives that offend us, and &ldquo;cast it [away] from you&rdquo;- because in the end, the whole body of the wicked person will be &ldquo;cast [away] into hell&rdquo; (Mt. 5:29- the same Greek word is used in both places in this same verse). What He&rsquo;s saying surely is that we must recognize those parts of our lives which are worthy of condemnation, and&nbsp;<em>we</em>&nbsp;must condemn them now in this life, dissociating our spiritual self from our carnal self as Paul does in Rom. 7- for this is the meaning of the figure of &lsquo;casting away&rsquo;. He has just used the term in 5:13,25, and it is so often used to mean 'cast to condemnation' elsewhere too (Mt. 3:10; 7:19; 13:42,50; 18:30; Lk. 12:49; Jn. 15:6). We are to &quot;cast out&quot; the parts of our lives which offend us, and if we don't, we will be &quot;cast&quot; into condemnation at the last day (Mt. 5:29.30). The word play on &quot;cast&quot; is obviously intentional; the Lord clearly has the idea that we are to self-condemn those things in our lives which are sinful and worthy of condemnation. If we don't, then we will be 'cast out' in our entirety at judgment day. Sin is to be condemned; we either condemn ourselves for it now, or we will be condemned for it then.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish and not your whole body be thrown into Gehenna</em>- The idea of self-condemnation is continued here.&nbsp; If we literally cut off part of our body, it perishes. If we do not, then the whole body will perish in Gehenna, the condemnation of the last day. For God is able to destroy [s.w. to perish] the body in Gehenna (Mt. 10:28). So we are to make perish those parts of our lives which make us sin- i.e. we are to condemn them.</p>