Jesus Appeals to the Human Heart

In the Second Cycle of his reflections on the body, the Holy Father medidates on this passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” Mt. 5:27-28). This passage is part of the famous Sermon on the Mount, and along with the passage in which Christ refers to the “beginning,” is also key for our understanding of the theology of the body.

Before speaking about lust and “committing adultery in the heart,” Jesus said: “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets, I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt. 5:17). This defines the wider context which helps us appreciate better the full import of the words of Jesus about the sixth commandment which prohibits adultery.

What did Jesus mean by “fulfilling” the law? The Jews knew God’s commands by heart. But the way they have kept them left much to be desired: they did not live the Ten Commandments the way God had intended. Instead, they super-imposed upon God’s laws their own faulty human and legal interpretations. Such is what happened with the commandment about adultery.

Jesus came to “fulfill” the law by revealing to the Israelites its real meaning, the meaning that God Himself intended. Only by understanding how God intended the commandments to be embraced and lived can we render justice to it, the justice which God willed. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his listeners, and all of us for that matter, to go beyond a merely human and legalistic interpretation of the commandment: “You shall not commit adultery.” For as Jesus said: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:20).