The All-Seeing Eye
Matthew 18:9 And if your eye trap-springs you, eject it, and cast from you; profitable to you is one eye to enter into life than two eyes having to be thrown into Gehenna.
A little bit of fear can go a long way. Jesus was not above using threat to make a point, and being thrown into Gehenna is no small threat. Jesus referenced a place that was well-known to the Judeans.
Gehenna, aka the valley of Hinnom, located within the Davidic City, lay adjacent to the famous Kidron Valley, which itself is nestled between the Mt. of Olives and the steep slope that rises up to Jerusalem. Gehenna, the once celebrated place for the horrid worship to the god, Moloch, became the resting place for local refuse – society’s offenders and animal carcasses. Continual fires were necessary to keep the city from infection and added reputation for the place of punishment in Hades, the place for spiritual offenders.
Jesus borrowed from the Greek word, scandal, a visual aid to underscore the Greek noun translated, trap-spring, sin which will trip up the most ardent of believers: cut out the eye and cast away that which causes scandal; better to only have one eye than to end up in Gehenna.
Holiness is no small matter as is evident in 1 Peter 1:16 “You will be holy as I am holy.” People of Christ are not identified by religious associations or denominations but by the actions which are fueled by what is first seen by the eye. The eye sends signals to the heart, and the heart, if not circumcised of spiritual dregs, will deceive itself with scandal and trap-spring said people.
Take measures to guard the eyes. Matthew 6:21-23 (Jesus, in the midst of His big sermon, draws a spiritual connection between the eyes and the heart): “For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also. The eye is a lamp of the body; so then if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is wicked (porneia), you whole body will be full of darkness.”
Pornography is an English remnant of this ancient Greek word, a catch-all for all things evil. Jesus warns with a threat: If the eye is contaminating the heart, knock it off, and cut it out.
