"If your right eye is a chance for you to fall, take it out": 

¿what did Jesus Christ mean ? 

Jesus Christ used striking images to highlight a vital principle: Our spiritual condition is much more important than our physical condition. 

In his well-known Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught many principles that contradicted the popular ideas of his time and ours. We have heard some of these principles so many times that we may no longer notice how shocking they are, but think about how the following ideas must have impressed your original audience:

Loving our enemies (Matthew 5:44).

Turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39).

Do not judge (Matthew 7: 1).

"... I tell you, anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).

With these teachings, Christ magnified the letter of the law to reveal the spiritual depth and purpose of God's commandments. The last point deepens the Seventh Commandment about adultery, and Christ immediately said something impressive that apparently encourages self-flagellation:

“Therefore, if your right eye causes you to fall, take it out and throw it out of you; It is better for you if one of your limbs is lost, and not that your whole body is thrown into hell. And if your right hand gives you the opportunity to fall, cut it off and throw it away from you; for it is better for you that one of your members should be lost, and not that your whole body be thrown into hell ”(Matthew 5: 29-30).

His audience must have been horrified!

What Christ did not mean

Does Jesus Christ want us to literally take our eyes out? No. How do we know? Let's first notice that Jesus used the word "yes." Is it really our eye or hand that makes us sin? No. Sin begins in the mind and heart. Taking our eyes out or cutting our hands would not prevent us from having bad thoughts.

"You could gouge out your eyes without diminishing in the least the bad desire they served," explains the Jamieson , Fausset and Brown Commentary [ Jamieson , Fausset, and Brown Commentary ].

Also, there is no example in the Bible of someone cutting off a hand or gouging out an eye. Let's check it with two instances of sexual sin in Scripture:

David was carried away by sinful desires that finally culminated in his adultery with Bathsheba . But he never blamed his eyes. Instead, he repented and asked God to cleanse his heart (Psalm 51: 7-10).

And, when the apostle Paul repressed the adulterer (and the church) in Corinth, he did not say that the man should put out an eye. Rather, he told the congregation to remove him from the church until his heart changed (1 Corinthians 5: 1-5; 2 Corinthians 2: 6-11).

What we really should get

God wants repentance — a real change in our thoughts and actions — not self-flagellation.

He wants us to feel the kind of sadness that 2 Corinthians 7: 10-11 describes: “For the sadness that is according to God produces repentance for salvation, that there is no need to repent; but the sadness of the world produces death. For behold, this very thing that you have been grieved according to God, what solicitude he produced in you, what defense, what indignation, what fear, what ardent affection, what zeal, and what vindication! In everything you have shown clear in this matter".

"Our Lord was saying that we must attack the root of our sinful tendencies and also eliminate the situations that stimulate them" ( Jamieson , Fausset and Brown Commentary ).

Another analogy used in the Bible is that of killing the "old man," replacing our carnal life with a new life — with the "new man."

“But you have not learned Christ in this way, if you have really heard him, and have been taught by him, according to the truth that is in Jesus. As for the past way of living, get rid of the old man, who is flawed according to deceitful desires, and renew yourself in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, created according to God in justice and holiness of truth ” (Ephesians 4: 20-24).

This new life free from the bondage of sin is possible when we repent, get baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of God (Acts 2:38).

“Likewise consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey it in its lusts ”(Romans 6: 11-12).

Radically avoid sin

Christ's purpose in using these strong words was to get our attention. He wanted to show us how terrible sin is! Sin leads us to death — eternal death — and He Himself gave His life so that we could live. With such intensity he hates sin, and with that intensity he loves us.

The image take out the eye or cut hand illustrates how great the need to "avoid radically sin" ( Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary [Bible Commentary NIV Zondervan ]).

We must ask God to help us put the old man to death — control our hands and eyes so we don't sin — and we must also remove any habit, form of entertainment, relationship, and addiction that contributes to sin.