an
adversary,--and any man that you hate is your adversary, for he will
appear against you at that solemn judgment to come,--agree with him,
put away the anger out of your heart at once. In the special case in
hand, the 'adversary' is the man with whom we are angry. In the general
application of the precept to the whole series of offences against the
law, the adversary may be regarded as the law itself. In either
interpretation, the stages of appearing before the judge and so on up
till the shutting up in prison are the stages of the judgment before the
tribunal, not of earth, but of the kingdom of heaven. They point to the
same dread realities as are presented in the previous verses under the
imagery of the Jewish courts and the foul fires of the valley of Hinnom.
Christ closes the grave parable with His solemn 'Verily I say unto
thee'--as looking on the future judgment, and telling us what His eyes
saw. The words have no bearing on the question of the duration of the
imprisonment, for He does not tell us whether the last farthing could
ever be paid or not; but they do teach this lesson, that, if once we
fall under the punishments of the kingdom, there is no end to them until
the last tittle of the consequences of our breach of its law has been
paid. To delay obedience, and still more to delay abandoning
disobedience, is madness, in view of the storm that may at any moment
burst on the heads of the rebels.

Thus He deepens and fulfils one precept of the old law by extending the
sweep of its prohibition from acts to thoughts, by setting obedience to
it above sacrifice and worship, and by picturing in solemn tones of
parabolic warning the consequences of having the disobeyed precept as
our unreconciled adversary. In this one case we have a specimen of His
mode of dealing with the whole law, every jot of which He expanded in
His teaching, and perfectly observed in His life.

A gospel is hidden even in these warnings, for it is distinctly taught
that the offended law may cease to be our adversary, and that we may be
reconciled with it, ere yet it has accused us to the judge. It was not
yet time to proclaim that the King 'fulfilled' the law, not only by
life, but by death, and that therefore all His believing subjects 'are
justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the
law,' as well as endowed with the righteousness by which they fulfil
that law in deeper reality, and fairer completeness, than did