Jesus, in continuity with the prophets before him and the apostles after him, didn’t shy away from moral confrontation. But he refused to leave it at the kind of superficiality we all crave. The disciples weren’t allowed to congratulate themselves for being free from adultery or murder, because Jesus in his preaching drove the law deeper and deeper into their consciences, exposing the roots of the kind of internal adultery and murder it is much harder to identify much less to wash away.
