THE PERSON AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT The Superior Righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven
Jesus now launches into the main body of the sermon. He introduces the main body by relating the OT to the NT. Why would Jesus even care about relating the 2 since we believe that both the Old and New Testaments are from God? Although we know it, the Jews of Jesus' day did not know it. In fact the Jews claimed that Jesus and His religion were not from God because according to them Jesus and His religion contradicted the OT. Their argument ran as such:
That Jesus embraces the OT is the main point of verse 17:
Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
At this point some of our well-meaning fundamentalist friends cry out: "You see! The Law of Moses is still valid! We should still be keeping the 10 Commandments!" Wait. That is not what Jesus said. This statement would be true if Jesus had said: "I did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it!" He didn't say that. He said: "I did not come to abolish the Law AND THE PROPHETS!" A big difference. The important thing is what Jesus means when He says that he came to fulfill both the Law and Prophets?
By this Jesus means that He came to do away with the Mosaic Law and concentrate on the heart. Christianity is not the first one to say that the covenant with Moses, the Law of Moses, is no longer valid. THE OT ITSELF SAID IT:
"Behold, days are coming," says the Lord,
"when I will effect a NEW covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah
not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT!" (Jeremiah 31:31-33)
The old Mosaic covenant according to Jeremiah and Isaiah simply didn't work! The Mosaic Law aimed at only changing a person's actions. It did not attack the root problem--man's heart! Ezekiel says that the new covenant God is effecting will be a covenant which places the Spirit of God into the person so that his heart can be changed (Ez. 36:26-27). This is what Jesus means when He says that He has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He FINISHES what they have started. The OT states that the Mosaic covenant has been an unmitigated disaster (as seen in the nation of Israel); now a new covenant which addresses the heart is being put into place. Jesus is making the promise in the prophets now a reality! [The author of Hebrews is saying the same thing when he writes: "When he said, 'A NEW covenant,' he has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear" (Heb. 8:13). Too many Christians today are like the Jews of Jesus' day; they get stuck in the Law of Moses and don't process what the Prophets have said. Jesus took the WHOLE OT seriously, not just its beginning. When it comes to the OT, probably Jesus' greatest contribution was to reintroduce to us the significance of the great OT prophets.]
This verse applies also to some of our Church of Christ brothers and sisters who totally dismiss the OT. Jesus like the prophets does dismiss legalism AND the Mosaic Law; HOWEVER, He does NOT do away with the OT. Rather He fulfills, He completes what it has begun! Like the prophets Jesus is going to focus on man's heart, his spirit, not on his actions.
Unfortunately verse 19 has likewise been misunderstood. When Jesus says: "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments . . ." people claim that Jesus is referring to the laws and commandments of Moses. Whereas that interpretation is technically possible, it TOTALLY CONTRADICTS WHAT JESUS JUST SAID IN V. 18. He did not come to fulfill just the Mosaic Law; He came to fulfill the ENTIRE OT which itself does away with the Mosaic law and covenant. Rather the commandments Jesus refers to in v. 19 are none other than the commandments of the Sermon on the Mount which address man's SPIRIT, HEART, not his actions! Jesus then is telling us to take very seriously the rest of the Sermon on the Mount which is part of the fulfilment of the OT.
At first Jesus' words here while stern do not seem to be all that bad. The one who does not keep them or teaches others not to keep them will be least in the kingdom of heaven. "Great," we may say. "At least we're still going to be in the kingdom of heaven. We may only get a shack by the riverside; HOWEVER, that shack is still in heaven!" That attitude is not only perverse; it fails to take into account what Jesus says in verse 20:
For I say to you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will NEVER, NO NEVER enter the kigndom of heaven (5:20).
Yes, Jesus knows that we are broken and that we are going to blow it; HOWEVER, He also expects us to take seriously His claims upon our lives.
Just how righteous does Jesus expect us to be? More righteous than the most righteous person the world has ever produced, the Pharisee. (Some one said, "It wouldn't be hard to be better than the Pharisee since they were so bad." This statement totally misses the point Jesus is trying to make. The bottom line is that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were Pharisees too. Jesus is saying our righteousness must be better than theirs to enter heaven.) The Pharisees never missed tithing; they never murdered; they never took God's name in vain. Forget idol worship. They prayed at least 2 times daily. They never missed a religious festival in Jerusalem. Yet if our righteousness does not surpass theirs, then we will never, no never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Again, what kind of righteousness are we talking about and how is this righteousness possible? Jesus is speaking about the righteousness outlined in the kingdom of heaven. It is made possible by the Spirit of the righteous Jesus living in us and producing His righteous life in us.
Was Jesus serious about this? Read John 3 and you will see that He is deadly serious about this. Nicodemus was not only a Pharisee, he was one of the best Pharisees alive during Jesus' day--and yet Jesus tells him that unless he has a radical spiritual transformation (the theme of the Sermon on the Mount), he would never, no never enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3-5).
ANGER (Matt. 5:21-26)
Jesus has stated unequivocably that the righteousness of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven should far surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees. Moreover, this superiority is based upon a man's heart, his spirit, and not just simply his actions. Jesus knows that the root problem is the heart and that actions are mere symptoms of the problem. Jesus will list 6 representative areas which show His righteousness is superior to that of the Pharisees'.
The first example Jesus gives revolves around the sixth commandment in the Ten Commandments.
"You have heard that the ancients were told:
'You shall not commit murder' and whoever commits murder is liable to the court.
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court
And whoever says to his brother: 'You good for nothing' shall be guilty before the supreme court
And whoever says: 'You fool!' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell."
In each of the six examples Jesus uses a recurring formula in order to contrast the righteousness of the OT with the superior righteousness of the kingdom of heaven. He will say: "You have heard that it was said" (or a variant of this) and then "BUT I say to you . . . " In other words, He is contrasting His righteousness with that of the OT and especially with that of the Pharisees.
Look at how audacious Jesus is. When He says: "You have heard that the ancients were told," He is referring to the event at Mt. Sinai in which God spoke the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. By saying, "But I say to you . . ." Jesus is AT LEAST putting Himself on par with that event. Either He is a lunatic or He is God the Son who has the right to interpret the OT for God's people.
To be sure the sixth commandment does deal with murder. Unfortunately the problem is that this commandment does not get at the root of the problem, only its symptom. Jesus goes behind the symptom, that is, the act of murder, and goes right to the cause of murder, anger itself. Jesus says that not only is a person who commits murder guilty, the angry person is also guilty. Although he may not have committed the act of murder, he has harbored the same spirit which leads to murder. For Jesus the 2 are one and the same.
At this point some people are going to diffentiate between punishment of "the court," "the supreme court" (the Sanhedrin), and "fiery hell." They see the punishment as getting worse and worse and worse. The truth is that Jesus is probably meaning the same thing with all three punishments. The angry person is going to receive a sentence of condemnation from God on judgment day.
At this point most of us get into a defensive mode and start rationalizing away our anger. For example, we justify OUR anger on the basis of Jesus getting angry with the moneychangers in the temple. Psychologists do teach us that anger is a valid human emotion and cannot be suppressed without doing serious emotional harm to a person. Paul seems to be saying the same thing when he writes: "Be angry and YET DO NOT SIN. Do not let the sun go down on your anger." What we do with our angry feelings then seems to be Paul's primary concern. For example, it would probably be a sin to see some great miscarriage of justice occur and not get angry about it. It would probably be a sin see God slandered and not get upset about it, as seems to be the case in Jesus cleansing the temple. In both instances though, the anger was not personal. It was NOT about my rights being violated or my feelings not being taken into account. Whatever the case may be, we need to be very careful in justifying our anger because Jesus takes anger very seriously as verse 22 and the following verses indicate.
Jesus will next give 2 examples to illustrate the importance of dealing with anger. The first example revolves around a person who is angry with you. You are at the altar presenting your sacrifice when you remember that your Christian brother or sister is angry with you. What should you do? Of course, you should go ahead and present your offering and then at the right time reconcile with your brother or sister. This only makes sense due to the fact that worship IS the most important thing a person can do.
Well, come to find out, worship is not necessarily the most important thing a person can do. Reconciling with a brother or sister who is angry with you is even more important. Why? Because the person who is angry with me has been made in the image of God Himself. How can I legitimately claim to be worshipping God whenever I am in a hostile relationship with someone who is in the image of God? That would be totally illogical (see James 3:9). Worshipping God while in a hostile relationship with somebody made in His image is contradictory and impossible. [Whereas it is true that I can't always be reconciled with everybody because some people refuse to be reconciled, the fact is that as far as reconciliation depends on me, then I will be reconciled (Rom. 12:18).]
Humbling myself and initiating reconciliation with somebody I have harmed is a whole lot harder than trying to reconcile with somebody who has wronged me. (We all want to go after the person who has wronged us!) Now notice that if I am to initiate reconciliation if somebody is angry with me, then I naturally am responsible to initiate the process of reconciliation if I am angry with somebody else. In other words, the citizen of the kingdom of heaven IS ALWAYS RESPONSIBLE TO INITIATE THE PROCESS OF RECONCILIATION.
The follower of Jesus Christ is always to begin to process. Why? Because he is a follower of Jesus, the One who always begins the process of reconciliation between us and Him. We didn't ask Jesus to come down to make peace between us and Him. In fact if it had been left up to us, we would have NEVER asked Him to come down. He came down on His own initiative. Even now whenever we are in a hostile relationship with God, He effects the process of reconciliation. If then we are followers of the One who always initiate reconciliation, then we too should initiate reconciliation.
The next example Jesus gives is rather startling. The first example of worship at the altar has lofty motives, that is, we want our worship to be legitimate. In this second example Jesus gives a rather practical and even mundane reason: don't be stubborn and get thrown into prison because you refuse to reconcile with a brother.
The image Jesus uses is that of 2 men on their way to court. Do you remain stubborn and force your opponent to go through with the judicial procedings which might lead to you being thrown into prison? Or do you cry, "Uncle!" and reconcile so that the wheels of justice are not set into motion? Jesus is very practical and recommends the latter because once the wheels of justice are set into motion, they won't be stopped. The result just might be that once they are set into motion, you might just end up in prison. Jesus is telling us to give ourselves a break and avoid prison time.
Jesus' example though goes way beyond though literal prison time. When He says: "You will not come out of there until you have paid the last cent," He is referring to eternal judgment and eternal condemnation. Reconciliation is no light matter. It is truly a matter of spiritual life and spiritual death.
Frederick Beuchner says that bitterness is like a feast. We feed with delight upon the carcass of the person we are so angry at. Yet after we've stripped the bones clean, we discover that the carcass is US. When it is all said and done, bitterness destroys us.
On the surface it seems like if we follow Jesus' instructions on this matter, then we are letting people off the hook. It appears that we have nothing positive really to gain. That is not true. The fact is that whenever I reconcile with another, I gain a whole lot. At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says that the citizen of the kingdom of heaven is blessed. How do we experience God's blessings even now? By applying the principles of this sermon to ourselves, even the principle of reconciliation.