THE PERSON AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT The Superior Righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven
The main theme of the Sermon on the Mount is the righteousness Jesus expects of those who are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Many of us who were raised Baptist have reduced God's righteousness to being the righteousness God gives us whenever we become Christians. At the cross God switches our unrighteousness for Jesus' righteousness so that He became unrighteous and we became righteous (2 Cor. 5:21). By means of Jesus' death on the cross God has made us RIGHT with Him.
Whereas all this is true, this is only one aspect of the righteousness God demands from us. Christ not only came to put us into a right relationship with God, He also came to produce righteous lives in us (Eph. 2:10). Our own inner being knows that this is true. C. S. Lewis has shown that there is universal agreement that there is something within us that tells us we need to be right, we need to be good. We may not live rightly. We may not live good lives; HOWEVER, deep within us we know that righteous lives are what are expected of us--by God.
What then does God mean by righteous lives? God comes to us in the person of Jesus and gives us this answer in the Sermon on the Mount. As we work through the sermon we discover that many times the way Jesus defines righteousness is not the way we ourselves define it. Often we think of righteousness in 2 ways: (1) in terms of our "rights" and (2) in terms of us not doing anything wrong. As you look at the next 3 specific examples of righteousness, you are going to discover that our rights appear to be the last thing God is concerned about when it comes to righteousness. This should not surprise us in light of the fact that when Jesus was on earth, He did not take His rights into account (Phil. 2:6-7). Jesus is going to give instructions in today's verses which appear to violate our rights; they go far beyond us not doing anything wrong. From God's perspective though these instructions will produce righteous lives in us. Moreover, they will produce the very life of blessing (happiness, joy) which God Himself enjoys. We can fight for our rights and be hostile the rest of our lives, or we can give them to Jesus and enjoy His life of blessing.
OATHS (5:33-37)
In the first 3 specific examples of righteousness (5:21-32) Jesus interpreted the sixth and seventh commandments of the Ten Commandments. Jesus skips over #8 (theft) and focuses now on #9: "Thou shalt not bear false witness." He looks especially at the way it relates to oaths.
It only makes sense that Jesus would deal with oaths when dealing with the 9th commandment since oaths play an integral part of bearing false witness. The context of the 9th commandment is basically that of the courtroom in which a person is placed under oath in order to make sure that he testifies truthfully.
However, oaths began to be used in more situations than just the courtroom setting. Oaths would be used for contracts. They would be used in casual conversation in which a person wants to assure another person that they were telling the truth. Even today we hear people say: "I swear on my mother's grave," or "I swear, I'm telling the truth." In Jesus' day people would swear by heaven or by the earth or by Jerusalem, etc.
On the surface it doesn't seem to hurt when somebody gives an oath. Jesus says there are several problems with giving oaths to confirm the truthfulness of a statement.
On the other hand, whereas the OT commanded people to keep their oaths, Jesus commands people to make NO OATHS AT ALL. You word should be so trustworthy that no one would ever even think of asking you to swear an oath to ensure you've told the truth. When you say, "Yes," you should mean, "Yes." When you say, "No," you should mean, "No." Yes, sometimes circumstances do change; HOWEVER, based upon what you know at the time, your word should be your bond, both positively and negatively.
Parents sometimes have to deal with children who hold them to their word even AFTER the circumstances have changed. The parent simply needs to inform their children that if they can't change their minds whenever the change "hurts" the kid, then they can't change their minds whenever the change "benefits" the child. That'll get their attention and make them a little bit more agreeable whenever you have to change your mind to their detriment.)
Some people get around telling the truth by telling only the facts which support their version of the truth. Children are not the only ones who do this. Adults do it also. I've seen ministers do this. In order not to hurt somebody's feelings, they will tell them what they want to hear and not necessarily the truth. They need to realize that they are not stretching the truth; they are not bending the truth. Rather they are lying. Jesus will have none of that.
(Jesus' teachings here do not preclude oaths in a court of law. Jesus is dealing with personal relationships here. We need to note though that Christians shouldn't have to go under oath in order to give true testimony in a court of law. They should be truthful even if NOT under oath.)
Many of us though don't ever really think of swearing in order to prove that we've told the truth. Does this passage then still apply to us? Yes. Basically this passage is about integrity. As followers of Jesus, we should live lives of integrity, that is, we should live the kind of live consistent with whom we claim to be. We claim to be followers of Jesus. Well, then as followers of Jesus we need to live the kind of life He lived. We need to put away anger (5:21-26); we need to put away lust (5:27-30); we need to love instead of retaliate (5:38-42). We need to live the kind of life that Jesus Himself lived if we are going to have any kind of integrity at all.
RETRIBUTION (5:38-42)
The next specific example of righteousness revolves around retribution. The law of Moses stated that the punishment was to be in direct proportion to the crime. For example, if I hit you in the mouth and your tooth fell out, then as punishment I was to lose a tooth. If I knocked out your eye, you were to knock out my eye. This specific law was called lex talionis.
Jesus rejects lex talionis in personal relationships. (He is not dealing with the legal system here. He renders to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.) Whereas most of us think that Moses gave us the law so that we could get EVEN with the one who hurt me, the truth is that Moses gave us the law so that our retribution would not be disproportionate to the offense. For example, most of the time whenever we've been wronged, we don't seek to get EVEN, rather we see justice FOUR-fold.
I knew a Christian leader at a college campus who was guilty of disproportionate retribution. Being the leader, he was normally the target of practical, harmless pranks. He got the word out though that if anybody played a prank on him, he would repay that person SEVEN-fold. He was not kidding either. As a result, no one ever played a prank on him; however, he didn't have the best witness on campus either.
What is Jesus' response to a wrong suffered? First, He urges NOT to retaliate. If somebody knocks out my eye, I am not to knock out their eye. If somebody knocks out my tooth, I am not to knock out their tooth. Jesus simply rules out retaliation.
Not to retaliate is one thing. Jesus though urges us to do something so contrary to what we would have otherwise done; He urges us to be aggressive in showing kindness to those offending us!
Why does Jesus instruct us to go the extra mile? First, because it is something our antagonists would never in a million years expect us to do. They expect us to fight back, stand up for our rights. They think that we will countersue them because that is exactly what they would have done. When the Christian though not only refuses to retaliate but also repays evil with kindness, it makes his antagonist pause and wonder what is going on. He realizes this kind of action does not come from the world. It is other-worldly. It forces your antagonist to face Jesus. This act of kindness probably has a greater chance of leading a person to Jesus than any other act.
One of the most powerful illustrations of this is found in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. At the beginning of this book Jean Valjean is a bitter man, hardened by the injustices of life. When he gets out of prison, he spends the night in the home of a kind priest. During the night Jean robs the priest of the silverware in his house. When the priest breaks in upon him, Jean hits the priest over the head with a candlestick and flees the house.
The next day the police get suspicious of Jean when they see this dirty, haggard-looking man carrying the silverware in his pack. When they ask him where he got the silverware, he told the police that the priest had given the silverware to him. The police take Jean back to the priest to verify his story. To Jean's utter surprise the priest CONFIRMS Jean's story to the police. In fact the priest chides Jean in front of the police for forgetting to take the silver candlesticks as well. The police leave a little bewildered.
After the police leave, the priest tells Jean to put away his bitterness. God has given him a fresh start. Don't blow it. This act of kindness changes Jean's life forever.
"But I've been wronged," you might say. "My rights have been violated." You've got to decide what is more important, your rights or the witness to Jesus Christ. The true citizen of the kingdom of heaven is more concerned about witness to Jesus than he is about his own personal rights.
"But," you might argue, "I am being taken advantage of." Milton Cunningham's response to this? "So what? The bottom line is that the only reason somebody is taking advantage of you is that you are being kind. People don't take advantage of the unkind, the ungenerous. Your being taken advantage of is actually a positive testimony to your character.
The second reason we need to go the extra mile is that Jesus Himself went the extra mile. You just know that when He was a teenager, a Roman soldier probably came up to Him to force Him to carry his pack one mile (this was legal in Jesus' day). Jesus though probably surprised the Roman soldier by volunteering to carry it a second mile, with a smile on His face. We so much want to experience the joy and blessing Jesus experienced while here on earth. The only way to experience these is to live the life He lived. If ever you could sum up the life of Jesus in a few words, they would be this: "Jesus went the extra mile." If we are going to experience His joy, then we are going to have to go the extra mile likewise.
Notice one more thing though before leaving the subject of retaliation. Whenever Jesus was wronged, He did not back down from the truth. For example, when the Jewish religious leaders were so angry with Him because of His claims to be God the Son, Jesus didn't say: "Because you are so angry with Me, I will take it all back." No, He continued to speak the truth and then repaid their evil with the greatest act of kindness possible--He died for them. In the same way we never back away from the truth; we just simply continue to show love and kindness as we speak that truth.