As Jesus described life in God’s kingdom, how would He treat the old, moral “do’s” and “don’ts?” Would He cancel or destroy them? No! Instead He fully explained them. He rejected the faulty external interpretation that was so common. He exposed murder and adultery as the outward results of anger and lust. Self-control is therefore a primary key to the kingdom.
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Matt 5:17-30
What stories most
often make the 10:00 news and the front-page headlines? Murder and adultery.
The latest school shooting. The latest shocking revelation in the “me-too”
movement.
What were the first
two specific moral matters Jesus addressed in Matt 5?
What does our
society propose to correct these problems? More laws. More police. Fewer guns.
More cameras. More tape recordings. More background checks. More expensive
programs.
What can $500 million dollars not buy in Florida?
Florida’s governor Rick
Scott proposes $500 million school safety program. Will any of that work? What if we spend a billion dollars? Or ten times
that amount?
No! Why not? Because these efforts do not address the root cause: the
heart.
What single key
would prevent every murder and every act of adultery?
Self-control. It’s a
key to the kingdom.
Self-Control: Deciding
to say “no” to what one strongly desires or feels, because one desires
something else far more.
Self-control
includes balance, calmness, determination, confidence, and willpower.
Clarification
and Caution – 5:17-20
Mt 5:17
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to
abolish but to fulfill.
No wonder Jesus has
been compared with Moses as a lawgiver. Each ascended a mountain. Each
proclaimed God’s commands. Jesus even quoted the Ten Commandments regarding
murder and adultery.
Here Jesus gets down
to the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty, where the rubber meets the road. How
do those in His kingdom, who have met with Him on the mountain, practice
kingdom morality? How does Jesus’ teaching compare with that given through
Moses? What about the things that people have always heard? They’ve been told,
“Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. You may divorce your wife, if you give
her a legal document. You may swear, and you may decide which oaths to fulfill.”
They have redefined and limited God’s commandments so that they only apply to
externals.
Jesus’ disclaimer:
“Do not think that I am rejecting or refuting what God has revealed in the
past! Do not misinterpret what I am about to say! I came, not to abolish God’s
moral law, but to explain its full meaning and intent.”
Perhaps some had
already questioned or criticized Him as one who rejected Moses and the Law. He
did not! Instead, He rejected the Pharisees’ oral misinterpretation of the Law.
This is clear when He says later:
Mt 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU
SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’
“You have heard …
‘hate your enemy,’” but God never said or intended that.
So Jesus contrasted,
“You have heard” (the rabbis’ oral interpretation) with “but I say” (the
original intent and full meaning of the command). He never challenged “It is written,” but rather , “You have
heard,” or, “The ancients were told.” Then He declared the true intent of the
Law when He proclaimed, “But I say.” He did not correct the written Word of
God, but the false ways that the Pharisees had interpreted it.
“But I say” – Jesus interpreted what God said
by explaining what God meant.
In six areas: Murder. Adultery. Marriage. Oaths.
Justice. Love.
It was this authority that the listeners noted when
Jesus finished.
Mt 7:28 When
Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29
for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
The “hedge around the Law.” The Pharisees made
all kinds of external rules so they could claim perfect obedience to God and
see themselves as worthy.
Jesus may have
clarified a misunderstanding that some already had. Had He, for example, broken
the Sabbath law and taught others to do the same? Mark notes early the Sabbath
“violations” – plucking the grain and healing the man’s withered hand.
People said He
brought “a new teaching.” Was it really new? In what sense?
Mk 1:27 They
were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, “What is this?
A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they
obey Him.”
Fulfill – The verb (plērōsai) means literally ‘to fill’ and indicates, as Chrysostom
expressed it, that ‘his (sc.
Christ’s) sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out and filling
up of them’.
Ryle summed it up
like this: ‘The Old Testament is the Gospel in the bud; the New Testament is
the Gospel in full flower. The Old Testament is the Gospel in the blade; the
New Testament is the Gospel in full ear.’
Jesus fulfilled all the various types of Law:
Doctrinal – Jesus brought it to completion by his
person, his teaching and his work. Sin, grace, worship, obedience, repentance,
sacrifice.
Prophetic – He did all that it said He would.
Moral – He brought out its full meaning.
Ceremonial – He completed it. The substance of which
it was the shadow.
18 “For truly
I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or
stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
“Not one jot or one
tittle …”
A “jot” is a Hebrew yodh
(similar to the Greek iota), the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
almost as small as a comma or apostrophe.
A “tittle” is a
serif, keraia, a horn, referring
probably to one of the tiny hooks or projections which distinguish some Hebrew
letters from others. Tittles make the difference between the “1” and the “l”
(lower-case “L”).
Even the smallest letter or stroke has God-given,
lasting, unchangeable authority.
Note Jesus’ view of the OT as it existed in His day.
Inspired, God-breathed, inerrant, and authoritative.
19 “Whoever
then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do
the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and
teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 “For
I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Whoever then
(therefore)” – therefore greatness in
the kingdom of God will be measured by conformity to it.
Stott: Christian disciples must both obey and teach
to others the permanently binding nature of the law’s commandments. Even one of the least of these commandments,
precisely because it is a commandment of God the King, is important. To relax
it—i.e. to loosen its hold on our
conscience and its authority in our life—is an offence to God whose law it is.
What is “surpassing
righteousness?” Pharisees counted 248
commandments and 365 prohibitions. Do Jesus’ followers have 249 and 366,
respectively?
Must certainly have
astonished his first hearers as it astonishes us today. But the answer to these
questions is not far to seek. Christian righteousness far surpasses pharisaic
righteousness in kind rather than in
degree. It is not so much, shall we say, that Christians succeed in keeping
some 240 commandments when the best Pharisees may only have scored 230. No.
Christian righteousness is deeper, being a righteousness of the heart, an
inward righteousness of mind and motive.
Next Jesus noted six
parallel paragraphs which illustrate the principle.
Murder and
Anger
Mt 5:21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU
SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the
court.’ 22 “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. 23 “Therefore if
you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your
brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the
altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present
your offering. 25 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are
with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge,
and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 “Truly I say to
you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.
“The ancients were
told …” First part is Scripture. Note all caps to indicate this is the NASB. Second
part is oral interpretation.
The prohibition of
murder was interpreted to forbid only the act itself. That left the door open
to allow hatred, malice, rage, and unjustified anger. Only murder itself – the act – was worthy of judgment.
Is that what God
intended? Of course not! Jesus will “fulfill” this.
“But I say …”
Anger – guilty
before God’s court!
Insults – calling
our brother either Raca (probably
equivalent to an Aramaic word meaning ‘empty’) or mōre (the Greek word for a ‘fool’). It appears that ‘Raca’ is an
insult to a person’s intelligence, and mōre
expresses contempt for his heart and character.
1 Jn 3:15
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has
eternal life abiding in him.
Stott: Jesus extended the nature of both the
penalty and the crime. Not only are anger and insult equivalent to murder, he
said, but the punishment to which they render us liable is nothing less than
the divine judgment of hell.
‘So if …’, Jesus
continued (23), and declared the positive side of the commandment’s
prohibition. Reconcile with those you have offended, before you begin your
worship! Pay your unpaid debts, before you go to court and land in jail!
Stott: if anger and insult are so serious and so
dangerous, then we must avoid them like the plague and take action as speedily
as possible.
Stott: Yet how seldom do we heed Christ’s call for
immediacy of action! If murder is a horrible crime, malicious anger and insult
are horrible too. And so is every deed, word, look or thought by which we hurt
or offend a fellow human being. We need to be more sensitive about these evils.
We must never allow an estrangement to remain, still less to grow. We must not
delay to put it right. We must not even allow the sun to set on our anger. But immediately, as soon as we are conscious
of a broken relationship, we must take the initiative to mend it, to apologize
for the grievance we have caused, to pay the debt we have left unpaid, to make
amends. And these extremely practical instructions Jesus drew out from the
sixth commandment as its logical implications! If we want to avoid committing
murder in God’s sight, we must take every possible positive step to live in
peace and love with all men.
Adultery
and Lust
27 “You have
heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 28 but I say to
you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.
Stott: Rabbis again tried to limit the scope of
the commandment to cover only an outward action, while ignoring the thoughts,
desires, fantasies, and plans that might lead to that action.
Narrow definition of
sexual sin. Convenient, broad definition of sexual purity.
As the prohibition
of murder included the angry thought and the insulting word, so the prohibition
of adultery included the lustful look and imagination. We can commit murder
with our words; we can commit
adultery in our hearts or minds.
Of course sexual
relations within marriage are God-given and beautiful.
Jesus here refers to
unlawful sex outside marriage.
He does not forbid
us to look at a woman, but to look lustfully.
Jesus’ allusion is
to all forms of immorality.
As to men, so to
women. As to the married, so to the unmarried.
Any and every sexual practice which is immoral in deed
is immoral also in look and in thought.
Note his equation of
looking lustfully at a woman and committing adultery with her in the heart. It
is the relation between the eyes and the heart which leads Jesus in the next
two verses to give some very practical instruction about how to maintain sexual
purity.
The argument is
this: If to look lustfully is to commit adultery in the heart, in other words,
if heart-adultery is the result of eye-adultery (the eyes of the heart being
stimulated by the eyes of the flesh), then the only way to deal with the
problem is at its beginning, which is our eyes.
Righteous Job
claimed that he had learned this. ‘I have made a covenant with my eyes,’ he said; ‘how then could I look
upon a virgin?’ Then he went on to speak of his heart: ‘If … my heart has gone after my eyes, … if my heart has
been enticed to a woman …,’ he would acknowledge that he had sinned and that he
deserved the judgment of God. But job had not done these things. The control of his heart was due to the
control of his eyes.
While we’re on the
subject, let’s commit ourselves as godly men and women, young men and young
ladies, to dress modestly, speak modestly, and behave modestly.
We must control our eyes,
our hearts, and our desires!
We must also be
careful (in dress, appearance, and behavior) not to entice or draw others.
Our culture is
saturated with this message: if you want to get the attention of the opposite
sex, dress and act so as to get others to look at you and desire to be with
you. Book: 5 Conversations You Must Have
with Your Daughter.
Simple example: chocolate cake. I must be strong
and refuse it! But since you know I have a weakness for chocolate cake, please
don’t dangle it in front of me!
Second example: illegal drugs. Guard yourself, so
you won’t take them! But also, do not offer them as a temptation to others! Supply
and demand. We approach the drug problem from both sides. We tell one another:
“Say no! Walk or run away! Control your desires! Don’t start!” But we also tell
the dealers: “We will stop you from supplying, selling, enticing, and
destroying lives!”
In the same way, we
are not to look lustfully.
29 “If your
right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is
better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body
to be thrown into hell. 30 “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it
off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of
your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
We cannot always
judge for others what they may read, watch, or do. We are not all the same. Not
all things affect us in the same ways. We do not judge.
But we WILL say what
Jesus said.
If your eye causes you to sin, don’t look; if your foot causes you to sin, don’t
go; and if your hand causes you to
sin, don’t do it.
Stott: The rule Jesus laid down was hypothetical,
not universal. He did not require all his disciples (metaphorically speaking)
to blind or maim themselves, but only those whose eyes, hands and feet were a
cause of sinning. It is they who have to take action; others may be able to
retain both eyes, both hands and both feet with impunity. Of course even they
may need to refrain from certain liberties out of loving concern for those with
weaker consciences or weaker wills, but that is another principle which is not
enunciated here.
Stott: Jesus was quite clear about it. It is
better to lose one member and enter life maimed, he said, than to retain our
whole body and go to hell. That is to say, it is better to forgo some
experiences this life offers in order to enter the life which is life indeed;
it is better to accept some cultural amputation in this world than risk final
destruction in the next.
Stott: Of course this teaching runs clean counter
to modern standards of permissiveness. It is based on the principle that
eternity is more important than time, and purity more important than culture,
and that any sacrifice is worthwhile in this life if it is necessary to ensure
our entry into the next. We have to decide, quite simply, whether to live for
this world or the next, whether to follow the crowd or Jesus Christ.
That’s why we have
come up the mountain to listen to Jesus.
Whether we have
heeded His words will be evident when we come back down the mountain to return to
everyday life.
Self-control. It’s a
key to the kingdom.
Possible hymns:
Lord,
Take Control
Have Thine Own Way,
Lord
Let the Beauty of
Jesus Be Seen in Me
More Like Jesus
Take My Life, and
Let it Be
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