Matthew 5:33-37

We are now to the fourth section of six in which Jesus is fleshing out the nature of true righteousness. What we are finding is that true righteousness is that which reflects the very righteousness of God. God is not righteous by doing certain actions, fulfilling certain duties or following certain laws. God is not righteous because He does enough to satisfy certain conditions of a contract. Righteousness is who God is. The law that God gave to the Hebrew people was to reflect or point to this righteousness that is God’s real character. The laws of how to treat each other and how to relate to God flowed from the very nature and heart of God.

So, Jesus tells His listeners earlier in this sermon, he has come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. In Jesus, the completion of the law becomes flesh. It is no longer just a written code to point to righteousness, it is given heart. It is lived out from Jesus’ very being and so now reflects perfectly back to God His own righteousness in human form.

In these examples that Jesus gives of the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we see reflected the righteousness of God. God is fully right, or righteous towards us. God is not divided towards us, either in His words or His thoughts. God loves us, and His words to us and thoughts of us always spring out of that love. God remains faithful to Himself and therefore to us, even in the face of our unfaithfulness. Jesus is asking His listeners to consider the nature of true righteousness in each of these six sections we are now considering. He is showing them that righteousness is far more deep, real, and solid than they may have come to believe. Righteousness towards others involves our words and even our thoughts. That is because true righteousness flows out of a righteous being. Only Jesus can fulfill the law and have a righteousness that exceeds whatever the scribes and Pharisees have been able to do.

When we listen to Jesus’ words here, we might be tempted to feel discouraged. If my calling my brother or sister a fool is no better than actually killing them, then what hope is there for me? If my thought life makes me as guilty before the law as do my actions, then I will never be able to make myself more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees.

However, I don’t think that Jesus’ intention is to weigh us down or condemn us. He is giving us good news about the nature of righteousness. How wonderful to know that God’s intention for us is that we become righteous people, not just those that do righteous things sometimes. We are to reflect His very nature and character, to be made new all the way down to the deepest parts of our being! Thank God Jesus came to fulfill the law and provide for us in Himself true righteousness. This is why those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness are blessed and will one day be satisfied--not because they will make themselves righteous, but because Christ shares with us his true righteousness as we receive and participate in it by faith in him.

So far Jesus has spoken to His listeners of true righteousness in terms of murder and adultery. He has led them to realize that real righteousness that comes from God begins back in our thoughts and our words. True righteousness leads to relationships that are founded in deep trust, so that vulnerability and intimacy are possible, because there is no fear of hypocrisy or betrayal. In the section we are now looking at, Jesus continues to reveal the heart of righteousness.

Jesus begins, as He has with the previous sections, by reminding His listeners of what they already know. "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn." The issue at hand here is one of integrity. The Israelites were commanded to be faithful to doing what they had sworn to do. People were to be able to count on the oath you made.

But over time what had developed is a system of oaths that would enable people to look trustworthy, but not to be held accountable to do what they had "promised" to do. Depending on what you swore by, you were more or less obligated to do what you said you would. People would swear by some lesser things, because they reasoned that if they broke their word, then "at least they were not bringing God’s name into disrepute."(The Bible Backround Commentary, IVP, p. 59) It became a task of the rabbis to sort out and decide which of these various oaths were completely binding.

Jesus, refers indirectly to Isaiah 66:1 ("Thus says the Lord: ‘Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool’") to remind his listeners that all of creation belongs to God. The idea that there may be some parts of the world that God has nothing to do with and so we can swear by them without God being involved is ridiculous. He goes on and warns against swearing by one’s head, because "you cannot make one hair white or black." This statement points out our powerlessness. We have no capacity by sheer willpower, to change the color of our hair. What business do we have swearing by our heads, then?

The original law, "You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn," was meant to reflect the faithfulness of God. Righteousness, right relationship, involves being one who is true to their promises. Jesus here is saying that integrity goes deeper than that. Integrity does not require a promise or an oath at all. The oath or promise imply that there are times when our words cannot be counted on, so we have to add these things to convince another that this time we will be bound by what we say we will do.

Today we do not have an elaborate system of objects by which to swear. We will sometimes try to sound more convincing with the words, "I promise" or "I swear" but that is often as far as it goes. As children we may have tried at times to make a commitment less binding by crossing our fingers behind our backs. But we still struggle with the idea of making our yes or no suffice. I think some of what is behind this is that we wish to appear as generous, open, and flexible as we can while at the same time keeping a tight hold on what we actually end up doing for others.

Sometimes we say "maybe" instead of "yes" or "no" because we think it makes us look more open than we truly are. Unfortunately this often forces the other person to remain suspended in a position of indecision and ambiguity which stifles trust and even prevents cooperation and fellowship. A maybe does not invite trust, confidence or partnership. When we leave our own options open through our own indecision on the chance that perhaps our maybe will change into a yes, we can actually restrict the options open to others in response. Avoiding yes or no is often not considerate or generous or even non-manipulative, but the opposite. Sometimes we blurt out a response to sound good or generous or flexible, without thinking through whether we really intend to follow through or not. I remember many years ago realizing that I often told people I would pray for them, then I would forget to later on. I knew that I was appearing far more pious and interested in others than in fact I was.

To have your yes be yes and your no be no, means that there is no slippage between what you say and what you do. You do not appear to be anything else than who you truly are. We affirm our abilities, potentials, and moral priorities with our yes’s and admit our practical and moral limitations with our no’s. Our word is an extension of our inward being. People are able to see more clearly into who we are when our words and our actions always correspond as we trust in Christ to share with us the by the Spirit His very righteousness.

Our word and actions then become little signs, pointers to the integrity which is God’s. The reason that letting your yes be yes and your no be no is part of the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees is because God Himself has no slippage between He words to us and His actions. We can completely count on God’s word to be backed up by his action. He does not need to "swear" in order to convince us that in this instance He is serious. We can always count on Him, we do not need to work our lives around only having vague hopes that He might come through, afraid to find out that He won’t. In Jesus God’s word is not yes and no, or even maybe.

Jesus reveals to us the true heart of God and we can trust that God will always be faithful to Himself and therefore to us. He will, as Paul says at the beginning of Philippians, bring to completion the good work that He began in us. God does not vacilliate in His love for us or in His word to us. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthian church says this: For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, ... was not Yes and No; but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him." Jesus is God’s word, God’s Yes to us! How wonderful to know that He is faithful and can be trusted always to be true to Himself.