⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:7-8

Jesus is announcing the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. What is it like to live under the rule and reign of God is? What kind of king is He? He is a king who gives comfort, sets things right, freely gives His subjects the earth as an inheritance. Jesus is telling His listeners, and us, what God is up to in our lives and it is incredibly good news. Our fallen world tells us that to be blessed is to be strong, rich, self-sufficient, and tearless. In fact, in our world, to be blessed is to not need to be blessed by anyone else because you are completely able to bless yourself, or at least to believe that you are where you are all because of your own ability to bless yourself. It seems to me that our culture assumes that to achieve perfection is to reach a state where we do not need anyone else. In the Kingdom of God, however, the blessed person is the one who is able to receive blessings and glory from Another rather than giving it to him/herself. The people Jesus describes are blessed because they are in a position to be filled by God’s comfort, righteousness, and presence. In fact, Jesus Himself is the Truly Blessed One and is always receiving His Father’s love, joy, and peaceful presence.

In Matthew 5:7 Jesus announces, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” What does it mean to be merciful? Like being meek, being merciful is not usually admired by the world around us. Someone who is merciful is likely to be accused of being a doormat, of not facing up to reality, or of being easily taken advantage of.

But actually, to be merciful is to not give up on another person. Even when you are angry at the other person and you can’t believe they did it again, you can’t quite give up hope that they can change and that the relationship can get better. When you are merciful, you are willing to give another a second chance. Often when someone has made a mistake, has hurt us, we are tempted to think of that person only in terms of what they did. To be merciful is to hope that there is more to the person than their mistake or sin, that their mistake does not tell us all of who they are.

Often, the reason we want to look beyond the mistake is because we want others to look beyond our own sin. We hope that we are not reduced to our flaws or brokenness. We hope that our sin will not get to be the last word on who we are and where we are going. When we ourselves long for mercy, for another chance, we realize that we are not that different from the person who stands before us. We are alike: broken, hurting, and in need of hope that this is not the end.

Where does such hope come from? It is obviously not based on the person themselves. The person who is merciful is counting on something or Someone bigger than the other or themselves to bring about a new beginning. Being merciful is not just pretending something didn’t happen, or allowing the person to go on sinning against you just as before.

Mercy is providing room for the person not to be trapped by the past or their sinful nature, but to make room for them to move forward, to grow and mature, to become more of the person they were created to be. Mercy is not saying, “yes” to the sin, but to the sinner. So it isn’t giving in or giving up but, rather hoping for transformation. Being merciful does not mean being a doormat.

This means that to be merciful, one is counting on God to provide the possibility of real change. My mercy counts on God’s faithful Spirit to be at work to bring about repentance and new life in the one towards whom I am being merciful. This is what I am hoping for in my own life. I don’t want merely to be told that I am forgiven– I want to have new life. I want to hope that God is able to work in me in such a way that more and more I see that my sin truly is not who I am. I long to be made new, to hope that someday I am not going to continue to be bogged down by envy, manipulation, anxiety, greed, etc.

Jesus announces wonderful news here. For those who are listening and wondering why they should go on hoping for something better in those others and in themselves, Jesus is saying that this desire is not a weakness or an escape from facing the real hopelessness of the situation. Rather this desire to be merciful, to not give up on others is a sign of being blessed by God, of responding to His merciful Spirit at work in you. And the reason you are blessed is because you will receive mercy. God has not given up on you. He is able and willing to give you true life and identity and not to leave you in your brokenness.

As with the previous beatitudes we can see that this applies first of all to Jesus Himself. Is Jesus merciful? How could we doubt it? It is His mercy that brought Him here to take on our sinful humanity and heal us from the inside out. Jesus knows that our present state does not have to be the last word on who we are. When God raised Jesus from the dead, sin, evil and death no longer had the last word. We can’t view anyone as beyond God’s merciful work if God is a God who brings life out of death.

This beatitude is both comforting and challenging. In those times when we are dealing with someone who is either indifferent to our help or hostile to it, we may find ourselves wondering if we are fools to keep on trying, or hoping for better. We are tempted to think that this indifference or hostility is all that this person is. I have found in my own life that God can and does enable me to allow Him to mediate the relationship in such a way that I do not take in all the garbage they may hand out and that I can move towards that person in love and grace, rather than in merely reacting to his or her words or behavior.

I do see that mercy takes real work. It is not the work of gritting my teeth and forcing myself to be merciful, but the work of handing over my anger, frustration, and resentment to God, asking Him to be my lead in the relationship so that what I do and say is according to His Spirit rather than according to the immediate situation. We have to make room within ourselves to be merciful. And this is what we see God has done. God makes room in Himself to extend mercy to us. Yet He freely and joyfully does and blesses us with it.

Mercy is truly a wonderful thing. Jesus reassures us that the impulse to be merciful is not wimpy but from His very heart working in us. And to think that some day we will know the depth of His mercy towards us, we will know that none of the darkness, pain, pettiness, or sin will be the last word on us is truly to be blessed.

Now Jesus goes on, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” What does it mean to be pure in heart? Well, if we look at why exactly they are blessed, we see that is it because they will see God. So the pure in heart are longing to see God. Now why is it that someone who is pure in heart would want to see God?

The person whose heart is pure knows their heavenly Father is the giver of all abundant, joyful and good life. He knows that something is only truly known and received when its connection to God is seen, its relationship to God is known. Then we know it at its purest, deepest meaning. It isn’t always easy to see the connection to God and it may take a lot of thinking and work to get there, but this is what the pure in heart are driven to do. God surely is in this somewhere, they believe. In the end, all things have to do with God.

In this world, it is considered savvy to look at everything in terms of how one can turn it to their own advantage. We wonder what will benefit us. It is better to be practical about all things and consider their use to us rather than their meaning and purpose in God’s created and purposeful universe. The pure in heart long to see the connection between people, made in the image of God, and the God who made them. They see, even if this person doesn’t see or care, that he or she is really only known as they are known in God and where they stand in God’s own purposes. The worldly person is more tempted to see this person as an object, as a means to his or her own ends.

Because the worldly person is less interested in knowing the Source and Heart of all things, she is tempted to be less concerned about integrity or being entirely consistent in her own life. The pure in heart, however, long for integrity. They long to have their inner life and their outer life be in conformity to one another. They want God in every part of their lives and they look forward to the time when there is no slippage between their outward behavior and their inward character. It will be wonderful, they think, when there is nothing left to hide inside, no dark or shameful secret left.

The one who is pure in heart appears impractical in our world. She may seem too intense. “Why does everything have to be seen in connection to God?” others may ask. “Who cares? Let’s just use or enjoy what is around us and not worry about its deeper meaning.” “And why should we be so concerned about integrity? After all, getting along and getting ahead in this life is what is the priority. Besides, everybody fudges here and there–it s no big deal.” The pure in heart person may at times wonder if it is sensible to long so much to know life at its heart, to see how his/her heavenly Father is related to all that goes on around them.

To get the clearest picture of what it means to be pure in heart, we just need to look at Jesus. Jesus knew and deeply loved His Father in heaven. His Father made all that is created, in, through, and for Jesus; (Colossians 1:16) and Jesus sees, knows, and rejoices in the relationship of all things to His Father. In fact, God not only created all things in and through Christ, but is now reconciling all things to Himself in Christ (Col. 1:20) And this reconciliation is to restore and thus bring out to its fullness, the relationship of all things to the Triune God. When all things are fully manifest in Christ, we will know all things at their deepest level because they will be made right in Him.

Jesus also has nothing hidden or dark in Him. All that we see Him say or do comes out of His heart and can tell us truly who He is. Jesus is what He says and does. And this enables us to totally and completely count on Him and to know that as we learn more about Him our new knowledge will not contradict what we have already see of His great character.

Again Jesus announces good news. If you are longing at times for something deeper, if you are hoping even in this life to see and know the deepest meaning of the people and things around us, then you are responding to God’s pure heart working in your own. Don’t try to beat that out of yourself. Jesus says it is a sign of blessing from God in your life. And the wonder of it all is that someday you will see God, filling the whole universe with His glory, and all things able to realize their full connection to God, responding at last, fully and completely to Him and His glory.

¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹ Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:10-12

As you remember, Jesus is speaking to His followers about the Kingdom of God. Upon seeing a large crowd, He walked up the side of a hill and gathered His followers around Him. He is teaching them about the nature of God’s rule and how He blesses those who are in His Kingdom. What we have noticed all along is that it is not obvious to us that the people Jesus claims are blessed truly are blessed— Those who are keenly aware of their lack spiritually and of their own inability to make themselves rich. Those who grieve over the brokenness, pain, and sin of this world and long for comfort. Those who ache for all of creation to be set right. And, as we studied last time, those who long for God’s peace to fill the universe to overflowing. These characteristics are not, in general, what the world respects and recognizes as evidence of being blessed.

I think we hope that if we are blessed in these ways, then maybe others around us will recognize that fact. Part of being blessed surely is getting along with everyone around us isn’t it?

But here Jesus tells His followers that those that are persecuted for the sake of righteousness are blessed. Surely this is going too far. In the previous beatitudes, we could see that the world would not recognize their blessedness. What Jesus says it means to be blessed is not what we expect from looking around us. The strong or rich in spirit, those who are not mourning, who look out for themselves and don’t waste undue time on making things right or peaceful, these are the people who, for the most part, are admired by our world. But now Jesus says you are blessed if people are actually persecuting you for righteousness’ sake. This is truly not what we expect. Being persecuted in no way feels like being blessed. I don’t like being persecuted. Not at all.

Jesus says that these persecuted ones are blessed because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Notice this is present tense, just like the first beatitude about being poor in spirit.

The kingdom of God is a persecuted kingdom in this world. John contrasts the kingdom of God with this world in the first chapter of his gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” God’s kingdom breaks into this fallen world and is met with resistance and hostility. Jesus was not welcomed with open arms by all. As we read through the gospels, we can see the resistance and skepticism that Jesus encountered develop into such antagonism that in the end many pursued His destruction. There were plenty who made it clear that they did not want what Jesus was offering. We wish that every word of peace, goodness, life, and joy will be welcomed by all, but that simply isn’t the case.

So what we see here in this last beatitude, as in all the previous ones, is that this statement is true first of all of Jesus Himself. Jesus is the truly blessed One. He brings the kingdom of God so that it is “at hand”(Mk. 1:15), within our grasp. He is the Righteous One, the One in whom and through whom all things in heaven and earth are being set right. And He is the persecuted One. The inbreaking of the light was met with tremendous resistance from the darkness of our fallen world. Jesus knew He would face defiance.

When Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem for the last time, it was amidst shouts of acclaim. But Jesus knew that many in this very crowd would in just a few days participate in a movement to have Him crucified. He knew the persecution that awaited Him. They did not welcome Him as the Blessed One, their Savior. Yet, He was the Blessed One nevertheless. In some ways, the persecution was a sign of His Blessedness. He came to undo, destroy the sin and unrighteousness that was destroying His good creation. Sin, evil is anti-life. It feeds off of, distorts, and damages the life that God created.

The resurrection shows that evil doesn’t win. The darkness is unable to overcome the light. Jesus tells His disciples right before His arrest and crucifixion, “‘I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’”(Jn. 16:33) In the end, evil will be wiped out, and the righteousness and peace of the Kingdom of God will fill up the whole universe. In the Kingdom itself evil and death will be be swallowed up in life and peace.

But for now, when we belong to the kingdom of God here on this earth, that still suffers from the brokenness and pain of sin and evil, we will be met with resistance and even hostility. And this persecution is a sign that we belong to that kingdom of righteousness that has invaded the darkness which has overcome and is overcoming it. This persecution is a sign of our blessedness in Christ. It is a sign that we no longer belong to the lostness and twistedness of the kingdom of this sinful world, but that we now belong to the kingdom of God, a kingdom which is still persecuted by this world even as it is overcoming it.

Now Jesus directly addresses those who have begun to follow Him. “Blessed are you,” He says, “when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account”. Jesus becomes more pointed here to underscore the importance of what He has just said. He indicates to His followers that their lives as His disciples are not going to be easy or smooth. People are going to show contempt for you and are going to misjudge, misrepresent, or lie about you. They are going to persecute you.

Again Jesus is emphasizing the truth that to live in and for Him in this world will not always be welcomed and honored. We are tempted to be surprised and discouraged by this. After all, if Jesus is so good, won’t everyone recognize this and want what He is giving? Doesn’t everyone want what is best for them? Of course, if we think about it awhile we realize the answer to these questions is “no”. There are times when we ourselves are at least double minded about what God wants for us.

Jesus is reassuring His disciples, and us. Being resisted, being persecuted, will be a part of belonging to Jesus. When we live in His peace, we are less apt to be manipulated by the world and the world isn’t going to like that. We often in our social relationships use manipulation to move friends or family to act the way we want them to. To refuse to manipulate or be manipulated is not always going to be met with understanding and joy. When we refuse to lie or go along with underhanded ways, it is not likely the person encouraging us in this behavior will be pleased. To say that Jesus is the way to real life, joy, and reality is often met, as we know, with disdain and open hostility. Some are even dominated by what is present to some degree in all of us, the resistance to any repentance, to any change, even for the good.

It isn’t easy to be persecuted. We don’t like others thinking ill of us, or having our reputation falsely or truly tainted. This is why Jesus goes to these lengths to reassure His disciples. We fear persecution in any form and wonder if God can still be present, good, and faithful, if our lives aren’t going smoothly as we follow Him. But Jesus assures His disciples that in the midst of a negative reception here on earth, they are blessed. They are not blessed because they are persecuted, they are blessed because in their persecution the kingdom of God is theirs. Their persecution is a sign that they belong, not to this twisted and broken world, but to the kingdom of God’s goodness and righteousness.

How are we to look upon and deal with those times when we are resisted or opposed? Jesus now gives His disciples His first command in this whole section. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets before you.” Jesus tells His disciples to rejoice and be glad. They are not merely to suffer from the persecution or put up with it stoically and patiently. They are to rejoice and be glad.

How can they do that? How can they will themselves to rejoice when they are not being welcomed and respected in their immediate circumstances? Notice that Jesus doesn’t just merely give them a command. He gives them two reasons to rejoice. First, they are to rejoice because their reward is great in heaven. This present situation, Jesus is saying, does not tell the whole story. Present difficulties do not mean future struggles as well. What these present sufferings indicate, as we have seen, is that you belong to God’s kingdom. The reason this place does not feel like home is, quite simply, because it isn’t! There is still resistance to God’s goodness and peace and we participate in that truth as we grow in the love and peace of Christ.

So this rejoicing is not about where we are now, but where we are going. It is a present response to our future reality. Jesus calls us to look forward to a great reward in heaven. What might this great reward look like? I think Jesus has been telling us through the previous beatitudes. We will have complete comfort and satisfaction. We will see complete righteousness in all relationships. We will see the very face of God and know the joy and love of being His children. We will have full and complete peace or well-being. We will inherit the entire earth to enjoy together. So to rejoice and be glad is to bear witness to our true situation and our sure future. It is to find joy in the signs that we do indeed belong to God, and He is at work in us making us more and more like Himself.

The second reason Jesus gives for His disciples, and us, to rejoice looks to the past. He reminds them that the earlier prophets were given the same treatment in this world. The light of God has always met with resistance in this fallen world. This too can give them reassurance and a place to look other than their current circumstances to know what is true.

We are far too often tempted to believe that our present situation tells us everything. When we are dealing with our current struggles and crises, we may think they tell us who we are and what life really is. But they don’t. The truth is we don’t see all there is even in the present situation. We truly are limited in our knowledge and perspective. It is interesting to me that Jesus does not direct their attention to the present at all. Rejoicing in a situation that in and of itself is difficult and painful requires looking beyond it to something else.

Jesus tells His disciples to rejoice and be glad when they face persecution. In a way, this command fits for the whole of the beatitudes. In some real way we are to rejoice in the midst of our mourning, hungering for righteousness, being merciful, longing for peace, looking to see where God is working and present in all things. We don’t rejoice because we are mourning, but because we know that someday we will know the incredible and total comfort of God. This frees us to mourn today without fear. And we can rejoice in our mourning because we are participating in God’s own mourning over the sin that twists and distorts His good creation. We can rejoice in our desire for right relationships because we know we are participating in God’s very heart for righteousness. We rejoice when we see He is at work in our hearts and that we are coming to know His own good and gracious love.

We will always feel that the world in which we now live is not really a good fit. We will long for peace, harmony, and joy in this world. And as we grow in Christ these longings and this feeling that this place is not our home will only grow, not diminish. Life here will not necessarily get easier. In fact, we may find that we mourn more easily than we used to, that our ability to be merciful has increased because we are more aware of our need for mercy, and that our awareness of the sin we commit and that committed by others is more keen. We may also find that some people become less and less happy with us as we experience greater peace and freedom in Christ because we are not as easily manipulated and don’t join them in their controlling games. But we can rejoice and be glad because we want more deeply the very things Christ is offering us and so we are glad that His kingdom is our real inheritance.

¹³ You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. ¹⁴ You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵ Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16

Jesus is addressing His followers. He is telling them about the nature of the kingdom of God. What is it like to live under God’s rule? What kind of king is He? How does God’s kingdom compare with the kingdom of this world? Jesus begins this sermon by telling His followers about those who are blessed, favored by God. And it seems that Jesus needs to tell them this, because, as we have seen, the list is not at all what we would expect. To be blessed in God’s kingdom here on earth is to be one who is longing for what is not already readily apparent around him/her. This person is longing beyond the world he/she lives in. The blessed are those who ache for right relationships and the well-being of God’s peace. They are those who are not fooled into believing they are their own source of life and identity. They resist using underhanded or evil means to get what is truly theirs.

Jesus tells His followers why these characteristics are signs of blessing, signs of God’s work in one’s life. The reason is because the Kingdom of God is the answer and fulfillment to all these longings. When one is hungering for righteousness and peace, she is hungering for the very heart of God to be made manifest everywhere. As we have discussed, the world in general does not have the same view as Jesus on this subject of blessedness. From our own experiences we know that being poor in spirit or meek or merciful are not generally looked upon as signs of God’s favor.

However, Jesus does not deal with the world’s possible reactions to His followers until the last beatitude. Here He says that they are blessed when they experience various forms of persecution as His followers. Jesus develops this point the most fully of all the beatitudes. He wants His followers to understand that while they are truly blessed by God, the world will resist them and persecute them as it resists and persecutes the kingdom.

So then, you might be wondering at this point in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, what is our relationship with the world? Why are we still here if we are resisted and persecuted? Why can’t we just immediately go and live fully and only in the kingdom of God? I think Jesus begins to answer these questions in this passage of Matthew 5:13-16. Jesus tells His followers who they are in relation to the world they live in.

There are two images He presents to them. They are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Notice that these are both statements of fact. Jesus is not telling them what He wants them to strive hard to become. He is not commanding them. He is telling them what is true already. As those who are blessed by God, they have a special relationship with this world.

So, who are the followers of Christ? First of all, they are the blessed ones. They are those who enjoy God’s blessing. They follow The Blessed One, Christ Himself. Their blessing is seen here on earth in their poverty of spirit, mourning over sin, evil, and death, aching for righteousness, seeking to bring about shalom, looking for how God is connected to all that is around them, being merciful, etc. As we have seen, this is also how we see Christ’s blessedness, for all these characteristics are first true of Him. Second, though, the followers of Christ are the persecuted ones, following The Persecuted One. By God they are blessed, by the world they are resisted. Even though the kingdom of God brings new life, comfort, right relationships and well-being, the world is not welcoming.

The world doesn’t feel like home to those in God’s kingdom. Jesus tells them that is because they are not a part of the world. Rather as members of His kingdom, they have a special relationship with the world. They are salt. Salt is not the food. It is put on the food for the purpose of flavoring or preserving. It benefits the food by its presence. In some way then, our presence in the world is for its benefit, regardless of the way the world may treat us. We have not been taken out of this broken world because our presence here makes a difference for the better. God’s work through us is preserving and bringing out the best of this fallen, sinful world.

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus tells His followers. This image, like the previous one, tells us that this world is not our home. This world is darkness. We are light. We can shine into the darkness, but we are not the darkness. Light provides a way to see in darkness, a way to come out of the darkness. Without light, there is no way to turn from the darkness, to consider any alternative to it. So our being the light of the world means that we are still here, enduring resistance and often great persecution, because we point to a way out of the darkness.

These are amazing statements Jesus is making to His followers. First of all, He is telling them that this world is not their home. Actually, He has been telling them this all along. No wonder the characteristics of the blessed are not what we would immediately expect! Because these are the blessed of God, not the blessed of or by this world. And all these characteristics, as we have seen, are about longing for what cannot be found readily on this fallen earth.

Now with these images of salt and light, Jesus helps His followers to see more clearly their real relationship to the world around them. No wonder I don’t feel like I fit here–I don’t. I can’t find my peace, identity and life in the world because I am not of the world. But somehow my being in the world has a benefit to the world. In my blessedness, I am a blessing to the world even if it resists!

After both of these images Jesus makes some comments about being ineffective as salt and light. He tells His followers that salt that has lost its taste is no longer any good. It has lost its whole purpose as salt. In the section after telling them they are the light of the world, Jesus speaks of the uselessness of hiding one’s light. You might as well not have a light if you are going to cover it up because then it cannot function as it ought.

What is Jesus saying here? In order to understand how we might loose our saltiness or hide our light it would be helpful to consider how it is that we are salt and light. Since this immediately follows the beatitudes, it seems clear that we are salt and light in our blessedness. That is, we are salt and light when we are poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering after righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, making peace, and being persecuted for Jesus’ sake. When we live in our poverty of spirit, etc. we point to the truth that we are created to find our real comfort, home, peace, and life in God. And we are salt and light to the world in our blessedness because they too were not created to find their identity and life here in this fallen world. We are all created to find our true joy, the fulfillment of our deepest longings in knowing our Creator.

In his essay, “The Weight of Glory”, Lewis calls this longing with which we are created our “inconsolable secret.” He describes it as “the sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality…” People resist this longing for God by trying to fill it in a variety of other ways, such as worldly success or fame, having power over others, avoiding suffering, etc. They do not usually connect their drives and their dreams with a longing after their Creator. But that they are created with this desire for God is the truth of who they are nonetheless. Lewis goes on to say, “Apparently, then our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.”

So how might we, as salt and light, lose our saltiness or hide our light? From the context it seems that this happens when we resist being poor in spirit, meek, mourning, and so on. When we studied the beatitudes, we noticed that the characteristics that Jesus calls blessed are very uncomfortable to be or remain in. The world tells us to be self-sufficient and autonomous. To live in one’s poverty of spirit is to remain in the position of recognizing you cannot give yourself life and so you are ready to receive it from God. When this is not given any support by the world around us, we are tempted to resist and turn away from this work of God in our lives, to “toughen up” so that we fit in better. But when we turn away, we no longer point to God and His goodness and grace, as so we are not salty. To long for God is to be blessed by God and to be blessed by God is to be a blessing to this lost world.

Jesus last statement in this section is a command, just as his last statement in the previous beatitude section is a command. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Jesus is telling His followers that as light, they need to let their light shine in such a way that people see it and give glory to God.

Now usually if we are “letting our light shine” what we might expect is that people give us glory. They see our good works and they praise us because we did them. How is it that we do our good works so that people instead recognize and praise God because of them instead of us? Well I think the answer lies in the command Jesus gave in the previous section. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven…” Are we to live in our poverty of spirit, our meekness and mourning, in a defeated or stoic way? Is our focus to be on our state of longing? No, rather it is to be on where we are going, the wonder that this is a pointer to our true home and not our eternal state. We mourn over the deep evil and loss of this world freely in the context of knowing that God will one day provide us with full comfort. We can be meek and resist evil here on this earth and rejoice knowing that one day all will be made just and right. We can look to see how God is truly connected to all things because someday He will reveal to us just how true that is.

Jesus is not calling for us to will ourselves into a state of fake happiness. We are not to pretend life here is fun when it isn’t or that our losses are not painful and at times devastating. We are to mourn and weep and suffer with the suffering that living in a place that is not our home inevitably brings. As we continue to follow Jesus our lives here will not get easier. In fact, I find that the longings, the mourning, the hungering, just gets deeper and deeper. I feel less at home here than I did many years ago.

The blessing is that we long for comfort, peace, righteousness. We long for the presence and joy of our heavenly Father. These longings are from Him and they tell us that this world is not our home and these circumstances are not the final word about who we are and what life is really about. We rejoice and are glad not about what is currently happening, but that our reward is great in heaven. This deep joy and hope in what God is doing in and around us is what leads others to glorify God when they see our good works, our lives lived out through our in confidence in His faithfulness.

¹⁷ Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:17-20

Jesus is teaching His followers about the Kingdom of God. What is it like where God’s rule is done? What is God like? What is His will? What Jesus has been proclaiming is wonderful news for those who find themselves mourning, longing for righteousness, and only too painfully aware of their own poverty of spirit. But Jesus tells his listeners that it is these very qualities that indicate that they are the blessed ones. They are blessed by God because in His Kingdom, they will receive from God Himself what they are deeply longing for. They are blessed in their recognition of the brokenness, evil, and suffering in this world and in their desire that their present circumstances not be the last word but that God would have the final say.

He goes on to tell His followers that they have a special relationship with the world. They are not just a part of all that is around them. This earth does not feel like home to them because it is not their home. They are salt and light in this world. They remain present in the world to benefit it by their presence. Jesus Himself, of course, is the Salt and Light of this earth, just as he is the One who mourns, is meek, hungers and thirsts for righteousness, makes peace, etc. All that Jesus has said so far about those who are in the Kingdom applies first and foremost to Him. It is true of us only because it is first true of Him. He is the One who is blessed and who is salt and light. To most fully understand what it means to belong to the Kingdom of God, we first look at Jesus.

Jesus’ listeners must have been listening to His words with astonishment. Was this a new teaching? How does it connect to all they have known before? It would appear that some were tempted to believe that Jesus was somehow replacing the law of God with His teaching. What happens to obedience to God’s will? Is Jesus, with His preaching about the blessed poor in spirit, doing away with the purpose and will of God?

So now Jesus goes on to speak of how He is connected to the law of God that they have already received. “Think not,” Jesus warns, “that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” The phrase “the law (Torah) and the prophets” was how teachers in Jesus’ day referred to the whole teaching they had received in the scriptures, about God’s character and purposes presented in what we call the Old Testament. Jesus is clear. What he has to say is strongly connected to the whole message of the Old Testament. In fact, He has come “not to abolish” what was written in the scriptures but “to fulfill them”.

Sometimes we struggle with this verse because we start thinking of all the laws in the Old Testament that we do not observe today, such as the dietary or sacrificial laws and ask why we don’t follow all of them. But Jesus is not thinking primarily of this or that particular regulation, but of the whole will and ways of God (Torah): what God is up to, what He is accomplishing. Later in this passage, Jesus refers to the whole will and way of God as righteousness. Jesus indicates in no uncertain terms that his teaching has everything to do with true righteousness as revealed in the whole of the Old Testament. In fact, says Jesus, his teaching on true righteousness will so far exceed what the Pharisees understood as righteousness that it will look as if they have forgotten what true righteousness is by comparison! Jesus calls us all to rethink what true righteousness is about.

So Jesus is saying here, all that God wills about us being His people and Him being our God is not being done away with in HIm. He is not onto a brand new plan that replaces the old one. It is the same God and He has the same will. What Jesus taught in the previous verses was not a new teaching that abolishes the old. And, Jesus Himself is not here to get rid of obedience to God’s whole law.

In fact, Jesus says, He is here to fulfill the law and the prophets. And this is the key. He is here to fulfill all righteousness and so He fulfills or completes the law. This means that Jesus alone shows us what true righteousness is and therefore what the whole Old Testament was about. Jesus challenges the Pharisees to stop judging Him by their own understanding of God’s Torah, and instead to interpret the Old Testament and the very character and purpose of God in terms of Him and His teaching. They need to put the legal requirements contained in the law and prophets into the larger and deeper context of Jesus’ own relationship to God and His teaching about a God who blesses and makes us citizens in His Kingdom.

Jesus has a unique relationship with the law of God. You could say that He is the law, He embodies the very righteousness of God. He comes as the one human who is able to live in a perfect relationship with God. To see Jesus is to see what human beings are created to be.

Recognizing Jesus as the revelation and embodiment of the righteousness of God, i.e. right relationship with God as the Son of God, is the only place to begin. To be righteous, then, is to be in trusting, loving, full relationship with God. This is what we were created for: to know Him as our Father and to live as His beloved and blessed children just as Jesus did! Being in right relationship with God and knowing who God is and who we are in relationship with God is the foundation, then, for any obedience to particular directives contained in God’s written word.

Furthermore, the law, the will and purposes of God, Jesus says, are not temporary. All that God sets out to accomplish will remain until it is accomplished. This makes sense. Why would God’s rule be abolished? God’s purpose remains. In fact, it is fulfilled in Christ. Jesus brings the ultimate will of God to fruition, namely reconciling the world to Himself in Christ so that we may know the Father truly and put our trust in Him wholly and exclusively for true blessing and life in His Kingdom.

So how are we to regard the law, the word of God? Jesus tells His listeners to love it, obey it, and teach others to do the same. To love and trust God as Jesus does is to love and trust in his ways and His will.

However, if we have an attitude of looking to relax the Law of God, then we do not love His ways and do not really know and trust God. We don’t affirm Jesus as the embodiment of the right relationship with God. Rather, we are looking for ways to get around God’s will, to compromise. When this is the case, then we do not see the good and right purposes of God’s will, that His desire is for our abundant life. We are trying to figure out how to not take His law seriously.

We reduce the will of God to mere legal requirements with its rewards for conforming and penalties for disregarding them. We make a covenantal relation of love with God into a mere contractual relationship where we earn merits by “obedience” and calculate de-merits when we prefer to disobey. The will of God, the purposes of God, in that case has become merely a duty to be obeyed just enough to get by.

To obey the law and teach others to do so, on the other hand, is to love, as Jesus did, where God’s will is taking us, even in times when obeying is difficult or even painful. True righteousness sees God’s rule as a duty to be avoided when possible, but as the very source of real life, life in God’s blessed Kingdom with Jesus as our elder brother. God’s purposes are always for our good, for our abundant life. God is completely and always for us. To live under His rule is to recognize the good and gracious nature and purposes of His will for His children, starting with Jesus and ending with us.

Finally, Jesus makes a statement that must have been, at first hearing, truly astonishing to those listening: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and the Pharisees were the ones who loved the law, were they not? They followed the law better than anyone, didn’t they? Who could hope to have a righteousness that exceeded theirs? Well, Jesus could. Jesus fulfils the law, He is the Righteous One. Jesus perfectly expressed a righteous relationship with God.

Okay, so Jesus’ righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. That is great for Him, but where does that leave us? And what does all this have to do with the previous section? What does being blessed as one who is poor in spirit have to do with having a righteousness that exceeds the scribes and Pharisees?

The only way we can have a righteousness that goes beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees is to have the righteousness of Jesus in us. We need to be able to receive a share in His trusting relationship with His Father, His obedience to God’s rule. Somehow we need to participate in His right relationship with all of creation.

And I believe that this is exactly what Jesus is pointing to. Jesus’ own righteousness is rooted in His receiving from His Father. That is because righteousness is not a static state of being. One is righteous when he/she is in the proper giving and receiving relationship with everything else. Jesus lives perfectly as the Son of His Father. He is always receiving the love, joy, and glory of the Father. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells His listeners that He receives His very words and actions from the Father. And Jesus is always giving His Father His complete devotion and glory.

We receive God’s righteousness when we are poor in spirit. Our recognition that we cannot give ourselves life is the beginning of our receiving the life that only God can give. To be righteous with God begins with realizing that we must count on God to make us righteous though Jesus, His Son. We obey out of our poverty in spirit, trusting that God will be faithful to work by His Spirit in our lives.

The righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees too often did not proceed out of a dependence on God, but on their own efforts. They had a certain sort of righteousness, a certain right standing in respect to the legal conformity to certain parts of the whole “law and prophets.” This tempted some to think they were rich in spirit, that they had a righteousness to offer God.

Jesus comes to fulfill God’s will and purposes on our behalf. As the Son of God, He lives the truly righteous life as the Son of Man. But Jesus does not do this merely to set an example for us to try and follow. Jesus fulfils the law and the prophets, the whole will of God for us to receive and participate in His righteousness. We enter the kingdom of God, by receiving Jesus, His person and work. We obey, counting on God’s Spirit to be at work in us sharing with us the very right relationship with God that Jesus had. We act out of hope in God’s faithfulness and goodness coming to us through Jesus and in the power of the Spirit.

The whole message of the Old Testament “law and prophets” was to prepare us to see Jesus, the Son of God, as the fulfillment of all of God’s ways for us. It is only through His reconciling life culminating in His atoning work on the cross that we can have any hope of being truly righteous. It is only by His Spirit that we can share in His right relationship to God as the children of God and so follow in His ways each and every day. And that’s a righteousness that surely exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees and which will never pass away.

²¹ You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire. ²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and here remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come offer your gift. ²⁵ Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the guard, and you be put in prison; ²⁶ truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny.

Matthew 5:21-26

In the study on the last passage, we saw that Jesus has a special relationship with God’s law, or His will and purposes. Jesus didn’t come to abolish God’s will on earth but to fulfill it. Jesus fulfills all righteousness. In Him, we see what righteousness actually is. In Him, we see what true humanity looks like without the deforming effects of sin. This righteousness of Jesus is the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. His righteousness involves not just what He does, but who He is. That is why He is the fulfillment or completion of the law. In Jesus we see a perfect communion with God the Father. Jesus’ righteousness is the only kind worth having because it is the true relationship with God and creation. And as we saw in the beatitudes, we need to receive what God has for us, not to hang onto the false idea that we can give ourselves life.

Now, Jesus in the next several passages will challenge what were the ideas of righteousness promoted by the Pharisees and scribes. Is righteousness merely a legal reality? Is it all about either following or not following certain rules? No, absolutely not! Jesus pushes His listeners to see that righteousness goes far deeper than certain behaviors.

The problem with the legal view is that it tempts one to think of his/her relationship with God as if it were a contract. I do my part of the bargain and God should then do His. It tempts you to think of your life only in terms of the minimum you need to do to keep things right, or even to see what you can get away with and still not be violating the contract so that God is obliged to keep His part.

In this section, Jesus deals with the commandment “Do not kill” which is one of the ten commandments given to Moses. Jesus reminds His listeners that “whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.” They are familiar with the law, they already know that this is the case. This is the law. But now Jesus begins to reveal more of His special relationship to the law as the One who fulfills it. “But I say to you…” J

esus is telling them the deeper meaning of God’s will and purposes. God’s intention was not just that people do not actually murder each other. You have not necessarily fulfilled God’s intent for relationship when you have managed to not physically kill another person. Jesus makes three statements, which, according to The IVP Bible Background Commentary, are roughly parallel to each other. To be angry with another person, to demean them by insults, is liable to the same judgment as to murder that person. “Judgment” refers to the day of God’s judgment.

Why does Jesus say basically the same thing three times? He must be trying to undo something in their thinking. They might have been tempted to think that righteousness was defined by the absence of actual murder. But Jesus is asking them to consider the truth that the seeds of murder begin far earlier than the final act. Doesn’t murder begin, Jesus is asking, way back in what leads to the angry word or the thoughtless insult? And isn’t there a real death that occurs whenever we speak unkindly or out of rash anger towards others? There is discord, dissolution and pain in the relationship that wasn’t there before and that we cannot take away once words have been spoken. It has been brought into reality by our speaking. The words can be worked around and apologized for, but they cannot be unsaid. Damage to the relationship has been done.

Jesus is leading His listeners to see that true righteousness is far more than legal or external obedience. Righteousness is not about just getting your part done. It is not looking to see how much you can get away with and still be considered “righteous.” Righteousness is right relationships, relationships that spring out of a right heart, mind, and soul that always bring about blessing and life. God’s righteousness is connected with His peace, which is well-being and harmony. This is the righteousness that Jesus came to fulfill. Jesus is fulfilling the law of God by fulfilling the very intent and purposes of God the lawgiver. He is completely in right, peaceful, life-giving relationship with God, us, and all of creation.

In the beatitudes, Jesus spoke of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness as being blessed. This is part of being poor in spirit. The blessed realize their complete inability to make themselves right on their own and they long for it, both in their own lives and in the world around them. In this present passage Jesus leads His listeners to see that true righteousness requires for them to receive a new nature from God. This is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. It goes beyond just doing what is right, to being made right. That is why it is blessed to be poor in spirit. To recognize our need for God to make us right is to recognize the truth about our condition. Jesus is encouraging His listeners to see what righteousness is and to long for it.

After Jesus’ three statements, He gives two commands. He encourages making efforts to reconcile and heal relationships quickly in two different settings. In the first instance, Jesus is speaking of when you are offering a gift at the altar. The context is worship. You are on your way to offer God worship. But then you remember that there is someone who “has something against you.” You want to worship God but there is a relationship in your life that is not right. Notice that here and in the following statement, you are in the position of having wronged someone else, not in being wronged. I wonder if Jesus chooses to emphasize those situations because they can often be the more difficult for us to seek reconciliation and healing from. It can be very uncomfortable to have to admit wrongdoing on our part and to seek forgiveness.

Jesus tells His listeners not to proceed in worship until they have sought reconciliation. They are to see a connection between the state of their relationships with others and their worship of their heavenly Father. God’s will is for reconciliation, and so to honor and glorify Him is to seek that for ourselves with others. When we do work for right relationships with others, this is an act of worship. And worship is stunted when we attempt to do it without wanting to have all our relationships set right.

The second command is set in a legal context. This time Jesus has us compare ourselves to someone being taken to court by an accuser. Jesus encourages us to “make friends quickly” with our accuser before we ever even enter the court. See what you can do to settle this personally rather than legally. I think Jesus’ point is that it is always best to seek right relationships with others in a way that legal means can never accomplish. It may be that pride or stubbornness get in our way.

Here Jesus paints the picture of paying a very high price for refusing to work towards healing and instead settling for a legal righteousness, “truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” It seems Jesus is being ironic. If you want to go in the legal direction, go ahead. You will pay the full legal price–but then what do you have? You certainly don’t have right relationship. You may only have equalized the pain and left the relationship broken and twisted. Most likely the relationship will be in worse condition after the legal price has been exacted. For if you don¹t pursue reconciliation with the righteousness of Christ, things continually go from bad to worse even if legal remedy is sought.

God, on the other hand intends for all persons and relationships to be healed and actually reconciled. His aim is for all things to be made fully right, perfect. He won’t be satisfied with less. He will make us complete. But the legal route can never get us there. We must long for and receive a far greater righteousness that transforms us and heals our relationships. Better for us, and more joyful, is to participate in God’s work in us rather than resisting it by wanting to settle for a legal “getting even.” Jesus shows us that was the true aim of God¹s will all along. A merely legal way of understanding God¹s law is a complete distortion. It leaves out the heart, mind, aim and goodness of the God who gave us His law.

This passage, as with all of the Sermon on the Mount we have studied so far offers wonderful hope. Jesus is right. There is no real point in priding myself on the fact that I have never actually killed someone. My angry, thoughtless words bring about their own small deaths in my relationships. I see that to live for only a legal righteousness would be a small thing. Jesus is not speaking these words merely to raise the bar. He isn’t telling His listeners that the real problem with the Pharisees is simply that they haven’t tried hard enough. In that case, Jesus would be saying that righteousness is primarily legal, they just didn’t see all the requirements and now we do.

Jesus didn’t say He came to make sure we fulfilled the law. He said He came to do that. He brings about true righteousness, something that turns out to be far deeper and more wonderful than merely conforming to rules or balancing merits and demerits. He came to make us new from the inside out. Do you long to be made right? Do you see your own poverty of spirit? Do you mourn over the pain and hurt in the world, including that which you have caused? Well, good news: God is at work in your life and you are responding to His Spirit.

I want a new nature, a new life. I want to be made right, not just given more rules to try even harder at obeying. Thank God this is exactly His intention in Jesus Christ, for all that He has, He offers to us as His gift. What we need is not our own righteousness, but Christ’s in us.

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 lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  ²⁹  If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away;  it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  ³⁰  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Matthew 5:27-30

Jesus is the One human who is truly, fully righteous.  He is the One we must look to in order to understand what it means to be human.  After Jesus tells His readers that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, He discusses six laws or traditions to help them develop a deeper understanding of what righteousness actually is.  In our last study, we looked at the first of these six, which was on murder.  This time Jesus deals with the issue of adultery.  Both of these are about sin and its consequences in our relationships..

When Jesus spoke to them about murder, He asked His audience to consider the roots of murder.  Murder isn’t just when the other person is actually killed.  Murder begins in the thoughtless words we speak in anger or frustration.  Righteousness, Jesus is telling His listeners, is not doing the minimum required by the law.  Righteousness is not just doing the right thing.  The law stated that they were not to murder each other.  But the righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees is not righteousness that merely makes sure never to actually “do someone else in.” 

Jesus has told His listeners that He has come to fulfill the will of God, to be our righteousness. Jesus brings us not just an absence of murder, but He fills us with life, peace, blessing, comfort, etc.  Righteousness is not merely an absence of blatant evil.  To be righteous is to be filled with life as it was created to be lived, filled with the love and presence of the triune God so that there is no room for even the smallest seeds of murder to begin to take root.

Now Jesus turns to the example of adultery.  As with the previous section, He begins by reminding them of what they already know.  This is another of the ten commandments, very familiar to Jesus’ audience.   This time, though, the root of adultery is not with the words we speak, but the thoughts we have.  Jesus is asking his audience to consider that unfaithfulness begins not in the actual act of adultery, but when one looks lustfully at a woman.  The word translated “lustfully” is related closely to the word “covet.”  So to look at someone with lust is to want, in some way, to own or possess them.  To lust after someone is to view them as an object, an object that exists to meet your needs, rather than as a person to respect and honor as one created in the image of God Himself.

Right relationships in God’s kingdom begins with this respect and honor of others. Relationships that don’t start there can easily erode into sinful and broken ones. The act of adultery has deep and corrupt roots. Right relationships in God’s kingdom will be concerned about the roots of relationships, not just the end resulting acts.

We can be tempted to believe that our thought life is our own, since it is hidden from those around us.  As long as our behavior, and even our words are okay, we can indulge in whatever thoughts we want.  This kind of thinking leads us to the temptation to hope that righteousness is about obeying a certain set of rules.  If we do the minimum to observe these rules, then that should satisfy.  We should be righteous because we do what is required.  But we want to save some space, some room, for us to live in our little indulgences. 

This is what Jesus is speaking against in this section.  We are not truly righteous towards another person if in our thoughts we view them as an object, even  if our treatment of them seems “okay.”  We are merely hypocrites: one way on the inside and another on the outside.  There is no integrity.  Someday the truth of what we have let go on in our hearts and minds may come out.  This is the secret of our soul that we have attempted to hide from others by restraint, but it is nevertheless a truer picture of the state of our souls than the behavior we show others. And this deep corruption and confusion is just what Jesus came to take care of. Nothing less.

To long for righteousness is to hate all evil, even that which no one else knows about but ourselves.  When we’re growing in Christ, we long for the time when we can freely allow our words and our actions to flow out naturally from our hearts, when we can be transparent.  It is to hope for the day when there is no slippage between what is inside of us and what comes out of us.  So there will be no need to worry about what would happen if someday the hidden secrets of our hearts are revealed. 

Jesus goes on to tell His listeners what they should do if some part of their body causes them to sin.  He answer is very simple and straightforward.  “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.  If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”  And what is the reason He gives for such radical behavior?  Because “it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”  It is better, Jesus tells His listeners to love being righteous more than wanting to hold on to old thought patterns, indulgences, manipulations, that we have come to think of as being a part of who we are.  Cut out those things which are keeping you from experiencing the full life of Christ.  Jesus’ intention for us, God’s eternal purpose for us, is that we be truly and completely holy, whole, like Him.  To be pure is to be all one thing–full of the good life of God, every nook and cranny of our being filled with His joy and love.  Who would want to cling to some destructive habit or indulgence and risk losing life itself?

C. S. Lewis thought a great deal about this God who would love us to complete perfection. Here is what he said in his book, Mere Christianity:

“When he said, ‘Be perfect,’ He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder–in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird, it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present.  And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg.  We must be hatched or go bad. . . .

If we let Him–for we can prevent Him, if we choose–He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less.”

What a wonderful picture Lewis draws for us here.  Trying to hold onto some place for sin in our lives is like trying to fly while remaining an egg.  It is impossible.  God’s love will win out in the end.  His desire is for us to fly and so all the sickness and twistedness must go.  Often what we cling to in our thought lives is something that does not lead to right relationships and to life. In the end they are not worth holding onto.

Jesus warns us of the dangers of holding on to them. He also shows us in His own life the true source of right relationship with God and with others and calls us to turn to Him to cut out the root of all wrong relationship and receive from Him the gift of holy loving relationship. Can we trust Him to do this work in us? Will we offer up to Him in faith what needs to be done away with and look to him to provide us His true righteousness?

Thank God He is more interested in our perfection than we often are.  May He continue to give us the grace to participate in His work rather than to resist it.

³¹ It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. ³² But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 5:31-32

We are working our way through a series of six sections in which Jesus develops the idea of true righteousness.  After telling His listeners that He has come to fulfill God’s will for us, to actually be our righteousness, Jesus goes on to say “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  True righteousness, living by God’s will and intentions, is a righteousness that goes beyond what they have seen in the lives of the scribes and Pharisees.  It is a righteousness that involves our very nature, our deepest being.  It is not merely making sure you do the right things or even say the right things.  It is to be set right from the depth of your soul.  It is to be truly made right, to have the totality of your being in line with how it was created to be.

To have this righteousness, we must be made right.  It is impossible for us to achieve this on our own.  We are already not right in our inmost being.  We are broken and prone towards sin. We need the righteousness Jesus offers us in Himself as the One who fulfills God’s purpose and will, and offers it to us as a gift to be received from Him through communion with Him in Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

In these six sections Jesus invites His listeners to go beyond an attitude that righteousness is something that they can do if they try hard enough.  God is not interested in just getting us to do a certain amount so that we fulfill a number of requirements.  Righteousness, in the end, is not mainly fulfilling our end of a contract, doing our duty.  Righteousness is far more about who we are, rather than what we do, say, think, or even feel.  God desires to make us so that we are completely right, at home with Him.  Of course, when the core of our natures are set right, what flows from our emotions, attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions will be right as well..

This section is actually connected with the previous section we just studied and has to be seen in context with what Jesus just finished saying.  In the last section Jesus spoke about the roots of adultery.  When I looked at this section I chose to emphasize the need for God’s righteousness in our thoughts and broaden the application of the text to include everyone.  Now we need to go back and look at it more narrowly.  Both this previous section and the one we are now looking at are addressing men and their understanding of and relationship to women in general and their wives in particular.  In both sections Jesus deals with adultery. 

God speaks against adultery, as I stated in the last study, in the ten commandments.  Adultery is sexual unfaithfulness in marriage.  God intended for marriage to be a sign of fidelity, ultimately of His fidelity to us.  The image of adultery is used in the Old Testament to speak of Israel’s running after other gods.  God’s righteousness is right relationships between us and God and between  us and others.  When we are in right relationships, the relationships we were created to know and enjoy, then there will be perfect faithfulness and therefore complete vulnerability and intimacy.  When a marriage is rooted in faithfulness between husband and wife, it reflects the greater, more perfect faithfulness of God to us.  But our relationships are only signs, pointers.  The deepest reality is God’s faithfulness to us. The deepest truth is that God will never be unfaithful to us, will never leave or divorce us. 

In the first section on adultery, the one we looked at last time, Jesus is leading His listeners to see that destruction of the intimacy and faithfulness of a marriage takes place way before any possible real act of adultery.  That act of adultery and all the pain that it causes, begins in a lustful look.  To be righteous, to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, is to be able to enjoy giving and receiving love in a faithful relationship where there is no fear or doubt.  This is the righteousness Jesus gives us in Himself, this is the righteousness He is growing us up into. 

As I have mentioned before, Jesus is leading His listeners to realize that to ask the question,  “What do I need to do to fulfill the law?”  often leads to the question “What can I get away with?”  or “What is the minimum I need to do to fulfill my duty, or my end of the bargain?”  But this kind of thinking is not from the heart of God and cannot lead us to “hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  God is drawing us to long to see all things filled to overflowing with righteousness; to be made right ourselves and to see all of creation made right.  To ask questions like “What is the minimum I need to do…?” is to hope to have the appearance of righteousness and the benefits of righteousness while remaining twisted  and broken at the center of our being.

In the section for this study, Jesus is addressing the common practices of divorce in his day.  There was always provision for divorce and remarriage in the Old Testament.   Deuteronomy 24:1 says, “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because of something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of the house.”  Jesus says in Mark that it was because of their “hardness of heart” that this provision was made. 

Divorce obviously does not reflect God’s faithfulness to us.  But God provides for it because we are fallen and sinful human beings.  Laws governing divorce and remarriage were intended primarily to protect the woman and to prevent both husband and wife from falling further in sin. Women in that culture were primarily to be provided for by the men in their lives:  their fathers, their husbands, or their sons.  A woman who was given a certificate of divorce by her husband was then able to remarry and be taken care of.

It became a subject of great debate as to what circumstances legitimately allowed for divorce.  What was considered “objectionable” enough about the woman to warrant divorce? Many thought that divorce was primarily intended to be allowed in cases of unfaithfulness, but others were more broad in their interpretation. The Mishnah records this debate as it developed between the rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai:

“The School of Shammai say: ‘A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her, for it is written, Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.’ And the School of Hillel say: ‘[He may divorce her] even if she spoiled a dish for him, for it is written: Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.’ R. Akiba says: ‘Even if he found another fairer than she, for it is written, And it shall be if she find no favor in his eyes.”(Kingdom Ethics, IVP, p. 278)

You can see what has happened.  “A text that was intended to protect women from being casually divorced was now being examined in search of commands and permissions enabling men to know when they might initiate divorce.”(ibid., p. 279)    What has occurred in the hearts of these people?  Instead of loving God’s character and His intentions for marriage,  they now only want to be justified, to do “enough” that they still appear righteous but to actually live their lives with no concern for right relationships that really honor the God to whom they belong.

By Jesus’ day men were using divorce as a way to become sexually involved with a woman other than their wife and yet try to maintain that they were righteous because they were not committing adultery.  These men would divorce their wives in order to marry their new interest.  Since divorce was allowed, or some would even would say “commanded,” they could convince themselves that this was all perfectly “lawful” and did nothing to change their status before God.  They “forgot” God’s original intent for marriage and the reasons He allowed for divorce.

So Jesus sets the record straight. He tells His listeners, “every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress.”  This makes sense in that adultery is in itself a tearing apart of the “one flesh” of marriage.  It breaks the marriage apart at its very core.  There is a real becoming “one flesh” that occurs in marriage Jesus is saying.  It is not something to be broken on a whim without consequences.

You think you are avoiding the sin of adultery because divorce is “commanded” by Moses.  But you are now using the divorce law to do whatever you want with the woman you are united to in marriage.  This is adultery.  By forcing her to go out and remarry when there was no real unfaithfulness in the first marriage, the man is making his wife an adulteress.  Divorcing, legally or illegally, with the intent to join with another is not righteousness, it cannot be a faithful reflection of and sharing in God’s own faithfulness to us. Entertaining the thought of somehow legally abandoning your spouse is where unfaithfulness begins. A legal divorce might be where it leads. But when the remarriage is justified on the basis of mere legality, we do not have righteousness, but adultery.

Jesus finishes His thought with these words, “and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Here Jesus is just following out the consistency of his point by identifying another supposed legal loophole used to maintain the appearance of righteousness. Some men properly divorced their wives to marry another woman.  Of course women could also seek a divorce or attempt to get her husband to divorce her in the hopes of marrying another. So whether  a woman or a man divorced in order to get remarried to another, this was no righteousness, but unfaithfulness. And this is what Jesus saw going on around Him all while pretending to obey God’s law.

Really counting on God would first mean hoping and trusting in Him to see if even a broken relationship might be remade and transformed. Seeking reconciliation is faithfulness that comes out of trust in the working of God. If and when there might result a divorce, it would come as a great sadness because one or the other party was unwilling to pursue healing and transformation and reconciliation but rather continued to live in unfaithfulness at some level in the relationship. Divorce would be a very last resort when the God who made them one flesh, knowing the limits of the broken relationship grants a grievous permission because of the hardness of one or the other’s heart.  It would be a thing that God allows and that we repent of at the same time. We admit that it does not repesent God’s own faithfulness.

However,  that grief, suffering and repentance while real and agonizing is not the last word from God. God can restore blessing to the repentant one. He may even  grant remarriage as a gift of grace that has no need to be legally justified. Only the blood of Christ can cover our past failures of any and every sin, those we commit or those commited against us. New signs of God’s faithfulness can spring up even as another whithers away.  Because what God wants for us is a life in which His blessing of faithfulness, especially when He grants us marriage, is gloriously reflected in our lives. For that is what we were created for. Truly right relationships with God and with each other. That is the gift of righteousness that comes from our faithful God.

³³ Again 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.” ³⁴ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil.

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 being. The laws of how to treat each other and how to relate to God flowed from the very nature and heart of God.

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 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 my actions do, 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 do 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.” 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 can stifle trust and even prevent 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 seeking to appear 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 yeses and admit our practical and moral limitations with our nos. 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 be faithful, 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.

³⁸ You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; ⁴⁰ and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; ⁴¹ and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.

Matthew 5:38-42

Jesus is continuing to flesh out for His listeners what true righteousness is. Remember that Jesus began this section by saying that He is the One who fulfills all righteousness. In reading through these sections, then, we are first learning more of the character of Jesus, and therefore of the triune God. The meaning, shape and character of righteousness does not come primarily from what God says, but out of who God is.

In this section we see that righteousness, God’s righteousness, involves a freedom to love and serve others, that is in no way bound by the other’s character, motives, or relationship with the One who is loving. This righteousness that Jesus fulfills and provides for us is rooted in overflowing grace and love, freeing the giver to give without regard to whether she or he will receive equally back from the one being given to.

Jesus begins this section, as He has the preceding ones, reminding His readers of what they already know. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ This principle was the basis of much of Near Eastern justice, and would be immediately recognized by Jesus’ hearers. It was put into place to restrain unlimited blood vengeance. It limited what damages one could expect to what was considered proportional, equal and fair.

But what this dictum often led to was a tit-for-tat kind of thinking that permeated all relationships. This attitude is certainly still pervasive today. We often work to keep things as even and equal as possible. Children begin very early to argue when they believe something is “not fair.” If someone hurts us in some way, we are tempted to hurt them back. Suing has gotten out of hand in our culture. We want what we believe is our share. We can also be concerned about keeping things even so that we are not beholden to others. If we are given a Christmas gift of certain value, for instance, we will think through what action or gift would “equal” this present and so keep things even. Keeping and getting even directs so much of what we do.

What a restricting way to live! We are then tempted to decide how to act toward others according to how they act towards us. When we are wronged, our thoughts are focused on how to “get even.” We want them to pay for what they have done. This can become our one obsession. We see people today, consumed with a desire for revenge that is so deep, that this passion comes to define their whole purpose in life. Evil begets evil, and it becomes a perpetual course.

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” can help limit the evil of a retaliation, but there is no life in it. It can only keep things “even.” It cannot bring joy, grace, or life into the relationship. To live by this mindset is to be bound within a cycle of reaction and action. It does not lead to freedom.

Jesus is telling His readers that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is not the righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees. It does not reflect the true righteousness that has its source in God’s own heart and character. So now Jesus tells His readers that true righteousness goes way beyond a tit-for-tat mindset. The RSV version that I use translates this next line “But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil.” If Jesus sees this as the contrast to the previous line, then this must mean that we are not to pay evil back with evil, even if it is an “equal and fair” amount. I do not believe Jesus is saying that we are not to resist evil, but that we are not to resist it with evil means. This makes the most sense in the context. I found further insight on the Greek in a book entitled Kingdom Ethics (IVP, 2003). The Greek for “evil” can mean either “by evil means” or “the evil person”, and which to choose must be decided from the context. As I stated, this follows Jesus quoting “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” which has to do with a particular means for dealing with evil or pain. Secondly, the authors go on to note that the Greek word translated “resist” is “used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures … and in the Greek sources of the time, Josephus and Philo, ‘for armed resistance in military encounters’ in the majority of cases.” Their conclusion is that a more accurate translation to this verse would be “‘do not retaliate or resist violently or revengefully, by evil means.’”(p. 138).

Jesus now goes on to give three examples of what a true righteousness looks like in situations where you might be tempted to give back “tit-for-tat.” It is important to see that in each of these situations, the righteous person acts out of freedom toward the other rather than just reacting to what occurs. It seems to me that in all of these cases, this freedom is rooted in the understanding that true righteousness begins in being poor in spirit. The truly righteous one knows that her/his identity and life do not come from themselves but are found in God, so no one can take it from them. This allows them to act independently of the others’ actions towards them in any given situation.

In the first example someone strikes you on the right cheek. According to The Bible Background Commentary (IVP) a “blow on the right cheek was the most grievous insult possible in the ancient world …” and “both Jewish and Roman law permitted prosecution for this offense” (p. 60). To act by the standards of justice and fairness, one would seek retribution for this act. But Jesus suggests that true righteousness means turning and offering the other cheek as well. In other words, what the righteous man is saying by this action is “You think you have insulted me by this action, but in order to show you that you have no power to insult me because I know to whom I belong, I will offer to let you slap my other cheek as well.”

In the second example someone is out to sue you and take your coat. As in the previous example, someone is trying to “lord it over” you, to control and abuse you. They believe they are in the seat of power over you. But Jesus suggests you dispel this notion here by giving them your cloak as well. They are out to take it by force from you, but you turn around and demonstrate that if they intend to wrongfully take it from you, you are going to choose to give to them freely if they need it so badly.

The third example comes from the law at that time. A Roman soldier could legally make you carry something (usually all his military baggage) for him for one mile. If the soldier makes this demand of you, you may well feel as if you are being forced to do this, that you have no choice. The soldier can lord it over you because of his position in the occupying army. You would be tempted to find some way to retaliate, to get back at this soldier for this humiliation of being forced to carry his things for him. But Jesus’ tells His hearers that true righteousness would lead you to walk a second mile for the man as well. It is as if you are saying, “You think that you are forcing me to do this, as if I have no choice. To show you that I am free from your tyranny and that I freely choose to do this, because I serve an even higher Authority, I will go with you even farther than you expect me to.”

Lastly, Jesus encourages His listeners to be generous givers. He tells them not to refuse either the person who begs from them or the person who wants to borrow from them. They are not to react in these situations by trying to protect themselves and make sure that everything remains even and fair. Their response is not to come from the immediate situation, but out of a freedom that indicates that they know that money is not the source of their lives and security.

Jesus is the One who fulfills this righteousness. He does not move towards us in reaction to how we deal with Him. He comes to us with a lavish love and grace which is in no way merited by our situation. He is not reacting to our loveliness, goodness, and impressive good deeds. In Ephesians 2:4-5, Paul says that God poured out His great love for us while we were still dead in our sins. Jesus is not motivated by trying to carve out His fair share, or by seeing that we get what we deserve. He is not dependent on our actions to know how to feel and act towards us. Jesus acts out of a tremendous freedom, a freedom that comes from knowing that His life and identity come from His wonderful Father and so He has nothing He needs to protect or guard from us.

This is the amazing righteousness that is at the heart of the triune God, and that Jesus in fulfilling the law has come to share with us. We are truly poor in spirit–silly creatures so often grasping to make sure that we get our share, that we keep things even, as if our lives were at their deepest level bound up with our own efforts. The tit-for-tat mindset assumes that life, and our identities and worth, are limited commodities that we all need to compete for. The good news that Jesus reveals here is that this is simply not the case. There is a true righteousness that operates out of the freedom that comes from knowing the truth, the reality that you are indeed the beloved daughter or son of God. He gives us our lives, our identities and they are secure in Him. So we return good even for evil.

It is wonderful to know that this righteousness, this free love and grace that Jesus pours out on us, is the righteousness He is transforming us to fully share in. And what a great way to live that so far exceeds the endless cycle of keeping things even.