Matthew 5: Jesus says, Jesus does

The majority of Community Groups in Sunrise are following up outreach through the Christianity Explored course & dinners by imparting a very simple and memorable discipleship strategy to new/young believers. We are engaging with the major events and teachings of God's Word (from Genesis to Revelation) while learning together how to feed ourselves with God's Word and how to teach others to do likewise.

Last week the five guys within our larger group were working through sharing a 'lightbulb' moment that God gave each of us as we read Matthew 5. As we did so, God opened my eyes to something I had never before seen.

Jesus, in the wisdom that typified his every parable and pericope, is teaching at 2 levels here and we'd do well to pay attention at both levels. Jesus speaks to his disciples many high ethical standards for them to live out or embody - but (lightbulb!) he speaks of himself doing just one thing. 

Level 1: Jesus speaks - high heart standards. "And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying" (v.2) is how Jesus begins and this continues for 9 Beatitudes (happy promises), 2 lofty embodiments (salt of the earth & light of the world), and 6 of the loftiest moral standards I've ever heard - all of which begin with the formula: "You have heard that it was said...but I say to you." As we discussed anger tantamount to murder, living through unhappy marriages, looking at a woman that second time with the wrong intent, loving those you feel you should probably just avoid because they press all your buttons - the consensus amongst these 5 men in our little group: "They must have shook their heads in defeat as Jesus went through each of these one by one." On the one hand, each of these ratcheted-up standards are for our good. For example, When we allow anger to fester and grow at the heart level, the other person becomes, in effect, dead to us (Mt. 5:21-22) so it is worth leaving even a worship service to do the hard and humbling work of reconciliation (Mt. 5:23-24). On the other hand, the further Jesus goes up the list, the more one feels his/her inability - not striking back when struck, given more than what a mooch might ask for, love and pray for those who wish you ill?!

Then the kicker - Jesus teaches we are to do and not relax any of these commandments (Mt. 5:19), our righteousness must exceed a group of persons who had spent their lives and quit their jobs (in some cases) to dedicate themselves to meticulous obedience to every law and every possible way to obey it (Mt. 5:20), and he concludes: "You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48). Jesus means for us at this point, I believe, to feel our utter inability. 

So to re-cap so far, Level 1: Each of these individual "doing what's right" would serve us and others well - while brining great glory to God. The bridge: We are meant to feel the impossibility of actually doing them.

Level 2: Jesus does. Did you ever notice that for all the speaking, teaching, and "but I say to you's" from Jesus in Matthew 5, there is only 1 thing he says he will do? And it's the one thing we absolutely need!  "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets (ie. the entire Old Testament); I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished" (Mt. 5:17-18).

The word translated "fulfill" (pleroo) really does give a sense of "fills full." Imagine the Old Testament as a large bucket not yet filled to the brim. Jesus fills full the entire Old Testament where it lacks: (a) All the Messianic prophecies that are left open; (b) All the types of leaders/deliverers who didn't quite live up to God's standard (Moses, David, Aaron, Joshua, and every prophet-priest-king); (c) All of the Law and commandments -- moral law: Jesus does it; ceremonial law: Jesus becomes the sacrifice; civil law: Jesus is exalted as the ruling king worth submitting to.

For our immediate purposes, Jesus perfect living fills full the bucket of where we fall woefully short (cf. Matthew 3:15). So he offers to credit to us his filled-full righteousness by simple trust in Him.

To the one who works [to be perfect & fill full his own bucket of right-living], his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts in Jesus who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (Romans 4:4-5).

So here in Matthew 5, Jesus is giving us a high-heart ethical standard that is meant to be lived out for our good and the good of our neighbor; yet, he's also purposely set the standard so high that we are meant to feel our inability - so he hints here at one thing he  will do: Fill full all righteousness and right-living that we could not - including willingly becoming the right sacrifice to fulfill the Law and becoming our rightful king by way of resurrection to fulfill the Law.

Jesus Level 2 fulfillment then empowers us to live out his Level 1 standard. When we trust in Him, He causes us to be born again (John 3:7-8), giving us a new and tender heart that wishes to please our Father (Ezekiel 36:26), so tender that the high-heart standards will be permanently etched onto our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). The great 20th century German theologian (and martyr) Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it well in The Cost of Discipleship in which he examines Jesus' sermon on the mount. He says with respect to chapter 5 of Matthew's gospel:

God is the [the Law's] giver and its Lord, and only in personal communion with God is the law fulfilled. There is no fulfillment of the law apart from communion with God, and no communion with God apart from the fulfillment of the law. To forget the first condition was the mistake of the Jews, and to forget the second the temptation of the disciples. Jesus, the Son of God, who alone lives in perfect communion with him, vindicates the law of the old covenant by coming to fulfill it...It is Jesus himself who comes between the disciples and the law, not the law which comes between Jesus and the disciples. They find their way to the law through the cross of Christ. Thus by pointing his disciples to the law which he alone fulfills, he forges a further bond between himself and them.

If on your own or with a group, you are studying Jesus' wise and lofty teaching on this mount and finish feeling defeated. Do not worry yourself further: You are meant to! Look to Him who fills full the life you cannot on your own. He bonds you to himself through a relationship of simple trust and He will walk you through each step of obedience.

Ghandi: Another reason to hope for a better righteousness

In my experience, no figure of recent history has been as frequently compared with and inserted into the same sentence as Jesus than Mohandas Ghandi. I know I for one have quoted Ghandi. Recently utilizing a quote of his to say, "Hey, even Ghandi (you know, respected-by-every-religion, Ghandi) believed in the concept of the need to be born again" (Ghandi once said: "Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next day, when I wake up, I am re-born").  There is no doubt that the Mahatma was a preeminent political and ideological leader in India's achieving independence from Great Britain. And his life-philosophy of nonviolent resistance inspired many followers and admirers, including Martin Luther King, Jr. 


However, the Wall Street Journal published a recent review of a book written by a respected journalist about Ghandi -- the review questions not only Ghandi's demigod status, but also his relative 'sainthood' in popular thought. I'm going to post a short list of bullet points summarizing the article below if your interested.


And while some of the points listed below re: Ghandi's life surprised me (and, in some cases, disgusted me), I'm honestly don't write this in order to start a "Ghandi-bashing" session. Only that, in examining the less glorious details of his life, I'm reminded that Ghandi stands as one of many in a long line: 

Another reason to hope for a better righteousness. 

His life is worth examining, worth considering. But like all lives of our heroes, the glimmer of righteousness exemplified in their lives leaves us thirsting for a full-blown, "won't let us down" righteousness that we can put our faith & hope in.


Veiled Grace, Flawed Righteousness. In fact, this basic truth helps us understand the Old Testament better and how it all points Jesus. The Old Testament, from Genesis 3 to Malachi (good book), displays two major threads: Veiled Grace and Flawed Righteousness. The grace of God: but the kind of grace that comes and goes, through covenants that can't permanently change hearts, and generally God working in a way that was often in the shadows. I could write more on that, but I'd like to focus on the people we see in the Old Testament.


There are so many heroes of the Old Testament who are examples of Flawed Righteousness , including the sacred triumvirate -- the three most widely respected and admired OT figures by your average Jewish person. Abraham, Moses, and David. Great men of great faith, but deeply flawed. Abraham's rap sheet includes two potentially life-altering lies to his wife and commits adultery with a woman who is not his wife. Moses kills a man. David had a man killed in order to sleep with his wife and doesn't really admit to doing anything wrong for at least nine months. So, yeah, Abraham, Moses, and David would've been fired from your church. 


How to benefit from lives of flawed righteousness. When observing lives of flawed righteousness (and I mean that in an admiring manner) whether in your everyday life, in recent history (see Ghandi), or in the Old Testament, ask yourself: 

• Where do I see God's righteousness displayed, though flawed? 
• What righteous aspect of this person's life do I see fully fulfilled and gloriously magnified in Jesus Christ?

In doing this, we can continue to read biographies, listen to stories, and watch uplifting accounts of real lives while letting such accounts deepen our thirst for a fuller righteousness and ultimately point us (and others) to Him who is and can freely give perfect righteousness: 

¹⁷ If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, 

much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift 

of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.  ¹⁸ Therefore, 

as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness 

leads to justification and life for all men.  ¹⁹ For as by the one man's 

disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience 

the many will be made righteous (Romans 5: 17-19).

THE END

(If Interested) Bullet Points re: The Flaws in the righteousness of Ghandi.

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- Although credited with leading India to independence from Britain, Gandhi also jeopardized this effort. Between 1900 and 1922, he suspended his civil disobedience at least three times, even though more than 15,000 supporters were in jail for the cause. (When Britain finally did withdraw from India, it was largely motivated by their anti-imperialist Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, and the fact that Britain was nearly bankrupt from the war.)

- Gandhi was dangerously unwise politically. He advised the Jews to adopt nonviolence toward the Nazis, and wrote a letter to Hitler starting with the words “My friend”. He also advised the Jews of Palestine to “rely on the goodwill of the Arabs”. Fortunately for their existence, the Jews ignored him.

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• - As well as calling Hitler his friend, Gandhi and Mussolini got on well when they met in December 1931. Gandhi praised Mussolini’s “service to the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization, his efforts to bring about a coordination between Capital and Labour, his passionate love for his people.”
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• - Gandhi was demonstrated moments of racism, describing “the raw Kaffir” as someone “whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a number of cattle to buy a wife, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness,” and saying of white Afrikaaners, “We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they do.”
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• - Like all of us, Ghandi could be remarkably hypocritical. He prevented his son marrying a Muslim despite publicly promoting Muslim-Hindu unity. He denounced lawyers, railways and parliamentary politics, yet he was a professional lawyer who constantly used railways to get to meetings to argue that India ­deserved its own parliament. And although he is known for his hunger strikes, his official position was that these were “the worst form of coercion, which militates against the fundamental principles of non-violence” (in which he believed).
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• - His views on nakedness and sexual chastity were especially emblematic of his depravity: when he was in his 70s he encouraged his 17-year-old great-niece, Manu, to be naked during her “nightly cuddles” with him. After sacking several long-standing and loyal members of his 100-strong ­personal entourage who might disapprove of this part of his ‘spiritual quest’, he began sleeping naked with Manu and other young women also.
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• - Despite being considered a peaceful man, he could be callous, even vicious. “There will be no tears but only joy if tomorrow I get the news that all three of you were killed,” he once told some of his workers. To a Hindu he once said, “I do not mind if each and every one of the 500 families in your area is done to death.” And he forced Manu, his niece (remember the “nightly cuddles”), to walk through a jungle known for harboring rapists—just so she could retrieve a pumice stone he liked to use on his feet. When she returned in tears, he “cackled” with laughter and said: “If some ruffian had carried you off and you had met your death courageously, my heart would have danced with joy.”