Matthew 5: 17-20
Mission Impossible
Manuscript
You know each week as we go through a book of the Bible, we cover a different passage of the Bible. And perhaps you look through ahead and see what passages are coming up, and what topics will be covered in those passages. Well of course, I also look ahead and see what I’ll be preaching on. And sometimes I look ahead and I really look forward to preaching on a particular passage. Why? Perhaps the passage is an encouraging one that tells us the wonderful things God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Then again there are some passages that I feel are really good for practical Christian living and that as I explain them, I’m hopefull they will help you greatly in living your Christian life. And then, to be bluntly honest, there are some passages that I enjoy preaching on because they are easy to prepare! Their meaning is evident, it’s easy to put together a structure, a catchy illustraion, and it doesn’t take me long to prepare the sermon so I’ve got the rest of the week to do all the other sort of stuff a pastor is supposed to do.
Well, today’s passage doesn’t fall into any of those categories - at least on the face of it. Is it encouraging? Well, it tells me that unless my righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees that I don’t get to go to heaven. Personally, I don’t find that very encouraging! Do you? And then everday practicality. This passage doesn’t seem to tell me something that I can apply to my everyday life. It doesn’t seem to tell me how to relate to my wife, kids. It doesn’t seem to tell me how to live as a Christian in the workplace. It doesn’t seem tell me how to tell people about Jesus. In fact it seems to be a very theologically deep passage. It is complicated both to understand, and to explain. Which leads to the third thing I like in a sermon: that is – I like a sermon that is easy to prepare. This sermon was certainly not easy to prepare! It was just plain difficult. I’d been seeing it coming for some time, and I’ve been struggling with it. What does it mean? What is it saying? And how on earth do I explain it?
So as we go to the passage today, I want to tell you that – yes, this passage is complex. It is hard to understand, and hard to explain! And yes, it is deeply theological. But, it is also practical, because it is the key to understanding the rest of the Sermon on the Mount and the other teachings of Jesus, especially in relation to the Old Testament. And those teaching are very practical. And as to whether it is discouraging or encouraging - well, let’s just say it’s challenging!
So remember, this is the Sermon on the mount that we are in. Jesus has His disciples around Him. He’s told them His beatitudes, which are ways of living that run counter to what the world tells us is the way we should live. Jesus has told His disciples – and us also if we are also His disciples - that we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. That is, it is up to us to be proclaimers of what Christ has done for us. And while we preach the Gospel with the words we say, it is backed up with our holy lives - right living, good works, as it says in:
Matthew 516 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
So good works are essential. As people see them, our light shines and our Father in Heaven is glorified. And God’s glory should be the ultimate desire of all Christians. But what are good works? What are these good works we are supposed to do? In fact, in the rest of the Sermon Mount, Jesus tells us what some of these good works are. But before He does that, He preaches this little section here from verses 17-20 to tell us what He came to do, and to tell us how He fits in with the Old Testament and its laws.
As you probably know, the Old Testament is full of Laws, full of them, describing in much detail how one should live. So full of laws is it in fact, that the Jews call the first five books of the Bible the “Torah” – which means “Law”. The Law. But what about us as Christians? Do we need to follow the Old Testament Law and all its regulations? For example, the Ten Commandments? Do we follow them? I’m sure none of us would dispute most of them. For example, commandment number 6: Exodus 2013 “You shall not murder. I don’t think there’s any argument about whether that commandment applies. But what about commandment number 4: Exodus 208 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work. Does that still apply? Before you say yes, remember that the Sabbath day is the seventh day – that is, Saturday, not Sunday. Also remember that this commandment forbids any work, absolutely any. For example: Exodus 35 3 You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day. So if you can’t kindle a fire in your house, where does that leave cooking Sunday lunch? What about people who have to work: doctors, nurses, electricity workers…… pastors? Hmnmmm, it’s not so easy is it? On the other hand, many Christians say that Christ came to do away with the Old Testament laws. Well, what did Jesus say about all this?
Matt 517 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.
Hmmm, Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. Now when Jews of Jesus’ time used the expresssion, “The Law and the prophets,” they referred to what we now know as the Old Testament. So Jesus says He didn’t come to abolish the Old Testament or its laws. So what did He come to do? Well He tells us:
Matthew 517 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
So Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfil them. What does it meant, “to fulfil them?” Well before I try and answer that question, let’s go to verses 18-19:
Matthew 518 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. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Hmmm - now Jesus’ affirmation of the Law is even stronger than before. He’s not just not abolishing it, He says here that not an iota or a dot from it would pass away until all is accomplished and heaven and earth have passed away. Not an iota, not a dot. Some translations say “jot or tittle.” These referrred to the smallest letters and marking in the Hebrew alphabet, the alphabet in which the Old Testament – the Law – was written in. What it means is, “even the smallest details of God’s law.” Nothing passes away until all is accomplished and heaven and earth have passed away. Now last time I looked, heaven and earth have not yet passed away. So that means the Law has not passed away yet. Okay, let’s have a look at this law. Let’s take some of the food laws. We find them in Levitus 11:
Leviticus11:1 And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. 3 Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 4 Nevertheless, among those that chew the cud or part the hoof, you shall not eat these: The camel, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. 5 And the rock badger, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. 6 And the hare, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. 7 And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. 8 You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.
Wow those are pretty detailed laws about what we can and can’t eat. And if you keep reading in chapter 11, it gives you laws about which sea animals, fish, insects, rodents, lizards, that are okay to eat and aren’t okay to eat. And it’s because of these laws that to this day Jews do not eat pork. What about us? Should I teach you that you can’t eat pork? Or hares? Or camels? Well, that’s what the Law says. We might say these food laws aren’t in the 10 commandments, but Jesus didn’t say only the 10 commandments apply, He said every iota, every dot, the smallest details of God’s laws, won’t pass away until heaven and earth pass away. Hmmm, shall we stop eating pork? Well, this is where it get’s even more interesting. Let’s slip over to Mark 7. In Mark 7 Jesus is accused of eating food that hasn’t been cleaned properly. And Jesus says something very interesting:
Mark 718 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
The really interesting bit is the bit in brackets: “Thus he declared all foods clean.” By the way, there are no brackets in the original Greek. This “Thus He declared all foods clean” is a part of Holy Spirit inspired Scripture. Okay, so Jesus has said that not one iota or dot will disappear from the law until the earth ends. And part of that law is very specific and detailed laws about what foods are permissible to eat and what ones aren’t. And then Jesus Himself goes ahead and declares all foods clean. In the Greek it literally says that Jesus cleansed all food! Has Jesus just gone ahead and contradicted Himself, by teaching us not to obey part of the Law? The law says certain foods are unclean, but Jesus now says that all food is clean. What a conundrum! But hang on - let’s have a closer look at Mark 7.19. Who declared all foods clean? Jesus! Does Jesus have the right to do that? To change the law? Or is He changing the law? Let’s look closer at Mark and read the next few verses:
Mark 720 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Hmmm - it seems that food laws were concerned with unclean food going in, but what Jesus says here is that what is more important than what goes in, is what comes out of someone. It’s what comes out of a person’s heart that defile that person. In other words, Jesus wasn’t abolishing that Law, or relaxing it, but He was fulfilling it. He was taking it to its full meaning. And that’s exactly what Jesus is saying in our passage back in Matthew 5. Remember verse 17:
Matthew 517 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
You see, this word “fulfil – it’s a very interesting word. The Greek word πληροω (playro-ow) means to fulfil – and it also means “to complete”. This verse could also be translated as:
“I have not come to abolish them to to complete them.”
So do you see it now: Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law, but to complete the Law! Now that raises a few more questions! Firstly – does that mean the law was incomplete? And secondly, what does it mean to complete the Law?
Well let’s answer the first question first - was the Old Testament Law incomplete? Well the book of Hebrews discusses this question extensively, and I recommend that if you have further questions about this, that afterwards you read Hebrews chapters 8-10. But for now we’ll just read Hebrews 10:1. In it, the author of Hebrews is talking about the Law and the sacrifices in them and he says:
Hebrews 10:1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
That is, the Olf Testament Law is a shadow of the good things to come. It is not the true form of these realities. What does that mean? It means that the the Law was given to the Israelites as a precursor, a shadow, of the real thing, the complete thing. The real thing is Jesus. The Law was the shadow that pointed to Jesus. And so Jesus comes to fulfil the Law. In the case of Mark 7, the food laws were given as a shadow of what is truly clean and unclean. Jesus fulfils that and points out that true cleanliness is what comes out of a person’s mouth, not what goes in.
And do you notice the big difference? It is what comes out of the heart of a person that is important. Not the externals. Not the mere appearances of what we see people eat. In the Old Testament, God’s Law was written on paper, but in the Old Testament, God also promised that days were coming, days of a new agreement, a new covenant, in which the law was written within us, on our hearts.
Jeremiah 3131 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
So we see that part of the Old Testament was this promise of a new covenant, with new – or better said – completed laws - written on our hearts. In fact, the Book of Hebrews quotes this verse of Jeremiah when it says:
Hebrews 86 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8 For he finds fault with them when he says:
And then he quotes Jeremiah 31 which we just read part of, and then after quoting Jeremiah, he says
Hebrews 813 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
So what does all this mean? Well, it means that the first covenant was not perfect. But Jesus came to bring in the excellent, the perfect covenant. And as we noted in the quote from Jeremiah 31, the Law is part of this covenent. So as Jesus says in Matthew 5.17, He came to perfect the Law. Not abolish it, not relax it, but perfect, complete it. So what does this perfected Law look like? Well in one sense – it is the same Law, but it’s perfected. And if we read the New Testament we see what that new Law looks like, or as Galatians 6.2 calls it, “the Law of Christ.” And over the next several weeks as we go through the Sermon on the Mount, we are going to see some of that perfected Law. And the way the perfected Law looks can often be quite different to the Old Testament Law, and the effect on differenet laws is also quite different. But one thing is common, and that is that the Old Testament laws primarily concerned themselves with external appearances, which was necessary in the context the Old Testament. Law was given, which was as national law for a given country – Israel. And that Law needed to be policed, and you can only police a Law if it has defined, external characteristics. For example in Matthew 5.21 – Jesus talks about the 6th commandment:
Exodus 2013 “You shall not murder.”
Now you can judge from external appearances if someone murders someone else. But there’s no way I or anyone else can tell what you are thinking about someone - whether you would like to murder them or not. So the Old Testament Law only talked about if you actually murdered someone, because you can see that - it can be policed by other people. But Jesus says – even thinking about murdering someone is sin. You see, Jesus is interested in your heart obedience to His law, not the external appearance of that. And we are going to see that as we go through Matthew. And so we can see that as Jesus completes the Law. Whatever aspect of the Law that it is, Jesus is interested in the Law being written on our heart, inside us, whether it is murder, adultery, marriage and divorce, telling the truth, giving to the poor (which are covered in the Sermon on the Mount), or the Sabbath and tithing (which are covered later on in Matthew). And while Jesus did make it clear about how many of the Old Testament laws apply under the New Covenant, some things, such as the keeping of the Sabbath and tithing, look quite different now, and because of that there is some discussion – even argument - about how they apply to Christians today. And we’ll discuss those things in more detail when we get to them in Matthew. Of course, if you can’t wait to know before we get to them, come and see me sometime to talk about it.
So let’s recap. Jesus has told us that He did not come to abolish the Law, not one little bit of it, but to fulfil, or complete it. That means that the Old Testament Law was incomplete. It was written as a national law, and it was not written on our hearts, which mean its parameters were external, visible ones that could be policed. But when Jesus came, He completed it. That means that the Law we follow has some big differences to the Old Testament Law.
First it means that the application, what we actually do, can look different – sometimes very different. Because in completing it, Jesus is not as concerned with external appearances as with our heart attitude.
But along with this heart attitude, He also does something very significant. And that is, He writes His Law on our hearts. Yes, Christ’s Law is also written on paper – the Bible. But if you are a Christian, if you are born again, He writes it on your heart, which means although we find out how we should live from the Bible, the desire and the strenghth to live that way, He puts that on our heart..
You see, becoming a Christian is not about just believing something, not just believing a set of theological facts, but becoming a Christian is about being born again. About the Holy Spirit invading your life, writing God’s laws on your heart, and changing you. And if that hasn’t happened to you yet, come and see me. And it’s only as we understand that that we can understand the last verse in our passage.
Matthew 520 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
As I said before, when you first reed that verse it is very discouraging. The scribes and the Pharisees were the most religious people of the day. The most stringent and the most careful at keeping the Old Testament laws. And Jesus says if our righteousness isn’t better than theirs, then too bad, so sad, no heaven for you. That looks pretty discouraging. But we need to bear in mind two things. Firstly, what is God’s standard for righteousness? Perfection. Were the scribes and Pharisees perfect? No. So logically, our righteousness has to be better than theirs. But – that’s impossible! We know from elsewhere in the Bible, that Jesus became our righteousness. He died in our place, so if we believe in Him, if we are born again, then we gain His righteousness, and thus our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
So does that mean it doesn’t really matter how we live? Yes it does matter how we live. Because if you really are a Christian, and that doesn’t mean you are a Christian just because you were born into a Christian family, that doesn’t even mean that just because you say you are a Christian you are one, but if you really have repented of your sin, turned to Christ and declared Him to be your lord (that is, your boss, the master of your life), as you call out to Him, then you are born again. His Spirit comes to live in you, and He writes His law on your heart. You’ll still make mistakes. You’ll still mess up and sin, but you are better than you were. His law is written on your heart, and that is what motivates and drives you.
The Pharisees and Scribes were concerned with the external appearances of keeping the Law, while inside, unseen to all but God, their hearts were evil. But if you are born again, our heart has been changed, and continues to be changed. And your actual righteousness – not just the righteousness you have in Christ - will be better than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. Your righteousness doesn’t save you, but it is the proof that you are saved. It is the proof that you are born again, that Christ has done some radical surgery on your heart, and you are saved and heading for heaven.
So if you are here today and you are truly born again, praise the Lord, your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, through what Jesus did for you on the cross!
But if you aren’t, or if you are not sure if there is the evidence in your life that you are born again, please come and see me afterwards – as a matter of urgency!
You know, I’m extremely thankful that we have a redeemer – Jesus Christ, who gives us His righteousness, and who writes His laws on our heart.
