I have entitled our message, “Exceeding Expectations,” and I want to begin by sharing a true story. A contractor in Mexico was hired to build a Catholic Church, but he used cheap materials in order to make more money. He reasoned that the quality of the materials did not matter, so long as the basic structure was in place. But, at the dedication of the building, the roof collapsed, killing many of the worshipers, including the contractor’s brother who just happened to be the priest.(1) This contractor did just the basics in order to get by; to finish the project and get paid. Had he purchased quality materials and took his time, this tragedy likely would not have happened. The moral of the story is that we should always do our best and exceed expectations, if we wish to avoid tragedy. And in our passage of Scripture for today, we are going to see that Jesus wants us to exceed the spiritual expectations prescribed by the Law; as we are to strive for excellence in our walk with God.
Above and Beyond Expectations (vv. 17-20)
17 Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Let us get started with verse 17, where Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.” I have met people who will say we are no longer under the Law, but rather grace, and that the Old Testament no longer applies; and because of this belief, there are churches that will only preach from the New Testament. Jesus did not come to “do away” with the Law; He came to “fulfill” (v. 17). In addition to fulfilling the messianic prophecies, He came to fulfill the Law by teaching it. You see, the word fulfill (gamar in Hebrew) among the rabbis, signifies “to teach,” and therefore, we may infer that the Law and the prophets were still to be taught by Jesus and His disciples.(2)
In verse 18, Jesus said, “Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law till all is fulfilled.” The saying “one jot or one tittle” was a proverbial mode of expression among the Jews and it refers to the Hebrew language of the Old Testament. A “jot” is the letter yod, which is the smallest in the Hebrew alphabet. A “tittle” is a small point, which serves as a vowel. It can also be “the little ornaments which certain letters assume on their tops, which cause them to appear like small branches.”(3) Not even the smallest stroke of the pen or the tiniest dot in the writings of the Hebrew Law will cease to apply to our life and society, until the kingdom with its rule and reign is established.
According to verse 19, if we intentionally teach and educate people to transgress the Law, we will be called “least in the kingdom of heaven.” This does not mean we will lose our salvation and be kicked out of the kingdom; but it does suggest a low standing in the kingdom. In verse 19, Jesus also said, “But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great.” The order of the wording here is significant. The order is to first “do” and then “teach,” not the other way around. A.T. Robertson says, “Jesus puts practice before preaching. The teacher must apply the doctrine to himself before he is qualified to teach others. The scribes and Pharisees were men who ‘say and do not’ (Matthew 23:3), who preach but do not perform. This is Christ’s test of greatness.”(4)
Verse 20 is where the real lesson begins. Jesus said, “Your righteousness [must] exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.” “The motive under which the Scribes and Pharisees lived was the motive of the Law; their one aim and their one desire was to satisfy the demands of the Law.”(5) This was not just the Ten Commandments. There were 613 laws altogether. But look at the law today in American society. There are so many it would probably make your head spin! When you study to obtain your driver’s permit, you read a small booklet containing only the basic highway regulations; but there are some bizarre driving laws on the books, and it varies from state-to-state.
For example, in Massachusetts, it is illegal to operate a car with a gorilla in the backseat. In Florida, if an elephant is tied to a parking meter, the owner must deposit money in the meter. It is illegal in San Francisco to buff or dry your car with used underwear. In Alaska, authorities have found it necessary to declare it illegal to tether a dog to the roof of a car. In Tennessee, it is illegal to fire a gun from a moving car at any wild game other than whales; and finally, in Lexington, Kentucky, if you stop your car for some ice cream, it is illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket.(6)
So, why are there so many regulations, especially today? Well, for one thing, life is complex, and for each circumstance a new law is enacted. Another thing is that there are some uptight people, who get a kick out of controlling others. But the main thing is, that as population grows, society tends to become more unruly. There are innumerable circumstances in which we could do harm to a neighbor (Romans 13:10), and that is the primary reason why there are so many laws on the books.
Theoretically, the Scribes and Pharisees could have probably satisfied most of the Law by working hard and being extremely careful, because there were 613 of them; not thousands upon thousands like we have today. But what Jesus had in mind was not stopping at the 613. He said, “Your righteousness [must] exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees” (v. 20). The word for “exceed” means to “overflow like a river out of its banks.”(7) Exceeding the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees meant not being held back by the riverbank; not stopping at basics; but going above and beyond the call of duty. That is impossible! Right? Well, not according to Jesus! So, how can we possibly do better than the Scribes and Pharisees and exceed the demands of the Law?
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” As believers, we have no need to fear transgressing the Law of God, so long as we remember to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love our neighbor as ourself (Lk 10:27). In Romans 13:8, Paul said, “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” So, if we walk in love, we will automatically, by default, fulfill the entire Law. We will be “law-biding” kingdom citizens without giving it a second thought!
Example of Exceeding Expectations (vv. 21-22)
21 You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.” 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, “Raca!” shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, “You fool!” shall be in danger of hell fire.
Jesus stated, “You have heard that it was said to those of old” (v. 21). He then quoted from the Law and added, “But I say to you” (v. 22). “Jesus [spoke] with an authority which no man had ever dreamed of using . . . It is difficult for us to realize just how shocking a thing this authority of Jesus must have sounded to the Jews who listened to Him. To the Jew, the Law was absolutely holy and absolutely divine. It is impossible to exaggerate the place [which] the Law had in their reverence . . . ‘Only Moses’ decrees,’ said Philo, ‘are everlasting, unchangeable and unshakable’ . . . The Rabbis said, ‘Those who deny that the Law is from heaven have no part in the world to come’ . . . This is what the Jews thought of the Law; and no fewer than five times [in Matthew chapter 5] Jesus quoted the Law, only to [seemingly] contradict it, and to substitute a teaching of His own.”(8)
“The Greeks defined authority (exousia) as ‘the power to add and the power to take away at will.’ Jesus claimed that power even with regard to that which the Jews believed to be the unchanging and unchangeable Word of God.”(9) Back in verse 18, Jesus said, “Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law till all is fulfilled.” We should note that Jesus never “took away” from the Law. He only added, expanded upon the Law, interpreted, or provided commentary.
“But as startling as Jesus’ accent on authority was, the standard which He put before [them] was [even] more startling.”(10) He had just told them they must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; and then He explained what that looks like. He basically said that the one who excels is the person who will not just be satisfied in knowing that he has not broken the sixth commandment about murder; he will only be satisfied when every inch of his heart and life is right with God. The Scribes and Pharisees kept the basics and they felt that that was good enough; meaning, they did just enough to get by.
“Jesus said that in God’s sight it was not only the man who committed murder who was guilty; the man who was angry with his brother was also guilty and liable to judgement.”(11) You see, it is not just our actions that matter to God; but also, our thoughts and motives. You sometimes hear the phrase today about “the thought police,” but the only one who truly knows our thoughts is God. “It may be that we have never struck [someone], but who can say that he [has] never wished to strike [someone]? . . . It was Jesus’ teaching that thoughts are just as important as deeds.”(12) It is not enough to simply refrain from committing sin; we must also have no “desire” to commit sin.
Did you know that “desire” is the root of sin? In James chapter 1, the apostle said, “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life . . . But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:12, 14-15). So, the temptation to sin begins with “desire.” Desire opens the door for the devil to entice us; and so, the succession flows from desire, to temptation, and then to full-blown, all-out sin. Desire can be either good or bad. We can have our “own desires” (v. 14), as James said, which are often selfish; or we can have godly desires. So, we need to ask ourself, “Are my thoughts and desires pure?” You must wonder if the Scribes and Pharisees ever asked themselves this question.
In verse 22, Jesus said, “Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” The Greek verb for anger used here (orgizesthai) is long-lived anger; the anger of someone who nurses it; “the anger over which a person broods, and which he will not allow to die.”(13) It is a festering kind of anger. Jesus forbids “the anger which broods, the anger which will not forget, the anger which refuses to pacified, [and] the anger which seeks revenge.”(14) He says that the one who is angry in such a way is in danger of the judgement. The word “judgement” comes from the Greek word krisis. In Matthew 23:33, this word is used by Jesus to refer to hell; therefore, it is a “crisis” of a soul in danger of hell. Thus, it relates to the judgement seen at the end of verse 22; the one suffered by the person who calls someone a fool.
Jesus then said, “Whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council.” “Raca is an almost untranslatable word, because it describes a tone of voice more than anything else.”(15) It is a word said with contempt, when looking down on someone in arrogance. A.T. Robertson says, however, that Raca is an Aramaic word meaning “empty,” like empty-headed, and that it is equivalent to calling someone “stupid.”(16) Jesus cautions us here about hurling words of insult. The one who says to his brother, “Hey stupid!” is in danger of the council. Now, the word “council” comes from the Greek word synedrion. This is the Sanhedrin, the council consisting of seventy-one members. The Sanhedrin had the power of trying cases, and pronouncing the death sentence, with the limitation that a capital sentence was not valid unless it was confirmed by the Roman procurator.(17)
Last of all, in verse 22, Jesus stated, “But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” Robertson explains that Raca expresses contempt for a man’s head and intelligence. Fool expresses contempt for his heart and character.(18) The word “fool” comes from the Greek word moros. This is where we get our word “moron,” but it does not have the same meaning today. Someone who was a moros “was a moral fool, a man who lived an immoral life, and who in wishful thinking said ‘there is no God’ (Psalm 14:1). To call a man a moros was not to criticize his mental ability; it was to [attack] his moral character; it was to take his name and reputation from him, and to brand him as a loose-living and immoral person.”(19) It was to slander him and drag his good name through the mud.
“Jesus said that he who destroys his brother’s name and reputation is liable to the severest judgement of all, the judgement of the fire of Gehenna”(20) in the Greek. Gehenna was the “Valley of Hinnom.” It was a deep narrow valley outside of Jerusalem. In Jeremiah’s time it was associated with the worship of Molech and human sacrifices. Later, the valley was used for burning the dead bodies of criminals and animals, and for refuse or waste of any kind.(21) It was also the garbage dump of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.(22) The sight of the place was horrible, the air was polluted, and fires burned there continually.(23) It was a place where human flesh and animal flesh were rotting, and a place where the fires never ceased. Gehenna became a synonym for hell.(24)
So, allow me to summarize what Jesus was saying. “In the old days, men condemned murder; and truly murder is forever wrong. But I tell you that not only are man’s outward actions under judgment; his [innermost] thoughts are also under the scrutiny and the judgement of God. Long-lasting anger is bad; contemptuous speaking is worse, and the careless or the malicious talk which destroys a man’s good name is worst of all. The man who is a slave of anger, the man who speaks in the [tone] of contempt, the man who destroys another’s good name, may have never committed murder in action, but he is a murderer at heart.”(25) To rephrase what I stated earlier, “The one who exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is not the person who is satisfied in knowing he hasn’t committed murder; it is the person who is satisfied only when every inch of his heart is right with God.”
Time of Reflection
According to Jesus, the Law will always be important. In Romans 7:7, Paul said, “I would not have known sin except through the Law.” Without the Law, we would not know right from wrong; but the most important function of the Law is that it brings us an awareness of sin, allowing us to see just how far we have come up short, and to confirm in our heart Romans 3:23, which says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We’ve all been angry with a brother, and have called someone “stupid” or a “moron,” making us a murderer at heart. Therefore, we are in danger of “judgement” and “hell fire” (v. 22); so, we had better get our life right with God!
In Galatians 3:24, Paul said, “The Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” To be “justified” is to be “just if I’d never sinned.” When we face God in judgment, and He looks at us and sees no sin, we will escape the fires of hell; and the only way to be seen without sin is to be covered by the blood of Jesus; that precious blood that was shed on the cross at Calvary. I want to encourage you to get your life right with God today by being justified through faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
NOTES
(1) P. L. Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations, on Logos CD-ROM (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, 1979, 1996).
(2) Adam Clarke, “Matthew – Acts,” Clarke’s Commentary, vol. 5 (New York: Abingdon Press), p. 69.
(3) Ibid., p. 69.
(4) A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1930), p. 43.
(5) William Barclay, “The Gospel of Matthew,” The Daily Study Bible, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1958), p. 129.
(6) “Strange Driving Laws,” ResearchManiacs: https://researchmaniacs.com/Forwarded/StrangeDrivingLaws.html (Accessed June 5, 2023).
(7) Robertson, p. 44.
(8) Barclay, p. 130-131.
(9) Ibid., p. 131.
(10) Ibid., p. 132.
(11) Ibid., p. 132.
(12) Ibid., p. 133.
(13) Ibid., p. 135.
(14) Ibid., p. 136.
(15) Ibid., p. 136.
(16) Robertson, p. 44.
(17) Blue Letter Bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4892/kjv/tr/0-1/ (Accessed June 13, 2023).
(18) Robertson, p. 44.
(19) Barclay, p. 137.
(20) Ibid., p. 137.
(21) “Hinnom,” The New Bible Dictionary (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1962), taken from Logios 2.1E on CD-ROM.
(22) “Hell,” taken from the Internet February 2005 at http://www.ovrlnd.com/ Teaching/hell.html.
(23) Ibid.
(24) Barclay, p. 138.
(25) Ibid., pp. 138-139.
