The Sermon on the Mount IV

Subtitle: Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God II

Matthew 5:21-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 31, 2023.

We will continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount today.

We looked at the Introduction that Jesus gives to the Kingdom in Matthew 5:3-16.  There he challenged his audience to quit looking at what they don’t have and to start seeing what they do have.  God was opening the door to the Kingdom for them in Jesus, in fact, he is The Door to The Kingdom (John 10:1-9).

Jesus then gave them three metaphors to help them see what God was wanting to do through those who entered the Kingdom.  He wanted them to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city on a hill.  Each of these speak to the spiritual impact believers in Jesus would have on the world around them.

Just like a door is a transitional spot between two different places, so the presence of Jesus brought Israel into a transitional spot between being the nation through whom God was primarily working to choosing to follow Messiah into a new reality.

In verse 17, Jesus begins to develop his first major point by stating his purpose to fulfill the Law of Moses, rather than destroying it.  In verse 21, he then points to six places in the Law of Moses in order to show how Israel’s leaders were missing the mark and how they could hit it.  Let’s look at our passage.

Six case studies in fulfilling the Torah and Prophets of God (v. 21-48)

Verses 21-26 are the first look at the Law, which focuses on the Sixth Commandment of The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.  “You shall not murder.”

Before we get into looking at what Jesus says about murder, there are some structural issues to take note of in each of these six case studies.

Jesus will always start out with what they have heard from their teachers in expounding the Law.  He will then contrast that with what he teaches them now.  Lastly, Jesus then moves to give some “therefore” statements, which highlight the fact that he intends us to think about the implications of what he teaches.  The therefore sections flesh out what it would look like to heed his teaching.

In each of these, if we treat Jesus like another rabbi, and if we approach his words like the Pharisees approached the Law of Moses, then we will only be focused  on the letter.  Jesus would simply be adding more laws to the 613 that they already had.  Yet, this is not what Jesus intends.  The words that he speak are a representation of him and what is in his heart.  They draw us into relationship with The One who spoke them so that we can be led by His Holy Spirit to “flesh out” his intention for us.

Another issue is this.  Any honest look at the Law of Moses will see that they are not all of the same kind.  There are different types of laws.  The most obvious are the moral laws, which say things like, “You shall not murder.”  Murdering is inherently wrong, evil.  It will always be wrong because we do not have the authority to murder people, any more than to rape them or take all of their things.

A second category are the ritual laws, sometimes called ceremonial laws.  These have to do with how the tabernacle, the temple, would work.  You will notice in these laws about sacrifices, etc., that there is nothing inherently good about killing a bull in a special way, and in a special place, every time you sin.  They were symbolically pointing to greater spiritual truths.  This is part of the tutor, or schoolmaster, purpose of the Law.  They are only a moral obligation because Israel covenanted with God to do them.  Like a parent telling a child what they should do, the moral issue is not something like what time you go to bed, but rather about whether or not you will listen to your parents, even greater, God.

Lastly, there are civil laws that described how Israeli society would operate and the things they would do to set themselves apart from the world around them, whether in diet or dress, etc.  Some of these categories have overlaps.

In the first century, Jesus had to qualify his teaching by stating that he is not trying to abolish the Law of Moses.  It is interesting to me that most would accuse me of trying to bring people back under the law.  This is not what I am doing.  To be clear, Christians are not under the covenant of the Law that began at Sinai.  Yet, we need to hear the heart of our master here.

The Law of Murder

There were laws that also talked about manslaughter and what to do in those cases, but let us stick to what Jesus is doing here.

Jesus begins with the phrase, “You have heard that it was said to those of old…”  As I said earlier, this points to the teachers that they are hearing in their day.  Jesus refers to their teaching in order to set up a contrast with his own teaching. 

More than contrasting, he is demonstrating that there is something that these teachers are doing that is in error.  On one hand, Jesus will show us how God intended the Law to be followed, and yet on the other hand, Jesus is preparing to cut a new covenant that would require his death and resurrection.  This gives us a dual point of how the law should be heard, but also moving on to the new thing that God is doing.

The shepherd of their day are not good shepherds.  So, what was their error?

Their teachers have been focusing on the letter of the Law, which over time had accreted a large number of precedents and rabbinical “case-law.”  They emphasized the outward conformity to the Law, but ignore that these are the instructions of a loving Father who is more concerned about the moral character that would drive their actions, than simply wanting outward conformity.

Have you ever listened to lawyers twisting every word that is said by someone in order to get their client off, or if you are the prosecutor, to nail the defendant to the wall?  To a lawyer, the law is merely a challenge.  It simply becomes something to be manipulated to your favor.  Surely, God could never be pleased by people twisting His words.

In the case of murder, they simply taught that you would be liable to the judgment if you murdered someone.  Of course, it is not bad to teach this.  The error is in what is missing, the heart of the One who gave the Law, and the heart of those who were receiving it.
It is interesting that the Bible begins with two chapters about the work of God in making all things “very good.”  However, the next two chapters are very bad.  Genesis chapter four is often seen as the first murder.  Cain murders his brother, Abel.  Notice that God sees that Cain’s heart is wrong (i.e., Cain hasn’t murdered anyone yet).  Like a good father, God speaks to Cain about what happened and what was going on in his heart.  He warns Cain to control himself because sin sought to have mastery over him.  Any true father is not content to merely have sons who don’t murder one another.  You want sons who have his heart for their brother.  He wants us to honor how He feels towards our brother, our neighbor, even our enemy.

By the way, Genesis four is actually a story about two murders.  Lamech kills a young man who had injured him, and we see him justifying himself.  The chapter ends with violence filling the earth.

Yet, don’t miss that Genesis three is also a story about two murders (or potentially, the murder of the human race).  The serpent, the devil, seduces Adam and Even into an action that brings death into their lives.  The pre-flood civilizations did not go deep enough.  They abused the mercy of God to Cain (not capital punishment) and refused to go deeper into their hearts.  In the end, the world was filled with murder because the hearts of men were full of murder.  All of this begs the Genesis :26 question, just who were they imaging?  It wasn’t their Creator, it was their own murderer, Satan.

After laying out what they were being taught, Jesus turns on the phrase, “but I say to you…”  Jesus does not have the kind of credentials that their teachers had.  Just who does he think he is?  Well, he is the One sent from God, and thus, he has credentials that none of them had.

Jesus gives three statements.  The first is about being angry with your brother.  The version that I have been using adds the phrase, “without a cause.”  This phrase is debated because there are some early manuscripts that do not have it.  The question then becomes, was it added or was it taken out?  There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to take it out.  But, if it wasn’t there, putting it in would soften a harsher statement.  I would simply say that the apostles would later teach us to be angry and sin not (Ephesians 4:26 quoting Psalm 4:4).  Anger isn’t so much the problem, as it is the source of our problem.  Anger has a lot of power and our flesh tends to use the force of anger in order to push us into sinful actions.  James 1:20 tells us that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

So, even if my brother did something that I am rightly angry over, I am still in danger of sinning.  I will come back to deal with the warning Jesus gives.

This first one had to do with internal thoughts and feelings of anger.  Jesus then moves to two outward actions that show contempt for our brother who has angered us.  Calling someone “Raca” was essentially calling them an empty-headed person, a numbskull, a dunderhead, an idiot, and I could go on.  It is contempt for them intellectually.  Calling someone “You fool! (the Gk is from the word where we get moron) also had a sense of poor intellect.  However, for Hebrews this word also had spiritual connotations (it generally doesn’t for us).  The fool is a person who willfully ignores the teaching and ways of God in order to make their own way.  Yes, it is foolish, but it is also a rejection of God.  There is a immoral component to it.  Thus, this is to have contempt for your brother intellectually and spiritually.

Notice that as Jesus moves through these three things that he starts with them being liable to the judgment, and then to the Council (the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem), and finally to the “Gehenna of fire” (my version says hellfire).  No human can put you in the Gehenna of fire, which was a phrase used to speak of God’s judgment.  This then begs the question of what judgment and what council he was speaking about before?  Regardless, something as small as calling your brother a name is coming from a dark place that God will not put up with.  They were definitely not thinking that they were in danger of God throwing them into Gehenna for calling their brother a moron. 

They should have gone deeper, but under the New Covenant that Jesus would cut with God at the cross and give to his followers, we do not serve as if following more stringent laws.  We follow and serve the purposes of Jesus by the help of the Spirit of God in order to do the spirit of the law.  We see this in Romans 7:6; 8:2,4; 9:29; and 1 Corinthians 5:7-8.

In verse 23, Jesus moves to his first therefore statement.  Notice that he has repeated the word “brother.”  It is reminding us of that first actual slaying of a human being, which was done between brothers.  Like Cain, our contempt and anger can push us to do heinous things against our brother, whom God loves.

This very same God desires us to reconcile and make things right.  Cain needed to see that he wasn’t imaging God and turn back from anger.  Even if there had been cause to be angry (in Cain’s situation, there wasn’t), Matthew 18 would later deal with what to do if you had cause to be angry.  You will notice there that Jesus is promoting the same thing that he does here, reconciliation.  We cannot come before God and pretend we are worshipping him while we know we have done our brother wrong.  Jesus actually puts the onus on the brother who did the offending.

We can’t force reconciliation, but we can do what Romans 12:18 says.  “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men…”  Then verse 21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

This is why Jesus boils the whole law and the prophets down to having a heart of love for God and our neighbor.  Such a heart of love will express itself in actions of love.  Yes, that is a hard task, but Jesus has done two huge things to help us.  He has removed our sins and their judgment from over our heads, and he has given us his Holy Spirit to help us battle sin in our life.  We first die to our own righteousness and then we die to our flesh.  We try to make things right with all who would have ought against us before approaching God in worship.

Jesus ends this section with a second practical therefore statement, even though he does not repeat the word. People who are angry do not always think well.  They are not as innocent as they may deem.  In such a case, you can end up getting yourself in a pickle.  Jesus envisions two angry men going to a judge and one of them is going to be shocked.  Jesus thus brings up the idea of settling out of court.  Would I push the issue if I was brought into court every time I became angry and ran the risk of a penalty?  Imagine how many times we become angry with people and don’t give it a second thought.  Yet, this is the turn of this small parable in verse 25.  Just who is your adversary?  Ultimately, your adversary is the devil.  He seeks to prosecute you before God.  You are even now on your way to the Judge of all men, the Lord Jesus.  Jesus is no respecter of persons.  You may win some judgments regarding your anger, but will you win them all?  Wouldn’t it be wiser to make your peace with your brother in this life while you can, before you end up at the judgment seat?  If something is settled out of court, then it seems that Jesus will not judge it.

Just as the fires of Gehenna were the danger earlier, here the danger is to be thrown into the prison.  The prison, the holding place of wicked spirits, is not a good place to go.  Some will point to the phrase, “you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny,” as hope that Gehenna is not without end.  Be careful of that.  It doesn’t say that you can pay it off.  Rather, it emphasizes that you won’t get out until you have.  This begs the question.  How does a person pay off a debt when they are in prison?  If the price for removing my sin was the perfect Son of God dying on a cross on my behalf, then it seems very unlikely that I will ever “pay it off.”  This is intended to scare the anger out of you, or at least, wake you up to the true dangers you face.

None of us would survive such a judgment.  Our only hope is to try and reconcile with our brother and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court, which is merciful to those who have shown mercy.

Instead of using the lack of a murderous action as a cloak, through Jesus, God is calling us to overcome evil by dying to our righteousness, and coming alive to his righteousness.  This is that righteousness which laid itself down that we might live.

May God fill us with repentance, and then with His Holy Spirit, so that we can live out the righteousness of God.

Fulfill II audio

The Incarnation of Jesus

Galatians 4:1-7.  This Christmas sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 24, 2023.

It is an amazing reality that the Creator of all things took on the nature of a human in the man called Jesus. 

It is called the incarnation as a reference to God coming in human flesh.  He did not come merely in the appearance of human flesh.  Neither did he materialize like angels do. I am referring to the fact that angels can take on material form, and when they do, they look like men (i.e., humans).  Yet, it is always clear at some point that they are not men when they do things that men cannot.  A case in point would be the Angel of the LORD in Judges 13.  When the “man” ascends into heaven in the flame of a sacrifice, they know that this is not a human (i.e., a man of human flesh and bones).

This is a very important point.  Jesus didn’t even jump in as an adult.  Rather, he went through the full gestational process, was born, and experienced all the things that we experience as humans.

Have you ever had someone complain that, “You don’t know how it feels to have (insert tragedy here) happen in your life!”  This is often used to shelter a person from any input in their life from others.  There can be some truth to this, but, even with other humans, this is often over-played.  A man doesn’t have to carry a baby for 9 months and birth it in order to understand that this is simultaneously a difficult and wonderful thing.  Yes, he can’t know exactly how it feels, but he doesn’t have to in order to empathize.  If a man has his arm hacked off by a sword, everyone on the planet who saw it, or the aftermath, can empathize with the horror of what has happened and the urgency of medical attention he needs.  We don’t have to have an arm hacked off to deeply understand what a trauma this person is going through.

If this argument fails to completely hold water with humans, how much more the Creator of the Universe?  To everyone who would shout, “God doesn’t know what it is like!”  He is God.  He created all the sensory perception that you have.  Does He not know what you are feeling?  Yet, in the incarnation, God has completely taken it off of the table.  Not only can he understand your pains and difficulties, the chances are that He endured far worse than you did.  Maybe, it is us who can’t understand God.

Still, we should notice that God didn’t have to do this in order to counter our complaint.  Yet, in His grace and mercy, He takes on the nature of a human and goes through life.  In Jesus, God lets us know that He knows it is tough, and that life can cause you to want to quit believing.  Yet, there Jesus is, hanging on a cross, bidding you to pick up your cross and follow him.

Yet, Jesus came to do far more than just let us know that he is aware of how difficult it is.

Let’s look at our passage.

Jesus came when the time was just right (v. 1-5)

Paul is writing to the churches in the interior of what we call Turkey today.  The Christians there have been told by certain itinerant teachers that they had to obey the Law of Moses in addition to believing upon Jesus in order to be saved.  Paul was writing to counteract this teaching with the truth about why God gave Israel the Law, and how it functions for Jews and Gentiles.

This is an important point because we can have large assumptions about the purpose of the Law without even knowing it.  Did God give Israel the Law to save them?  Were Israelites saved by keeping the Law?

Paul uses the analogy of a tutor, or governess, for a minor child who would first step into the family business at adulthood, and then later inherit it all.  Paul is essentially describing this setting as a picture of what God the Father was doing with Israel His son.  The Law was given to be a tutor, a schoolmaster, to help Israel be ready for the day when they would be ready to step into adulthood.  This is where we are at in chapter 4 of Galatians.

Even though he is an heir, the child has a status that is like that of a slave.  They have to listen to a teacher, who may themselves be a slave of the child’s father.  This status of a slave is temporary and Paul equates it to the period from Israel’s establishment at Mt. Sinai to the presentation of Messiah Jesus.  This is over 1,400 years.  During this period, God has been using the Law of Moses to teach Israel some things so that they will be ready for the day when Messiah appears.

This brings us to the statement in verse 4 that Jesus came at just the right time, “in the fullness of time.”  There is a quantitative aspect to this because it is time, but time is not the essential element.  There is a qualitative aspect that has to do with learning that is even more important. 

We might argue against this claim of perfect timing.  In fact, Israel herself often complained of God’s timing.  They felt God was taking too long.  Perhaps, we feel that he came to soon.  Maybe that is a sign that this was the perfect timing.  Yet, the perfect timing has nothing to do with what we, or the ancients, thought about it.  For us, yesterday is the perfect time for a savior to come forth from God.

This is a statement from God’s perspective.  Notice how verse 2 reads.  Paul states that it is the Father who determines the metrics for the timing of when the young man is ready to step into adulthood.  Though Paul doesn’t mention this, we can also add that this doesn’t mean the son quits learning.  It is simply that he is no longer under the tutor, but begins to help out in the family business. 

From God’s perspective, the Law had taught Israel all it needed to know in order to embrace Jesus as Messiah, and then, to move forward in what God had for them as adults who were no longer in a slave status.

We  have been talking about Israel as a whole, but the truth is that lessons are learned individually as we corporately walk through things.  Not everyone really understands what the lesson was teaching.  Some people perhaps “learn” that they are tired of listening to a boring teacher and would rather do other things.  Others may “learn” things that are quite wrong.

Is the Law necessarily teaching that God doesn’t love the Gentiles because He never gave it to them?  Does it teach that they are irredeemable because they weren’t given the Law? 

In fact, we might ask just how the Law “teaches” us?  I would say that the Law teaches us each time that we sin, and also in the times that others sin.  It teaches us each time the prophet calls us to repentance by pointing back to the Law, and forward to right relationship with God.

This demonstrates the great wisdom of God in setting the exact right timing for the things that He does.  It is right because the experience of the “child” will have done its proper work to prepare them for the decisions to which God will bring them.   Paul boils this argument down in Romans 1 through 3.  In chapter one, he establishes that the Gentiles were separated from God by their own actions of exchanging the One True God for worshipping created things.  Every Jew would be giving a loud amen at this point.  Yet, in chapter two, Paul turns around and demonstrates that the Jews are also separated from God and guilty before Him because they have broken the Law.  Those under the Law are guilty because they have broken the Law, and those outside of the Law (Gentiles) are guilty for reasons outside of the Law.  They are both in the same place of guilt.  Chapter three follows up with a powerful statement of the purpose of the Law in Romans 3:10.  “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”  There you have it.  The purpose of the Law is to show even the relatively “righteous” of the world that they are sinners in need of God’s mercy.  Israel had been under slavery to a law that showed them their failures at every turn long enough.  It was now time to receive God’s mercy in Jesus.

We see this perfect timing concept in other areas.  In Genesis, God tells Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to his offspring, but not until 400 years had passed.  This was because the “sin of the Amorites” was not yet complete, or full.  They were already sinful, but it wasn’t the perfect time to judge them yet.  God would give them the perfect amount of grace, and even a witness of Yahweh through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his family.

Another example of this is given by Paul in Romans 11.  There he talks about the partial blindness of Israel in rejecting Jesus as Messiah.  Paul tells us that this blindness to Christ would not be forever.  When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then Israel as a whole will have their eyes opened to who Jesus really is.

We could even ask ourselves this.  What if Jesus had been born to Adam and Eve instead of Cain and Abel?  Would they really have understood the depth and the seriousness of the problem of sin and its solution?  I don’t think so.  In fact, as I said above, not everyone learns the lessons as they should.  Even today within His Church, there are those who do not treat the problem of sin as a serious issue.

If God had seasons of learning for Israel under the Law, wouldn’t it make sense that He also has seasons of learning for the Church.  We are waiting for Christ to return, and he will do so at the perfect time.  Yet, that time is connected to God’s people and the world being taught some things.

The early Church saw persecution up into the early AD 300’s.  Think about the lessons regarding enduring persecution and the reward for those who are faithful until death.  By the end of the 300’s things changed drastically as Theodosius I became the emperor of the Roman Empire.  He was raised a Christian and even outlawed paganism.  This is why historians to this day will treat this era as the end of the Roman Empire and speak of a “Byzantine Empire.”  Pagan Rome under pagan Caesars was very different from the Christian Empire.  Yet, they are one and the same.  This season of the Church seems to teach some new lessons.  What will Christians do when they are in charge of the Empire? 

Christianity was very successful within Europe due to this turn of events.  It is interesting that Christians continued to be enamored with kings, monarchies, and emperors, and it makes sense.  God allowed Israel to have kings, and Jesus is the king of kings.  Yet, we see over and over again that no amount confessing Christ, or becoming the “Defender of the Faith,” can make a man really be like Jesus.  For 1400 years Christianity doubled down on kings, until 1776.

Did American independence transition us into a new period of learning about self-governance under “No king, but King Jesus”?  I think so.  I believe that God allowed us to establish a new kind of government that was not the failed democracies of the past, and uniquely modified the Republics of the ages.  We would now be a self-governing people with constitutions that put our servants on notice of how they were to operate.  The true human sovereignty was now collectively held by The People.

What lessons are we just beginning to understand now?  It is easy to say, “No king, but King Jesus!”  However, it is harder to live that out.  Is Jesus the king of America?  Yes, he is in position by God’s decree, but not in practice of its people.

The return of Jesus has an aspect to it in which there are lessons that we need to learn.  Yet, it also has an aspect of the fact that God will not judge the world until the sin of the nations has reached its full.  May God help us as believers to be learning the lessons while rescuing sinners out of a spiritually decaying humanity. 

This Second Coming of Jesus is a transitional point for the world.  Yes, it seems like God is taking too long, but in truth, God has just the perfect time for it to happen.  It is not ours to worry about the timing, but to be faithful to what God has given us to do for now.

Is it possible that I am spending far too much time complaining to God that He is taking too long?  Perhaps, I even have hints of threatening to leave the faith under my complaints?  Would I not do better to spend more time seeking the Holy Spirit to open my mind to the lessons that God is teaching us through His Word, and through the history and activity around us today?  Yes, I am very sure that I would.

Jesus was sent forth to redeem us

It was at this perfect time that God sent forth Jesus in order to redeem us.  There is a lot happening in that sentence, so let’s begin with the fact that Jesus was sent.

The Gospel writer clearly show that Jesus was not doing his own thing.  He was on a mission for God the Father.  Of course, this is a common problem of all the human servants of God, mixing our plans and purposes with God’s.  This is true even of the political “saviors” who rise up in our Republic, or around the world.  Ultimately, they are doing their own thing and coming in their own name.  Yet, Jesus said that he would only speak and do what the Father had sent him to say and to do (John 5:19-20; 12:49-50).  The cross itself becomes the proof that he was not just talking smack.  He put his body where his mouth was.

God wanted something done, and it wasn’t pretty.  Have you ever had something that you knew God wanted you to do, but it was a difficult thing?  Think about Mary and Joseph.  As the angel explains to Mary that she will become pregnant, but not by a man, rather, a miraculous conception, she can look ahead and see all the ways in which her society will not accept such an explanation.  She can imagine the heavy price that she is going to pay if she goes along with this.  Yet, she responds, “Let it be to me according to your word.”  Similarly, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.  Joseph knows exactly what others will say and do, if he marries her.  They will see it as admission of unrighteous, sexual activity.  He too will have to pay a price.  Yet, he marries Mary anyways.

Now, Israel knew that Messiah was coming, but they believed his mission would be all about putting down the Gentiles and lifting Israel up over them.  To be sure, that is part of the work of Messiah.  We can be guilty of crying out to God for help with a long list of the things that we think He should do.  Yet, many times we do not understand what is best for us.  The first coming of Jesus is a rebuke that tells us that our greatest enemy is our own sin and its spiritual tyranny.  Only having defeated that enemy can we even talk about tyrannical forces outside of us.

This is politics in our Republic, and in any nation end up being.  A stomach churning event in which we all point the finger at the other side, or other nation.   “You are the problem!” “No, you are the problem,” comes the reply.  “Let’s lock up those people, kill that guy, etc.”  Of course, the targets of today will change tomorrow in a never ending circus of avoiding the true enemy, the sin of my own heart.

In the Bible, deliverance from spiritual tyranny is pictured as redemption.

Just what is redemption?  It starts with a person who has fallen into a state in which they have lost their inheritance, and are too poor to redeem it back.  That is, they are unable to pay the price to get it back.  The book of Ruth pictures this perfectly.  Ruth will not only be unable to pay for her husband’s inheritance in order to get it back, but she has no children to give it to.  The solution in that case had to be another Israelite who was a near kinsman, and who would be willing to pay the price of buying the land and marrying her in order to raise up a son to inherit it.

If we take that story and lay it over humanity and our sin problem, then you begin to understand why God’s solution involved incarnation.  Sin is so bad that we are debtors to God with no means of making it right.  The problem is that many humans do not believe that they are that sinful, or that sin is a big deal.  We have been cut off from our inheritance as humans (not just a problem for Israelites) because of our sins.  We are spiritually poverty-stricken and are in need of a redeemer.  This is where Jesus steps in.

Jesus qualifies to redeem us.  He is a kinsman (for Israel, a fellow-Israelite, and for the rest of humanity, a human).  This is why Paul emphasizes in verse 4 that Jesus came forth “born of a woman and born under the law.”

Being born of a woman, ties back to the original promise of God when He cursed the serpent.  He said that the seed of the woman (one from her line) would crush his head, even though he would crush the seeds heel.  This mortal wound versus an injury is the promise that a deliverer would come.  Jesus qualifies as a seed of Eve.  God could not just wave a scepter and whimsically decree that sinful humanity should have its birthright back.  A price had to be paid, and we had to agree to the terms of that payment.

Being born under the law, ties back to the covenant that God had made with Israel.  Israel saw itself as righteous among the nations.  They could understand that some Israelites needed redemption, but that as a whole, the nation was righteous before God.  It was really Gentiles who needed redemption.  Yet, the death and resurrection of Jesus under the law, and the rulers of the Law at that time, is proof that perfect laws (a divine source) can not make us righteous, or help us to inherit eternal life.  The sin-problem has to be solved.  Of course, humanity seems intent on not hearing this lesson that God has been showing us.  We appear to be doubling down on fixing things by  more and more human laws.  It won’t work because those who operate the system are just as much sinners as those who come under their purview.

Even the Millennial Kingdom shows that if we had a perfect Executive (Jesus), perfect laws, and glorified, perfected administrators (the resurrected believers), it still would fall apart if God wasn’t restraining evil.  The problem will always reside in our mortal hearts, and in the heart of the spiritual interlopers, the devil and his angels.

America is part of God’s argument to humanity about freedom.  It is great to be freed from under a tyrannical power, but now you are responsible.  You can’t blame it on King George III any more.  Politically, we haven’t gotten out of bed in order to go to work.  We’ve allowed a new tyrant class of criminal “servants” to rise up over us.  Freedom is easier said than done.

We have received the adoption of sons (v. 6-7)

We have received the adoption of sons because of what Jesus has done, because of his redemption.  In Ruth, the solution was marriage.  This image is also used of Jesus and the Church, the Bride of Christ.  However, in Galatians the solution is the Adoption of us into God’s family.  Jesus is the one true son, but we are adopted into the family of God through the work of Jesus.  The true son died in order for you to be adopted into a greater family.  When you place your faith in Jesus as your redeemer, the one who paid the price for your sins, you are then adopted by God as His child.  In fact, you enter as an adult-child.

It is one thing to be 19, 22, even 26, stepping into adulthood for yourself.  However, there is still a whole range of adulthood before you with a number of seasons filled with a number of lessons that you will need to learn.  So yes, a new Christian is a baby-adult.  We are not under the Law of Moses and so we are adults, but we have a lot to learn through the world and the Word of God, both by the Holy Spirit’s help.

We still have a lot to learn, and we are not in our glorified bodies yet.  We need to pay attention to Jesus because he is preparing us for an eternity with the Father.

Notice in verse 6 that the same words used of Jesus are used of the Spirit.  He is sent forth by the Father.  The Holy Spirit is on a mission for God too.  When you are adopted into God’s family, His Spirit takes up residence within you in order to help you become like Jesus.  Just as Jesus was on a mission of redemption, the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us to help us walk in faith through the wilderness of this world, this new adulthood.  He helps us to overcome our own sins and to become an incarnation of Jesus by proxy to the world around us.  This is referred to as a down payment on the fullness that we will receive at the resurrection.  So, think about that!

Through Jesus, God has brought you into a familial relationship that is intended to be intimate.  The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are a child of God, and He helps us to cry out to God in intimate terms, “Abba, Father.” 

It used to be very popular to emphasize that Abba is equivalent to “daddy” or “papa,” something a very young toddler would use.  Of course, that is a beautiful picture, and the word was (and still is) used by little kids for their fathers.

However, we should notice that it is used by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying to the Father.  He was asking if the cup of crucifixion might be avoided.  Regardless, we see him resigning himself to doing the will of the Father.  “Not my will, but Yours be done.”  Jesus sweat great drops of blood as he was praying this.  This is no little kid crying out papa in the night.  This is the eternal son of God gearing up to go to war against our deadliest enemy by dying on the cross.  This is one warrior speaking to another warrior.  The word essentially means Father, but it carries with it the complete intimacy of a son, whether child or adult. 

We too can cry out to God in the midst of our difficulties and know that He hears us with full love, even when a difficult task lies ahead (especially when so).

To the world and worldly Israelites, the death of Jesus was proof that He was a sinner and not loved of God.  However, they don’t understand that this is not about the Father’s love.  His love has never been in question.  It has always been our love that fails.  No, the crucifixion is proof of the Son’s perfect love for the Father, and the resurrection is the response of the Father.

Paul ends this section by concluding that the Galatians, and we who believe in Jesus today, are no longer slaves under the Law of Moses.  We no longer need God to give us a bed-time (a superficial law that points to something deeper).  Rather, as adults, we tell ourselves that we had better go to bed because we have a lot of work to do for God in the morning.  We have stepped into the relationship of adult-sons.  We are not running the business yet, but we get up each day and report in to Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  What are going to do today, Lord?

There will be another transition to our relationship with Christ.  Whether we die or not, the resurrection will forever deal with our sinful flesh.  We will have glorified heavenly bodies and be like Jesus, perfectly in his image.

Those lessons learned by Israel over 1400 years of servitude must be absorbed by us today, while also learning the lessons taught by the Lord to his Church over 2,000 years of working for him.  In fact, we need to remind ourselves over and over again.  Praise God that His Holy Spirit helps us to war against sin in our own hearts and minds, and then helps us to be a help to others.  Christians are a people who have learned to go to war, and are still going to war, against the sin of their own flesh.  It is in that bloody battle that the grace of God brings us through, and it helps us to minister to others.

The problem today is that too many people are on the warpath to fix the sin in your life, or worse metaphorically crucify you for it.  Yet, they lack Jesus because they haven’t lifted a finger to fight sin in their own heart and mind.

All through this, Paul has referred to us as heirs of God.  We are spiritual adults, but we have only received a portion of what we will inherit.  It is not yet fully manifest what we are and shall have.  We are to show ourselves faithful with the little that we have, so that God will reward us with much by His grace.

Let every day be an adventure of discovering even more that, if it wasn’t for Jesus, we would still be stuck in a poverty-stricken state of being a slave to sin, and judged by the Law of God as unworthy.

Praise be unto Jesus!

Incarnation audio

The Sermon on the Mount III

Subtitle: Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom II, also

Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God

Matthew 5:13-16, 17-20.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 17, 2023.

We are continuing our look at Jesus, King Messiah, who was also The Prophet like Moses.  He is giving the good news to the poor and misfortunate of Israel that the door to the Kingdom of Heaven is in front of them.  They only need to enter by faith in Jesus as its king.

This sermon will finish the introduction of Jesus.  Thus, I have titled this first part “Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom.”  Verse 17 will begin the main body of the message Jesus is giving.  I have titled it as “Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God.”

Let’s look at this first part.

Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom (5:3-12, 13-16)

Verses 3 through 12 are called the beatitudes, and they answer the questions of who God is planning to bless and how.  The surprise twist in these beatitudes show that God values things very different than we do.  None of these people would have thought of themselves as blessed, but rather cursed.  Jesus is not in the temple talking to the elite religionists of his day.  He is in the wilderness on a mountainside with the poor and afflicted of Israel surrounding him.  He tells them that they are blessed because God is opening up the Kingdom of Heaven to them.

We also pointed out last week that the beatitudes do more than tell them they are blessed.  They also create a composite sketch of Jesus himself.  Jesus is the ultimate poor and afflicted one whom God values, more, whom God loves.  Jesus is the ultimate person who is blessed of God to the ultimate degree.

This is exactly what Isaiah is prophesying in Isaiah 53:3-4.  Here is the text.  “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

Notice the intention is to show that our value system would be so messed up that we would think Messiah, the Servant of the LORD, was essentially cursed of God.  These people listening to Jesus would have been told by society (and believed it) that they were not blessed of God, otherwise their life wouldn’t be so filled with sickness and poverty.  Yet, Messiah would appear to be the most cursed of God, while all the time being the most blessed of God.  This is why Jesus not only puzzled people in the first century, but continues to puzzle them to this day.

Starting in verse 13, Jesus gives three metaphors that represent the purpose behind why God is blessing these unfortunates.  In other words, the blessings mentioned in the first part has a purpose that goes beyond those people.  Do you remember Abraham?  God blessed him above all others in his day.  Yet, that blessing was intended to be a blessing to all of the nations (Genesis 18:18; 22:18; and 26:4).

This is a principle with God.  His blessing to anyone is never intended to be only for their sake.  If you picture a reservoir behind a dam, then you will get the point.  We can be so fearful of the lack of future blessing that we dam it up and hold it to ourselves.  Yet, God has a purpose in blessing us that intends for us to find ways to release it to others in a good way.  He wants to bless others through the blessings that He gives to you, and He wants to bless you through blessings that He gives to others.  May God help us to understand this way of God so that we can be truly blessed.

The first purpose in our blessing is pictured by salt.  Those who enter the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus are intended to be the salt of the earth.  Jesus doesn’t tell us what the salt represents, but he does give us a hint by emphasizing the flavor of the salt.  Through the years, two aspects have been pointed out about salt.  It makes things taste better, and it preserves things from rotting.

So what is the flavor?  Are we making the world taste better for God?  Or, are we to be making this life taste better for the lost, so that they will see God?  This is not explained.

A good principle to remember is to let Scripture interpret Scripture.  We can look for other places where the Bible talks about salt and see if it is used as a metaphor for anything.  You are going to find about 42 places in the Bible where it uses the word “salt.”  It almost always simply means salt.  However, there are a couple of references that are interesting. 

In Leviticus 2:13, we see that a grain offering was required to be salted, even referring to it as the “salt of the covenant.”  So whatever the salt represented, it was important to God.  We should also put on the back burner of our thoughts that Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.  Jesus tells us to remember her.  The most helpful verse is given to us by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 4:6.  It reads, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”  From this verse, it appears that the salt most likely represents grace in Matthew 5.

Does this make sense in the story of Lot’s wife?  Notice that she had been the recipient of a lot of God’s grace, particularly being saved from the destruction of Sodom.  Being turned into a pillar of salt may represent the sad reality of her perishing over the top of all the grace that God had given her.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, who is the ultimate grace of God, graciously opens the door of the kingdom to the poor and afflicted of Israel.  Yet, such grace in their lives, is intended to be spread, salted, on others in Israel, and even to the Gentiles, by extension.  This grace of God is what not only makes this life that He has given us flavorful.  Yet, for the lost, we become the flavor of God by being His grace to them.  Only some will like the taste, but it is God’s intention for us nonetheless.

If the salt loses its flavor, its grace, there is something missing.  Essentially, we are missing Jesus.  We are then not helpful for the purposes of God.  We will simply be trampled upon by men.  In this world, there will be trampling.  The trampling itself does not mean that you have lost your flavor.  Rather, if we have lost our flavor, that is the only thing that we would be good for.  Don’t miss that point.  In Jesus, any trampling that happens to His people will accomplish the work of God because we have the flavor of God in us, essentially Jesus.  They trample us over the top of being the grace of God.  This will open the eyes of some as they see that something is wrong.  On the other hand, the trampling of those who do not have the grace of Jesus only seems fitting to the world.

Jesus then gives two metaphors back to back because they essentially point to the same thing.  Believers are to be the light of the world and a city on a hill.  These are both about visibility.  Light enables people to see things that they couldn’t see before, and elevation helps whatever is on it to be seen as well.  Of course, Jesus is the light of the world, but because he is in us, we become the light of the world (like a lamp). 

We have no light in and of ourselves.  Rather, we become a container of light that is supposed to be made visible to the world around us.  A good metaphor for this is the earth, the moon, and the sun.  Only the sun makes light in and of itself.  However, the moon can reflect light to the earth because of its relationship to the sun relative to the earth.  Jesus is not on the earth, but our relationship with him makes us able to give light to them, i.e., information about God, His character, and His purpose.

God’s intention is that the truth, about who Jesus is and what he has done for those who will believe, will be made known to everyone.  If this is hidden, it is not done by God.  If our light is under a basket, it is because we are not cooperating with His intention for whatever reason.  In fact, a city on a hill has no say about it.  It will be visible.

The principle given in verse 16 is that we are to do good works, live out the righteousness of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, in such a way that those good works point them to our Father in Heaven.  God wants them to see true righteousness born of the Spirit and out of relationship with Jesus.

This will set up a later tension in the Sermon on the Mount between things that should be visible to others and things that should not be. The flesh tends to make things public that it shouldn’t and keep private what should be public.  In more simple terms, the flesh makes public what should be private, and private what should be public.  How do we know which should be?  We know through the word of God and relationship with Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  He leads us.  Nothing can replace true spiritual relationship with Jesus.

Fulfilling the Torah and Prophets of God (5:17-20)

In verse 17, we come to the main body of Jesus’ teaching.  It is going to come across as something totally new, as if Jesus was adding to the Torah, or even changing it.  Thus, Jesus begins by clarifying exactly what he is doing.

Jesus knows that his teaching will be misconstrued by some, whether purposefully or ignorantly, as anti-Law.  Paul had this same problem.  In fact, even in the Church, there are some pastors who basically tell their people that they don’t need to know the Old Testament.  It isn’t for Christians.  However, instead of destroying or abolishing the Law (the instructions of God given at Sinai), Jesus had come to fulfill it. 

This is Matthew’s 7^th use of the word “fulfill.”  It is easiest to see this with the prophets.  They often pointed to future things that God was promising to do in order to encourage the faith of people before they were fulfilled.  You might picture this as an empty glass, or a glass that is not completely full.  The presence of the cup, or rather many cups of prophecy, gives us hope that God will keep His word.  Past fulfillments encourage waiting for future fulfillments.  The Law also has aspects that need to be fulfilled, like an cup that is only partially filled.  An example of this would be the sacrificial system.  It begs the question of just how does the blood of an animal remove my sin from me.  The work of Jesus on the cross and at the resurrection becomes a fulfillment of the sacrificial system.  We now understand what it was trying to teach us.  And, herein lies the problem.  We too often think of the Law as a list of infractions and penalties.  However, it’s true purpose is to teach us about righteousness, sin, judgment, and the loving grace of God.

We should be careful of just thinking of Jesus as fulfilling some of the prophecies.  He is what all the Law and Prophets were pointing us towards.  Their whole purpose is so that we would recognize, embrace, and follow Jesus.

Paul explains this in Galatians 3:23-25 by comparing the Law to a tutor or a schoolmaster.  Israel was like a child who is under the rule of a governor or governess.  When the child becomes an adult, the job of the governor will be over, and the young adult enters into the next phase of life.  Jesus was too valuable of a gift to simply send.  God took precious time training and teaching Israel through the Law so that they could recognize Jesus for what he was, the ultimate servant of the LORD.

Jesus is coming forth as the Messiah to lead Israel into the Kingdom of spiritual adulthood.  “The Kingdom is here; it is time to step up, son!”

In verse 18, Jesus speaks to the certainty that every bit of the Law and the Prophets would be fulfilled.  To do this, he refers to the durability of heaven and earth.  This heaven and earth are not eternal.  They are destined to be transformed (melted down and reformed) into a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 20).  How are we going to survive that?  The answer is only by Jesus! 

Jesus explains that before the heavens pass away, i.e., the Revelation 20 event comes, every bit of the Law and the Prophets will be fulfilled.  In order to emphasize both the certainty and the attention to detail of its fulfillment, Jesus mentions two words that are strange to English ears.  The KJV and NKJV have the words “jot” and “tittle.”  The ESV has the words “iota” and “dot.”  The NIV doesn’t even try to come up with a word for them.  It has “smallest letter and least stroke of the pen.”  What is he talking about?

If you were in our church when I preached this, I walked us through the Hebrew letters and what these words are referring to.  In a shortened form for this article, the word “jot” or “iota” is a reference to the Hebrew letter “yod.”  It looks like an apostrophe but is a consonant that has the sound of /y/.  It is the smallest letter in Hebrew (at least half the size of the others).  The “tittle” or “dot” refers to a small protrusion on a letter that distinguishes it from another letter.  This is the case between the Hebrew letters Resh and Dalet.  The Dalet is not rounded like the Resh, having a protrusion on the upper right-hand side of the letter.  This small stroke on the letter is important to distinguish the letter.

Notice what this means.  It makes sense that God is going to fulfill all of the statements and promises that He made in the Bible.  However, this takes it deeper.  He is not only going to fulfill the statements, He is going to fulfill the words, the letters, down to the small distinctions between letters.  The detail to which God is fulfilling the Law and the Prophets will go to a level that we can’t even comprehend looking forward.  It is similar to the disciples after the cross.  Beforehand, they had trouble getting what Jesus was saying.  It seemed so contradictory to the Scriptures.  However, after the cross and after the explanations of Jesus, they look back at the Old Testament and it suddenly explodes with meaning that they did not see before.  They had been trained not to see it.

Verse 19 then moves to underline the importance of the commands and their fulfillment.  Jesus didn’t come to break the commandments, but some would.  Some would even teach others to break the commandments.  Breaking the commands is parallel with the earlier destroying the Law.

Now, if you read what Jesus is saying like a Pharisee, then you will think that we should still be doing sacrifices, and that the Apostle Paul really was a heretic misleading early Christians.  However, this is an uninformed application.  The Church does not teach that the Law has been destroyed so Christians can eat pork if they want, go to church on Sunday if they want, and skip doing sacrifices.  Rather, we teach that Jesus is King Messiah who sets up a new covenant in which we now fulfill the Law and the Prophets by obedience to him and the instructions that he brought down from God the Father (like Moses).  Jesus teaches us to accomplish the whole purpose of the Law.

This is what Jeremiah was getting at in 31:31-34 of his book.  The new covenant was not taking away the Law, but putting the Law (the Torah, instructions of God) in their minds and writing them on their hearts.  The new is absolutely connected to the old because the old was pointing to the new all along.  Israel was by and large stuck on the superficial aspects of the law but not understanding the deeper truths that it was pointing towards.

It would be similar to parents giving their children a bed-time.  They go to bed at a specific time, not because it is the inherently moral time to go to bed.  Rather, the bed-time teaches a discipline and greater lesson that there is a time to go to bed and a time to wake up.  All responsible adults who do not live like children, understand this and respect it in their lives, regardless of when exactly they go to bed.  Yes, some laws are inherently moral.  “You shall not murder.”  But, the sacrificial laws, dietary laws, and feast days, were illustrative, even prophetic, of things that they only typified.  They were training wheels to help us understand what Jesus was, and is, doing.  Through Jeremiah, God basically says that their penchant to focus on the superficial aspects of the Law had kept it from getting into their hearts and minds.

Yet, God was going to fix that.  How?  Verse 34 tells us that God would forgive their iniquity and their sin.  It is important to understand the power of God’s forgiveness of our iniquity.  Jeremiah doesn’t explain the mechanism that God would use to make it possible for Him to forgive our iniquity.  However, Isaiah 53 does.  When you are given forgiveness undeservedly, it can have a powerful transformative affect upon your heart.  It is not guaranteed.  Some are not seeking forgiveness and don’t believe that they have done anything wrong.  But, forgiveness powerfully affects the repentant heart that desires restoration of relationship.  This is what John the Baptist meant when he said, “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29). 

Jesus is instituting a new covenant, a covenant of the adult-children of God who are no longer under the tutor of the Law, but for whom the lessons of the Law point us to the ultimate fulfillment that God intended in it.

Lest we be arrogant towards Israel, let us remember that no one gets to adulthood without first going through childhood.  Don’t think of it as God loving one more than another.  Rather, it is God doing what is necessary to save humans.  In fact, the kingdom is first offered to Israel, and a remnant of Israel entered into the Kingdom, becoming adult-children of God.  The Church is founded upon the faithful work of Jewish men and women who took the Gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth, bringing Gentiles into the saving work of Jesus.

Christians do not throw off the Old Testament.  Rather, we fulfill it in our lives through faithfully following the instructions of King Jesus.

To slam this point home even further, Jesus gives a serious, even severe, warning.  Those who misunderstand his teaching here will be the least in the Kingdom as opposed to the greatest.  This is not a time to be humble.  Jesus is speaking about a judgment by God as to our service.  We can be saved by believing in Jesus, but still misconstrue some of the finer points of what he is doing.    It appears that a person can be in the Kingdom, but become hampered in our ability to truly serve Him.  The key is to stay humble, stay in the Scriptures, and keep prayerfully seeking the help of the Holy Spirit.

Yet, verse 20 gives us a more powerful warning.  Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  The idea of being shut out of the Kingdom is a fearful one.  All of Israel saw the Kingdom as the apex of God’s promises to us.  The Kingdom is perfect relationship into eternity.  To be shut out of the Kingdom is to be shut out of all that will come for those who are in relationship with Yahweh.

It is only the righteousness of Christ that saves us.  Yet, Christ wants to impact us by His Holy Spirit to live out that righteousness on this earth through a real relationship with our Maker, and Redeemer.

If we think of this warning in superficial terms, then we will be exasperated at the idea of doing more righteousness than the Pharisees.  However, we need to understand the heart element here.  A Pharisee may do a ton of things that he believes to be righteous because of the traditions of men.  His righteousness could amount to filthy rags before God.  But, one sinner who believes on Jesus and has even an ounce of Christ working in his heart can produce more righteousness, more true righteousness, than the other.  It is quantity, but quantity that first survives a hurdle of quality.

May God help us to be a people fulfilling with Jesus all that the Law and the Prophets are pointing towards!

SOTM3

The Sermon on the Mount II

Subtitle: Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom

Matthew 4:23-5:12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 10, 2023.

We talked last we about Jesus as King Messiah delivering the teaching in our passage.  We also talked about Jesus as the Greater Moses, the greater prophet, delivering the instructions of Yahweh to God’s people.

This is how we need to see this passage from chapter 4 through the end of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 7.  Through Jesus, the promise of Abraham was even now breaking forth upon Israel.  Furthermore, it will not stop until it has inundated the whole earth.

Let’s look at our passage.

The setting (4:23 to 5:1)

Chapter four has Jesus calling the four fishermen to follow him.  However, Matthew records his own call in chapter nine.  The emphasis is more on his teaching and ministry to the people than it is on The Twelve who will follow him. 

I mention this because Jesus is speaking to “his disciples” in Matthew 5:1.  It is easy to immediately think of the 12, but Matthew purposefully puts this before mentioning any other of the twelve being called.  I do not believe that Matthew means the 12, or even the 4 that we know are called at this point.  I believe it refers to the larger group of those who wanted to hear what Jesus was teaching.

Notice that the ministry of Jesus leading up to this has been to the desperate multitudes that had followed him.  Of course, they came to him because they were sick, lame, needy, and some even demon-possessed.  However, Jesus was setting them free.  Imagine if experiencing such a thing.  The man is healing people, but he is also teaching and preaching about the “Gospel of the Kingdom” (4:23).

These people are not just seeing a power that was greater than any prophet before, and had not been seen in Israel for centuries.  They are also hearing a different kind of teaching.  It is not completely different.  It talks of the kingdom as the rabbis of their day did.  However, Jesus interacted with the sick and hurting different than they did.

I think this can be summed up in the rebuke of Jesus in Matthew 23:13.  “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you  allow those who are entering to go in.”

Jesus is going to talk about “the narrow gate” in Matthew 7:13.  He is also going to refer to himself as the door in John 10:1-10.  The religious leaders of Israel were keeping people from coming into the Kingdom, but Jesus, who is the very door and gate into the Kingdom, is calling to them to come in.  He is healing them and telling them that the Kingdom belongs to them.  This was a very different approach from a religious leader, and it shocked them.

The image of a scary, ferocious dog comes to mind.  The religious leaders were hypocrites because it was their job to help the people towards God and His Kingdom.  However, spiritually they were keeping people from entering it.  They wouldn’t go in and they were intimidating people not to go in.

More than that, their view of those who were sick, infirm, and demon-possessed caused them treat the people in that condition as sub-class, as if God had cursed them and didn’t care for them.  The attitude projected the idea that if people were more like them, then they wouldn’t have the problems that they do.  They had no problem moving on and leaving the poor and oppressed behind.  However, Jesus said that they were not entering the kingdom.  So, where were they progressing to?  They were leaving the oppressed behind, but they were only progressing towards an imaginary kingdom of their own making.

They had a system that had been developed, and many of them had risen through the ranks of it.  It was a system of theology and thinking that told them that they were God’s best and blessed.  It patted them on the back and told them that they were doing good in God’s eyes.  They had the right credentials hanging on their walls, and they had the right people patting them on the back.  Their lives were relatively good, and so they must be God’s favorites.  They could look at a person with a horrible sickness, or disability, and rejoice that God loved them more.  They didn’t have a demon-possessed child, even more proof.

The problem is that, when it is your child who is sick or demon-possessed, you don’t have the luxury of just moving on.  Of course, there are some people out there who disown family because they “didn’t sign up for this.”  But, many a loved one suffered through with family members without knowing why this was happening to them, and yet being told by the religious leaders that they were cursed of God.

Life has a way of challenging us in ways that we didn’t ask for.  Do you think any sick person wanted to be sick, or that they all somehow deserved it?  What about congenital stuff that is in the DNA?

There is a certain “accident” of nature in the DNA of a man and the DNA of a woman coming together and producing a third combination.  Though we can talk about the process of this, there is still a mystery in how certain genes are picked versus others.  Does God completely control that?  Is any of it left up to the lower natural laws that He has created, and just becomes what it will be?  We must confess that there is much mystery here that we are not given the answers to. 

So, life tests us.  What is our choice?  Do I come alongside a person in compassion, or tells myself that there is something spiritually wrong with them, or it wouldn’t have happened.  Do I isolate myself because I don’t want to get it too?  Who wants a leper in the Kingdom?

A surprising definition of the blessed (5:3-12)

This is how I believe Matthew is presenting Jesus as he gives his address, which starts with the “beatitudes.”  They are called the beatitudes because “beati” is Latin for “blessed” and the ending “tude” simply means “thing.”  These are the blessed things or blessings that Jesus declared to the people.  We see this throughout the Bible.  However, each of these blessings give a surprising definition to just who are the blessed in Israel that day.  Let me give you a hint.  None of the people in that crowd thought of themselves as the blessed, except for the fact that Jesus had just healed them.  Everything else told them that they were cursed.

This surprise twist is opening the door for them to enter the Kingdom.  Notice the formula first.  It states that “blessed are,” and then it states a condition of life, or experience, or even a particular kind of activity.  It then follows that up with a reason why they are blessed.  In essence, they are things that God has planned for the people who fit the first category.  They are not so much blessed by the first category, but they are blessed by what God intends and plans for those in that category.  Again, they all have a surprising twist to them.

Before we look at each of them, it is important to recognize that we have a message regarding just who is blessed and it is being given by the Messiah.  This is interesting because the Psalms are put in a 5 different collections that use the Covenant of David and the Promised Messiah as a call to Israel for faithful trust in Yahweh’s plan.  The first two psalms give a sort of introduction to the whole collection.

The focus of Psalm 1 is on defining for Israel both the proper way to follow Yahweh and the blessing that Yahweh will dispense to them.  Psalm 2 may seem to drastically change the subject as it presents the nations rejecting and conspiring against Yahweh and His Anointed One.  The Psalm ends with another statement of blessing, which clearly ties back to the blessed person of Psalm 1.  There are other literary ties between Psalm 1 and 2.  Thus, they are intended to function together.  They picture a person who does not follow the wicked, sinners, and mockers of their age.  Instead, they meditate on the instruction of the LORD night and day.  This causes them to become a fruitful tree, rather than chaff.

The word for blessed essentially speaks to the effect of a relationship with God.  It is sometimes translated as happy, but that falls short.  It speaks to the good effects in our life, and in every kind of way, because we are faithfully trusting God.  This person will be able to recognize Messiah and quickly embrace him in trust, in faith (Ps 2:12).

Yet, the connection goes deeper than this.  The Messiah, Jesus, is the perfect example, exemplar, of the Psalm 1 blessed person.  He is the ultimate tree of life in which all the righteous are able to be fruitful.  Every one of the beatitudes are exampled perfectly by Jesus throughout the Gospel of Matthew.  God is not just saying that He has a plan for us and we should trust Him.  Even more, He has joined us in those difficult situations and promises to lead us to that blessing that God plans for us.  Jesus is not just identifying intellectually with these people, with us.  He is identifying by immersing himself in the same situations.

Each one of these situations have an aspect to them that our flesh doesn’t like.  Because of this, we are tempted to run from them or do what we can to avoid them.  We can spend so much energy in avoiding them that we lose sight of a blessing that God is trying to give us through them. 

Our flesh, the world, and the devil, can pile on when these situations are present.  “If you really had God then this wouldn’t happen.”  Or, “If God really loved you, was really on your side, then…”  They do not appear to be blessings.  In fact, notice that the condition, i.e., poor in spirit or mourning, are not themselves the blessing.  They are like a present that is wrapped up and yet leads to a good thing.  The blessing is the thing that God plans to do or give for those in that tough situation.

When we end up on a sick bed it is not a good thing.  Yet, if we trust God and wait upon Him, He has a blessing, a good plan through it.  We must be careful of letting fear cause us to flee from the very things in which God is trying to give us a blessing.  I’m not saying that God purposefully causes these bad things, but that He allows them because He can overcome it and use it for the good.

The blessings (v. 3-12)

We will talk about the structure of the Sermon on the Mount later, but this introductory message about being blessed by God comes in three sets of three.  Threes play a big part in the structure of this sermon, so I am going to look at these in sets of three.

Let’s get into them.

The poor in spirit (v. 3) is using wealth terminology, but applies it to a person’s spirit.  It is speaking of being humble as opposed to proud.  Yet, it is not just talking about a moral ethic.  Of course, it is good to be humble and not good to be proud.  However, in our context, these are people who have been ground down by their condition of life.  They have been politically dominated by successive empires.  They have been religiously dominated by an uncaring know-it-all class.  On top of this, they had things going on physically and spiritually in their life that brought them to very humble, very low, circumstances.

As we go through this list, we should recognize that some of them present things that we should ethically try to do.  However, underneath of that idea, there is the bigger issue of not even having a choice.  You are humble because everything in life has ground out any pride you may ever have had.

Let’s look at the second blessing.  Jesus speaks to those who mourn.  Again, Jesus isn’t telling his followers that they should never be happy, but always mourning.  Rather, it is about speaking to people whose life has descended into something difficult over which they mourn.  This is definitely one of those things that we try to avoid in life.  Yet, here is Jesus saying that God sees us when we mourn, and He has a blessing for us.

The third  situation is the meek.  It is sometimes translated “lowly.”  We see this in Zechariah 9:9.  “Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey…”  This is the same word for “meek” in our passage.  This word is also applied to Moses in Numbers 12:3.  “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.”  Again, this is the same word.

In some ways, the word meek has the concept of lowly and unimportant.  However, notice that we cannot say that Moses and, even more, Messiah are not important.  The word is not about your role and purpose in society.  It is a word of how you carry yourself towards others.  It is a person who is not seeking a position even when it is given to them.  They are not desperate for everyone to see them as something great.  Instead, they are lowly, humble, meek of spirit.

When I think about Moses, I believe that he is lowly because he knows that he can’t deliver Israel at all.  He has no power and is no one.  If it wasn’t for God, he could do nothing.  When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram complained against Moses, it wasn’t Moses who rebuked them.  It was God Himself who stood up for Moses and rebuked the rebels.

It is similar with Jesus, but not in the same way.  Jesus is perfect and has no sin, unlike Moses.  However, Jesus does not fight against his detractors.  He humbly and meekly trusts in the Father to be his defense, even to the point of crucifixion.

Now look at the blessing side of these three.  For those who are poor in spirit, we are told “theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Similarly for the meek, “they shall inherit the earth.”  This is Kingdom terminology.  Israel had been waiting for Messiah to come and set up the kingdom, and here he is, talking with broken people and telling them how blessed they are.  The Kingdom has been brought near to them and it is there for them to enter.

Yet, notice the blessing for those who mourn.  It simply lets them know that they are blessed because they are going to be comforted.  He is not talking about someone in this life comforting them.  He is talking about God the Father.  He has a plan to comfort them for the things that cause them to mourn.  Instead of tying it to the Kingdom, it is simply tied to trusting God, period.  In the end, God is the only true source of blessing, and if He is blessing us, then it doesn’t matter whether it is in the Kingdom or outside.  It is blessed because God is with us.

The second group of three begin with those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Hunger and thirst are things that come to us because food and water are lacking.  Of course, this world clearly lacks righteousness.  It pictures a person with pains and panting for just a bite and a sip of righteousness in this life. 

This begs the question.  What am I thirsty for?   There is a commercial that has the line, “Stay thirsty…”  Yeah, we should stay thirsty, but we had better be careful what we are thirsting for.  In a world thirsting for righteousness, it is easy for us to develop and accept worldly substitutes instead of true righteousness.  Messiah is the true righteousness.  However, we can be so full of eating at the trough of false righteousness that he is not palatable to us.  Instead of redefining righteousness and creating a system of traditions that pats you on the back, telling you that you are righteous, (a righteousness that our flesh likes) we come to God and seek His righteousness, and wait upon Him.

Next we have those who are merciful.  The merciful are generally those who have been in tough times themselves.  We should seek to be a merciful person as a matter of ethics.  However, the truth is that life teaches us mercy by the difficult things that we experience.  We gain empathy through the things that happen to us.  It slows us down and enables us to see people that we used to walk on past without a thought.  The more we flee environments where we need mercy, the less we are able to hear the hurting heart of those who do.

Then, we have those who are pure in heart.  We can make this more complicated then it needs to be.  It is not about never making a mistake or sinning.  It speaks to a singleness of purpose.  I may fall into sin because of my flesh, but my heart simply, purely, wants to be right with God.  For Israel, singleness of purpose meant honoring God and following His instructions.  Guess what, it means the same thing for us.

I find it interesting that, in this central group of three, the blessings do not mention the Kingdom.  We can put so much emphasis on ruling in a Kingdom with Messiah that we can lose sight of what is most important, and that is a relationship with God that is good.  Can I be satisfied in this life before, or without, the Kingdom?  Can I be merciful?  Jesus was all of these things even though his life was tough, and he laid the throne of Israel and the world on the altar before God and allowed it to be burned to powder at the cross.  God’s people being free from their sins and truly knowing God the Father was more important than a thousand years of ruling on this earth.

Thus, the hungry and thirsty will be satisfied by God.  When, LORD, when will you do this?  This cry of our heart can overwhelm God’s promise that He will satisfy us, both in helping us to be righteous and in making this world a righteous place one day.  The merciful will be shown mercy by God.  Imagine crying out for righteousness and then standing before God and finding out that you yourself were not righteous, were not merciful.  Imagine hearing the words, “Depart from Me.  I never knew you.”  The pure in heart, those who keep singularly focused on God’s purpose and will, will find a day when they see God.  This is not just talking about judgment day, but beyond.  We will one day dwell in His presence never to be separated again!

It has been said that God whispers to us in our pleasures, but He shouts to us in our pain (C.S.Lewis).  Can I hear what God is saying over the din of my own heart, the world, and the devil?  May God help us to trust Him.  None of these central blessings mention the Kingdom because the Kingdom is just a part of God’s plan of blessing for us.  Even now, He has a blessing for us in the midst of our difficulties.

This is why Job could give the cry of faith in Job 19:25-26.  “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at the last [day] on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God!”  Wow, what a statement of faith in the midst of difficulty.  His only hope is to simply see God and be received.

The final three begin with the peacemakers.  There is no more thankless job than getting in the middle of two people who are angry with each other.  If you really care about reconciling them, you may find both of them turning their proverbial guns upon you.  In fact, even Christians can do this.  When we are offended, we can demand that the people around us pick our side, or die.  You have to agree with me to be right.  The heart of a peacemaker cares about both people and both sides of the issue.  In general, both sides will have something to work on. 

The ultimate peacemaking is to mediate between God and the lost.  Very few people will thank you for trying to reconcile them to God, unless they actually are reconciled to God.  Jesus says that the peacemakers are blessed because they will be called the sons of God.  Who is going to call them that?  It won’t be the world.  It will be God who calls us the sons of God.

It may not be manifest to the world that we are the sons of God.  In fact, they may accuse us of being the sons of the devil.  But, it will be manifested one day.  It won’t be an in-your-face celebration because that isn’t the heart of Jesus for the lost.  He is the ultimate peacemaker, and he did so by laying down his life.  He suffered that we might be able to reconcile with God.  No, we will have tears of joy that God has fulfilled His promise, and tears of sorrow for those who never believed.

The last two blessings are sometimes looked at as the same.  They are both about being persecuted, but the difference is why you are persecuted.

Those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness (doing/trying to do the right thing) are first in view.  We can notice that the tight formula that Jesus has been using opens up to greater commentary, even instruction, by him.  This is interesting because persecution has a way of breaking down our formulaic approaches to life, and gets us real with people and God very quickly.  These are blessed because “theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  This is the same blessing as the first beatitude and points to the kingdom again.

The Kingdom is important to God, and there will be a literal rule of Jesus physically on this earth.  God is not a liar.  He will keep His promises to the saints.  However, keep that in mind as we go to the next blessing.

Those who are persecuted for the sake of Jesus are the last we see.  This is parallel with the Old Testament saints who were persecuted because they were faithful to Yahweh (sometimes even by apostate Israelites).  Such are blessed because their reward is reserved for them in heaven.  This does not just mean heaven itself is the reward.  It is a recognition that your reward cannot be touched by anything in this world.  It is held firm, reserved, secure in heaven for you.

If you truly understood God’s heart for you in the midst of the difficult things you are going through, then you would rejoice and be exceedingly glad.  Perhaps, Jesus is laying it on a little thick?  Listen, this is the One who went to the cross, into the grave, and trusted God to overrule His treatment in this life.  He trusted the Father to be the only source of blessing that He would cling to.  Like Jacob wrestling with the Lord, Jesus becomes the ultimate Israel, “One who has Power with God!”

May God help us to also keep our eyes upon Jesus.  If we are persecuted for doing the right thing, and especially for trusting Jesus, then we can rejoice that we are taking our place among the many saints in the Bible, and the countless saints throughout all of time.  Let us follow Jesus, the ultimate blessed one, and learn of him the path of blessing.

SotM 2 audio