The Third Discourseman
Since there might eventually be people who support me in my ministry-training looking at this blog, and seeing as I write a couple of talks a term, either for the sake of practice/receiving feedback or actual talks I deliver for the sake of teaching, I thought I’d start uploading some of them as blogs, along with any feedback I received plus my own reflections. This is the second- a talk on Matthew 5:21-48 I gave all the way back in first term as a practice talk, delivered to other trainees for feedback. For it, I assumed the role of someone preaching a series in the Sermon on the Mount (so sometimes I refer to ‘previous sermons’ which don’t exist). I’ve left in some of my formatting. Bold headings weren’t said aloud, but they show the rough structure of my talk.
Intro
Then, as we saw last week, he tells them that he is not doing away with the Law and the Prophets (which means the whole Old Testament), but that he fulfils them, in the sense that he has now come as the intended climax of all that the Old Testament taught. Jesus is not here to destroy the Old Testament, rather he is the proper goal of all that the Old Testament was pointing towards. And we noted that in Matthew 7:12 Jesus says ‘So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets’. These references to the Law and the prophets, in 5:17 and 7:12, enclose the entire middle chunk of the sermon, which begins with our passage today. I suggested therefore that this entire chunk, from 5:21 to 7:12, is Jesus giving his interpretation and explanation of what the Old Testament taught about how God’s people ought to live, as it is fulfilled in him. He is teaching how, given his arrival as God’s beloved Son and chosen King, the teaching of the Old Testament is fulfilled.
Jesus begins with the law, to show us what true righteousness looks like. He begins his teaching that will help his followers to live genuinely as the light of the world, in such a way that is noticeably different to those who don’t follow Jesus and causes people to glorify God. What we’ll see is that Jesus’ awesome authority calls his followers to radical righteousness. Let’s try to see that in the passage.
Overview of passage
At first glance it might look like Jesus is correcting or overriding the law, but there are several reasons why this can’t be what’s going on. The first is that in our passage last week Jesus confirmed that he has not come to abolish the Old Testament, and that as far as he’s concerned not even the smallest bit of the Old Testament will pass away until all is accomplished. The second is that in verse 43 Jesus says ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy’’. Well that’s not in the Law! The Law said to love your neighbour. The Law also taught Israel to love the foreigners who were sojourning in the land. They were never commanded to hate their enemies.
The phrase ‘You have heard that it was said…’ helps us. Where does Jesus’ audience hear these things? From the scribes and the Pharisees! They were the teachers of the Law in Jesus’ day, to whom his audience would listen in order to hear what the Law had to say to them. Jesus is confronting the scribes and the pharisees and their false interpretation of the Law. And we see throughout the 4 gospels that the issues Jesus confronts the Pharisees over are often precisely the ones Jesus raises in this sermon- external rule keeping with no heart change, easy divorce, swearing meaningless oaths, performing religious duties in public in order to gain praise from people and so on. And Jesus often challenges them with the Old Testament, showing how their teaching is not in line with it.
Hence why last week we heard Jesus say that your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the pharisees. At first glance that might seem like an impossible standard, but throughout Matthew the scribes and the pharisees are very unrighteous. They’ve managed to get the Old Testament completely wrong. So if in last week’s passage Jesus said that it’s crucial for his followers’ righteousness to exceed that of the Pharisees, then surely it makes sense that now Jesus is showing his followers what that means, how his understanding of the Old Testament (and how it is fulfilled in him) differs from the Pharisees’.
So these 6 blocks, marked out by the repeated phrase ‘You have heard that it was said… But I say to you’ are doing two things. Firstly, Jesus is asserting his awesome authority that exceeds the authority of other teachers. It is as if Jesus is saying to his disciples ‘You can forget what other teachers have taught you. What matters is what I’m now teaching you. I’m going to tell you now what true righteousness looks like.’ Secondly, he is calling his followers to radical righteousness that exceeds the righteousness that other teachers require, emphasised by the fact that in each block Jesus’ teaching goes above and beyond the teaching of the Pharisees.
Awesome authority
Or perhaps it’s that we don’t like it when Jesus’ commands clash with what our society thinks. Jesus says it is wrong to lust and commit adultery, but society at large says pornography and sleeping around are completely fine. The Bible says it’s wrong to steal, but our friends are happy to pirate music and films. And we’d rather just go along with the rest of the world.
Perhaps it’s even that, like the Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day, there are people who call themselves Christians, priests and Bible teachers who have, either accidentally or deliberately, twisted the meaning of Bible passages and are endorsing behaviour that Jesus clearly believed to be wrong.
Jesus clearly confronts the false righteousness of the pharisees and asserts his own teaching as correct. So in the face of those who disagree, we have to be clear about what Jesus teaches is right and wrong. And throughout the sermon on the mount he warns of the dangers of disobeying and ignoring him. Jesus is the lord and judge of all, so his moral standards are the only ones that matter. If in our day to day lives we recognise the foolishness of disobeying teachers, laws, policemen and others with authority, then how much more foolish is it to disobey God’s king.
The call to radical righteousness
So let’s now look at his teaching more carefully. We’re now at the second heading, The call to radical righteousness. We’ll just have time to dig into the first two blocks, to see what this radical righteousness looks like, and we’ll cover the rest next week. Let’s start with verses 21-26. Clearly Jesus agrees with the Old Testament Law that murder is wrong, so he’s not contradicting the Law. Instead, he’s warning against the misunderstanding of the law which says, ‘So long as I don’t actually kill people, I’ll be fine.’ We might think that we’re unlikely to murder anyone, but it does happen. Why? Because people get into disputes, or fights. People lose their tempers and get out of control. Even insulting someone could be the first signs of the type of hateful attitude that results in murder. Jesus is saying, ‘If you want to obey the command not to murder, deal with anger urgently.’
This urgency is explicit in verses 23-24. What Jesus says here is shocking- even if you’re in the middle of giving a gift at the altar, if you remember a dispute you’ve had with someone that isn’t settled, sort it immediately. We might say something like ‘If you’re sat down in church, and remember that there’s someone who you’re angry at, or you’ve wronged them so now they have something against you, then get up and leave. Excuse yourself from the service in order to talk to them. Dealing with it after church is waiting too long. You must deal with it now.’
Verses 25-26 explain why. In a court setting, it is best to come to terms with your accuser while on the way to court. If you can reconcile with them early and be forgiven by them, they may not even take you to court. But if you wait, then they will take you to court, and if you’re found guilty and sentenced, then it’s too late. Judgement has been passed, you’ve missed your opportunity to make peace, and now you have no option but to fully pay the penalty you’ve been given. If you don’t sort conflicts early, they will escalate and get worse, and eventually they’ll reach a point from which there’s no return- where you won’t get out until you’ve paid the last penny. Don’t let it get to that point. Settle the dispute before it goes that far. Fulfil the law against murder by dealing with anger urgently.
Verses 27-30 have a similar logic-again Jesus agrees that adultery is bad. He is not in conflict with the Law. But adultery doesn’t just happen, does it? People don’t just bump into strangers on the street and then go off to have sex with each other. It starts with a look, a glance, some flirting, an overactive imagination. If an affair happens in reality, it has probably already happened in someone’s imagination. As Jesus puts it ‘Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart’. If there’s a person who’s not your husband or wife, and you linger for too long on the photos on their Facebook page, or stare a bit too intently as they walk past you on the street, or you let your mind wander to what they might look like naked or what it might be like to have sex with them, well then in your heart you’re already longing for something that the Bible declares to be sinful, and you’re putting yourself in danger. If Jesus’ message before was to deal with anger urgently, well now he says you need to deal with lust radically.
Verse 29-‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.’ This is a radical picture, isn’t it? Is Jesus saying that if you’re home alone, and end up thinking about watching some porn, then get your fingers into your sockets and rip your eyes out? If you’re at a party and someone is flirting with you, and you feel tempted to touch them in a way you know you shouldn’t, then pull out a knife and chop your hand off? It’s a shockingly severe, extreme image he’s using here.
Clearly Jesus doesn’t want us to go home and start cutting bits of our bodies off. As Jesus has already pointed out, the sin of lust occurs in the heart, and can still be done by someone with no eyes and no hands. We don’t need to rip out our eyes, because it is our hearts that cause us to sin. But Jesus’ logic is clear- it would be better to lose an eye than to be thrown into hell. We need to take this warning seriously. It is a great truth that sexual sin can be forgiven, but it is also a sad fact that often persistent and unrepentant sexual sin does lead people to give up on the faith they once professed. It can end up ship-wrecking families, marriages and individuals, and leave them nowhere in their relationship with Jesus. Jesus is totally clear in this passage- we need to deal with sexual sin with the sort of extreme severity that really believes that being thrown into hell is at stake. Deal with lust radically.
Maybe you need to stop being friends with that married woman or man that you know you’re attracted to and you can see that your relationship is getting too close. Maybe you’ll need to get a phone which doesn’t have internet access, so you’re not tempted to lie in bed, under the covers with a video you shouldn’t be watching. Maybe you’ll need to quit your job, because you spend too much time working alone, late, with someone you know is a temptation for you to sin sexually with. That would be radical wouldn’t it? To go unemployed for the sake of resisting sexual immorality. It wouldn’t be as radical as losing an eye. Being unemployed is serious, but not as serious as going to hell. So don’t let these comparatively trivial matters put you in danger of hell. Better to stay well clear. Better to take radical action against lust, in order to avoid any possibility of adultery altogether. Fulfil the law against adultery by dealing with lust radically.
Our reaction?
So what should our response to this be? I mentioned at the start how we’ve thought before about two audiences for the sermon on the mount- the general crowds and the disciples who come to Jesus. That is probably a reflection of our audience here on Sundays. So if you’re not a Christian, but like those crowds are listening in today to Jesus’ teaching for his followers, please think about these commands. Does Jesus seem like the sort of teacher you’d want to listen to? In thinking about what we’ve said, do you have any sense of your own guilt and shame, how you have failed to live up to this standard? The Bible is very clear that we are all guilty before God, because we have not kept his commands. Perhaps Jesus’ teaching here has in some way stirred your moral imagination, or made you feel more keenly your own fatal flaws- how even if externally you can put on a good show, internally your heart is full of lust, anger, hatred, dishonesty and rebellion. Perhaps what you’ve seen of Jesus’ authority has made you worry about your own refusal to submit to God and to obey his commands. The great news is that Jesus is now giving you the opportunity to repent, which means to change your mind about Jesus. You can choose now to follow him, to take him as the king of your life, and you’ll discover that he is gentle and kind, very merciful and quick to forgive those who trust him. Jesus does not demand us to do good works in order to be saved. He saves the poor in spirit, mourning sinners who are willing to take him as their king, to ask him for mercy and to come to him for forgiveness.
But as we’ve seen today, Jesus does give instructions to those who are already saved about how they should live. So if you are a Christian, don’t let guilt and shame be the end of the story. Yes, if you know that you have recently failed to deal with lust and anger with the sort of radical urgency Jesus demands, then mourn your sin, be poor in spirit. Ask for forgiveness and trust that Jesus saves all who put their faith in him. But also hunger and thirst for greater righteousness- long to be more obedient to what Jesus commands. Make sure you never again commit murder or adultery, by dealing with sin urgently at its root. Take radical action to avoid lust. Be urgent about reconciling with those you’ve fallen out with. Strive to live godly and obedient lives. Take seriously Jesus’ warnings that trifling with immorality could shipwreck your faith and leave you facing judgement. You are the light of the world, so live in a way that lets your light shine.
I wrote this talk a while ago, and so my feedback isn’t going to be quite as sharp as on other talks. In terms of feedback that I got from the talk practice group I delivered it to, it was mostly positive. They said I did a good job of making the context within the Sermon on the Mount clear, and of showing how what Jesus said relates to the Old Testament Law. They also appreciated my use of examples throughout for application, saying that they thought many in a given audience would feel represented (and hopefully then convicted) by at least one of them.
The one negative comment was about whether I did enough to speak to any non-Christians in the audience, though this was partly because I had a Zoom failure at the point when I did try to do this! They also thought it was potentially a bit cheeky that I made life easier for myself by only going into detail on 5:21-30.
In term of personal reflections/thoughts, I’d say that as is always the case, I probably made it a bit too long (around 2900 words) for a 20 minute talk, and so ended up speaking quickly to compensate. I’d also say that, though fine for an audience of trainees who have all been studying Matthew for a term, the introduction is probably not engaging enough and inaccessible for less biblically literate listeners.
When working on the passage, the big wrestle I had was to what extent I should major on conviction of sin (i.e. taking the line that this standard is really high, none of us meet it, we need to come to Jesus desperate and asking for forgiveness) vs obedience (i.e. taking the line that this standard is not impossibly high, and Jesus really does want us to listen to and obey his teaching, not just feel bad about how we don’t obey it). This is a tough wrestle, one that probably depends on how you view the Old Testament Law (is it just for convicting of sin, or does it have use for training in righteousness?), and what you think Matthew 5:17-20 means. Personally for this sermon I leaned towards the obedience angle (though of course there’s a bit of both), for the following reasons:
1) I think that you almost undermine the conviction of sin angle if you go for it outright. If someone tells me ‘This is a rule you were never meant to keep, never could keep, and you haven’t kept it’, I think I’m less likely to feel guilty than if someone tells me ‘This is a rule Jesus has given you, that he really wants you to keep and says is really important’ and I realise I haven’t properly kept it.
2) I think the Pharisees in Matthew are not very righteous, so exceeding their righteousness I don’t think is an impossible task,
3) People often go to the Beatitudes to argue for the conviction of sin angle (it’s all about being poor, mourning etc). I’d say this has some legs, which is why I think the sermon probably does a bit of both. But even in the Beatitudes, we’re supposed to desire righteousness (5:6), be merciful (5:7), be pure in heart (5:9) etc. In that sense I’d say the Beatitudes reflect the whole sermon- you come to Jesus poor, needy, hungry, longing for righteousness, asking for forgiveness, humbled by his teaching. But in doing this you are also changed by Jesus, and become more like him.
4) The ending of the sermon seems clear about the need to obey (Matthew 7:12-27).
5) The rest of Matthew seems to expect that repentance will result in fruit (see 3:10, 21:33-44, 22:11-14 as three examples).
The Four Discoursemen 