24 Why Your Righteousness Must Surpass the Pharisees (Matthew 5:17-20)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the 24th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we're going to study Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, and you can also find them by going directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 24. You can also find all the previous episodes in this series on wednesdayintheword.com as well as many other series. Thank you so much for listening. We finished the Beatitudes in the last podcast, and we are going to move on in the Sermon of the Mount today. Let me just remind you where we are in the Gospel of Matthew and what we've seen so far. The first four chapters of this Gospel are basically introductory material. Matthew told us how Jesus was born, he gave us Jesus' genealogy, and he described his upbringing mostly from Joseph's perspective. He then explained the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, and the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. And in 412, Matthew starts describing the Galilean ministry of Jesus. Jesus traveled throughout Galilee at this time, healing many people and proclaiming the gospel message, which Matthew summarized as repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As Jesus traveled, taught, and healed, he attracted a great deal of attention. Great crowds of people from all over the region came to seek him out and to hear him teach and be healed. Then in chapter five, Matthew gives us an example of the kind of thing that Jesus was teaching at this time. He gives us this sermon that Jesus preached, which we call the Sermon on the Mount. Now I've argued that in this sermon Jesus intends to show his disciples the kind of issues they're going to face if they want to be children of God. He contrasts his view, his teaching, with the teaching of the Pharisees, who were the primary teachers during that day. Jesus opened his sermon with the Beatitudes, which I argued describe the characteristics of saving faith, and we looked at those in the last several podcasts. Now we're moving on to the second section. As I outline it, the Sermon on the Mount has four main sections, and we're about to start the second one. You don't have to worry about writing this down. You'll find this outline in the lecture notes on Wednesday in the Word.com slash Matthew twenty four. The first section is the Beatitudes, that's Matthew five verses one through sixteen, and that's where Jesus describes those who have saving faith and will receive eternal life. The second section of the sermon is Matthew five seventeen through forty-eight, and this is where Jesus corrects the vision of righteousness or holiness that the Pharisees have been teaching. The third section is Matthew 6 1 to 7 14, and there Jesus is primarily warning his listeners to avoid the self-deception of the Pharisees. And then he concludes in Matthew 7, verses 15 to 29, it's not enough to claim to have faith that faith must change your life. You have to live out your beliefs. Now Matthew 5.17 then is the beginning of this second section of the sermon, and scholars have also given this section a name. This section, which runs through 538, is often called the antithesis because Jesus contrasts his teaching with the law. So what we're going to see in this section is Jesus quotes the law or he paraphrases the command of Moses and then he says, but I say to you, and he makes an oppositional statement or an antithetical statement, and that's where the name comes from. So in each unit of this section, we're going to see the structure, you have heard X, but I say to you Y. Now today we're going to look at chapter five verses seventeen through twenty, and these verses function as a kind of introduction to this section. They are going to set us up for what Jesus is about to do. Let me read them for us. Do not think I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now I should warn you right up front, the view I'm about to explain to you is the minority view. I didn't invent it or create it. Many other scholars hold this interpretation, but there are also a lot of people who would disagree with it. When you're comparing commentaries, you might be hard pressed to find one that holds this view I'm going to present. It is out there, I found it, but it's a minority understanding. You're probably going to have to hunt through several commentaries before you find one that's going to argue this same position. I'm going to try to make my case for this understanding, but as always, you do not have to agree with me. I do not claim to have the market cornered on truth, and I encourage you to do your own study, read through all the other interpretations, and think through these issues for yourself. To start, let me give you the highlights of the perspective I disagree with. I'll do my best to articulate it, but because it doesn't persuade me, I may not be its best advocate. However, I am going to try to be fair, and it is a view that I held for many years. I think the contrast will help explain the point of view I want to argue for. First, you'll notice that Jesus mentions the scribes and the Pharisees here in 520. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now everyone agrees this is a really important statement in this section. First thing we need to know then is who are the scribes and the Pharisees? They are a powerful and obvious example of people who take the law seriously. The Pharisees in Jesus' day had a reputation of excelling in their observance of religion and being exact and precise keepers of the law. They were religiously progressive and they were constantly refining the oral law. Now the oral law is a legal commentary on the written Mosaic law, which explains how the commandments are to be carried out. It's not written in Scripture, but it's a tradition that was passed down from generation to generation. The Pharisees considered the oral law, this oral tradition that was passed down as binding as the written law. They insisted on both individual and communal adherence to this strict standards of the Mosaic law in every detail and how it was explained and applied in the oral law. Now the scribes were the people we would think of as rabbis. There was a scribe in every brotherhood of Pharisees, and the scribe was the person who was responsible for studying the law and explaining it to others. So they taught the law to everyone else. Not every Pharisee was a scribe, but every scribe was a Pharisee. So it's very common to understand Jesus to be saying in this section, even if you set the bar of law keeping as high as the Pharisees set it, you have to do even better to enter the kingdom of heaven. So you have to have a righteousness, a standard of law keeping that is even greater than that of the scribes and the Pharisees. So we look at the Pharisees, we see how fervently and precisely they keep the law, and then realize they didn't even set the bar high enough, and he's going to go on to explain what that looks like. Well, I don't think that's quite what is going on here, and I'll explain why in a minute. Another point that's often held in the majority view is that Jesus is correcting the Old Testament law and instituting a new teaching here, and this is really common. Jesus is reading the Old Testament law and he's explaining it in a brand new way, telling us something that we did not know before. So, in some sense, and people differ on exactly what that sense is, Jesus is correcting our understanding of the law. The classic example often given in this view is 538, where he says, You've heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And they argue that Jesus is replacing such an obviously inadequate law with a new and better understanding, the law of love. And again, I don't think that's exactly what Jesus is trying to do, and I'll explain why in a minute. But finally, many people think that Jesus is teaching that complete and absolute moral perfection is a requirement for entering the kingdom of God. And that's really the main point of this section. So the Pharisees set a bar at this really high level, and now Jesus is telling us that even the bar the Pharisees set is too low because the standard is even higher. The standard is absolute moral perfection in every way, inside and out. Now, why is Jesus setting that bar so high? Because he wants to drive us to despair. He wants us to look at that high, high bar and realize I can't achieve that. There's no way we can achieve moral perfection on our own. We've already blown it. So instead we turn to the grace of God as proclaimed in the gospel. So in essence, they would argue Jesus is teaching that God demands nothing less than complete moral perfection inside and out, and his purpose in doing that is to help us recognize we can't reach that bar and humbly come to the foot of the cross and ask for mercy. Now, again, I don't think that's quite what Jesus is doing here. There is an element of truth in that. The bar is high, we do not measure up to it, and we absolutely do need the grace of God. We ought to humble ourselves at the foot of the cross and ask for mercy. I just don't think that's the point Jesus is making in this part of his sermon. So to summarize the very common view, the this perspective would argue that Jesus is using the Pharisees here as an example of devotion to the law and saying, even as devoted as they are, your righteousness has to exceed theirs. This is a new teaching. This replaces the old legalistic understanding of the law with a more perfect law of love. And it reminds us that we must be absolutely, completely morally perfect to be acceptable to God, to force us to seek grace and forgiveness. And that is a very possible interpretation. It isn't the interpretation that I held for many years, but I've changed my mind. Now, why don't I agree with it now? I discovered what I think is a better understanding that fits more in the context of the entire sermon. Let me try to explain with an analogy. Imagine two brothers, Tom and Jerry. Sadly, Tom does not treat his younger brother Jerry very well. Tom hits Jerry every chance he gets. Their mother, of course, tells Tom to stop hitting his brother. And Tom agrees, new rule, don't hit my brother. So now every chance he gets, Tom no longer hits his brother. Tom shoves his brother to the ground. Seeing this new behavior, Mom gets in Tom's face and says, Listen to me, do not so much as touch your brother. Do you understand? No touching. Tom nods. When Mom's out getting groceries, Jerry asks Tom to help him put his shirt on, and Tom replies, I can't, I'm not supposed to touch you. Then Jerry climbs the jungle gym in the backyard and he asks Tom for help getting down. Tom replies, I can't. I'm not supposed to touch you. When Jerry tries to climb down on his own, he falls and skins his knee. He asks Tom to get him a band-aid, and Tom replies Sorry, I can't. Mom said I'm not supposed to touch you. Now when Mom returns, Jerry complains to Mom about Tom's behavior, and Tom defends himself. But Mom, I did exactly what you asked. I did not touch Jerry at all. Now that's a pretty simple analogy, and it's the classic example of obeying the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. Tom can congratulate himself that he did exactly what he was asked to do, but we all recognize Tom's mother is not going to be pleased with him. She gave him a command which she expected him to understand in the larger context of everything else she has taught him and everything else he knows to be true about what she values and what she believes. What she really wanted Tom to do was love his brother Jerry as he loves himself. While she did not want Tom to touch his brother in a harmful way, she would have applauded Tom touching Jerry in a loving and compassionate way, such as helping him when he skinned his knee. But Tom isn't particularly interested in loving his brother. Tom's primary concern is doing exactly what he wants to do while not getting in trouble. Mom says don't touch, so he won't touch. He wants to be able to say, look, I obeyed the rules while still doing whatever he wants. Well, I would argue that the Pharisees are like Tom. They are looking at the law and they're trying to figure out how they can obey it to claim that they're righteous while they're still doing exactly what they want to do. If you read through the Gospels, you'll notice that Jesus frequently levels this kind of charge at the Pharisees as a group. He calls them hypocrites, he calls them whitewashed tombs, he tells them they obey the letter rather than the spirit of the law, which means in reality they aren't really obeying the law at all. Well you can probably see where I'm going here. I don't think Jesus is saying you have to be even more abiding than the Pharisees. He's not saying they set this bar high, but you, my disciples, you have to set it even higher. Rather, he's saying don't be like them. They look like they're taking the law seriously, but in fact they're not. On the outside, they look like they're obeying the law, but in reality they use it and abuse it to do exactly what they want to do. So in that sense, Jesus is not seeing something new or different in the Old Testament scriptures. He's not adding to or correcting the law, he's teaching what the law always taught. Like Tom, the Pharisees have distorted what the law requires, and Jesus is correcting that understanding. He's restoring a proper understanding of what God intended in the law. So I would say Jesus is not setting out in this section to say nothing less than moral perfection is acceptable, so you must rely on the grace of God. He's calling us to understand the spirit of the law and not merely the letter. He's calling us to take God seriously from the heart, not just try to escape by by keeping a few rules on the outside so that we can claim to be obedient. Now when we take God seriously, we are going to find that that bar is really high, and that should drive us to the gospel. But his point is not try harder so you can fail. His point is you need to take the law seriously, not like Tom in my example, or the Pharisees, who are just trying to find a way to claim to be obedient while still being selfish. I want you to understand the law in terms of the entire picture of everything God is teaching, what he's doing, who he is, and what he values. Now with that in mind, let's look at the passage. We'll go back to Matthew 5 17. Do not think I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. Now this phrase the law and the prophets means the Old Testament scriptures. It's one of a number of ways that folks refer to the Old Testament. And Jesus starts out by saying, I did not come to abolish the scriptures, the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. Now we might ask, why would Jesus warn his disciples not to think that he came to abolish the scriptures? And scholars have proposed a number of answers to this question. I think the one that best fits in the context is this. The Pharisees had this reputation of being champions of the Old Testament. If you wanted to understand what the Old Testament means and you lived in the time of Jesus, you would ask a Pharisee because they're the ones who know. Now Jesus comes along and challenges the way the Pharisees understand and apply the scriptures. So as a listener, it would be easy to mistakenly conclude that Jesus is rejecting the scriptures themselves rather than rejecting the Pharisees' understanding of them. Now the great irony, I think, is that people make that same mistake today. Still today, people understand this section that we're about to get into as correcting and replacing the imperfect Old Testament law with a more perfect law of love. And many people think that Jesus is showing us a new and better way to live and that he abolished the Old Testament scriptures so that nothing in the Old Testament is binding on New Testament believers. It's just really perplexing to me that so many people look at this section of the sermon and they start in 521 and argue that Jesus is critiquing and replacing the Old Testament. But if you back up four verses, Jesus himself says, Look, that's not what I'm doing. I did not come to abolish the Old Testament law, but to fulfill it. And he is most emphatic that not the smallest bit of the law shall be lost. All right, so if he has not come to abolish the Old Testament law, then what does he come to do? He tells us he's come to fulfill the Old Testament scriptures, and let's talk about what that means. In the early chapters of this gospel, we talked about how important this word fulfill is for Matthew, and I won't review all of that now. Briefly, Matthew often says that Jesus fulfills an Old Testament scripture, but as we've seen, he usually does not mean that the Old Testament passage was a prediction of an event in the life of Jesus. In fact, we've only seen Matthew use the word fulfill as a prediction once in this gospel so far. Every other time he's used it, Matthew has meant that Jesus fills out a theme or a picture taught in the Old Testament. So Jesus is the fullest expression or the ultimate example of the themes that have their start in the Old Testament. Here in this context, I think Jesus is making a very broad statement about his relationship to the Old Testament, but that the statement has a very specific application to it. So the broad statement he's making is that as Messiah, he has come to accomplish everything that The Old Testament predicted about the kingdom and the purposes of God. And the Old Testament has a lot to say about God's plan of redemption and how he's going to bring his plan about through the Messiah. Now, here is Jesus, he is that Messiah, he is the one who has come to bring about everything God has planned. So he is fulfilling the law in that sense. Also, as a Messiah, Jesus has come to explain, teach, and promote the truths that are revealed in Scripture. He came to explain both what is explicit in the Old Testament and what is implicit in the Old Testament. He came to remind us what is true and encourage us to pursue and believe it. So he is fulfilling the Old Testament in that sense. And finally, as Messiah, Jesus came to make those spiritual truths that are taught in Scripture a reality in the hearts of believers. He has come to call together a people who have genuine saving faith, whose hearts are open to God, and who reflect the truths of Scripture. And ultimately, as Messiah, he has come to establish the kingdom of God where nothing but righteousness, justice, and peace reign forever. So he has come to bring about all that's predicted in the Old Testament. He has come to explain and teach what the Old Testament teaches, and he has come to spiritually transform his people and the world so that they both reflect God's truth and reign. I think he means fulfill here in its broad sweeping meaning that includes all of those ideas. Now the question is, how is that relevant in our context? Why would he make that point at this point in his sermon? Well, you'll remember that at this point in his ministry, Jesus has already been challenging the Pharisees. Luke gives us a couple of examples in his gospel where Jesus provokes the Pharisees early in his ministry. For example, Luke tells us that when Jesus spoke to the synagogue in Nazareth, the Pharisees didn't react very well. In fact, this is what he tells us. This is Luke four, twenty eight through thirty. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath, and they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst he went away. Luke also tells us that the Pharisees and scribes complained that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors. They complained that Jesus and his disciples were not keeping the proper fasts and that they weren't obeying all the rules of the Sabbath. And right before this sermon in Luke, Luke tells us that the scribes and Pharisees were watching Jesus to see if he would heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and when he did heal the man, they became furious. It's still early in Jesus' ministry, but we see this conflict brewing between Jesus and the Pharisees. Now he's just given us the beatitudes, each of which have a surprising twist about who is truly blessed, and one perhaps subtle implication is the truly blessed are not the Pharisees. So we see Jesus challenging the Pharisees, we see him provoking them, and we see him criticizing the way they understand the law. Now because Jesus is rejecting the way the Pharisees understand the Old Testament, he could be mistakenly accused of rejecting the Old Testament itself. And I think that's what he set out to clarify. Here he's saying, No, I came to teach and clarify the truths taught in the Old Testament. I came to implement those truths in the hearts of my people. Everything in the Old Testament finds its fulfillment and consummation in me, the Messiah, so no, I did not come to abolish the Old Testament scriptures. Now this is a very controversial thing for him to say because the Pharisees were held in high esteem in that day. We tend to think of them today as the villains of the gospel because Jesus rebukes them so often. But in their day they were considered the most pious and religious people of all. They were admired and respected for their devotion to the law. Challenging the Phariseal devotion to the law is not a popular nor a politically correct stand for Jesus to take. He continues in five eighteen, for truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Now Jesus has two until statements here, until heaven and earth pass away, and then at the end until all is accomplished. I understand those statements as working together to express one idea. I don't see them as separate events, but as the same event or two ways of describing the same event. I think he means something like this A day is coming when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. On that day everything that the Scriptures proclaim will be accomplished, every prediction will be fulfilled, all sin and death will be destroyed. On that day the scriptures will have completed their purpose, but until that day not one single bit of scripture is obsolete and nothing can be set aside. As Messiah, I'm not setting anything aside, everything stands. And then he continues in five nineteen. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Now this is a really puzzling statement, especially for Gentile believers, and it's even more confusing, I think, because it sounds like something the Pharisees could have said. We can imagine a situation where a Pharisee is arguing with Jesus about a topic like divorce, something Jesus is going to mention in just a few more verses, and the Pharisees quote Moses about her certificate of divorce. Jesus responds that divorce even with a certificate is a kind of adultery. And the Pharisees could respond, hey Jesus, you can't just ignore the law like that. Moses said we could give a certificate of divorce. Aren't you annulling one of the commandments? You're the one that's setting this aside. We've got to keep them all. You can't just keep the ones you like. Well, my little thought experiment tells us that we have to keep thinking to figure out what Jesus means. Now, in my divorce example, and we'll look at that passage in a later podcast in more detail, Jesus is not annulling or setting aside what Moses said. Rather, I would argue Jesus is putting what Moses said in the context of the entire Old Testament. He's stepping back and looking at the big picture to get perspective on what God values and what God requires. So he's fitting what Moses said into the larger picture, and in that way he is the one who is truly taking the law seriously. Or to go back to my analogy of Tom and Jerry, unlike Tom, he is trying to fit this commandment into the bigger picture of everything God has said about marriage and divorce. Now, one thing I'm certain about when it comes to the teaching of Jesus is that Jesus is not the kind of guy who will pull out a rule and say, see, you've just got to do this. He commends David for breaking the rule about the show bread in the temple. He claims some laws are more important than others, such as loving God and your neighbor, and I think he suggests that the laws about dietary cleanness are of secondary importance. Yet Jesus believes that every part of the Old Testament has a role in teaching us about God and his plan, and he doesn't want to set anything aside or annul any commandment. He doesn't want us to disregard whatever contribution each verse, each commandment, each writing makes toward understanding truth and revelation. So Jesus does not annul Moses' teaching on divorce, but he clarifies how that fits into the overall plans and purposes of God. And we'll look at that when we get to it in an upcoming podcast. Here I think Jesus is charging the Pharisees as the ones who are annulling the law. They may be champions of rule keeping, but like Tom and my analogy, they don't really seek to understand the true purpose of the law. Like Tom, they annul the law by distorting it. They annul it by keeping its letter rather than what it was meant to do. Now another question this verse raises is what does it mean to be least in the kingdom of God? Let me read five nineteen again. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever teaches them he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Now of course you notice that almost poetic repetition of least and the contrast with great, and Jesus is plainly saying you call commandments least, but you shall be least. Now how are we to understand him? I don't think Jesus means us to take him literally. Imagine we have a scrolling list of all the commandments and we pull off the least one on the list, in whatever way you define least. Maybe it's the shortest, maybe it's the most situation specific, or the least likely to ever be needed. However you define it, we pull off one and we say this one's least. Is Jesus saying if you ignore that one least commandment, then you aren't going to make it in the kingdom of heaven, or if you do make it, you're like a second class citizen on the bottom of the barrel. If you start thinking about that, you can see all kinds of theological problems it raises and conflicts with other things that are taught in Scripture. I don't think Jesus means us to take this statement literally. I think he means it to be surprising. He expects this statement to have a kind of rhetorical kick to it in the way most inversion statements do. So I don't think we are to take him literally. He's speaking hypothetically and hyperbolically. I mean, are we to imagine a person who follows every single solitary commandment except one? Or are we to picture a person in the kingdom of heaven who is lower class because he missed one little thing about how he was supposed to trim his beard or something? Well that's not very likely. Given what we know about the teaching of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven, that is probably not the situation that Jesus has in mind. Rather, he's making a rhetorical point. You ignore the least of these and you're going to be least. Now I think to really understand what he's saying, we have to bring in the next verse, because I in many ways I think five twenty is the key to this section. So let me read that. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. I think five twenty explains what Jesus means in five nineteen. So what does it mean to be the greatest and the least? Well, let me tell you, your righteousness has to surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Now we got to figure out what that means. The scribes and the Pharisees set themselves up as champions of Scripture. They charged Jesus with abolishing the law because he rejected their approach to law keeping. He didn't keep the Sabbath the way they thought he should. He associated with people they thought were unclean. He was constantly disagreeing with them about issues of the day, like divorce. I mean, just ask anyone at the time of Christ who understands the law? Who among the Jews keeps the law the way we're supposed to keep it? And the popular answer would be, well, of course it's the Pharisees. And now Jesus comes along and says, wait a minute, in reality, the ones that are annulling and abolishing the law are the Pharisees. They dodge the moral implications of the law. They seek to be free from its ethical demands. Like Tom and Brother Jerry, they seek to obey the letter of the law while doing exactly what they really want to do. Their hearts are so far from what the law calls for that they are not righteous or holy people at all. And I think Jesus is saying, don't be like them. Don't keep the law like they keep the law. You have to take it much more seriously than they do, or you will not find a place in the kingdom of heaven. And by take it seriously, it's not that you have to try harder, it's not that you have to be more meticulous and exacting, but rather you have to figure out what it the law is really calling you to do and seek to obey that. So you don't want to be like Tom and figure out what precise little actions you can take to call yourself obedient. You need to figure out what mom really wants is for you to love your brother as yourself and seek to do that. So I would paraphrase this section like this. I know that the scribes and the Pharisees present themselves as great champions of Scripture. One might think that because I reject their approach to the Scriptures, that I am rejecting the Scriptures themselves. That is not true. The opposite is true. As Messiah I have come to bring about everything the Scriptures predicted. I have come to teach and promote every truth proclaimed in them. Not one prediction, not one commandment, not one purpose of God proclaimed in the Scriptures will be obsolete or set aside until the final age when all has been accomplished. Let me say this very strongly. Set aside one teeny weeny commandment of God, and you will be set aside as a teeny weeny person as far as the kingdom of God is concerned. Because here's the deal the scribes and the Pharisees are terrible role models. They seem to promote the law, but in fact they don't take the scriptures seriously. They interpret the law so that they can live the way they want to live and still claim to be obedient. Unlike them, you must have a genuine commitment to the scriptures and what they teach if you want to find life in the kingdom of God. You must seek to understand the full demands of the law and want to obey it. And then he's going to go on to explain, for example, you have heard it said X, you've heard the Pharisees teach X, but I say to you why. Now remember, I think this is the introduction to this whole next section of the sermon, and Jesus is going to go on to give us examples to explain this claim about surpassing the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. And we're going to look at each of those in turn. For now, realize I think his main point here is that he wants his disciples to avoid the kind of law keeping that the Pharisees practice. He wants them to avoid holding to the letter of the law while actually seeking to avoid the genuine demands of the law. So they are like Tom in my example of Tom and Jerry, and he wants them not to be like Tom, but to rather seek to understand the law in terms of the entire big picture of everything God has revealed. Now, you may find this idea confusing. If you've read Romans or Galatians, you're familiar with the idea that Paul says we are free from the law, and that Gentiles do not have to become Jews and do not have to follow the law when they begin to follow Christ. And yet here, if you don't stop and think about it, it sounds like Jesus is saying, Well, actually you do have to follow all those laws. And some scholars have concluded that Jesus and his apostles disagree. They think that the apostles, or at least Paul, got it wrong. While Paul is emphatic that the Gentiles do not have to keep all the rules and the dietary rules, they don't have to be circumcised and so forth, they would say here Jesus is saying nope, actually you can't ignore any of them, and therefore we know that Paul got it wrong, or so they say. Well I am convinced that Jesus and his apostles agree with each other. I'm convinced that Paul did not miss the point and that he accurately understands the teaching of Jesus. If Paul and Jesus appear to disagree, it's because we have misunderstood what either one of them or both of them are saying. Jesus never disregards the law or diminishes the Old Testament. Rather, he understands the big picture or what we might call the spirit of the law. For example, the scripture says keep the Sabbath, but why did God command that? What was the goal? What was the big picture? To go back to my analogy, Mom told Tom not to touch his brother Jerry, but what was the goal? Was the goal to have no physical contact whatsoever? Or was the goal for Tom to love his brother as he loves himself? When Jerry asked for a band-aid or help getting down from the tree, the goal was love him as you love yourself. Of course Tom should help him down, even if it required touching him, because what's the big picture? That rule is designed to teach us. The big picture is loving my brother as myself. And I would argue that Jesus understands the big picture of all the laws. He's not pulling isolated rules out of context and saying, see, you have to do that to be good. Rather, he's pulling everything together. He understands what the prophets said, he understands the reason God gave the laws from the Ten Commandments down to the smallest dietary rule. He understands the values that God has shown and the big picture of God's plan for creation. So Jesus understands God's ultimate purpose in giving each and every law, and he's applying that ultimate purpose. And we see the Old Testament itself taking this same approach. For example, in Psalm 51, David says, Lord, you don't desire sacrifice, or I would give it. Now is David annulling the law? Is he setting it aside? No, I think he's saying, Yes, the Old Testament gave us these ritual sacrifices as part of our religious practice, but I can see that on the scale of your priorities, what you really want from me is not to go through the motions of an animal sacrifice. What you really want from me is a humble and repentant heart. And having that humble repentant heart is more important than going through the rituals of a sacrifice. I think that Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles do the same thing. They seek to understand the spirit of the law and apply it. In that way, they take the law more seriously than the scribes and the Pharisees. The scribes and the Pharisees study the law, but they're looking for loopholes, they're looking for rules that they can succeed at obeying while doing exactly what their sinful hearts tell them to do. On the other hand, the apostles have listened to the laws, they've studied the scripture, they've studied the teaching of Jesus, they've studied everything that's been revealed to them about the plans and the purposes of God, and they put it together. So Paul can say the dietary commandments had their place. We don't set them aside. We understand what they were meant to do and not meant to do, and we seek to follow that. Now I think this issue that Jesus is raising is particularly relevant to believers today. We'll get a better understanding of the specifics of what Jesus is warning against as we go farther into the section. But we can already see that Jesus thinks the Pharisees have fallen into a particular kind of trap, and that trap is one any one of us can fall into today. That trap is trivializing what God wants from us. We are easily and quickly tempted to congratulate. ourselves on how well we keep the rules. After all, we go to church, we tithe, we study the Bible, we serve on church committees, we're fine upstanding examples of middle class morality. We look good on the outside, and we start ignoring the kind of people God wants us to be. For example, take an issue like sexual morality. I don't think there's any doubt that modern American culture has seriously lost its way when it comes to sexuality. In today's American culture, we have abandoned the idea that God has a purpose for sexuality and that we must submit to his purpose. Our culture has adopted a model of anything goes between consenting adults and our culture tolerates even applauds and approves of all kinds of actions that scripture would call wrong. Now those who seek to hold to traditional biblical values regarding sexuality can easily fall into the trap of thinking we're the good guys. We're the ones doing it right and all those other poor souls out there, they're the bad guys. God must certainly be pleased with us because hey look at us we're holding the line we're following what scripture says on this controversial issue even when that's not a very popular position to take. Now don't misunderstand me holding the line is a good thing. Seeking to obey what God says is right is a good thing. The trap is becoming prideful about it. The trap is becoming self-righteous about following and holding that line and thinking I am somehow better than those other sinners out there. If we take that attitude then the Pharisees would agree with us. The Pharisees would applaud us for holding the line on a biblical view of sexuality. The very Pharisees who Jesus is warning about hey don't be like them those Pharisees would say you know what you are the good guys you are doing it right by holding to the biblical views of sexuality you're not like those tax gatherers and sinners out there. You're like us come join our club. The danger the trap is becoming a staunch defender of the line or holding to the line of morality while at the same time lacking compassion mercy and humility. We have to realize that whatever standard that we're using to condemn others condemns us. We may have held the line on biblical sexual morality but we ourselves are still sinners in need of God's grace. It's easy to look at the rules and check them off and say check check check well at least I've kept those I must be doing okay better than that other guy over there. Being religious can be a trap because we start thinking whatever level of outward success I've achieved in being obedient that makes me righteous. And that is not true. Now the difference in attitude is subtle but it's very important one person is obedient and says hey God look at me see how obedient I am I'm one of the good guys aren't you impressed with me thank you that I'm not like those pagans out there. The other person who is also obedient says Thank you God for making me obedient I know that apart from your grace and mercy I would fall headlong into sin because I am a sinner just like everyone else the Pharisees fall into the first camp those whose righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees fall into the second camp. Now remember Jesus started this sermon by telling us who will be saved and find a place in the kingdom of God and he told us it's the poor in spirit those who mourn their sin, those who are nonpresumptuous, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, who are pure in heart peacemakers and persecuted if you're not poor in spirit and mournful and merciful and longing for holiness, then keeping the rules is not going to do you any good. That's the mistake the Pharisees made. They saw a list of behavior and they found a way to conform to it but they lost sight of what it actually meant to be a person of saving faith. And that's a trap we all still wrestle with. Any of us can fall into it at any time. The criticism he's making of the Pharisees is intended to be a warning to his disciples through all time I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. It's not enough to be outwardly obedient to a particular set of rules you have to seek the holiness of God from the heart. You have to know you're a sinner and long for his grace and forgiveness. And we'll talk more about what that looks like in the next several podcasts. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means but also shows you how to figure it out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website just go to wednesdayintheword.com No charge, no spam and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast please subscribe to the podcast leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen and most importantly tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coast of heartfeltmusic.org Thank you for joining me today I'm Krisan Marotta and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the world