Law and Righteousness in The Sermon Matthew 5:17-20

The Sermon…-Matthew 5:17-20
We have been talking for a couple weeks about The Sermon On the Mount. We have introduced the Sermon with discussion on the beatitudes and the importance of making a difference by being salt and light to a tasteless and dark world. This week we really come to the main part of The Sermon. We begin to talk about what it means to follow Jesus, to be a true disciple. What does he expect of those who would follow him? As Jesus begins to teach there are really 2 questions that need to be answered for us to grasp the text.
What is righteousness?
What is the Law?
We have an idea about righteousness that pervades our culture. There is a mindset that if our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds at the end of our lives then everything will be ok. We put our church attendance, our helping the poor, our paying all our bills, our kind words said, our sending money to charities on one side of a scale. On the other side we put our lies, our cheating, our stealing, and gossip. Then, whichever one weighs the most wins. And then there is the church. We have not given a much better picture. Way too many churches have given the wrong impression about pleasing God. Live a life free of sin and you will be assured a place in heaven and more blessings than you can stand here on earth. It is the expectation that we live by a code, a behavior, a list of rules. And sadly, many people have gotten this impression about church. They are not welcome to come to church because they are not as (self)”righteous” as us. It is an unrealistic expectation that people live a righteous life, and that they do it sometimes before they even start to follow Jesus. When someone comes into our church we do not want to attack them on the areas of their lives that we do not agree with, we want to preach a message of mercy and grace and freedom from the slavery of sin. As Mac said when he started our church, as well as Shonn and Brad, “this is a safe place to hear a dangerous message.” That is where the safety comes in, when we have no expectation, just hope that they will hear of the goodness of God, his mercy and grace and will trust and follow him. We need to have the understanding that when it comes to righteousness, we do not have it within us. The Pharisees had the opposite point of view. They are the religious teachers who spent day and night studying the law. The Law is a complex code that is laid out in the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible.) It is more than the 10 commandments. It is made up of over 600 different commands. The Law defined righteousness for God’s people. It told you what you should do and not do in order to be righteous. Pharisees had been studying the scriptures for hundreds of years. Not only did they study the Scripture, they also studied the opinions and traditions of noted Rabbis. Over time the opinions of the Rabbis became the standard by which the people tried to live by and not just the Scriptures. And this is where wrong ideas of righteousness come in. What Jesus teaches here in the Sermon on the Mount is what it means to be righteous. He challenges the understanding of what is right by telling them that it is not good enough just to avoid these certain acts - even the underlying motives of the heart and the thoughts of the mind are sins in themselves and make us unrighteous. Jesus is bringing these 2 old questions into the minds of those listening. The Pharisees and Jews in general knew that righteousness was important if you were going to please God and that obeying the Law was the way to do that. Jesus was here to teach them a better way so I think they listened closely as he said:
17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:17-20
Verse 20 was a big shock to those Pharisees that might have been there and is the main idea for the Sermon on the Mount. It is also a major teaching for all of the New Testament, including the writings of Paul. He brings up this issue in several places in the New Testament. Jesus and Paul challenge the ideas of the religious teachers of the day. There is a righteousness that we can have, but it does not come of our own effort or through our own good works. Here are just a few of the places where Paul addresses this issue. In this 1st passage he is explaining the shortcomings of the Jews’ understanding of righteousness.
1Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Rom 10:1-3
Like so many people today, the Israelites of Paul’s day had a real desire to be close to God. Even though they, and many still today, are zealous for God, it is false. It is a self righteousness. There is only 1 way to true righteousness and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul preached this message to the Philippians, the Corinthians, the Romans, and to the Galatians. It is clear that righteousness does not come by the observing of the law or by a righteousness of our own. In Galatians 2:16 he says this:
(We) know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. We read on a little farther and we come to verse 21 …if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! And again in chapter 3:11 clearly no one is justified before God by the law…21If a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law…23Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
In 2 Cor 5 he puts it this way:
God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5:21
And in Phillipians:
…not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith Phil 3:8-9
And to Titus:
3At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. Titus 3:3-5
And to the Romans, he quotes the Psalms, and discusses at length the subject:
9What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13"Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15"Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16ruin and misery mark their ways, 17and the way of peace they do not know." 18"There is no fear of God before their eyes."
20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
In this long passage Paul quotes some Psalms that stress one very important point. That point is that we are all in the same boat. We are all under sin. About 10 times in this passage he uses the word “all” as in “all under sin” or “none” as in “none righteous” to describe our situation. At the end he comes to the solution that we are “…justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
This is the kind of righteousness that Jesus is talking about in The Sermon. If our righteousness does not surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. We will not find our eternal home with God in heaven if we have a self righteousness. One more time in Romans Paul discusses this kind of righteousness:
30What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. 32Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. Romans 9 :30-32
I hope that we will all learn this one lesson: Through Jesus Christ and His righteousness I can be a true disciple. I believe that when we have a real understanding of righteousness and the law and how we are given a gift and not earning what is rightfully ours it will change us. We will be, in humility, listening to the words that Jesus has to say to us. We will hear him when he says hard things like “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies”. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus