Fighter Verses

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” [Matthew 5:33-37]

Jesus seems to be making an absolute interdiction on swearing or oath taking here. Does this mean we shouldn’t swear in court, or swear to uphold a creed or an ethical standard, or swear to protect our country? Some Christians (Quakers, for example) refrain from doing these because of this passage. What about marriage vows, or commitments to church covenants?

The Biblical evidence suggests that there are appropriate times and contexts to make oaths. Here is some compelling evidence:

1. If making oaths is always wrong, it would make sense for Jesus to say so when talking about marriage in verses 31-32. Instead of forbidding marriage vows, Jesus tells us that they must not be broken.
2. Jesus speaks in his trial only after the high priest swears: “I adjure you by the living God” (Matthew 26:63). Jesus’ actions here indicate he recognizes the validity of some oaths.
3. The Lord himself swears and makes oaths. For example he swore never to destroy the earth again (Genesis 9:9-12), to multiply Abraham’s descendants (Hebrew 6:13-18), to give Israel Canaan (Exodus 6:8),  to establish David’s son upon the throne (Psalm 132:11), and to send a redeemer (Luke 1:68-74), among other things.
4. The Lord call his people to swear by his name in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 10:20).
5. Faithful followers of the Lord make oaths in the Old Testament. For example Joshua cursed Jericho (Joshua 6:26) and later the Lord fulfills his oath (1 Kings 16:34), all Judah swore an oath to seek the Lord, and they found him (2 Chronicles 15:14-15)
6. Paul regularly swears by God’s name (Romans 1:9, 9:1; 2 Corinthians 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:5, 10; Philippians 1:8).
7. An angel in heaven swears by God’s name (Revelation 10:5-6).

A guest post by Scott Jamison

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. [Matthew 5:29-30]

One thing I do as I’m teaching my kids about what they can take away from fighter verses, is try to help them see the joy in them. Kids like joy. They resonate with joy.

Obviously they resonate with warning and fear, also. And this verse has it: losing members, cutting of your hand, tearing out your eye, hell (twice). All harsh (and important) images. But is there joy to be found here?

I say ‘Yes’. And it has to do with releasing.

So I asked my kids – Have you ever sincerely thought, “No, that thing has value, it cost me money. I can’t get rid of that even if it does tempt me to sin.  I’d honestly like to get rid of it, but I would feel guilty for bad stewardship of getting rid of something with value.”

Thanks to these verses, we can disregard all such feelings of guilt.

Jesus says you can and should get rid of any item (or activity, habit, practice) if it is hindering your walk with God. In fact, he commands that you do it. Even if it’s something really important, like your hand. But most likely it’s not really that important.

So thanks to the fact that Jesus uttered these words, you can allow yourself to remove this from your life, guilt-free. There can be joy in that. So get rid of whatever it is and then thank God for the peace you feel afterwards.

There is another joy, though, almost hidden under the surface of this verse: That those of us who are redeemed will not be thrown into Hell, but welcomed into heaven. And the things we’ve cut off and thrown away will not seem like a sacrifice then.

This week we are finishing the first of six sections in Matthew 5. These sections are often called “The Antitheses” because Jesus contrasts the people’s understanding of the OT with his own teaching. But what exactly is Jesus teaching here? Is he establishing a new law, is he explaining the true meaning of the law, is he preaching against legalism, or is Jesus aiming at something else? D. A. Carson provides a helpful explanation:

In every case Jesus contrasts the people’s misunderstanding of the law with the true direction in which the law points, according to his own authority as the law’s “fulfiller” (in the sense established in v. 17). He makes no attempt to fence in the law but declares unambiguously the true direction to which it points. Thus if certain antitheses revoke at least the letter of the law, they do so, not because they are thereby affirming the law’s true spirit, but because Jesus insists that his teaching on these matters is the direction in which the laws actually point. [D. A. Carson, Matthew, Vol.1, 148]

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment… [Matthew 5:22]

Jesus’ words could be taken by some as a total prohibition against all forms of anger. But are there not times that warrant a kind of righteous anger, as Jesus’ own life seemed to demonstrate? What is and what isn’t Jesus saying to us here?

Here’s how Martyn Lloyd-Jones spells it out:

Our anger must only be against sin; we must never feel angry with the sinner, but only full of sorrow and compassion for him. ‘Ye that love the Lord, hate evil,’ says the Psalmist. We should feel a sense of anger as we view sin, hypocrisy, unrighteousness, and everything that is evil. That is the way, of course, in which we fulfil the injunction of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: ‘Be ye angry, and sin not.’

[...]

But we must never, I repeat, feel anger against the sinner. We must never feel angry with a person as such; we must draw a distinction between the person himself and what he does. We must never be guilty of a feeling of contempt or abhorrence, or of this expression of vilification. Thus I think we are enabled to draw lines of distinction between these things. (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 198-199)

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[Matthew 5:20]

What does it mean for your righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees? This question requires answering a couple others first.

• Who are the scribes and Pharisees? As John Nolland says, they are “a fairly frequent pairing in Matthew, always as objects of criticism” [The Gospel Of Matthew, 224]. They are those who ask Jesus for a sign and get the response, “An evil an adulterous generation seeks for a sign” (12:39). They are those who, upon questioning Jesus about why his disciples break the tradition of the elders, are asked in return, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (15:2-3). Finally, in Matthew 23, they are the hypocritical teachers of Israel, and the sole subjects of Jesus’ seven woes (23:2, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29).

• What kind of righteousness do the scribes and Pharisees have? They are those who preach, but do not practice (23:3). Their righteousness is limited to the letter of the law, but they do not keep the spirit of it (9:13; cf. Philippians 3:5-6). They neglect the weightier matters, when they should have kept both the letter and the heart (23:23-24). They outwardly appear righteous to others—which is all they really care about (23:5)—but are not truly righteous inside (23:28).

• What kind of righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees? It would seem to be perfection, which is how 5:20 is restated at the end of the chapter (5:48), as being “perfect” like God the Father is. But this should not be understood as perfection according to law only. Rather, it is perfection that accomplishes all of the law, both its heavy and light components, through faith. How else could someone obey the command to not be anxious (6:25) except by having faith? And is faithlessness not Jesus’ direct indictment of that problem (6:30)?

Even though Jesus sets faith-filled perfection up as the standard for true righteousness and the requirement for entrance into heaven, it is quite clear that Jesus does not exclude the possibility of entering for those whose faith has sometimes failed. The Sermon on the Mount itself contains a prayer for forgiveness (6:12), and Jesus himself confesses a few chapters later that he came “not to call the righteous, but sinners” (9:13).

Compare these two passages:

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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. [Matthew 5:17-18]

For [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made [Jews and Gentiles] both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. [Ephesians 2:14-15]

These two passages appear to be saying opposite things about the law. How do we reconcile them?

Here’s the best answer I’ve found:

When Jesus says in Matthew that he did not come “to abolish the Law” he includes “or the Prophets” as well, which is his way of referring to the entire Old Testament (see Matthew’s other uses of these terms together in Matthew 7:12; 11:13; and 22:40). “Law” in Ephesians, however, refers to the old covenant law that came down from Mt. Sinai.

So there is a distinction between the two, that is, between the Old Testament and the old covenant. It is evident that the editors of the ESV see this distinction too, since they capitalize “Law” in Matthew 5:17 but keep it lowercase in Ephesians 2:15.

When Jesus says that he did not come to abolish “the Law or the Prophets” in Matthew 5, he means that he did not come to abolish the Hebrew Bible. To him, the Hebrew Bible—including the Law of Moses—was primarily a book of prophecy about the coming Messiah (Matthew 11:13), which he came “to fulfill,” rather than a law book that bound all of its readers to obey the old covenant.

When he died on the cross, Jesus cancelled the old covenant, that is, the law of commandments and ordinances (Ephesians 2:15), so that the rules and regulations that kept Jews “imprisoned” (Galatians 3:23) under a “ministry of death, carved in letters on stone” (2 Corinthians 3:7) and distinct from Gentiles might be totally abolished.

What does this mean for how we handle all the laws in the Old Testament?

The extended passages of law that remain in the Law (the Pentateuch) are listed there not as law, but as a part of the story of Israel. They are a part of the narrative of the Pentateuch, which, as a whole, remains a necessary part of God’s inspired word for his multi-national, multi-generational church.

But the commandments alone, as they existed outside of the Pentateuch, were commandments given at a certain time to a certain people, and they have fulfilled their purpose. Those commandments that remain in the Pentateuch remain as literature by which we can gain wisdom, not laws under which we are either approved or condemned before God.

Christ has forever approved his people and enabled them, by his Spirit, to live a life of “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). They no longer need law over them. It is now in them, on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
[Matthew 5:14-16]

“You are the light of the world.” Where does that light come from? Does it come from our good works, or our evangelism efforts, or does it come when we decide to be Jesus’ witnesses? No, the light comes from Jesus:

1. Jesus is the light. In Matthew 4:16 we learned that Jesus was a great light: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” John tells us that Jesus is the “light of men” (John 1:4-5).
2. Jesus brought us to the light. “But you are a chosen race… that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Se also Colossians 1:12-13. Any light we have is there because Christ put it there, and delivered us from the darkness.
3. Jesus calls us to be light. Matthew 5:14-15 doesn’t offer us a choice whether we want be a light for the world or not. “You are the light of the world.” Jesus is describing what all of his disciples will be like. The Lord has placed his people on a hill, and set them on a lamp-stand. Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
4. Jesus illuminates the Father, and so do we. Just as Jesus came to do the will of his Father, and to glorify him, so our works should point to the Father. “Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works  and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Our light is meant to function in the same way Jesus functioned as light.

Look to Jesus to receive light—it only comes from him. If you are a new creation, live like it. You are light!

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
[Ephesians 5:8]

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
[Matthew 5:13]

What does Jesus mean by the metaphor “You are the salt of the earth”? Donald Hagner answers,

Since it is virtually impossible now to know which of [salt's] several associations would have come most readily to the minds of the disciples when they heard these words, it may be best simply to take the metaphor broadly and inclusively as meaning something that is vitally important to the world in a religious sense, as salt was vitally necessary for everyday life…. Thus, the disciples are vitally significant and necessary to the world in their witness to God and his kingdom. (Matthew 1-13, p.99)

So Hagner defines Christian saltiness in the world as our vital and necessary “witness to God and his kingdom.” Now plug that meaning back into the rest of the verse, and feel the weight of responsibility Jesus attaches to such an honored position.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[Matthew 5:3-10]

The beatitudes promise many wonderful blessings, but when do we get them? If we only get them after we become holy or when we reach heaven the beatitudes offer little encouragement for us now. If all the blessings come to us right now  the beatitudes offer little hope to broken and suffering souls.

The first and last beatitudes give us a clue to when the blessings will come. These two identical promises of the kingdom of heaven form a bookend around all the promises of the beatitudes. We should pay attention to this promise.

Jesus is clear that the kingdom came when he did. Before preaching the Sermon on the Mount Jesus was saying: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17, see also 9:35, 12:28, and 23;13). Jesus also talks about the kingdom of heaven as the inheritance of the saints when the Son of Man comes in his glory (Matthew 25:34). So the kingdom is already here, but not yet fully manifest.

This leads to three implications:

1. We already have the kingdom of God and all the blessings of the beatitudes in Jesus Christ. Paul says: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).
2. Christ identifies himself and his rule as the kingdom (see Matthew 12:28). So as we conform more and more to the image of Christ, and submit to his rule, we will experience more blessing.
3. One day we shall enter the kingdom of heaven in the fullest sense, and enter into the deepest reality of these promises. The kingdom of heaven will be ours, “for if we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12 ). “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

We have already received the blessings of the beatitudes—gospel blessings—and we we eagerly wait to receive more of them. This protects us from moralism, gives us a hope for today, and an eternal hope that is indestructible from any suffering or set back. So come before God with thanksgiving, armed with these promises. And set your hope on these promises, so that you can endure being reviled and persecuted and slandered, with joy.

*For more on the already/not yet nature of the kingdom of heaven see the sermon series by John Piper “Are Signs and Wonders for Today,” especially the 4th,5th and 6th messages. I also found the book Gospel of the Kingdom by G. E. Ladd helpful.