Salt, Light, Law, and Surpassing Righteousness – The Sermon on the Mount – Part II
The
Sermon on the Mount opened with the character traits of those that are a part
of the new kingdom of heaven that has come upon the earth through the person of
Christ. These character traits
were embodied in what has commonly been called the Beatitudes. Following the Beatitudes, Matthew in
Matthew 5:13-20 records Christ’s words concerning the way the citizens of the
kingdom of heaven are to relate to the world, Christ’s own relationship to the
Old Testament Law, and the need for surpassing righteousness to be a part of
the kingdom of heaven. Christ’s
statement concerning the need for surpassing righteousness in Matthew 5:20 will
serve as a thesis statement for the rest of the body of the Sermon on the Mount
in which Jesus will explain what surpassing righteousness looks like. In this
article I want to drive right up to this thesis in Matthew 5:20 and understand
the two key metaphors concerning a Christian’s relationship to the world and
Christ’s relationship to the Law.
Jesus
gives two metaphors to help us think about the way we are to relate to the
world as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The first metaphor comes in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt
of the earth…” When we think about salt we usually have several things come to
mind. Here is Salt Lake City we
normally think of a large inland lake that has a salt factory, brine shrimp,
and flies; however, that is not the normal word association with salt. Normally people think of salt in
regards to the taste it brings to food or the preserving affect it has on
food. I think it is these two
aspects of salt that make it an interesting metaphor for Christians. When we bring the Gospel to people we
are acting both as a life enhancer and preserver. We are preserving people from damnation through the saving
Gospel of Christ and we are giving them a taste of the abundant life that is
found in Christ. Jesus continues
in the rest of Matthew 5:13 talking about the
useless nature of salt that has lost its saltiness. He asks, “How can it be made salty again?” and goes on to
say that it is no longer useful and should be thrown out to be trampled by men. This is an interesting saying of Christ, but I think it points to an important
consideration. Salt by nature is
salty. Christians by nature act
like Christians. When Christians
are acting in a way not according to their nature they have ceased to be what
they were called to be and become worthless. Let us not be entangled by the world and its lusts and
become less than what a Christian is called to be. We are to enhance the world with the Gospel of Christ. Learn to walk as a citizen of the kingdom
of heaven bringing taste and preservation to this world in the form of the Gospel.
Jesus’
second metaphor has to do with Christians being the “light of the world.” Matthew 5:14-16 explains the depths of
this metaphor in two quick pictures.
The first is a city on a hill in Matthew 5:14 which cannot be
hidden. I could not get this verse
out of my head as I traveled in Israel.
Driving across the plain of Meggido in the evening I was struck by the
many small towns that were lit up on the tops of the many rolling hills. They truly cannot be hidden from
view. In the same way in Matthew
5:15 a lamp is described as not being hidden under a basket, but being set on a
lamp stand. Again, the light
cannot be hidden from view. Jesus
goes on in Matthew 5:16 to give an imperative to “let our light shine before
men” with the result that they will “see [our] good works, and glorify [our]
Father who is in heaven.” Like the
metaphor of salt, Christians are to be who they are. By nature if you believe in and are living out the Gospel of
Christ you will be light in a dark world.
If you have been trying to cover up your identity then maybe you need to
repent. God wants our earthly
lives to shine forth His heavenly reality.
After
these two very important metaphors on the Christian’s relation to the world
Christ speaks out one of the most loaded and important texts in the New Testament.
Understanding the way the New Testament works with the Old Testament can
be one of the hardest theological questions someone can pursue. There are many nuances to understanding
how the Bible fits together, but Christ’s words in Matthew 5:17-18 should be
our starting point. Christ in Matthew
5:17 says that He came not “to abolish the Law or Prophets but to
fulfill.” This is profound! So often the Sermon on the Mount has
been interpreted as abolishing the Law and the Prophets and here Jesus is
saying, “No! The Law and the Prophets stand; I fulfill them! They are about Me!” He goes on to say in Matthew 5:18 that
not a letter or stroke of the law will pass away until all is
accomplished. Matthew 5:17-18 reveals
three really important points about Christ. First, He has just validated most of the Old Testament as
trustworthy. The Hebrew Bible,
which was the Old Testament only, was broken up in three sections: the law, the
prophets, and the writings. The
law being the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and the prophets
being the major and minor prophets.
The writings include poetic material like Psalms and Proverbs and history
writings like Kings and Chronicles.
Jesus has just validated a huge section of the Old Testament referring
to the Law and the Prophets.
Secondly, Christ’s statements tell us that the Old Testament is about
Him! He fulfills what the Old
Testament is recording and prophesying!
You want to understand how the Old Testament and the New Testament fit
together? They both witness to
Christ! You want to follow all the commandments of God? Then hide yourself in
Christ’s righteousness. Calvin
says of Matthew 5:18, “God enjoined ceremonies [OT Law], that their outward use
might be temporal, and their meaning eternal. That man does not break ceremonies [OT Law], who omits what
is shadowy, but retains their effect.”
The effect that the Law has is to point us to the need for a sacrifice
for our sins. By believing in
Christ and His work on the Cross we are accounted as righteous because of what
Christ accomplished. Christ work
is our righteousness, and like Abraham, when we believe the testimony of God
about Christ in His Word (Old and New Testament), we are accounted righteous. This is profound; through Christ’s
righteousness we keep every demand of God. Thirdly, we see that Christ knows that everything will be
accomplished. He has insight into
the ability of God to accomplish what He has recorded in His Word. We can take great joy in knowing that
the Word of God will be accomplished.
We can organize our lives around the truth of the Word of God because it
will be accomplished by God.
Matthew 5:19 flows right out of an understanding of these
principals. If God’s word
witnesses to Christ and records what will be accomplished by God then failing
to follow His commandments and teaching others to do the same renders us a
judgment as least in the kingdom of heaven. However, we will be great if we keep the commandments and
teach others to do the same. The
citizens of the kingdom of heaven will be who they are and keep the
commandments of God’s Word out of a love for the Son and the Father. What we do with God’s Word as a believer is serious business and here we are
reminded that we will be judged for our use of God’s word in our own life and
in the life of others. The Bible
is about Christ; He fulfills every word.
If we place our faith in
Christ then we must submit ourselves to His Word and teach others to do the
same.
Finally,
Jesus turns up the heat in Matthew 5:20 saying that to enter the kingdom of
heaven your righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and the
Pharisees. It is interesting to
note that in the Greek text there is a double negative in this sentence
basically saying you will “not not enter the kingdom,” or you will “definitely
not enter the kingdom.”
Interestingly the same construction also occurs in Matthew 5:18, the
letter and stroke “will definitely not pass away.” With both of these construction the surety of events
referenced is enforced. Now we
give the Pharisees, and by extension the scribes, a bad rapt for being Law
abiding prudes. However, if we are honest, they look a lot like what we like to
picture as the model Christian.
They are moral, they follow all of God’s commandments, they have vast,
if not all, of the Bible memorized, they believe in a resurrection, and they
are urgently seeking the Messiah.
But they have one fatal flaw that we will be looking at through the next
couple sections of the Sermon on the Mount. The Pharisees were standing in their own ability to fulfill
the Law with a heart that was far from the Lord. Jesus is saying here, you have to be more righteous than the
Pharisees and scribes, and the only way to do that is through the Gospel. Because of Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross we get His righteousness and He gets our sin. When God looks at us, if we have placed our faith in Christ,
He sees the righteous work of Christ.
When we place our faith in Christ we not only receive the cleansing of
sin, but the Holy Spirit gives us a heart of flesh and a desire to follow the
commandments of the Lord (see Ezekiel 36). We are actually then able to surpass the righteousness of
the Pharisees because of what God does in us. He cleanses us, He brings us to life with a new heart, and
He causes us to want to follow His ways.
Salvation can only come about through the work of God in our
hearts. There is no other way to
have surpassing righteousness.
In Matthew
5:1-12, the Beatitudes, we have seen the character traits of the citizens of
the kingdom of God. In Matthew 5:13-20, we have looked at the way citizens of
the kingdom of heaven relate to the world as Salt and Light. In addition, Christ gave us the
starting point to understanding His relationship to the Old Testament Law. He is the fulfillment! Finally, in Matthew 5:20, Jesus lays
down His thesis statement for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount by saying
citizens of the kingdom of heaven have to have righteousness greater than the
scribes and Pharisees. Do you have
this surpassing righteousness?
Next time we will look at how Jesus explains what this surpassing
righteousness looks like.
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