Matthew 5:21-26 Diagnosis Murder

Two weeks ago, we looked at Jesus teaching about the Old Testament. Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. He did not come to throw out the Old Testament as if it were obsolete, but he was what they pointed to all along. In that passage, Jesus said that whoever relaxed the least of the commandments would be counted least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In today’s text, Jesus begins to correct our misunderstanding of the law. In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows that the way that the Pharisees read the Law was insufficient. He goes back to the ten commandments and tells us how rather than being relaxed, they are ratcheted up. He says, “you have heard that it was said…, but I say to you…” in a series of six statements. Today we will look at the first.

Let’s look at our text:

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 

22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 

23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,

24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 

25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 

26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Jesus begins, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ His hearers were familiar with what it said. You shall not murder was found in the ten commandments in Exodus 20:13 and in Deuteronomy 5:17. As Jesus statement continues, he says, “whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” The later part of the verse refers to the consequences that are spelled out in the Old Testament for murder. And what are those consequences? Genesis 9:6 tells us that “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God mad man in his own image.” Clearly the Old Testament taught that the only appropriate consequence for murder was capital punishment. The reasoning for this is based in the fact that human beings are created in God’s image. Human beings are of inestimable value because we are made in God’s image and we were made to reflect God’s glory. To lash out in attack on a human being made in God’s image is to lash out in attack on God. Therefore, to murder another human being was the most serious crime and could only be justly punished by the most serious penalty—capital punishment.

It is not hard to understand this command. It is basic; it is clear. As it is written in the 10 commandments it contains no elaboration. It is simply, “You shall not murder.” This is accurately translated as murder and not as “you shall not kill.” There is a difference between murder and killing, and in Hebrew there is a different word for both. Within the 10 commandments, it does not use the word for merely killing, but it uses the word for murder—the deliberate and unjust taking of a human life. The Old Testament recognized that there were forms of killing that did not constitute murder. For instance, when soldiers fight in battle and kill, that is not considered murder, and when the rightful governing authorities carry out capital punishment, that is not murder either.

The only problem we have with this passage is that it is so clear, and it is so basic, that we are prone to read it just like the Pharisees did. We read it as though all it refers to are the actual physical actions of carrying out murder. Most of us, can sit back and say, “I’ve never killed anybody,” and we feel justified. We hear the command, “you shall not murder,” and we feel morally superior. “See…! I’m a good person. I’ve obeyed that command.” It is in our nature, that when we hear the commands that we have obeyed to begin to be filled with pride…to begin to feel as if we are better than those who have not. Just as Jesus turns our idea of happiness on its head, so he turns our image of goodness on its head.

Jesus finishes the thought he began in the previous verse. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder…,’ but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

With these words, Jesus dashes all our hopes of self-righteousness. We can be puffed up with pride and think that we are good, but Jesus shows us that we are not so good as we thought we were. While human beings look at the outside…at external actions and behavior, Jesus looks at the thoughts and the hidden recesses of our hearts. Jesus says to us, “You think you’re good. Have you ever been angry at someone? Have you ever called someone a blockhead—like Charlie Brown? Have you ever had anger rise up within you and you call someone a moron?” Jesus tells us that all these things fundamentally deserve the same punishment as murder. Jesus teaches us that the root of murder is anger within our hearts.

Sins are not content to be small. Every sin that we have dwelling in our hearts seeks to get out; they seek to be expressed in the greatest way that they can get us to act on. While we may think that our annoyance with someone is only a small sin, if it is allowed to fester and grow, and if we do not recognize it for what it is, our sin would take us all the way to our graves, and all the way to Hell.

We may think we are alright because our sins are small, or because our sins are more socially acceptable, but Jesus is speaking to us here a word of warning. He is warning us that carelessly calling someone a hurtful name can send us straight to Hell!

Jesus continues with an application: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

What Jesus is teaching us here is that reconciliation between one another is more important than our acts of worship. This is not new with Jesus teaching. It is rooted in the Old Testament as well. For instance, Isaiah chapter one says:

 11 "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

 12 "When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?

 13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,

 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

 18 "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

 19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

God hates hypocritical worship. What he primarily wanted in the Old Testament wasn’t sacrifices and offerings, but a contrite heart. The people in Isaiah’s day thought they could just keep on bringing their sacrifices and just keep on having their appointed festivals and feasts as if everything was ok, even though they were guilty of evil deeds. The LORD said to them that he hides his eyes from their worship so that he doesn’t even see it. The things the people were doing to appease God’s wrath wasn’t doing any good at all—rather, it was making it worse. He says “Your offerings and incense are an abomination to me.”

This isn’t because God didn’t require a sacrifice or offerings. They were doing exactly what they were told in the Law to do, but they were doing it as hypocrites. They were doing religious activities, but God saw their hearts.

And so for us, when we come to worship God and we have anger, bitterness, and resentment toward others, God will not see our worship. In fact, it makes our sin all the worse. We stand and sing the songs, and maybe raise our hands—and when we harbor resentment within our hearts all that religious activity just makes God even more angry with us. We put money in an offering plate to contribute to the needs of the church and to the cause of missions throughout the world, but if we stubbornly refuse to reconcile with another, we are only giving God hypocritical worship.

So, what does Jesus say to do? Drop your gift at the altar and go be reconciled to your brother. This is what the Christian will do. This is what it takes to obey the voice of Jesus. God wants us to be reconciled to each other more than he wants our worship.

Now I’m going to start meddling. What is it that people often do when they get personally offended in church? 1. We often do things like gossip. We spread it around, and we say “Did you hear what this person did? Can you believe that? I can’t believe he calls himself a Christian.” 2. Or we get upset and leave. You think of the past in this church. Think of all the people who were personally offended over one thing or another, and rather than be reconciled, they just left. They may have moved on to another church, but as long as they harbor anger toward people that offended them they are guilty of hypocritical worship. When you get upset, the thing to do isn’t to leave, it’s to be reconciled.

Jesus says to us, if you get upset with people, don’t gossip, don’t leave—be reconciled. Go to the person and talk it out. Maybe it was a misunderstanding? Usually it’s selfishness. We want our way so much that we are willing to disrupt our relationships with our brothers and sisters and in the process, we cut our connection with Him.

Then Jesus continues: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

There is a principle that things will go better for us if we admit our own faults openly instead of waiting for them to be exposed by someone else. My family and I were watching Leave it to Beaver this week, and one of the episodes illustrates this point. Wally and Beaver were left at home alone over night while Ward and June were going away for a business retreat. While they were alone, Beaver left the water running in the bathtub and it flooded over. Not only did it get all over the floor, but it came through the floor and came through the plaster ceiling and onto the kitchen floor downstairs. They cleaned up the mess so that it was barely noticeable, but the water coming through had weakened the plaster. When they were at the dinner table the next day they heard a crash and when they went to check what it was they saw that they ceiling had fell in. Wally and Beaver were then left with a choice, they could admit that it was their fault, or they could conceal it. They felt the weight of the choice and chose to tell the truth themselves rather than to let their father think that it was some other cause. You can imagine, the consequences that they faced, having told the truth, were lighter than they would have if they had concealed the truth and been found out later.

This illustrates a spiritual principle. There is a judgment coming when all of our sins will be revealed. Everything that we have ever done will be laid bare for all to see and we will answer to God for every careless word we have ever said. We will even answer for any time that we may have simply called someone a fool. God knows all things. He doesn’t just know what we have done and said, but he knows the thoughts and the intentions of our hearts.

With this judgment in mind, we have a choice, we can confess our sins now, repent, and accept the free gift of God’s forgiveness. Or, we can conceal our sin. We can put on a good image. We can show up at church and put on a good show before people, all the while hiding our hypocrisy and storing up greater wrath on our sins.

You can say to yourself, “I’ve never killed anyone.” You can feel good, prideful, and superior to those who have, but remember that God sees through our actions to our hearts. He sees that if we do harbor anger toward our brother, the only thing that separates us from someone who has murdered is that we fear what people will think, or we fear the external consequences. We are all guilty. We are all sinners. There is none righteous—no not one.

Look unto Jesus, for he has reconciled us to God. Only believe on him and his death can be counted as payment for your sins. 

(Preached on May 21, 2017)

Matthew 5:17-20 What Jesus Taught About the Old Testament

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? I don’t mean the first disciples, the ones who walked with Jesus for three years and saw him teach and do miracles. I mean, what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus today?

The first thing I must say is that to be a Christian is to be a disciple. There is no difference. If you are a Christian, your life will be one of following Jesus and learning from him. There are some who want to make a distinction between the two. They might say that when you first get saved, you become a Christian, you become a child of God, and your sins are forgiven—which is all true; however, they would say that becoming a disciple is something that is optional. It comes later. It’s for the really committed Christians. This distinction is a lie from Hell. Everyone who truly trusts in Jesus for salvation, everyone who is truly born again, everyone who has truly experienced forgiveness of sin, is a disciple of Jesus. We can see this in the Great Commission. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” While the great commission certainly includes preaching the gospel so people can be saved, it isn’t only that. We haven’t fulfilled the great commission unless we are making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them everything Jesus said.

So, what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? It means to follow him, to learn from him, to love him, and to be ready to die for him. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus you must be baptized—just as Jesus commanded. And your life, from the moment you become a Christian, becomes one of learning to know and follow Jesus, and to have your mind conformed to his.

So, what does this have to do with Matthew 5:17-20? It is the reason why we are looking at this text. Matthew 5:17-20 is a passage where Jesus tells us how to think. We get excited about passages where Jesus performs a miracle. We are amazed at his power, and we are moved to worship him. We get excited about passages like last week that tell us what to do. The last text, Jesus told us that our good works are to be done so people will glorify God, and we are often doers, and we like it when he tells us something practical like that. Today’s passage is one we might not get so easily excited about. Here, Jesus tells us how to think. We often don’t like this. We think we do a pretty good job of thinking on our own—thank you very much—but Jesus challenges us at the level of our thinking. And we cannot ignore passages like this if we are going to make disciples. Jesus commanded to teach everything he commanded—and that means also how we are to think.

Specifically, in today’s passage, Jesus tells us what we are to think about the Old Testament. This is an important question. What are believers supposed to think about the Old Testament. Can we merely dispense with it as unimportant? Not according to what Jesus says here. Let’s read our text.

Matthew 5:17-20:

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.

18 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. 

19 Therefore whoever relaxes 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 does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

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

When Jesus came and taught, he was different from other teachers, and we know that he had several run-ins with the religious leaders of his day. He was accused of breaking the Sabbath and he was ridiculed because he ate with tax collectors and sinners. So you can figure, when he made this statement, “Do not think that I came to abolish the law and the prophets,” he was saying this because there were already people thinking it. He also says this for our benefit.

It has long been a temptation of Gentile Christians to dispense with the Old Testament. For instance, one of the early heretics condemned by the early Church within one hundred years of Jesus earthly ministry was Marcion, who rejected the entire Old Testament and cut out many passages from the New Testament because they were too Jewish. Ever since then, those who reject the Old Testament, whether explicitly or implicitly have been referred to as Marcionite.

Jesus tells us in this passage that he was not dispensing with the Law and the Prophets. When he says the “Law,” he isn’t talking about the moral law. He is not talking about the 10 Commandments. When he says “the Law and the Prophets,” he is naming two of the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Law, or the Torah, is the first five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. When he says the “Law” it means a lot more than legal material. Sure, we see a lot of legal material in that later half of Exodus, in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but we see a lot of other content as well. Genesis isn’t legal material at all. It is narrative. It tells the story of how God created human beings, how humans fell, how God promised to send a Messiah, how God chose Abraham to promised to bless him in order to bless all nations. Exodus tells us the story of God’s deliverance of his people from the bondage of slavery. The other books tell us much about how the people responded after they came out of Egypt—grumbling and complaining. This isn’t legal material, but it is included here when Jesus says he hasn’t come to abolish the Law.

When Jesus says the “Prophets,” he also has more in mind that what we usually think of. When we think of the prophets, we often think of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and others. However, there are two parts to the Prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. What we often think of as the prophets are the Later Prophets. These prophets were writing prophets and what we have is the many things that they wrote down. The other prophets are called the Former Prophets. These books include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings. We usually call these the Historical Books, but the Jews understood these as prophets. When we read these books, we aren’t just getting a history lesson on the nation of Israel. We have stories which the prophets have written to get their point across. In the Former Prophets, we see the continuation of the Messianic seed. God’s promise to David that he would have a son to sit on his throne forever, the continuing line of kings that make up part of the genealogy of Jesus, and the eventual end of that dynasty when the king was taken to Babylon in chains. The Later prophets then prophesied showing how God would be faithful in spite of his judgement on his people. These prophets preached that a root of Jesse, and a Branch of David would spring forth from the stump of the tree that was cut down.

So Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. How does Jesus fulfill the Law and the Prophets? He was the one that they testify to. From Genesis 3 and the promise of the seed, to the Son of David, to Immanuel who was prophesied by Isaiah, the Law and the Prophets testify to Jesus. And this is what he told those who opposed him during his earthly ministry. In John 5:39-40, Jesus said to the Jews who were trying to kill him for breaking the Sabbath and calling himself the Son of God, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

These opponents of Jesus thought they would find life when the searched the Scriptures—and they were right. However, they missed it completely. They thought they would find life by meticulously obeying the rules, and they missed the point that no one can do that. They missed the point that the only one who ever could was who the Old Testament pointed to and he was in their midst.

Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets because he was the seed foretold to Adam and Eve; he was the blessing of Abraham, and he was the Son of David. He also fulfilled the Law and the Prophets because he was the only one who could ever keep all of the law perfectly. He also fulfilled the law because the ceremonies and the sacrifices all pointed to him. The sacrifice of an unblemished lamb to take away the sins of the people pointed forward to the Perfect Lamb of God who would give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus didn’t abolish the Law, he fulfilled it because it all testified to him.

Jesus believed that every word of Scripture was important and that it would never become obsolete. In verse 18 he said, “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.” In this passage he echoes Psalm 119 from the passage we heard read earlier. “Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.” When he said that not one iota or a dot would pass away, he was saying that not one letter, not even the smallest little part of a letter would pass away. This is why I believe in using a literal translation for use in Bible study. I have no problem using paraphrases devotionally or for explanation when something is difficult, but for serious study of the Bible, if you want to know what the Bible says use something as literal as you can handle. “

In verse 19, Jesus treats how we are to treat the commandments, the moral law. He basically says that it is still in force. We are not to toy with God’s law. We are not to say, “well, that was a long time ago, but we are enlightened modern people and we no better now.” No! To set aside even the smallest, least important commands from Scripture and say that it doesn’t matter any more, and to teach others to go along with you will make you the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But, notice something, it doesn’t say they won’t be in the Kingdom, but that they will be the least. There may be things that we are wrong about, and just because we are wrong about how we are to apply certain Scriptures to today will not keep us from entering the Kingdom.

On the other hand, the one who does and teaches the commandments will be called great. There is reward in obedience to God’s law and in teaching others to do the same.

But lest we get proud and think that we have arrived, Jesus gives us verse 20. “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” These are the words of Jesus. He says unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees we won’t even get into the Kingdom. This is true. Because we don’t get into heaven based on our own righteousness. The Scribes and the Pharisees were not bad people. They studied the Scriptures. They were model citizens. They were the kind of people you would trust to leave your kids with. When Jesus makes this statement, he wasn’t saying this about a group of sinners. He was saying it about the most righteous people anyone could think of.

You think you are a good person? It won’t get you to heaven. Don’t trust in being a good person. You won’t ever be better than the scribes and Pharisees on your own. What Jesus does through the next several passages is he shows how good people have all broken the law. You think you have kept the commandment not to commit adultery. Do you lust in your heart? You think you have kept the commandment not to murder. Have you called your brother a fool? Jesus shows us in these texts that it is impossible to keep the law perfectly. We need something else to go to heaven. We need Jesus’ righteousness.

When you trust in Christ for forgiveness of sins, he gives you his righteousness. He not only wipes away all your sins so that you have a clean slate, but he then counts his righteousness to you. So how can you go to heaven? How can you have a righteousness that is better than the scribes and Pharisees? Not by keeping the law yourself. You won’t get very far that way. The only way to have a righteousness that is good enough for the Kingdom is to trust in Christ and He counts his righteousness to you.