When I was a young man studying in seminary, I can remember every year having to look through a rule book and running through a checklist:
Did my hair and face check the box?
Did my clothes check the box?
Did I have what was required for books and supplies?
Did I agree to the code of conduct?
Did I understand the expectations for the class schedule?
Did I pay all my fees?
Many of us see the Bible, and even church in this way. Have I checked all the boxes?
What we need to understand about God’s standard is that He expects us to check every single box knowing we will never be able to check all the boxes simultaneously in our own human effort. What are we to do? That is the question Jesus wants to answer. I want to tell you right up front, the Sermon on the Mount starts a conversation that discusses this question, but the question wasn’t fully answered and the conversation concluded until Jesus came out of the tomb on Resurrection Sunday.
Matthew 5:17–18 says,
“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."
Any time you see this phrase “Law and Prophets” in the New Testament, it is speaking by inference to the entire Old Testament. This is important because Jesus validated the importance of the Old Testament to us today. There are mega-church pastors trying to convince believers not to read the Old Testament because the language doesn’t seem relevant to our culture. Jesus said the opposite. He said the Old Testament is timelessly important. St. Augustine said it this way: “The New Testament is latent in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is patent in the New Testament.” In other words, “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
A Firm Foundation
Matthew 5:19–20 continues this discussion of the importance of the Law:
"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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
Whenever we read a list of imperative commands in Scripture, we must always look around that list to see the indicative truths that support it. We should always first notice what God has done for us in His love, secondly what God has asked us to do in response to what He has done, and finally what God will do for us when we fail to do what we He has asked us to do. The indicative unchanging truth of God’s character precedes imperative commandments, and then succeeds the imperative command as a show of God’s faithfulness.
My son-in-law is a home inspector. When we walk into a home together, we notice and look for very different things. I tend to look at how the house is decorated thematically, and arranged organizationally. I look at the layout and choice of appliances. My son-in-law is looking for flaws in the structure and foundation. He is noticing signs that corners were cut and damage is slowly occurring that will have long-term affects on the safety and longevity of the structure. In reality, who cares how the house looks if it is going to fall down in a few years? We cannot approach our righteousness as a bunch of decorations to our life. We must see what they are hanging on. What is the structure?
Everything we are called to do and be as believers is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. Jesus actually both began and ended this section of His sermon with this concept! Here are the last few verses of His great sermon in Matthew 7:24–27:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
One of my favorite episodes of Grand Designs (my favorite television show) is about a family who stubbornly built a million-dollar home on the sandy cliffs of the Welsh coast, knowing it would only last their generation. They plainly said they weren’t going to be around to worry about the disaster that would happen later--that was for future generations to deal with. This is what they wanted now for their lives. There is so much to this idea! It isn’t just our own sanctification that will be short-lived if we build our lives on the sand of our own efforts; when all we give our kids is rules without Christ the rule-keeper, we build their understanding on a sandy foundation. Paul said something similar in Ephesians 2:19-22 when he wrote,
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."
Everything we are called to do and be as believers is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
The Fulfillment of the Law
Let’s go back to our study in the Sermon on the Mount now and break down these verses a little bit so we can ponder and process this truth into practice. As we read in verse 17, Jesus says that He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill it. DA Carson states this in his book on this sermon: “There are two repeated themes throughout the sermon on the mount. 1. The Kingdom of God. 2. The law and the prophets, in an effort to relate the Old Testament to the New Testament.”
It was never Jesus’ intention to get rid of the Old Testament law. His desire was to help the believer understand how the law is fulfilled, and the answer to how is simple and clear: through inner righteousness, not outer righteousness!
In the 34 chapters of Deuteronomy, the word heart is used 46 times! The last time it is used is in chapter 32 verse 46 where Moses states: Deuteronomy 32:46 says,
“Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law.”
Again, this truth doesn’t just stop with us and how we approach our law-keeping! Even the Old Testament instructs us to be more concerned with our families' heart condition than external behaviors and rules!
To obey God from the heart means I must first have a heart relationship with Jesus, because Jesus fulfilled the law foundationally for us. Jesus kept the law so completely that He states the smallest letters and punctuation marks in the Hebrew language of the law will be fulfilled. In other words, Jesus fulfilled the entirety of the law for us. The reason Jesus had to fulfill the entire law is because God does not and will not lower the standard of the law for us just because we fail at keeping it. God is sovereignly consistent and unchanging. We call this the Doctrine of Immutability. We live in a world that constantly lowers the standards of truth and behavior to validate people's feelings in their inability to do right. God does not and will not change His standards.
So what are we to do when God’s standards are un-accomplishable? Rest in the grace and mercy of the cross! John’s Gospel states it this way in chapter 1 verses 14–18:
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth….For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known."
The law was a grace in that it revealed our broken condition. Jesus was a greater grace in that His perfect condition as a law-keeper was offered to us as our condition!
An Easy Yoke
Jesus is actually making an important statement against the Pharisees in this sermon. He wants to create a juxtaposition between His (God’s) view of righteous law-keeping and their view of righteous law-keeping. You could say it this way: “I know what you have been told, but here is the real truth”. The real truth is that Jesus loved the law because it was from God, given as a grace to humanity. He makes this truth clear in His next statement in His sermon. In verses 19-20, He addresses those who relax the law and says that they will be "least" in the kingdom of heaven.
It isn’t only liberals who try to relax laws; it is also legalists! In fact, Jesus is making clear in this statement that legalism by definition is approaching the law as an actuary. Legalists and liberals approach the law the same way: externally. The Pharisees were constantly interpreting the law through their own “yoke” or burden. In Matthew 11 Jesus said “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”. He said this not because He didn’t care about the law, but because He was the only hope of keeping the law. Christ has already done the heavy lifting!
Out of 613 commands, 365 of those commands were negative, or “Thou shalt not” commands. 248 were positive or “Thou shalt” commands. From these commands, the Pharisees and Sadducees would work to determine which laws must be absolutely upheld and which could be relaxed or slightly re-interpreted to make them easier to manage and fulfill. Some rabbis had a very rigid and uncompromising interpretation so much so that they added to the laws a heavier weight of burden, and others were willing to relax the weight of burden in small ways. But all of these rabbis were focused solely on the exterior condition of the religious, not what was going on inside! DA Carson points out in his book that “‘You have heard it said’ is very different from ‘it says’”. Jesus is going to start off addressing every command in the rest of this chapter with “you have heard it said”.
In Matthew 23, Jesus stated that the Pharisees were absolutely blind to true law-keeping because all they did was clean the outside of the cup and dish while the inside was still dirty! I have noticed that every single generation comes up with a new “yoke” of burden. I have seen this recently even in reformed circles, even though believers who call themselves reformed are very proud to say they are not fundamentalists. Yet, I am reading and seeing an increased pressure from reformed believers to focus on external standards of dress and music and church polity in the name of keeping a high standard. When we start talking about these standards more than Jesus’ imputed righteousness we have reverted back once again to another yoke of legalism, and it happens so subtly.
It isn't just liberals who relax laws; it is also legalists!
A Matter of the Heart
The entire sermon on the mount follows one theme: the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. Your salvation is a heart matter. You can be lost for all eternity in the simple distance from your mind to your heart. Romans 10:10 says it this way:
"For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
In Matthew 23, Jesus called the Pharisees white-washed tombs for a reason. They looked perfect on the outside, and were absolutely dead on the inside.
Your sanctification is a heart matter. You can be completely misguided in your spiritual health if your obedience is only skin deep because righteousness flows outward, not inward. Jesus made the following statements to the Pharisees in their efforts of external law keeping and law preaching:
Matthew 12:34 states "You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
Matthew 15:10-11 states "And he called the people to him and said to them, 'Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this difiles a person.'"
True law-keeping, or obedience to God, flows from a heart desire that is built upon the knowledge of what Jesus has already accomplished for us. It is a response to Christ's work.
Paul summed it all up better than I can, so I'll defer to his words in Romans 8:1-11:
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."
References
Carson, D. A. (2018). Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount And His Confrontation With The World: A Study Of Matthew 5-10. Baker Books.