Matthew 5:21-37 -Greatest Sermon

Matthew 5:21-37-

Good morning One River,

Since the beginning of this year we’ve been working our way through the Gospel of Matthew. We’ve jumped over the Genealogies and into the text starting with Jesus’ birth, then following on into his baptism for John the Baptist and then into his temptation for 40 days in the dessert. We saw him assemble his disciples, or at least some of them. And now we’re starting to work our way through his first great message.

You’ve probably heard me say that each of the Gospels is designed in a way that tells a particular story or shares a message in a particular way to a specific people group. I’m curious, are you starting to see a pattern emerge here? Can you see what Matthew is doing?

The ancient prophecies have foretold of one greater than Moses who will come. Matthew is showing us that Jesus is that one.

Moses leads his people out of Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea. Jesus is baptized by John coming up out of the water and receives a direct acknowledgement and blessing by God. Moses leads the people through the dessert for 40 years. Jesus is tempted by Satan in the dessert for 40 days.

Here, Jesus’ message begins with the beatitudes. Blessings for the common person. It’s a form of building or rebuilding the body of the people of God. He’s here to reinstitute the Kingdom of God on earth in the way it was always supposed to be. Last week we had a bit of a group message on “Salt & light”. Jesus is telling the everyday people. You have value. The kingdom of God is not reserved for people at the top of the cultural pyramid. God wants everyone in his eternal garden.

Jesus then tells us he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He then immediately mirrors the institution of the Decalogue. He walks us through several of the Ten Commandments. But Jesus adds enhancements, specificities.

I know we did a bit of a deep dive into this last year, but now I’m going to read through this section and I want to look at the overall message Jesus is trying to convey here.

Matthew 5:21–37 (NIV)

Murder

5:25,26pp—Lk 12:58,59

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

25 “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

Adultery

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Divorce

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Oaths

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Last year when we looked at this, we saw how the Jewish leadership of the day had taken these laws and perverted them in many ways so that they could still commit the sin but maintain the appearance of righteousness in society. Jesus walks us through these thoughts. Don’t murder, not only don’t murder, but don’t be angry. Don’t commit adultery, not only don’t commit adultery, but don’t even look at another person lustfully. Don’t divorce, not only don’t divorce but don’t leave your spouse in a position where they’re left with no choice but to sin. And don’t swear oaths, let your very words always ring true so that no one needs to guess as to your honesty.

Now, I think we can get hung up in this section because Jesus uses the word “hell” a few times here. At the risk of getting myself in trouble again, I want to go over a few things.

There are actually a few different Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic words used that all get translated “Hell” in English. It’s also important to remember that “Hell” is not an English word, its Latin and so with that it carries all the baggage that we read about in the Greco-Roman mythology.

The word Hell in this particular instance is the word Gehenna and Gehenna was a real world corporal place. It was originally called the Valley of Hinnom in the OT. It was used to preform child sacrifice in 1 &2 Kings until the good King Josiah took it upon himself and with the blessing of the LORD to somehow defile this place so badly that sacrifice could not be preformed here anymore. Many of the OT prophets make comments about it. In fact, it was renamed the “accursed valley”. We don’t know exactly what Josiah did to it, but the land was never redeemed.

Never again did the people of Israel live in this place, or farm in this place. It was basically just an abandon wasteland. During the Hasmonean Dynasty in the midst of the Maccabean revolt, if you remember this was the revolution during the intertestamental period where the Maccabees killed all the Romans because the king sacrificed a pig on the Altar of the Holy of Holies, during that revolt all the bodies of the Romans were taken to this “accursed valley” and burned. This was seen in multiple ways as corpse desecration. The ground was cursed. Jews do not burn their dead they bury them. And this land was seen as separated from God.

This would have been the imagery that Jesus was familiar with and would have been using when he makes reference to “hell” in these passages. Not underground lakes of fire and eternal conscious suffering.

He’s saying if a piece of yourself is causing you to sin, cut it off and through it out into the accursed field, so that your entire body does not go with it. So that you do not end up cursed.

Make no mistake, this is still an extreme visual to the people standing on the hillside listening to this message. Jesus is calling for a radical separation from the status quo. He’s calling us to transform ourselves into a new creature. One that is worthy of the Kingdom of God. But again, this is metaphorical. Jesus is not calling for us to begin a life of self-mutilation to physically cleave off any appendage that may lead us into sin.

And the best proof we have of this is that the disciples and Christ followers of the day, make no record of cutting themselves to bits.Jesus is painting a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. The metaphor is extreme, but it’s juxtaposed with extreme love.

When we see Jesus talking about the judgement of the court, it’s a double meaning. It was not illegal in Jewish law to say “raca” to someone. It wasn’t very nice, but it wasn’t illegal. By the way, if you ever wondered if Jesus used profanity, here it is. Raca was considered profanity in Jesus’ day. So, on occasion, when the situation called for it, Jesus would drop an R bomb.

What would this all have meant to the people of the day? I can tell you what the most common Jewish interpretation was when they were reading or most likely hearing this message. They thought Jesus was simply doing the traditional fencing of the Torah.

I don’t know how familiar you all are with this. But this is the Jewish practice of making laws around “The Law”. They would make rules around the Torah, so that, in theory” they would never even get close to breaking a law. It makes sense in a weird kind of way.

Israel light switch story.

If I’m not even allowed to get mad, then I’ll never get close to the idea of Murder. If I can’t look at a woman, then I’ll never commit adultery. It’s a good idea in theory.

But guess what, Jesus was the master of the human condition. He knew that stuff never worked. This is one of the problems with our modern legal system. You cannot legislate good behavior. If it were possible, no one would ever break an earthly law, or God’s law. It’s not a question of will power. It’s a question of the heart.

Jesus was not advocating for adding fences around the law. He was advocating for a radical change of heart. In verse 22 when he talks about the fire of hell, he’s talking about the fire of anger and its self-consuming nature. This fire, this graveyard of the dead, is one that kills its owner. They very next verse Jesus tells us to reconcile with anyone we have conflict with. That’s not the traditional form of Torah law. That’s the transformation of the heart. That’s taking up a supernatural posture. It’s a complete paradigm shift. To go from a platform of legalities and rules, to one of love and grace.

What we see Jesus doing, not only here, but throughout scripture is tracing back to the origin of the law. Why is this thing on the books. But in that, Jesus goes after the heart of the matter. It’s not enough to simply not murder, or commit adultery, or swear and oath. Jesus wants the heart. This disposition sets against the backdrop of the Pharisees and Sadducees of the day, who felt righteous in their subjugation of others based on their abilities to nuance the law so as to technically meet the letter of the law, yet grossly distort the heart of it.

We see this most clearly in the section on Oaths. I mentioned last fall that the Pharisees and Sadducees have a variety of Oaths on the books. Some were none binding, and others were binding. This way they could “swear” to do a thing, or about a thing, yet weren’t responsible if it wasn’t true. Jesus says stop swearing, live a life of truth. Let everything you say be the truth and then no one will ever need you to swear by the temple or the gold or anything. Change your heart. Live in such a way that your honesty is never in question. That requires a heart change.

And again, this is something we’ve looked at before. Early Jewish scholars relished in their ability to interpret the law in various ways that were malleable and technically correct, while still being spiritually bankrupt.

Jesus wants your heart, your mind, your body and your spirit. He wants all of you. He’s not interested in your shrewd ability to technically be seen as a good person. He wants the broken person that wants his love. Not the one who’s convinced they don’t need it and can stand on their own two feet.

As we sit here today, I would ask, can you be that person? Are you broken enough to realize that you’re not good enough? Only God alone is good. When you accept Jesus, can he have all of you? Can Jesus be your plum line? Can you live in such a way that the radical nature of your faith shocks others into belief in Christ? I think we often quickly say yes, but then in our current comfortable lives that faith can slide. We should all live like Jesus is watching you.