The Righteousness to Enter Heaven

Matthew 5:17-20

a. Jesus came to fulfill the Law (5:17-18)

b. Jesus explains the Law (5:19-20)

1. INTRODUCTION

a. Jesus is explaining the fundamental purpose of the Law. What is happening contextually here is critically important. I didn’t mention this last week because I wanted to save it for this week. I wanted to emphasize a certain point about the Law and what Jesus was saying about being salt and light.

b. What is the emphasis? What separates Christians and unbelievers? It’s persecution. What do I mean by this? What Jesus is teaching here seems to be that the world will know you are my disciples when you are persecuted. How will the world know? You are salt and light when others see you while you are persecuted. The Christian doesn’t fight back and retaliate when persecuted. That’s how the Christian is defined in their saltiness and understand how the divine light is shined through their lives.

c. Jesus is making it clear that Christians should be different in the midst of persecution. Hence Jesus explains in verses 11-12 rejoice and be glad when you are being persecuted. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. When you are persecuted, don’t respond the way the world would respond. Rather, if you truly are a follower of Jesus, respond in the way that I have called you to respond.

d. That is what we want to discuss today. Jesus explains through today’s passage how the Christian is to live according to the Law. So much of the teaching today about grace is that we don’t need the Law. The Law is Old and Jesus cancels the Law.

e. It’s the idea that the God in the Old Testament seems to be a different God in the New Testament. The God in the Old Testament was scary and He was strict. The God in the Old Testament gave no grace and if you did something wrong, you were condemned to Hell and there is no forgiveness.

f. But on the other hand, the New Testament teaches forgiveness and even if you don’t keep the Law, Jesus forgives you and loves you. It almost teaches this idea that you don’t need to adhere to any way and any lawless life can get into the Heaven no matter how messy your life is. Why? Because as Romans 5:20 says, where sin abided, grace abided all the more. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how sinful you are living today, you can get into Heaven because of the work of Christ.

g. Many have painted this view of the Gospel in this way. Now there is truth in the statement that Jesus can forgive all sin and the grossest sins we have committed and might even be committing today. The Gospel makes it clear that we are sinners and even when we are saved, we still sadly sin. Again, the position of the Gospel is not to make us perfect. The reality is, it has already made us perfect in Christ. Our position is not based on how we do or what we do, but rather what Christ has done. And because of this finished work, we live in gratitude to Him and try to live in a way that honors Him. We try to live in a way that gives Him the praise and live in such a way that He receives all the glory, all the credit for our lives. We live in a way that when others see our lives, they would say that God has done a good job parenting us, that our lives reflect His teaching, and that we live in such a way that is congruent with His teaching.

2. BODY

a. Jesus came to fulfill the Law (5:17-18)

i. With that said, Jesus starts in verse 17-18 to tell us His purpose for His coming. How does Jesus fulfill the Law? What does it mean when we say that Jesus fulfills the Law? After studying this section, I realize that the fulfilling of the Law is not simply an external godly life. When we take it into context of what Jesus has been preaching so far, it is not simply to live externally as Jesus has been teaching in Matthew 5:3-12. Jesus is not teaching that if you live this way, then you are righteous. Jesus is making it clear again that His fulfilling of the Law is not merely external but internal.

ii. There is no way outwardly to rejoice in persecution unless one person understands that their position is completed. When we understand that a greater reality has been accomplished, then we are willing to incur loss, even our own lives.

iii. Remember, what Jesus is teaching here is that the Christian should deal with persecution differently than the world. How? When we understand who Jesus is and what He has done, then we will live in the way He has called us to live. We no longer deal with persecution in the way we want, we no longer retaliate and get even but rather, we seek to please Christ.

iv. So going back to verse 17-18, what is Jesus speaking of? What does it mean that Jesus came to fulfill the Law? The word here means Jesus fulfills the Law, meaning He establishes it or makes valid, even to bring into effect. Thus what Jesus is saying here is that He didn’t come to invalidate the Law, but to deepen the Law. He came to give a deeper understanding of the Law so that we would understand it in a clearer way.

v. So what is He fulfilling? Jesus is fulfilling His teaching with the Law here referring to the Torah, the Law of Moses. But not even just the Law of Moses, but to the Prophets. Jesus is connecting His ministry with the Law and the ministry of the Prophets. Through this statement, Jesus is single handedly connecting the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus is making a central point, that our righteousness is not defined by an external righteousness, but an internal righteousness. But with this internal righteousness, this will lead to an external righteousness.

vi. So here Jesus is explaining that the Torah is fulfilled when Jesus explains God’s original intention, brings out its perfect meaning and expands its demands. Jesus is simply saying that the Old Testament Law is lacking because it should go deeper than just external realities. Our lives should not be marked just by an external reality, but goes deeper to an internal reality.

vii. Also, not only this, but Jesus fulfils the Law through His coming, that He enables others to meet the Torah’s demands. How does the believer meet the demands of the Law? Through love. Love is the fulfilling of the Law. What do I mean by this? When we love the Lord, we are willing to follow the Law.

viii. What does this mean? When we love our parents, we want to listen to what they are telling us. We want to live according to the rules that they have set for us. It is not simply done because we don’t want to get into trouble, but rather, we do this because we want to please them. We listen because we want to show them that we respect them and we love them. This is the righteousness that was brought about in a new righteousness. Jesus was not teaching simply that we should do certain things to check them off our list. But rather, why do we do these things? Do we simply live a “righteous” life because we want others to look at us that way? Or because we want to feel better about ourselves? Who are we living for? Who is the master of our lives? This is the heart of the question. Are we living for our own glory or for the glory of God?

ix. This statement by Jesus is astounding because Jesus is saying that the demands of the Law are not complete in the sense of, an internal reality. How are the demands of the Law not complete? By Jesus’s next statement. He says I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. Jesus makes it clear that He did not come to take down the Law, but to establish it, to deepen the Law.

x. A beautiful and powerful statement here is Jesus says I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. He came to fulfill it with Himself. The Law is not simply about the Law, but it’s about Jesus. But Jesus goes further, that doesn’t mean that the Law is not important. The Law is important because it helps us to understand the original intent of God. That does not mean that God’s intention was unfulfilled, but rather, it is completed through the work of Christ. Through Christ, the Law is completely revealed fully. Through Christ, the original intent and actual reality of the Law is fulfilled.

xi. This is why in verse 18, Jesus states by saying amen, amen I say to you. Jesus makes this statement by stating how important His next phrase is. He says that the smallest letter or stroke shall not from the Law until all is accomplished. Heaven and Earth will pass away, but the one thing that will stand the test of time will be the Law and what Christ has said. (Isaiah 40:8).

xii. Jesus is explaining here that even the Heavens and earth will pass away, but the only thing that will stand is the eternality of God’s Law. Jesus speaks of the eternality of God’s Word and how it is greater than anything else in this world.

b. Jesus explains the Law (5:19-20)

i. Jesus continues in verse 19 by speaking of the Law that all of the Law must be practiced and taught in its entirety. One of the implications of this verse is the reality that there are those who taught that due to love for the Lord, it’s not primarily about keeping the Law, but rather love is the fulfillment of the Law.

ii. We do agree that love is the fulfillment of the Law, but as Jesus teaches here, this does not undermine the authority of the Law. Many people think that Jesus came to discredit or nullify the Law which is why we have such teaching as if the God of the Old Testament is different than the New, but the exact opposite is true. The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament and the Law must be kept.

iii. What we can see from verse 19 is the reality that there must have been people who taught that the Law is not important at all because of grace. When Jesus says that the least of these commandments, it refers to the jot and tittle of verse 18 because they are as permanent as heaven and earth, nobody has the right to put them aside.

iv. It seems like from verse 19, that there were those who taught that every detail of the Old Testament is not significant. It seems like Jesus was looking at a certain group of people who were teaching that they had to keep the Law and it wasn’t about the heart at all. It seems like there were some who taught that you had to keep the Law regardless. Which is why Jesus follows up by saying that whoever keeps and teaches the Law, they shall be called great because they understood both the heart of the Law and the Law itself. It is not enough to just know the Law and keep the Law. We have to know why we are keeping the Law.

v. What Jesus is making clear here is that every aspect, every word in the Law of God is important and must be kept. Many teach that love has replaced the Law but that doesn’t seem to be what Jesus is talking about here. Jesus is telling His listeners and to us that every aspect of the Law is equally important and the keeping of the Law is equally important. The question here is not what we should keep and what we should throw away. Everything in God’s Law is important and everything must be taken seriously. Nothing should be taken lightly. The question is not what we can keep and what we can take out. But rather, the focus is, how are we thinking about these things? Do we take the Law of God with weight?

vi. Jesus was making it clear that the righteousness in the Law before the coming of Christ was just as important as the new righteousness, love for the Law that Jesus was teaching here. Jesus was connecting those two points together. Jesus is making it clear that the new righteousness in Christ, love for Christ is not more important than the righteousness of the Law itself. Jesus was not teaching what was more important, but that, they were both important. Love for the Lord leads to a healthy understanding of keeping the Law.

vii. This is why verse 20 is important. Jesus says that your righteousness, notice He writes righteousness, the amount of righteousness you have done. Unless your righteousness passes that of the scribes, you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven.

viii. This is an indictment towards those who tried to earn their salvation. Some people taught in verse 19 that it’s not about the details of the Law, that you must keep the Law regardless, these people taught you must keep the Law perfectly. And there were some who externally might have kept that Law where people would observe them and think that this person was perfect. But, what Jesus is saying is, unless your righteousness passes those who have the greatest outward righteousness, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

ix. Jesus makes it clear here that you had to be perfect to enter the kingdom of Heaven. But this leads to an internal insecurity. Nobody actually believes that they themselves are perfect. So if we know this internally, what Jesus is doing here is causing doubt in the hearts of people who think they can earn their salvation. He’s telling these people that if you think you’re perfect, you’re works have to be more righteous than the most righteous people on the planet.

x. The scribes and Pharisees are not evil people in the minds of their listeners. The scribes and Pharisees were respected people and a group of people that were considered righteous. It’s the pastors and priests in today’s world. We think our pastors and priests are more righteous because they know the Bible more than me and we think they are saved because they love God more than me. So when Jesus writes that your righteousness must exceed theirs to go to Heaven, He’s saying that you must be more righteous then them.

xi. When people heard this, they must have thought well then there’s no way that I can get into Heaven. I don’t know enough of the Bible as these people. I don’t know the Law more than these people. How could a simple person like me get to Heaven?

xii. This is how we might think, but this verse tells us the negative as well. It is telling us that there is no righteousness apart from Christ’s righteousness that can get us into the Kingdom of Heaven. It isn’t simply what we do or how we do it. It is based upon God’s finished work on the cross and our love for Him. The focus of the Law is not on the Law, but on Him. This is why Jesus’s statement in verse 17, I did not come to abolish but to fulfill is huge. Because Jesus’s focus is not on the Law itself, but on Him. We must look to Christ, not the Law.

xiii. The righteousness that comes from the Law is insufficient for salvation in comparison to the righteousness that comes from Christ. May we all look to the righteousness that is found in Christ and Christ alone.

3. CONCLUSION