03.17.08
Christ’s Authority to Interpret the Law - The Subjects (Matt 5:3-16; Luke 6:20-26)
Christ’s Authority to Interpret the Law - The Subjects (Matt 5:3-16; Luke 6:20-26)
In this sermon, Christ described the characteristics of a righteous man (Matt. 5:3-16). Then He repudiates the Pharisaic interpretation of the law (Matt. 5:17-48). Then He correctly interprets the Mosiac law and shows what God demands. Later (Matt. 6:1 – 7:6) He rejects the Pharisaic practices of the law and shows that they actually violate the demands of the law. Lastly (Matt. 7:7-29) He instructs those who desired to enter the kingdom. Perhaps it is best to conclude that the Sermon on the Mount was God’s exposition of the holiness of God.
So, to set some ground rules, beliefs that I have on this which you may or may not adherer to, here’s where I stand on this particular passage of God’s Word. And, just FYI, this more than likely applies to the rest of the Word as well.
I don’t see this as a disjointed set of thoughts that Jesus just threw together, a shotgun approach to how to be blessed or happy. I also don’t see this as an end all be all listing of what to do to guarantee success in the Christian walk. What I DO see is a set of harmonious items in perfect unity that have a definitive start and a certain end. It’s the first ‘sermon’ – if you will – to
Their Character
John had preached and demanded that people produce fruit in keeping with repentance. He wanted evidence of a new life as proof of their faith. Now, we see the beginning of Christ’s teaching, commonly known as the Beatitudes. These will describe the basis for blessing in ones life, but if you note they also describe the characteristics of righteousness of a person as well. Blessed can be translated Happy as well. Of note – when the Lord spoke of happiness (blessedness) here, He related it to holiness. Happiness and holiness are inseparably united in His kingdom!
1 – poor in spirit. Looking up the word ‘poor’ in the Greek we find
NT:4434 ptochos (pto-khos’); from ptosso (to crouch; akin to NT:4422 and the alternate of NT:4098); a beggar (as cringing), i.e. pauper (strictly denoting absolute or public mendicancy, although also used in a qualified or relative sense; whereas NT:3993 properly means only straitened circumstances in private), literally (often as noun) or figuratively (distressed):
KJV - beggar (-ly), poor.
(Biblesoft’s New Exhaustive Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
What does that mean for us? We have no merit or righteousness of our own to stand on before God. I can offer nothing of myself to earn entrance into His kingdom. I’m utterly dependent upon God.
Here, the Lord is contrasting true righteousness and the righteousness taught by the Pharisees and learned from their traditions. That Pharisaic righteousness made them exceedingly proud and it was often offered to God as evidence that they were OK. Christ said the person that showed the righteousness He taught would be accepted into His kingdom.
2 – those who mourn. This is often expressed in Scripture (i.e., Ps. 51 or Dan. 9:3-5) as confession of sin. Poor in spirit recognized nothing good in them, mourning acknowledged the lack of righteousness to God and confession of their sin to the One that they had sinned against.
Contrast again to the Pharisees. They persuaded those that believe that they were righteous and had no sin that they needed to acknowledge. That is the opposite of what Christ is teaching here, so those that mourn are promised Christ’s comfort (forgiveness of sin based not on their own works, but the work He had done because they confessed/acknowledged the sin and asked for forgiveness).
3 – those who are meek. Again, we can review a couple of men who were characterized as meek in Scripture (Moses – Num. 12:3; Paul – 2 Cor. 10:1) and see that God used these men mightily to proclaim His message.
What is meekness? Being a doormat for others? Nah – it is NOT adopting a low view of oneself or discrediting the position, the authority, that God has given to the individual. Meekness recognizes the authority of God and submits itself to every expression of it. Meekness and obedience are kissing cousins – they go hand in hand. Meekness has the character of unquestioning submission.
Here, Christ is asking for obedience by submitting to His commands and will instead of our own, or any one else’s (like the Pharisees). Those that do will be welcome in His kingdom.
4 – they hunger and thirst for righteousness. We can see David, Moses and Paul among those that displayed this. According to 1 Peter 2:2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation every believer should look like this. Christ promised that these folks would be satisfied.
The Pharisees didn’t want true righteousness, they were already satisfied with their experience so they never sought after anything more.
5 – those who are merciful. Mercy is something that belongs to God and is His response to the needs of the object of His affection (like us, His children). Looking at us, the human race, we are deep seated in our selfishness, so mercy is not natural to us. But mercy is God’s nature. If we have true righteousness then one of the products of this is love a nd concern for the needs of others – mercy.
The Pharisees didn’t think they had some overarching responsibility to the poor, the sick, the shut ins, the lonely – to them this was just a sign of God’s displeasure of what these folks had done in some form or fashion. To them, if you were under some form of Divine punishment, they had no responsibility to intervene. Jesus taught that righteousness would naturally produce a loving response to meet the needs of others.
6 – those pure in heart. Here’s the answer many had been seeking, and the things that came before led to the crescendo of this response. In order to get into the kingdom Christ was speaking of, you needed to be pure in heart. The rub is purity is not measured by the practices of people, instead it is measured by the character of God Himself.
The Pharisees measured purity by the standard of conformity to their traditions. That’s a human standard, not God’s standard. Christ demands conformity to the holiness of God as a basis of entrance into His kingdom.
7 – those who are peacemakers. These are folks who are already at peace with God. They are not in conflict with God because they have harmony with God. Sounds kinda new-agish as a stand-alone verse. But if you see that these Beatitudes are building on each other and are not meant to be stand-alone sermonettes for the christionettes, there is no way to get there without visiting the first 6 characteristics. These people have made peace with God and then become the messengers that proclaim His word and are called His kids – they are now incapable of doing anything less because they are wholly giving themselves in faith. Of note here is that actually proclaiming the Word of God doesn’t make them children of God. Proclamation can be a demonstration of the fact that they have that status, but without what came previously you can’t take this as a stand-alone verse to prove your point (unless you want to say Satan, who quoted scripture, proclaimed it as it were, in the desert to Christ was one of God’s kids by doing that).
The Pharisees taught that one was a son by the virtue of being a descendant from Abraham. Christ declared that one became a child of God by faith in His word.
8 – those willing to accept persecution because of their righteousness. Christ knew the Pharisees were out to get Him. And those listening needed to know that if they identified with Him the religious authorities would be after them in the same way. Here is the ending you and I may not have expected, we may not have bargained for, and we may not want. We’re ‘what’s in it for me’ by nature, and God says you have the kingdom and all those rewards to look forward to. But that is promised later. What is promised now is – perhaps – not what we bargained for. Blessing and cursing coming together. Good and bad often running on parallel tracks. Jesus laid it all out right here.
So we see in the Beatitudes that Jesus gives the characteristics of true righteousness. He promises blessing for those that show these characteristics. He guarantees entrance into the kingdom for those with them. In sum, the righteousness He demanded was very different from that the Pharisees were offering. Entrance to the kingdom was not based on the Pharisee form of righteousness because it produced none of the characteristics that Christ required. Instead, it was the righteousness being offered by Christ that would make them acceptable in His kingdom.
What a contrast between the righteousness that Christ demanded and what the Pharisees required.
|
Jesus demanded… |
Pharisees required… |
|
People recognize their need |
Saw no need |
|
Repentance |
No need to repent |
|
Submission to God’s authority |
Refused to submit to the One who demonstrated the authority of God |
|
Demonstration of mercy |
Withheld mercy from those that needed it |
|
Purity of heart |
Only adherence to the externals of their religion |
|
People to be peacemakers |
Stirring up of discord and strife |
|
People to accept persecution for His sake |
People to be persecutors |
What was their influence? Look at Matt. 5:13-16. If people accepted the word of Jesus, and they became like Him as His disciples, we see 2 illustrations for them.
- Salt – today it is used as a preservative. During the time of Christ, we don’t see it used that way often if at all. The function of salt was to create a thirst so that the body might retain the proper amount of fluid to maintain its health. It created a thirst that – when satisfied – would maintain life. If it didn’t do this…it was worthless. If we don’t maintain our testimony so that others see (and hear) about the One that satisfies us (so we can maintain our lives), what good are we to the Lord in this unbelieving world?
- Light – it attracts to itself and also reveals or exposes what is within its sphere of influence. You can’t really hide light, because it can penetrate the deepest darkness. Don’t believe me? Look below (taken from http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980329a.html)
The Question
(Submitted March 29, 1998)
It’s probably a really easy question (its just for curiosity’s sake), but how far away, in light years, is the furthest star visible from the earth? (by any means possible). The name of this star is not important. Do you think there are stars in the outer regions of the universe that we can not see? What are your theories why this is so?
The Answer
The intrinsically brightest star [a supernova] is thought to be about a million times brighter than our own Sun. In astronomy, the brightness of stars is expressed in “magnitudes”. This is a logarithmic scale, that works as follows. Our Sun has an intrinsic or absolute magnitude of about 5. This is the apparent magnitude our Sun would have if it were 32.6 light years away. A star 100 times brighter would have a magnitude of 0; a star 10000 times brighter would have a magnitude of -5; a star 1000000 (i.e. a million) times brighter would have a magnitude of -10.
With the Hubble telescope, using an exposure time of several hours, one can see stars to about 30th magnitude. This is about 10 billion times fainter than our Sun, if it were 32.6 light years away. The brightness of any object falls off as the square of the distance from the observer, so the Hubble telescope could just see our Sun if it were 3.26 million light years away. If you were to replace our Sun with a star a million times brighter, it could be seen about a thousand times further away, i.e., about 3 billion light years.
In answer to your last question, since this estimate is only for the very brightest stars, and since the distance I obtained is still less than the size of the visible Universe (about 15 billion light years), there are surely many faint stars at great distances which we cannot see.
J.K. Cannizzo for Ask an Astrophysicist
Wow – not exactly sure where to go from there but to ask: What is a light-year and how long is 1 light-year? (taken from http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae502.cfm)
How Long Is A Light Year?
This is a great question! I especially like the way in which you asked it. The word “long” can be used to mean both distance between two points in space as well as two points in time. When you ask such a question in relation to a light year both meanings are important!
A light year is the distance between two points in space that it would take light to travel when the distance between the two points in time are one year. So, let’s see (pun!) what this would be.
Light travels at 186,000 miles every second! That is a huge number! If you were to write one number per second for eight hours a day without stopping to eat or to rest your hand it would take you six and a half days to get to number 186,000! And to think light travels that many miles in only one second! Another way to think about how large this number is, is to think about how many times you could go back and fourth across the
In one year there are 365 days of 24 hours. Each hour has 60 minutes and each minute is 60 seconds long. So, 60s/min x 60min/hr x 24hr/day x 365days equals 31,536,000s. This many seconds is an even larger number than the number of miles light goes in one second! It would take you three years to get to number 31,536,000 if you could write one number per second for eight hours per day. This many miles means you could go back and forth across the
So, we take these two very large numbers and multiply them together to see how many miles light can travel in one year. You can tell already that this is going to be huge! That number is 5,865,696,000,000. Working eight hours per day at a rate of one number per second it would take you two hundred thousand years to get to number 5,865,696,000,000! This gets you across the United States two billion times which at our average speed of 60 miles per hour, would take nine trillion years!
Now that you know what the distance is that light travels in one year you can also know the distance between objects in the universe. The closest star to us is about four light years away. This means that it is 23,462,784,000,000 miles away. How about this: the edge of the universe is about 15 billion light years away from us! Can you even imagine how many miles away that is?
******************
And to think…God wants you and I to shine – to be visible – at any and all distances. What a privilege to serve Him!
