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Grace Yields a Higher Standard Than Pharisees
The following recent articles and in this chronological order relate to this post. One Two Three Four Five
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The Pharisees
“The Pharisees” are those historical and biblical characters with whom Jesus interacted in the Gospels. Pharisees are those taking up the mantel of “the Pharisees” since then. The Pharisees inundated the Israel into which Jesus came.
I like to say, “The inside of a barrel looks like the barrel.” If you live inside the barrel, your whole world looks like the barrel. The Pharisees so saturated the thinking of Israel during the life of Jesus that Israel looked like the Pharisees. The world of the audience to whom Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount also looked like or literally was the Pharisees.
The most common viewpoint of the Pharisees is that they added a whole bunch of strict standards to the preexisting rules of scripture. This popular notion says the Pharisees multiplied an immense number of added regulations that burdened down the Israelite people. This idea leaves the impression that Jesus came to relieve people of standards. He came to save them from the imposition of written rules. This is a deadly lie about Jesus and what He did and taught that generation.
Jesus and Matthew 5
I return to Matthew 5 to see what Jesus said at the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount. He said in verse 17:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
The Pharisees and thus the people of that audience suspected Jesus would destroy the law or the prophets. He debunked that speculation and added, “I am come to fulfill the law or the prophets.” “The law or the prophets” in 5:17 is all of the Old Testament scripture.
“To fulfill” the Old Testament at least was keeping the Old Testament, but further transcending it. Jesus’ standard was not the minimized, reduced standard of the Pharisees. It went above theirs; it transcended theirs. His righteousness exceeded theirs. In no way, as He says in verse 19, was He teaching people not to keep everything in the Old Testament. No, just the opposite. Then Jesus illustrates that in six different sections between 5:21 and 5:48.
The purpose of Jesus was showing the sinfulness of the Pharisees and the audience they spawned. Their viewpoint was not God’s. They did not represent God. This would take someone back to the first thing He said in the sermon in verse 3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” His audience needed to understand their spiritual poverty to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Saving Grace
Saving grace as an outcome of conversion, which proceeds from God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, does not lower the standard for righteousness of the Pharisees. It exceeds it. As a first illustration, Jesus uses one of the ten commandments, “Thou shalt not kill,” in verse 21. Pharisaical thinking justified itself by saying it had not physically killed anyone. That still occurs today. People still think they’re fine because of something they haven’t done. This indicates they lack spiritual poverty.
Using four different examples in verse 21 to verse 26, Jesus shows that His or God’s standard exceeds or transcends the letter of scripture. It is more than just physically killing someone. They’ve murdered someone in their hearts if they even showed contempt toward them. Jesus goes so far to say that they’ve murdered the person with whom they would not initiate reconciliation. Not reconciling is showing contempt. God would not accept their worship as long as they would not try to reconcile.
The Pharisees were not about strict standards. They were about diminishing God’s standards with their own, designed to be more easily kept. They tried to keep these on their own without the grace of God. Jesus was not following their example or trajectory. He taught a different way than theirs.
Evangelicals and Jesus and the Pharisees and Grace
Most evangelicals today take an opposite message from Jesus than the one He told in His sermon. They teach that Jesus came to relieve the people of standards. I use the word “standards,” but you could use laws, regulations, or the like. Jesus kept everything and in verse 19, He said that the greatest in His kingdom would teach others to do the same.
Jesus went further with adultery too. It wasn’t just the physical act, but looking at a woman to lust after her in your heart (verse 28). Jesus is explaining what He meant by fulfilling the law or the prophets. Keeping the standards was never the means of salvation. Yes, the addition of works was a burden on the people reckoned by the Pharisees. People could not escape whatever shortcomings they had with the Pharisee approach.
If salvation came by keeping the rules, no one could do that. This is why the Pharisees minimized or reduced the law or the prophets. They tried to concoct a way of salvation through works. The Pharisees developed their own handbook of sorts to accompany scripture to explain the procedures for keeping scripture. This was not internalizing what God said out of love and obeying it from the heart. Again, this is the burden they created.
The Pharisees made doing suitable good works impossible. This was an exhausting, never ceasing burden. Their system complicated the obedience to actual scripture. It put them, the Pharisees, ahead of God, while claiming credit for God.
The Repercussions of Botching the Pharisees
People like the idea of not having to keep moral standards. This is a very popular view of grace today. This mirrors the Pharisees in that it minimizes or reduces scripture. Pharisees did it to make a way for salvation by works. Evangelicals do it in a way to change the nature of the grace of God. I say that they treat grace as a garbage can, when scripture treats it as a cleansing agent. Grace instead enables the keeping of the standards, rules, or laws of scripture. Unlike the perversion of grace, grace saves from the violations of the law and the salvation changes the life.
You probably notice that churches have gone downhill. They have changed in nature. Part of it is this very interpretation of the Pharisees. Evangelicals use the Pharisees as a reason to reduce standards. They don’t get rid of all of them, which should send up a red flag. If the Pharisees were all about having standards, then why don’t we eliminate all of them? Quite commonly evangelical keep the ones still convenient, very much like the Pharisees did. With this system, you still get credit for doing good works without obedience to everything that God said.
Scripture shows God wants everything He said kept. It’s not grace not to keep what God said. That’s an impostor grace. It claims grace, but it’s a placebo or a poser of grace. God does not accept not believing and not doing what He said, even in the so-called non-essentials. Man’s adaptations, innovations, and modifications do not please God. They are not of faith.
In scripture, God killed people for changing the recipe for the incense at the altar of incense. He killed tens of thousands when David numbered the people against His will. Grace tends toward keeping what God said, not squirming out of it. Grace yields a higher standard than the Pharisees, not a lesser one.
Surprisingly Harsh Words from Jesus to Dispense Now with Contempt
The Flesh
What the New Testament labels “the flesh” is just one nasty piece of human fallenness still possessed by every person living on earth. “The flesh” operates in both true believers and unbelievers. Unbelievers function only in the flesh. The old nature offers up no opposition, so sin dominates the life of an unbeliever.
On the other hand, God changes a believer. He gives him a new nature. God justifies the true believer and the Holy Spirit indwells him the moment of his justification by faith. Scripture describes many different ways the victorious new life of the believer through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
A born again believer must recognize the continued operation of the flesh in him. God persists at saving him by sanctifying him. A believer can still see though certain objective evidence the ongoing action of the flesh in himself.
Inferiority of Self Righteousness
Overestimation of Self Righteousness
Believers and unbelievers both overestimate their own righteousness. The Lord Jesus typified this in Matthew 5 with his six illustrations of the inferiority of self righteousness (verses 21-48). People overestimate the quality of never having killed anyone. A spotless clean lifetime slate for murder says very little about a person’s culpability for murder before God.
Jesus Unmasking Self-Righteousness
Until Jesus said what He did in Matthew 5:21-22, people maybe didn’t understand the severity of having and then showing contempt of and to others. Contempt for others is very common for anyone. Jesus says some surprisingly harsh words as to the true nature of contempt:
21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
There’s actually a lot to unpack in just these two verses. The “judgment” in verse 21 refers to a civil court. It isn’t the judgment of God. It’s the judgment of men like “them of old time.” This isn’t Moses. These are the men in the Talmud or Mishnah, their interpretations the tradition men followed. Their judgment of murder fell short of the glory of God.
Thou Shalt Not Kill and Murder
Physical Murder
Exodus 20, it’s true, in scripture, one of the ten commandments, says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Numbers 35:30-31 affirm the truth of the danger of judgment for murder. Those are both scriptural. However, the Talmud and Mishnah, the expressions of Pharisaical tradition do not account for the Divine judgment of murder itself. Jesus reveals that in three different ways in verse 22. For this post, I want to focus mainly on one of those three, the second, which says:
whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council
Raca is an untranslatable epithet, so is not translated. It is transliterated. The Greek and English word both are “Raca.” It’s essentially any expression of contempt toward another person, treating that person as worthless. It’s an easy way to objectify and marginalize someone. It casts someone instantly into a category, treating the person as less than human.
Contempt toward Others
Self-righteousness tends toward seeing self as better than others. The righteousness compares with other people, not God. No one stands up to the righteousness of God. However, he can see himself as righteous compared with other people. An indicator of his own worth or value is seeing others with contempt. Others do not rise to the standard, so are worthy of the put-down, like “Raca.”
Striking at the Image of God
In Genesis 9:5-6 after the Flood God mandates the death penalty for murder, what someone might call the Divine institution of human government. He says to Noah and the few people left alive on the earth:
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Notice that the reason for the death penalty there is that murder strikes at “the image of God” in man. I’ve read one person who called it “hanging God in effigy.” Murder makes a false judgment on another person, an ultimate act of contempt toward a person, treating him as without the image of God, a falsehood.
Assessment of Contempt
Before someone strikes at God’s image by murdering someone, he sees that man with contempt in his heart. He takes an idolatrous role of usurping God’s judgment on a man. God says, “he’s in my image.” You say, “False, I judge him not in the image of God.” This is contempt.
Murderous Contempt
Before anyone does the killing of murder, he murders in his heart with contempt of another human being. God says that person is in danger of indictment. He deserves the death penalty. When we move along in the verse, the ultimate for contemptuous judgment is the danger of hell fire. In other words, eternal damnation.
According to Jesus, God ranks contempt with murder. For almost everyone, this is surprisingly harsh. It says that we’re all guilty of murder and we all fall short of the glory of God.
Contemptible Contempt
Contempt and murder are works of the flesh. As characteristics or lifestyles, they exhibit the lost condition of someone. The Holy Spirit does not indwell this person.
The believer can still show contempt towards people. It’s become far too acceptable for those who call themselves truly saved. Our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees. God is not contemptuous toward His creation. He loves mankind.
When someone possesses imputed righteousness, he does not claim self righteousness. He does not see himself as better than others and so justify his contempt for other people. You can see this contempt in the New Testament for the beggar Lazarus and the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair. This contempt is not righteous at all. It is murder.
Right Applications of Matthew 5:17-20 and Wrong Ones (Part Three)
Jesus Is Scriptural
Everything that Jesus said in His sermon from Matthew 5:1 to 5:16 was a scriptural concept. Nothing Jesus taught contradicted God’s Word. Jesus is God. On the other hand, the religious leaders in Israel were “making the word of God of none effect through [their] tradition” (Mark 7:13). If anyone was destroying the belief and practice of the Old Testament, that is, the fulfilling of the Old Testament, it was them, not Jesus.
Believing and practicing the Old Testament was letting light shine before men. Jesus did that and He called upon kingdom citizens of His to do the same. Proof that He didn’t arrive to earth to destroy the scripture He inspired, Jesus promised perfect preservation of every letter of it.
If Jesus would preserve every letter of written scripture, surely He also expected His people to do all of it too. His teachers would also teach men to do everything scripture said. One could say at this point: in other words, you’ve got to be better than the Pharisees. The righteousness of the Pharisees is not saving righteousness. It is their own version of righteousness that comes from human effort. They couldn’t produce the righteousness that would get them into heaven. That righteousness comes from above.
Righteousness and Saving Faith
Righteousness, which is from above and by the grace of the Lord, exceeds the faux righteousness arising only from man’s works. It doesn’t rank scripture into majors and minors, because it can’t keep everything that He said. Like Jesus, it fulfills written scripture. James in his epistle later says the same. True believers are both hearers and doers of what God said.
Saving faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Someone is begotten by the Word of Truth. It would follow that He would also be a keeper of scripture, like Jesus said. That supernatural righteousness of God produces obedience to scripture. You can detect the unrighteous servant of unrighteousness by His diminishing of scripture.
Here is a professing teacher of God. Someone disobeys scripture. He doesn’t want to offend that person by saying something. He lets it go. This is not doing the least of the commandments and teaching men so.
Ranking Doctrines or the Triage Approach
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day ranked doctrines. Their unity revolved around a triage approach. Instead of following the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, they pervert into just the opposite of what He taught. Unity on the least commandments, what they call, non-essentials or minors. These teachings are not a “hill you want to die on.”
Left-Winged Legalism
Professing Christians especially today practice a left-winged legalism more often than the more commonly highlighted right-winged type. The left wing calls its legalism, “grace.” It is turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. Since you can’t keep everything scripture says on your own, reduce its teachings to what you can keep. This is left-winged legalism.
Those practicing left-winged legalism relish pointing out more consistent practice of scripture than theirs as legalism. They do it all the time. How you know they aren’t legalists in their estimation is by their inconsistent practice of scripture. People who try to follow everything like Jesus taught and teach others to do likewise, they aren’t the greatest in the kingdom to left-winged legalists. Instead, they’re “legalists.” Again, it’s in reality just the opposite.
As Jesus moves on in His illustrations in chapter five, you can see how much a truly righteous person strives to love God and His neighbor. It’s not the get-by-ism of the Pharisees and modern evangelicalism, so they can keep their crowds. They’ve dumbed down scripture so that it is unrecognizable as Christianity. This follows the same tack of the Pharisees. There is nothing new under the sun.
What Is the Righteousness of the Pharisees That Ours Is Supposed to Exceed According to Jesus?
In what’s called the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says in Matthew 5:20:
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
I’ve heard this explained in a number of different ways, often, I’ve found, in convenient ones to make room for false doctrine or practice. One error I’ve heard says something like the following and maybe you’ve said it. I’m going to indent it, so that you’ll know it’s representing what other people say it means:
The Pharisees were super righteous people. They were fastidious at keeping the law, since they were experts and were so, so into the law. They were very righteous people, just not perfect, which is what it had to be in order to be saved.
Furthermore, there are versions of Pharisees today. They try to keep all the laws and are very strict. This strictness is Pharisaical, and it produces people who are self-righteous and are trying to impress people with their righteousness by being stricter than others.
This representation of the “righteousness of the Pharisees” doesn’t fit the context in the sermon of Jesus. Jesus wasn’t talking about how greatly righteous the Pharisees were, but how poor their righteousness was. That is seen in the preceding and the proceeding context of Jesus’ sermon. I contend that evangelicals use this false interpretation of the sermon to attack both keeping the law and strict keeping of the law.
A misrepresentation of Jesus, that He wishes to disabuse His audience, was that He, as a teacher, was trying to destroy the law. He says in verse 17:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
You could hear, “Just the opposite.” What Jesus came to preach didn’t result in people not being righteous. They couldn’t and wouldn’t be righteous the Pharisee way. The Pharisees were the ones diminishing the law, not Jesus, and Jesus illustrates that in the post context of verses 21 to 48. The standard remained God and not the Pharisees, as Jesus ends the chapter in verse 48.
As Jesus described His position on not destroying the law, He talked about the perpetuity of every jot and tittle (verse 18) and that the greatest in His kingdom kept the least of His commandments (verse 19). The salvation that Jesus taught would produce righteous people. They could and would keep the law — more than that.
Jesus first illustrates His position by giving several examples of the application of “Thou shalt not kill.” His audience had been taught that a particular law or standard of righteousness and if they were at the Pharisee level, they wouldn’t still be keeping the law like Jesus taught that it should be kept. Because of that, they weren’t being righteous.
If Jesus’ audience hated people in their heart, they were guilty of murder before God. If they said certain hateful things, they were committing murder. If they wouldn’t reconcile with someone, they were as much murderers likewise.
Pharisaical righteousness was designed around something less than law keeping. They didn’t really keep the Sabbath, didn’t really not murder, and didn’t really not commit adultery. They didn’t really love God or their neighbor.
The Pharisees concocted means of appearing to keep the law or just keeping their own minimization of the law, what we might call today a deconstruction of the law. With the Pharisees, you could keep the law without actually keeping it. Jesus pointed this out again and again.
You don’t have the righteousness of God when you have that of the Pharisees. You weren’t keeping the law, when you were a Pharisee.
There is an irony to the false interpretation. It is Pharisaical. It purposefully diminishes the law and therefore diminishes the righteousness of God. What I’m saying also fits into what the Apostle Paul said that they did in Romans 10:3:
For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
The righteousness of justification by faith produces a righteousness greater than what the Pharisees believed and lived. It would look like the righteousness of God, because it was a righteousness of the power of God. This was having your house built on the rock of Jesus Christ and not the sand of the Pharisees.
Defining Pharisaism By Fleshing Out Its Confrontation by the Lord Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount
Terms like Pharisaism and legalism are often blunt instruments used today against churches and individual believers. They can be much like the word, racism. People weaponize terms to protect a belief or lifestyle through castigation. At the worst, they want to eliminate the objects of their scorn. Maybe they’re right about the ones they want to cancel and what they believe and practice. Is it true though? Are their targets really Pharisees and legalists?The Lord Jesus confronted Pharisaism and legalism with His Sermon on the on Mount in Matthew 5-7. The sermon explains salvation, but in a unique way to cast down the corrupt view of the Pharisees, the religion of the day. Their teaching was so prevalent everywhere, what Jesus then preached was also dealing with the thinking of everyone in His audience. Even if He wasn’t preaching to Pharisees, He was preaching to Pharisaism and legalism.
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