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Right Applications of Matthew 5:17-20 and Wrong Ones (Part Two)
Jesus came to elevate scripture, not overthrow it. The scribes and Pharisees had devalued actual scripture for their own traditions. The religious leaders thereby made themselves the standard of righteousness. They were not God’s light, glorifying Him by shining in a dark world.
Heaven and Earth Passing Away and Not His Words
Not only did Jesus not destroy the law, but He promised, first, not one letter of the Old Testament text would pass away until He fulfilled it. Second, He promised to fulfill all of the Old Testament. The audience of Matthew 5:17-18 could count on the perfect preservation of the text of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of its teachings. Matthew gets started providing the account of that occurrence and its continuation in the future in His writing of Jesus’ words and works.
The Lord Jesus refers to heaven and earth passing away in verse 18, an event He states again in His Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:35:
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Jesus uses the Greek word for “pass” or “pass away” several times in Matthew and then the other Gospels. BDAG says this most common usage means, “come to an end and so no longer be there.” That premier lexicon includes these very usages as examples of that meaning. Regarding the text of scripture, being “there” means being available.
A Written, Hebrew Text
The reference of the jot and tittle by Jesus underscores the written text of the Old Testament. The written text of scripture would not pass away. It also emphasizes the responsibility to perform all of it to the very letter.
Jesus says heaven and earth are going to pass. They will come to end and so no longer be there. On the other hand, the jots and tittles of the Old Testament will not come to an end and so no longer be there. He uses the same Greek verb in the negative to contrast the two occurrences, one happening and the other not.
Jots and tittle are also Hebrew. God breathed Hebrew letters and words. The original language text would not pass away. This doesn’t apply to the preservation of a translation, English or otherwise. Translation is great, but the promise of Jesus goes to the original language text. Preservation of scripture is the preservation of the words originally written down.
Scripture Never Obsolete
The teaching of Jesus was not time-sensitive. It applies still, because heaven and earth are both still here. Men can count on this promise of Jesus for all time. All of scripture is permanently important. It will never become outdated, obsolete, or too archaic to keep.
The passing of heaven and earth is not metaphorical. It is a real future event. Where people very often put their greatest investment of time and energy will not survive. Second Temple Judaism was turning its audience away from scripture through its traditions. As a teacher, Jesus was doing the opposite.
Matthew 5:19
Jesus said in Matthew 5:19:
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
“Therefore” looks back to the previous two verses. Jesus committed Himself to the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. Unlike the preservation of heaven and earth, He guaranteed the perfect preservation of the written text of scripture. These two statements stressed the conclusion that the greatest in His kingdom would both do and then teach everything in and from scripture.
Earlier Jesus quoted to Satan in the Wilderness of Temptation (Matthew 4:4):
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
While Satan would tempt men not to live every word of scripture, Jesus expected the opposite. Elevation in His kingdom meant living by every Word.
Debunking Ranking Doctrines, Not Endorsing
The tradition of the Pharisees ranked scripture by importance. Since they were not keeping all of it, partly because they couldn’t, they opted for classifying God’s Word from the least to the greatest commandments. This is why they often asked (Matthew 22:36), “What is the greatest commandment?” Rather than keep all of it, they argued over what was important. Someone might keep everything if everything was only what they deemed important, an increasingly shorter list.
The Pharisees would add their traditions, but they would also minimize or diminish actual scripture to what they could keep. They sorted teachings into essentials and non-essentials. Since they so depended on their own labor, this became their chief form of legalism.
Modern interpreters buy into the Pharisaical tradition of ranking doctrines by using this text to advocate for lesser and greater commandments. The whole point of mentioning jots and tittles was to propose the belief and practice of everything in scripture, down to the smallest details.
Hyperbole? No
No doubt men today will use the expression “jot and tittle” as a way to express the exactness of something in an hyperbolic way. Nothing in the text gives us a reason to say that Jesus used those words as a type of hyperbole.
In response to those who say the words jot and tittle are hyperbolic, Paul Feinberg writes: “I see no such proof” (Paul D. Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980] 284.). He explains the great caution needed for labeling any portion of scripture as hyperbolic, reserving it only for instances where the literal meaning brings an unjustifiable meaning to the text.
Matthew ends his Gospel with a Great Commission text in which Jesus says (Matthew 28:20), “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Is that hyperbole? No. Jesus intended His followers to keep everything He taught, every jot and tittle. This is what the Apostle Paul called, “all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).
More to Come
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.
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