Margie Littell with Colleen Tinker
We former Adventists are often accused of being harsh. Adventists admonish us, “Jesus didn’t speak harshly to people; He was loving and kind.” People, however, tend to underestimate how completely Jesus kept pointing out the Jewish leaders’ self-righteousness. They were well-armed against hearing the truth about their spiritual condition because they had convinced themselves that as God’s chosen people blessed with the Law, they were special. So, for centuries, they had taught themselves a lie:
And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us, that will be our righteousness” (Deuteronomy 6:25).
Jesus, however, kept pointing out to them that they had no righteousness. Because their hearts were proud and arrogant, they had ignored God’s word that asked them to “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (Deut. 10:16). Their keeping the rules and regulations of the Mt. Sinai law had not made them righteous.
In fact, they had been told this same message over and over again by their own prophets. Isaiah said,
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away (Isaiah 64:6).
Furthermore, Ezekiel, in scathing words, showed them that when they claimed to keep the law to make themselves righteous, they were neither keeping the law nor were they righteous. (See Ezekiel 20.)
Then Jesus came. Not only was He pointing out that their commandment-keeping self-righteousness was not a method of salvation, but He also kept pointing out that they did not keep what they claimed to keep. Every day at the temple, before they decided to kill Him, Jesus told them they could not manipulate their way into God’s favor by following rules and regulations. Jesus did something interesting to these folks who were self-generating their own righteousness.
He magnified the Law. He increased the standards of the Law to standards they could not possibly perform. As Isaiah told them (Isaiah 42:21), Jesus did magnify the Law in Matthew 5.
Let’s notice the details Jesus gives to these self-manufacturing, self-righteous people—people He loved with all His heart to death itself, which they demanded. He warns His listening children of Israel, who knew the Torah backward and forwards, that HE, on HIS authority, was changing it. First, we find that the law was preached regularly in every city:
For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath (Acts 15:21).
Now, God had prohibited changing even one word of the Torah:
Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep all the commandments of the Lord your God that I give you (Deuteronomy 4:2).
Then, In Matthew 5, Jesus gives them His principles of His New Covenant which He has brought to them. They are called The Beatitudes.
Next, Jesus warns them that because of these additions to the law, the fellow children of Israel who worshiped and adored the Torah more than Jesus would do the following:
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt. 5:11, 12).
Third: Jesus quotes these commandments in the Torah and changes them right after His words BUT I TELL YOU. He quotes 2 of the Ten Commandments and five from the rest of the Torah.
- Matthew 5:21 = Exodus 20:13
- Matthew 5:27 = Exodus 20:14
- Matthew 5:31 = Deuteronomy 24:1
- Matthew 5:38 = Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21
- Matthew 5:43 = Leviticus 19:18
Fourth, Jesus tells the listening disciples and Jews that they have to keep these changed commandments better than the Pharisees and teachers of the law kept the original commandments:
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 5:20).
Fifth, Jesus tells them to pluck out their eyes or cut off their hands if they must in order to keep these changed commandments:
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” (Mt. 5:29).
Sixth, Jesus ends His sermon by giving them an impossible standard of behavior to reach:
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48).
If I had been listening to this sermon about the Torah, I would have just given up.
“Jesus,” I would have cried. “I can’t keep the least of these changed commandments! I become angry too much, and you say it is as bad as murder!”
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.’ 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,’ [An Aramaic term of contempt] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ’You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell (Mt. 5:21, 22).
And Jesus would smile at me and say, “I know!” Jesus knew the purpose of the Torah:
So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified [made good] by faith. Now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision by the Law (Gal. 3:24-25).
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify (Romans 3:21).
And be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith (Philippians 3:9).
Jesus knew that He had come to fulfill the law and to inaugurate a new covenant under a new law: the law of Christ. He came to reveal that the way to be reconciled to God was not through circumcision and law-keeping as an Israelite but through belief and trust in the finished work of His death, burial, and resurrection.
The Jews hated Him because He threatened their power and their status quo. They didn’t understand the Scriptures which said righteousness was on the basis of faith (Gen. 5:16), not of law-keeping. They screamed for His death because they wanted His threat to their authority out of the way.
Today, however, we see what Jesus really came to do. We see that the Law of Moses (including the Ten Commandments) is made obsolete in the person and work of the Lord Jesus (see Hebrews 8 and 9).
Now we worship Jesus directly, and in Him we find peace and reconciliation! †
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