Kingdom Righteousness
Matthew 5:13-20
In 2 Peter 3, Peter talks about the destruction of the world and the second coming of Christ. In that context, he states, “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness…” (verse 11). In Matthew 5, Jesus begins answering that question…
The sermon on the mount, we might say, is to the Christian what the Ten Commandments were to the Israelite. The Law of Moses was much more than just those ten commandments. Those ten summarized or embodied the whole Law. The sermon on the mount does the same thing for the Christian. It summarizes or embodies Christ’s expectations of us.
What sort of people ought we to be in holy conduct and godliness? Let’s answer that question by studying Matthew 5:13-20.
SALT (5:13):
Tasteless salt is absolutely good for nothing. Except to be thrown out and trampled over by man. Salt is a preservative; it prolongs decomposition. It also gives taste to food. So, Christians are to penetrate society and make it better. We are a kind of “moral antiseptic” (Morris, 104) in our society.
LIGHT (5:14-16):
Just like you cannot hide a city set on a hill, so you can not (should not) hide the light of a Christian. Again, what good is it to Christ if the Christian’s light is not shining? It is in the nature of a light to shine. In the same way, it is the nature of a Christian to reflect the teachings of Christ in their life.
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Jesus taught His disciples to obey the Law of Moses (Matt. 8:4; 19:4, 17). Yet, He equally condemned the Pharisees for making their own traditions equal with the commandments of God (Matt. 15:7-9). What Jesus did come to do was to fill full the Old Law’s expectations.
Jesus fulfilled the Law through His life and through His teachings. Jesus fulfilled the curse of the Law, becoming the curse Himself (Gal. 3:13). He fulfilled all the shadows and ceremonies of the Old Law (Heb. 9 & 10).
Jesus taught that there were no laws of God that you could set aside or ignore (cf. 23:23). As H. Leo Boles points out: “nothing is little where God’s authority is at stake” (133). We need to be very, very leery of someone who says, “I do not think it is a salvation issue.” If God has told us what He wants, anything besides that is a salvation issue because anything else goes beyond what God says He wants and that, by definition, is transgression or lawlessness.
SURPASSING RIGHTEOUSNESS (5:20):
This verse is actually the key verse to the whole of the sermon on the mount. Jesus is defining what God meant in Deuteronomy 30:6 that the Jews needed to circumcise their hearts. True righteousness does not center in the externals.
If we live this way, if we live based on principles of “kingdom righteousness,” Jesus tells us in verse 48 that we “will be” (future tense) perfect, as God in heaven is perfect. “Perfect” here, of course, does not mean “sinless” but, rather, “complete, mature, full-grown.”
Live with Christ in your hearts Monday through Saturday as well as Sunday.
Your fellow-servant in Christ,
–Paul Holland
