"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." (Matthew 5:6)
In a story, “Fiddler on the Roof”, which later on became a movie, Tevye and his neighbors have been informed that the The Tsar has evicted all Jews from their village and confiscated their land. There is a great upheaval and anger in the community, as you can imagine. If someone told this to you and all the people in your area, how would you feel, and what would you do? There is talk of an uprising and revolt. One of the villagers says to Tevye, “We should defend ourselves. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!” “Very good,” mutters Tevye. “That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.”
Tevye’s insight is the same as Jesus’ reinterpretation of the Old Testament law. They knew the law was good, as far as it went, but it was inadequate and could perpetuate a cycle of violence. Jesus and Tevye were quoting the book of Leviticus which said, “If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” (Leviticus 24:19-20)
As defined in dictionaries, righteousness is "behavior that is morally acceptable or right." It is defined by morality, justice, virtue, or uprightness. Being righteous means doing what is right—obeying the law or adhering to morals. The example of a self proclaimed righteous person is seen in the parable of the Prodigal son. The elder son who stayed with the father proclaimed himself as the righteous one. He claimed that he did everything right and and obeyed his father. The Pharisees also proclaimed themselves are being righteous because they observed all the law to the letters. Biblical righteousness refers to God's perfection in every attribute, attitude, behavior, and word.
The religious elites at the time of Jesus taught about righteous living means living according to the law. There were four primary groups of these elites: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. The Pharisees believed that good religion consisted in divine laws and religious tradition. Their primary concern was for strict observance of the Mosaic law and of every minute detail of the traditions handed down by various rabbis over the centuries. They focused on adhering to the laws of the past. The Sadducees focused on the present. They were the religious liberals who discounted most things supernatural and who modified both Scripture and tradition to fit their own religious philosophy.
The Essenes were ascetics who believed that right religion meant separation from the rest of society. They led austere lives in remote, barren areas such as Qumran, on the northwest edge of the Dead Sea. The Zealots were fanatical nationalists who thought that right religion centered in radical political activism. These Jewish revolutionaries looked down on fellow Jews who would not take up arms against Rome.
In essence, the Pharisees said, “Live in the past”; the Sadducees said, “Live today”; the Essenes said, “Live away”; and the Zealots said, “Live against.” The Pharisees were traditionalists; the Sadducees were modernists; the Essenes were separatists; and the Zealots were activists. They represented the same primary types of religious factions that are common today.
But Jesus’ way was not any of those. The Beatitudes or the Sermon on the mount addressed all these four groups. To the Pharisees He said that true spirituality is internal, not external. To the Sadducees He said that it is God’s way, not man’s way. To the Essenes He said that it is a matter of the heart, not the body. To the Zealots He said that it is a matter of worship, not revolution. The central thrust of His message to every group and every person, of whatever persuasion or inclination, was that the way of His kingdom is first and above all a matter of the inside-the soul. That is the central focus of the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus is teaching us to stop the cycle of revenge and violence
Jesus is saying that we are to stop trying to get “one up” on people who have wronged us. We stop trying to get even. We even stop keeping score. True religion in God’s kingdom is not a question of ritual, of philosophy, of location, or of military might-but of right attitude toward God and toward other people. Jesus summed it up in the words “I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).
God’s righteousness is better than good. It is not about comparing one to another, saying I am better than so and so. It is about being good in yourself no matter what others do or think. Jesus states that if people want to enter the kingdom of heaven, their righteousness needs to go beyond “that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.” Jesus is not teaching that people can get eternal life by being better than the Pharisees. If that surface meaning is accurate, then the doctrine of salvation “by faith alone” would be in jeopardy. But digging deeper into Jesus’ words enables us to arrive at an accurate interpretation. He is teaching that He came to this world to become the righteousness of God for us.
Jesus is our Righteousness. We become perfect only through Jesus. The Bible says that “We are unfit to worship you; each of our good deeds is merely a filthy rag. We dry up like leaves; our sins are storm winds sweeping us away” (Isaiah 64:6). Because of Jesus’ righteousness, we have entered the kingdom of heaven. Paul says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Matthew 5:20 is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In that discourse, the Lord was was teaching his disciples that as followers of Jesus, (Matthew 5:1,2) they need to have a righteousness that surpassed the Pharisees and teachers of the law. The people listening to him had some understanding of the Pharisee’s righteousness. The “righteousness” of the Pharisees was their moral outward righteous behavior. They were not righteous in God’s eyes (John 15:5; Hebrews 11:6). The only righteousness that counts: the righteousness that comes from God through Jesus Christ.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). Jesus came into the world to fulfill all the commandments of God perfectly. That is precisely what he did. He is “the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). Through faith in Jesus, his righteousness is credited to people who are joined to him in faith (Romans 4:22-25). God considers Christians as righteous in his sight. Our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, because we have the righteousness of Jesus by faith. So this verse harmonizes well with the doctrine of salvation through faith alone. Martin Luther described well the righteousness Christians enjoy through faith in Jesus: “Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not.”
Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor and bring God’s righteousness to them. In Luke 4, the Lord Jesus went into the temple and opened the Book and read from the words of Isaiah (61) "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free and proclaim the year of Jubilee (acceptable year of the Lord)”
There is an interesting economics behind this. Leviticus 25 ordains a sabbath year, one in every seven years (Lev. 25:1-7), and a jubilee year, one in every fifty (Lev. 25:8-17), to sanctify Israel's internal economy. That is the year after 7 sabbath years. Every fiftieth year, all leased or mortgaged lands were to be returned to their original owners and all mortgages and loans are written off. All slaves and bonded laborers were to be freed also (Lev. 25:10)
After Israel conquered Canaan, the land was assigned to Israel’s clans and families as described in Numbers 26 and Joshua 15-22. The land was never to be sold in perpetuity for it belonged to the Lord, and not the people (Lev. 25:23-24). When someone borrows money, the borrower would become temporarily bound to the creditor, any income earned would go as payment for the reduction of the debt. Assuming that a farmer could neither pay on the loan or even support himself and his family, he would become temporarily bound to the household of the creditor. As a bound laborer he would work for wages, which were entirely for reduction of the debt. In the course of time, due to unforeseen events borrowers can become bankrupt. In order to stabilize the economic condition and to prevent any family from becoming permanently landless and poor for an extended time, Moses established a jubilee year. Along with a Sabbath year every seven years, there is a jubilee year was to be observed. After every 7 jubilee years, ie after 49 years (7x7 years) , the fiftieth year is a Year of Jubilee. All leased or mortgaged lands were to be returned to their original owners and all mortgages and loans were written off. All slaves and bonded laborers were freed also (Leviticus 25). It is a year of rejoicing for the poor.
The purpose of the jubilee year was to prevent any family from becoming permanently landless through sale, mortgage or permanent lease of its assigned land. In essence, any sale of land was really a term lease that could last no longer than the next year of jubilee (Lev. 25:15) with a maximum of 50 years. So the year of Jubilee is particularly precious for the poor of course. The rich have no debt and they are not in danger of becoming slaves. They don't find the year of Jubilee very desirable because they would have to set their slaves free, and they would lose all the money that people owed them. It is a year of rejoicing for the poor. It is good news for the poor.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That is the exact reverse of what the economics we use in this world. Economics teaches profit means ‘success.” Success means being rich. In other words, if you are rich, you are blessed. There is a reversal of order in God’s kingdom. That is a fundamental principle of the kingdom of God. We spend more, but have less, buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences but less time. We have more college degrees but less sense, more knowledge but less judgment. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life, but not life to years. We’ve done larger things, but not better things. We build more computers to hold more information, but we communicate less. We have more clubs and activities, but people are becoming more and more lonely. We may have a lot of wealth and a a big family, but we feel so lonely. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said......."Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty." Are we getting richer or poorer? We are becoming poorer in spirit.
Haggai 1:5-7. Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
Are we getting richer or poorer?
We are all the more poor than ever before, and realize that we are helpless without God. This Beatitude can be rightly paraphrased in this way: ‘Blessed are those who genuinely seek God to save from the debt of our souls so that they will become rich toward God.’ This is the Righteousness of God that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees.
God saves us from the debt of our sin and made us rich toward God through Jesus Christ. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." (2 Cor 8:9). Being poor in spirit is not taking vows of poverty, instead it is a condition of the heart. As Matthew Henry said, “this poverty of spirit is a gracious disposition of soul, by which we are emptied of self, in order to our being filled with God”.
A certain Turkish officer took part in the looting and raiding of a certain Armenian home. The aged father and mother and the sons were taken out and shot in cold blood. The daughters were given away to the soldiery. The eldest was a girl of twenty. The officer kept her for himself. She was abused and raped regularly. By careful scheming she was at last able to escape to a camp where Armenian refugees were protected by the British. In common with many other similar girls, she was given a nursing training to make it possible for her to nurse her own countrymen and women who were sick. She did very well indeed, and at length was moved to a hospital where Turkish prisoners were being nursed. She was put on night duty in the officers' ward. On the first night of her duty she passed down the ward with a shaded lantern in her hand. Then a glint of light from her lantern flashed on a face she recognized. She stopped, rooted to the ground in horror. She lifted the lantern to make assurance doubly sure. Yes, it could be no other ! There lay the man who had wrought the ruin of her home, the murder of her loved ones; whose fiendish lust had desecrated the sacred temple of her body. He was dangerously ill. It would have required no violence, but only inattention, to ensure his death that very night. She confessed afterwards how bitter the struggle in her mind had been. But she nursed him back to health again until the doctors marveled at her care. When that officer recovered the doctor brought the nurse up to his bed and said to the patient, 'But for this girl's devotion you would be dead."l think we have met before,' the officer replied, white to the lips. 'Yes,' she said, 'we have met before.' When the doctor was out of hearing the officer almost hissed the words at her, 'Why didn't you kill me?' And this was her answer: 'Because cruelty cannot be righted by cruelty, nor violence by violence. I am a follower of Him who said "Love your enemies." That is my religion.' The man lay silent for a long time, and then he spoke. 'I never knew there was such a religion,' he said. 'If that is your religion tell me more about it, for I want it.' Night after night for a few moments she would come and tell him of the transforming love of the one who died for our sins. That transformed his life and eventually became a Christian.
Love for Enemies
Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:43-48)
By faith in Christ we have a righteousness that is better than good. It is a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees or any righteousness of this world.
Comments
Post a Comment