BEING LESSONS FROM THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW.

CHAPTER V. (Continued from page 99.)

From the seventeenth verse to the end of the chapter, we have a new and very distinct section of the "sermon on the mount," in which the Lord takes the place of One greater than Moses, concerning, expounding, and bringing out the spirituality of the law, while He at the same time supplements and perfects it, not hesitating to put His own words in a place of higher authority than those spoken "to them of old time." For " the law made nothing perfect " (Heb. 7:19), and what Moses had to concede on account of the hardness of men's hearts chap. 19:8) could now, in the light which had come in with Christ into the world, no longer be permitted.

There are fittingly seven subsections here, ending with the enjoining (in the seventh) of this very perfection, as required of children of the perfect " Father in heaven," who were to manifest as that their Father's character. The higher the place accorded, the higher becomes the standard necessarily. But there are many questions which the whole subject raises here, and which we must take up seriously and consider patiently, in the order of their suggestion.

First of all, the authority of the law is maintained (verses 17-20), and in the fullest way. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets :I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 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."

Now in the first place we have to consider of what the Lord is speaking here. " The law and the prophets " was the recognized phrase for the Old Testament as a whole, the scriptures of a dispensation already past, but which had not passed themselves with the dispensation. Thus in the gospel of Luke (16:16) He says again:"The law and the prophets were until John :since that time the kingdom of God is preached." Thus it could be said that they were passed, and they were not passed. They were passed as the sole and governing truth:that was now come (or at least at hand) for which they had been preparing the way; and necessarily this must be now the higher truth, but which must in its turn bear witness to and establish what had gone before it. No truth can pass away. The more complete that is, to which we have arrived, the more surely must it embrace and set in their place all lower and partial truths which have anticipated and led on to it.

Thus then Christ came not to destroy the law or the prophets. He came to "fulfill," or complete them – as the word means. What would the Old Testament be without the New ? Very much like a finger, pointing into vacuity !

But it is plain that the Lord is not speaking here simply of the ten commandments, though these have their place, and a foremost place, in His thoughts, as is manifest by what follows. But "the law," in its use in Scripture, is by no means confined to this, and the addition of "the prophets" shows that it must be taken in its widest acceptance.

This "fulfillment" could not be therefore simply by His obedience to the law, though He was fully obedient, but implies the bringing in of something additional ; as plainly even the mere fulfillment of the prophets must be by the addition of something to the prophecy.

But He goes on to speak now specifically of the law; and He affirms with His emphatic "verily" that "not one jot or one tittle"-not the smallest letter, nor the projection of a letter*-" shall pass from the law until all be fulfilled." *Which in several Hebrew letters is the only distinction between them, as between the "r" and the "d,", the "h" and the "ch," etc.*This last word, let us note, is really a different word from the previous one which is similarly translated, and means "be come to pass"; and this coming to pass could not refer to the fulfilling of commandments. The ten commandments could not be spoken of as something which had to come to pass. But this last expression would have naturally to do with the law in its larger significance, which must in this way even include the prophets also; and thus the phrase "until heaven and earth pass" would be the real equivalent of "all things being fulfilled." For beyond this the Old Testament gives us only the promise of a new heavens and a new earth (Isa. 65:, 66:), about which it says nothing.

Every jot and tittle of the law remains then, never to pass away through the ages of time. It is all confirmed as divine, and therefore stable; but which, of course, does not mean that types and shadows were not to give way to the substance when it should come, or that the "new covenant" would not replace the old:for this would be a contradiction of the Old Testament itself, which affirms this. No :the law abides in all its details; and therefore in all the limits it imposes on itself, and for all the purposes for which it was given; and for no other. This is simple enough, one would think, to understand; and yet it is not understood by those, for instance, who would from words like these impose the yoke of the law upon the necks of Christians. For this it is not enough to tell us that the law abides. It is none the less necessary, as the apostle says, that " a man use it lawfully." And he adds to this, in illustration, that " the law is not made for the righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient." (i Tim. 1:8, 9.)

But the Lord's next words, for many, show without any doubt the perpetual and universal obligation of the law. For here He speaks plainly about doing or not doing, teaching or not teaching, one of the least even of its commandments, and of the recompense or retribution following for this. But while this is certain, it is no less clear that it is to Jews-to men under the law-that He is addressing Himself. Christianity is not come, nor the kingdom of heaven; nor is the former even announced as yet. The Lord is simply making a special application of the principle He has declared, to the case of those before Him:whether this is to be in fact wider, is not to be inferred from this particular case.

When we come in fact to Christianity, we find, especially in the epistles to the Romans and Galatians, the relation of the law to the saints of the present dispensation carefully argued out. And here two things are emphasized for us. First, that the "righteousness of the law" is "fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8:4.) There is not, there cannot be, any giving up of what is right, of what is according to the nature of God Himself. The Christian standard cannot be lower, but is in fact higher than the legal one, in the same proportion as the Christian position is higher than the Jewish, and as the power communicated in Christianity transcends any that was known in Judaism. The Christian position is in Christ before God. The Christian standard therefore is to walk as Christ walked. The Christian power is that of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. As the greater includes the less therefore, so the righteousness of the law is included in the Christian righteousness.

But secondly, this does not mean that we are under the law. We are dead to it, that we might be married to Christ, says the apostle (Rom. 7:4); not the law is dead,* but we are; and that, that we may bring forth fruit to God. *The mistake of the text of verse 6 in our common Version is corrected in the marginal reading, as it is also in the text of the Revised.*

It would take us far from our present subject to discuss all this; but the simple statement of it ought to guard us from the confusion into which so many have fallen, that the perpetuity of the law, as our Lord states it here, implies that the Christian is in any way under it. This, not the possible meaning of a few texts, but the whole doctrine of the apostle, denies and sets aside ; and conversely, the whole truth of Christian position would be denied by it. The Lord is speaking here to Jews,-to those confessedly under the law, and in view of the coming kingdom, which through their rejection of the King has not come even yet for them, and which, when it does come, will bring about a different condition of things for Christianity, as indeed the sermon on the mount itself assures us. This will be plain as we pass on.

And now the Lord proceeds to develop the righteousness that He requires, in contrast with that of the scribes and Pharisees, those zealots for the external. The second table of the law is here pressed, rather than the first, evidently because on this side man is most accessible,-his conscience is most easily roused. Men can invent all sorts of coverings to hide from themselves their state Godward; but if this be tested by their conduct towards men, who are His natural offspring, made in His image, it is not so possible to conceal from oneself the truth. Corruption and violence were of old the characteristics of a world which had reached the limit of divine longsuffering. (Gen. 6:11-13.) The Lord takes therefore the sixth and seventh commandments of the law to illustrate the righteousness which He proclaims, expanding and spiritualizing that which was said to those of old time, so as to make it a new moral revelation to those that hear Him. Moses' commandments become thus, as it were, His own, who is shown thus as greater than Moses himself, – the Prophet of the new dispensation.

"Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:but I say unto you, that whosoever shall be angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."* *The local courts in Israel were able to give "judgment" ; the "council" of seventy, or Sanhedrim, investigated the graver matters, as blasphemy and heresy, which ''Raca" perhaps implied. 'Fool" goes further still, as in Psalm 14:1:"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."*

Here it is simply " Thou shalt not kill," that stands as the sixth commandment. The addition of the penalty to it was nothing more, however, than what the law itself justified, and God himself had long before declared should be:"whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." The executive law in Israel could go no further than this. It could not deal with the state of heart, but with the outward act only. But the law as expressed in the tables of stone applied not merely to the positive deed; and the appending the executive in this way to the moral law inferred that the two were equal in what they covered, as they were not. Thus the state of the heart was left out of view, in the estimate of accountability toward God, and the whole practical bearing of the law was nullified for the many.

But now the kingdom of heaven was drawing nigh, in which another estimate of things would be made and acted on. Anger in the heart where causeless, and the railing charges which men so lightly bring against each other, would be all crimes against an authority which had at its command not mere physical penalties limited by the temporal life ; but the awful fire of Gehenna,-hell itself. It is not meant that under this divine government no mercy would be shown:that is not the point, nor what the words express. But such things would be within the range of jurisdiction, and man would be made to realize that there is a God who judgeth the hearts, and by whom actions are exactly weighed.

But this cuts deep; and it is meant to do so. We shall find directly how the Lord applies it all to rouse
the conscience of His hearers, and make them realize the impossibility of mere human righteousness in the sight of God. Thus in fact Israel was going on blindly with the adversary to meet the Judge, and they needed to come to terms with him or abide the issue. And indeed their righteousness must exceed all the vaunted righteousness of their trusted leaders, or they would in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)