What was the bearing of the
doctrine of Christ respecting the kingdom of heaven upon the precepts of the
law? The Lord opens this subject with the words:"Think not that I am come
to destroy the law or the prophets:I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfill" (Matt. 5:17). I take this word "fulfill" in its largest
sense. First, in His own person the Lord fulfilled the law and the prophets in
His manner of life and in righteous subjection and obedience. His life here
below exhibited the beauty of obedience to God without flaw for the first and
only time. Second, His death provided the strongest, yet most solemn, approval
that the law could ever receive, because the Saviour took upon Himself the
curse that the law pronounced upon the guilty. There was nothing the Saviour
would not undergo rather than God should have dishonor.
Third, the Lord declares an
expansion of the law, or righteous requirement, giving to its moral element a
larger scope, so that all that was honoring to God in it should be brought out
in its fullest power and extent. The light of heaven was now allowed to fall
upon the law, and the law was interpreted, not by weak, failing men, but by One
who had no reason to evade one jot of its requirements; whose heart, full of
love, thought only of the honor and the will of God; whose zeal for His
Father’s house consumed Him, and who restored that which He took not away. Who
but He could expound the law in this way—not as the scribes, but in the
heavenly light? The commandment of God is exceedingly broad, whether we see
that it makes an end of all perfection in man (Psa. 119:96), or that the sum of
it has been fulfilled in Christ.
Far from annulling the law, the
Lord illustrated it more brightly than ever, and gave it a spiritual
application that man was entirely unprepared for before He came. And this is
what the Lord proceeds to do in the wonderful discourse that follows. After
having said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled," He adds, "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. For I
say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven" (Matt. 5:18-20). Our Lord is about to expand the great moral
principles of the law into commandments that flow from Himself, and not merely
from Moses, and shows that this would be the great thing whereby persons would
be tested. It would no longer be a question of the ten words spoken on Sinai
merely; but, while recognizing their full value, He was about to open out the
mind of God in a way so much deeper than had ever been thought of before that
this would henceforth be the great test.
The expression, "Except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," has not the smallest
reference to salvation and justification, but to the practical appreciation of
and walking in the right relations of the believer toward God and toward men.
The righteousness spoken of here is entirely of a practical kind. God insists
upon godliness in His people. "Without holiness no man shall see the
Lord" (Heb. 12:14). There can be no question that the Lord shows in John
15 that the unfruitful branches must be cut off, and that, just as the withered
branches of the natural vine are cast into the fire to be burned, so fruitless
professors of the name of Christ can look for no better portion.
Bearing fruit is the test of life.
These things are stated in the strongest terms all through Scripture. In John
5:28,29 it is said, "The hour is coming in the which all who are in the
graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth; those who have done good unto
the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil unto the resurrection of
judgment." There is no disguising the solemn truth that God will and must
have that which is good and holy and righteous in His own people. They are not
God’s people at all who are not characterized as the doers of that which is
acceptable in His sight. If this were put before a sinner as a means of
reconciliation with God, or of having sins blotted out before Him, it would be
the denial of Christ and of His redemption. But there is not the least
inconsistency nor difficulty in understanding that the same God who gives a
soul to believe in Christ works in that soul by the Holy Spirit to produce what
is practically according to Himself. For what purpose does God give him the
life of Christ and the Holy Spirit if only the remission of the sins were
needed? But God is not satisfied with this. He imparts the life of Christ to a
soul, and gives that soul the Holy Spirit to dwell in him. As the Spirit is not
the spring of weakness or of fear "but of power, and of love, and of a
sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7), God looks for suited ways and for the exercise
of spiritual wisdom and judgment in passing through the present trying scene.
While the people looked up with
ignorant eyes to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, our Lord
declares that this sort of righteousness will not do. The righteousness that
goes up to the temple every day, that prides itself upon long prayers, large
alms, and broad phylacteries, will not stand in the sight of God. There must be
something far deeper and more according to the holy, loving nature of God. With
all the appearance of outward religion, there generally was no sense of sin nor
of the grace of God. This proves the all-importance of being right, first,
in our thoughts about God; and we can only be so by receiving the testimony of
God about His Son. In the case of the Pharisees we have sinful man denying his
sin, and utterly obscuring and denying God’s true character as the God of
grace. These teachings of our Lord were rejected by the outward religionists,
and their righteousness was such as you might expect from people who were
ignorant of themselves and of God. It gained reputation for them, but there it
all ended; they looked for their reward now, and they had it (Matt. 6:2,5,16).
But our Lord says to the disciples, "Except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case
enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Allow me to ask a question here:
How is it that God accomplishes this in regard to a soul that believes now?
There is a great secret that does not come out in this Sermon on the Mount.
First of all, there is a load of unrighteousness on the sinner. How is that to
be dealt with and the sinner to be made fit for and introduced into the kingdom
of heaven? Through faith he is born again; he acquires a new nature, a life
that flows from the grace of God through the bearing of his sins by Christ upon
the cross.
This is the foundation of practical
righteousness. The true beginning of all moral goodness in a sinner—as has been
said and as it deserves to be often repeated—is the sense and confession of his
utter lack of goodness! Never is anything right with God in a man till
he gives himself up as all wrong. When he is brought down to this, he is thrown
upon God, and God reveals Christ as His gift to the poor sinner. He is morally
broken down, feeling and owning that he is lost unless God appears for him; he
receives Christ, and what then? "He who believes on the Son has
everlasting life" (John 3:36). What is the nature of that life? In its
character it is perfectly righteous and holy. The man is then at once
fitted for God’s kingdom. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). But when he is born again he does enter there. "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit" (John 3:6). The scribes and Pharisees were only working in and by
the flesh; they did not believe that they were dead in the sight of God;
neither do men now. But what the believer begins with is that he is a dead man,
that he requires a new life, and that the new life that he receives in Christ
is suitable to the kingdom of heaven. It is upon this new nature that God acts,
and works by the Spirit this practical righteousness. Thus it remains in every
sense true, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven."