Post by M.R. Hagerty on Apr 27, 2023 16:52:47 GMT -7
Matthew 5:13-20
13 "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. 17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:13-20)
________________________________________________________
Commentary
Matthew 5:13-14
13 “You are the salt of the earth . .”
Salt in ancient times was universally regarded as a very good thing. In modern times it can be a menace to the machines and technology of man. But in ancient times it was hardly ever seen this way. It preserved foods that would otherwise jeopardize life in an ancient environment. It made it possible to survive despite the lack of modern conveniences.
Jesus here picks up on the preservative aspect of salt in relation to the church. Some see this in Thessalonians were Paul says that the evil one must prevail for a time until that which hinders is taken out
of the way (2 Thess 2:7) The use of the masculine pronoun creates difficulty in seeing this as the church, but it is equally difficult to propose that the Holy Spirit is the “one” to be taken out of the way, since He is
directly involved thereafter in the salvation of many who come to Christ. But the idea is planted that what is of God serves to restrain or to preserve against rampant evil that would otherwise prevail.
But Jesus turns to the subject of the salt losing its potency, its savor. Now it is no longer good for its purpose. It preserves no food. It must be turned out to its other use which was rather ignoble. Spent salt was used to keep roads serviceable by killing out plants and weeds on roads that had to be left unattended for long periods and were beyond immediate forms of maintenance. So it had become in fact only valuable as a chemical.
The question is asked by Jesus, how can it become salty again since salt is its own unique entity (its essence is in itself and no other)? There is nothing it can be combined with to restore its salty nature. Mixing it with newer salt actually dilutes that source rather than restoring what was lost. Hence, the parallel aspect in Christians as they live in the world cannot be counterfeited in the world, as Jannes and Jambres did in pharaoh’s court (Ex 7:11). One must come back to the Lord and be made new. As such, we get nowhere asking God to merely refurbish our sinful self. He must make all things new in us.
14 "You are the light of the world.”
The concept of light in darkness is a major theme in John’s Gospel. It is necessary to repeat because men are to be convinced that they live in darkness that it may kindle their desire to move toward the light. The darkness is seen as man’s path, living according to his own wits, according to his own sense of what is valuable and true. It is self-centered, which is today what humanism is all about. It leads to destruction – “there is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof is destruction.” (Proverbs 14:12.)
Cities, especially those on hills, gave hope to the weary traveler. (You can endure almost anything if you see a light at the end of the tunnel.) Putting one’s light under a bushel is the point of the analogy and while we ponder why people would shy away from telling others the wondrous news of salvation in Christ, we answer it almost immediately in the fear of rejection and persecution that may come with witnessing.
It is not the wariness or fear that is meant here, but the effect - to stay quiet and out of sight. There are folks who fear confrontation and ridicule so desperately that they make considerable effort to blend into the woodwork at the office or in the neighborhood or at school, in dread fear that someone will discover them. We might question their faith, but this is hardly our right to judge. Jesus asks us to contemplate what this condition means. “Who would put their light under a bushel?” The foolishness and ineffectiveness of this posture is being highlighted, which means if we are doing this we ought to think about what we’re about, what we are called to do and if being a Christian is what we really desire?
The proper place for our lamp can be scary for some, placed on a lampstand out in the middle of the room where it gives light to the whole house. This is not a sheepish, timid analogy, but a strong, intentional frame of mind. To be a light and know full well that it will be seen by all.
Matthew 5:16-17
16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
We must notice first off that this is unsolicited glorifying. We are not pushing or engineering men into praising God. This comes unsolicited from their own hearts and their own conclusions. This is meant to apply to man in general, not believers exclusively, which would in that case be rather easy to achieve. It is the idea that the men do not normally give God glory but are willing to do so by seeing the works. They are also not praising God for us. They are praising Him for the works they see. Which means that the works are genuine and their value is appreciated independently. They stand on their own.
That’s a tall order. Today we see Christian work as a sort of choreographed thing, needing the accompaniment of preaching or some encouraging emphasis in word or music to complete the connection.
Here Jesus is saying they are to look simply at the works without our commentary and connect the dots. They are to see enough to prompt genuine praise of God.
17 Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”
Sooner or later Jesus was going to have to address His relationship to the Law, because the authorities were already noting what they believed to be departures from strict ordinances. So Jesus sets the record straight that He did not come to override the Law with His own teaching, but instead to fulfill it.
Now to the intelligent hearer this meant two things. First, that He saw the Law as good and righteous. Second, that He intended to fulfill it. A more positive statement could not have been made. But as with all things, Jesus teaches something unexpected, contrary to tradition. There was a sense they would understand about fulfilling the Law which simply meant obeying the requirements of the Law. But it would be rare if even probable at all to hear someone talking about fulfilling the Law, per se.
In prophecy, one purpose is to predict. Fulfillment means that there is a distantly connected piece that validates what is promised. Once that occurs, the prophecy is completed, fulfilled. It has served its purpose. This sense of fulfillment was not related to the Law because the Law was seen as permanent, never going away, never having completed its job. Yet we see the idea of completion illustrated in Paul. “for the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” (Gal 3:24). Once done, it has accomplished, in an individual, its purpose. But it is not done away with altogether because there are always new students, those who need the schoolmaster to continue to bring its students to Christ.
But what Jesus is talking about here is fulfilling the very purpose of the Law which was to get men right with God. And He was doing this where no other could.
Matthew 5:18-19
18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Here Jesus affirms that in terms of the Law, its precepts are eternal down to the gnat’s eyelash.
The original has the terms iota and keraia. The former is the name of a Greek letter, the latter is the Greek equivalent of the name for Hebrew’s smallest pen strokes or marks, called horns. It is likely that Jesus, speaking Aramaic, used the name for the smallest letter (yod) followed by the name commonly coined for the marks (keh-ren - horn). The tiny distinctive end marks on Hebrew letters were called horns, and they distinguished letters with similar strokes from each other ( ב , מ ,ה , ת ).
In translating this speech into Greek, the writer must have perceived that his readers would not relate to yod or to its equivalent in Greek (upsilon) as the smallest of letters, which would frustrate the point being made. Instead, he chose to substitute the same concept in Greek, which was to employ the name of Greek’s smallest letter, iota (ι).
But when he came to ‘horn,’ it was clear that Greek had nothing equivalent in concept (Greek had no horn-like embellishments). It may very well have seemed that the clearest course was to simply translate Hebrew’s word for horn into the Greek equivalent – keraia.
When it came to English, the KJV rather crudely referred to the letter iota as a mere jot, and the horns as a “tittle.” In the NASB we find restored the original ideas of ‘smallest letter or stroke.’
Jesus was saying in metaphorical language that the Law was so permanent in its righteousness, that not even those marks associated with its transcription would pass away. Paul in his great treatise on Law and Grace, reiterates that the Law is righteous and good (Romans 7:12)
But if Jesus did not come to annul the Law then it is still binding. And if it is still binding, from what are we said to be free? We are free from the use of the Law to establish right standing before God. The Law tells us what perfect righteousness is, but it cannot help us achieve that righteousness by trying to follow it.
It condemns every attempt, because we are made weak by it. We are freed from this aspect of the Law in that our righteousness before God is now accomplished in Christ.
19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
To annul is to take on the attitude that a commandment is no longer valid or applicable, and more so in following through by ignoring it as archaic and of no personal import. This attitude usually doesn’t stop with oneself. The pride that makes this decision must be shared, people must be made aware of this “enlightened” wisdom, and so this annulling is “taught” to others, leading them also astray.
We wouldn’t expect such people to be anywhere in the Kingdom of Heaven, so why the thought that they have the least respectable position there? In some contexts, the Kingdom of Heaven includes all living persons as the created beings of God. The Kingdom is therefore sometimes pictured as the grand play in which God and mankind have their roles and the story unfolds as it has.
In perhaps another sense, those who do such things may in fact be believers who have become deceived or are in error, and their place in the Kingdom is not removed entirely, but they suffer the ignominy of having led people astray in their error.
Matthew 5:20
20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
This is one of the hardest sayings we can find and for these hearers, even more so because they were under the OT economy that listened to the teachers of the Law and regarded diligent compliance a life long challenge. The Pharisees, despite their sectarian errors and hearts of stone, were diligent in the extreme as to the dictates of practicing the Law. They were the ultra-conservatives of their day. Folks may have had doubts about their party in this or that issue, but everyone concurred that the Pharisee knew more than anyone else all the requirements of the Law in behavior and deed.
It would be enough to tell people that every person must meet the righteousness described by the Pharisee. But to tell people they must exceed this standard was overwhelming. But the intent was to create the hardest scenario that could be imagined. It was intentional on Jesus’ part to portray the most arduous arrangement perceivable. Why? Because the hearer would eventually cry out, “Who can be saved?” and would fall on the mercy of God. Such a man would be where God wanted him, bankrupt and helpless to fulfill it.
We see this pictured in the case of the two men in the Temple, the one a Pharisee, busily recounting all his successes before God, and the other a tax collector feeling so wretched that he could not lift his eyes toward Heaven. He asked that God be merciful to him, a sinner. (Luke 18:3) That is the heart in which men are to come to Christ, not justifying this or that, or minimizing their wrongs and emphasizing their good, but bankrupt and ready for the mercy of God.
13 "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. 17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:13-20)
________________________________________________________
Commentary
Matthew 5:13-14
13 “You are the salt of the earth . .”
Salt in ancient times was universally regarded as a very good thing. In modern times it can be a menace to the machines and technology of man. But in ancient times it was hardly ever seen this way. It preserved foods that would otherwise jeopardize life in an ancient environment. It made it possible to survive despite the lack of modern conveniences.
Jesus here picks up on the preservative aspect of salt in relation to the church. Some see this in Thessalonians were Paul says that the evil one must prevail for a time until that which hinders is taken out
of the way (2 Thess 2:7) The use of the masculine pronoun creates difficulty in seeing this as the church, but it is equally difficult to propose that the Holy Spirit is the “one” to be taken out of the way, since He is
directly involved thereafter in the salvation of many who come to Christ. But the idea is planted that what is of God serves to restrain or to preserve against rampant evil that would otherwise prevail.
But Jesus turns to the subject of the salt losing its potency, its savor. Now it is no longer good for its purpose. It preserves no food. It must be turned out to its other use which was rather ignoble. Spent salt was used to keep roads serviceable by killing out plants and weeds on roads that had to be left unattended for long periods and were beyond immediate forms of maintenance. So it had become in fact only valuable as a chemical.
The question is asked by Jesus, how can it become salty again since salt is its own unique entity (its essence is in itself and no other)? There is nothing it can be combined with to restore its salty nature. Mixing it with newer salt actually dilutes that source rather than restoring what was lost. Hence, the parallel aspect in Christians as they live in the world cannot be counterfeited in the world, as Jannes and Jambres did in pharaoh’s court (Ex 7:11). One must come back to the Lord and be made new. As such, we get nowhere asking God to merely refurbish our sinful self. He must make all things new in us.
14 "You are the light of the world.”
The concept of light in darkness is a major theme in John’s Gospel. It is necessary to repeat because men are to be convinced that they live in darkness that it may kindle their desire to move toward the light. The darkness is seen as man’s path, living according to his own wits, according to his own sense of what is valuable and true. It is self-centered, which is today what humanism is all about. It leads to destruction – “there is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof is destruction.” (Proverbs 14:12.)
Cities, especially those on hills, gave hope to the weary traveler. (You can endure almost anything if you see a light at the end of the tunnel.) Putting one’s light under a bushel is the point of the analogy and while we ponder why people would shy away from telling others the wondrous news of salvation in Christ, we answer it almost immediately in the fear of rejection and persecution that may come with witnessing.
It is not the wariness or fear that is meant here, but the effect - to stay quiet and out of sight. There are folks who fear confrontation and ridicule so desperately that they make considerable effort to blend into the woodwork at the office or in the neighborhood or at school, in dread fear that someone will discover them. We might question their faith, but this is hardly our right to judge. Jesus asks us to contemplate what this condition means. “Who would put their light under a bushel?” The foolishness and ineffectiveness of this posture is being highlighted, which means if we are doing this we ought to think about what we’re about, what we are called to do and if being a Christian is what we really desire?
The proper place for our lamp can be scary for some, placed on a lampstand out in the middle of the room where it gives light to the whole house. This is not a sheepish, timid analogy, but a strong, intentional frame of mind. To be a light and know full well that it will be seen by all.
Matthew 5:16-17
16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
We must notice first off that this is unsolicited glorifying. We are not pushing or engineering men into praising God. This comes unsolicited from their own hearts and their own conclusions. This is meant to apply to man in general, not believers exclusively, which would in that case be rather easy to achieve. It is the idea that the men do not normally give God glory but are willing to do so by seeing the works. They are also not praising God for us. They are praising Him for the works they see. Which means that the works are genuine and their value is appreciated independently. They stand on their own.
That’s a tall order. Today we see Christian work as a sort of choreographed thing, needing the accompaniment of preaching or some encouraging emphasis in word or music to complete the connection.
Here Jesus is saying they are to look simply at the works without our commentary and connect the dots. They are to see enough to prompt genuine praise of God.
17 Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”
Sooner or later Jesus was going to have to address His relationship to the Law, because the authorities were already noting what they believed to be departures from strict ordinances. So Jesus sets the record straight that He did not come to override the Law with His own teaching, but instead to fulfill it.
Now to the intelligent hearer this meant two things. First, that He saw the Law as good and righteous. Second, that He intended to fulfill it. A more positive statement could not have been made. But as with all things, Jesus teaches something unexpected, contrary to tradition. There was a sense they would understand about fulfilling the Law which simply meant obeying the requirements of the Law. But it would be rare if even probable at all to hear someone talking about fulfilling the Law, per se.
In prophecy, one purpose is to predict. Fulfillment means that there is a distantly connected piece that validates what is promised. Once that occurs, the prophecy is completed, fulfilled. It has served its purpose. This sense of fulfillment was not related to the Law because the Law was seen as permanent, never going away, never having completed its job. Yet we see the idea of completion illustrated in Paul. “for the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” (Gal 3:24). Once done, it has accomplished, in an individual, its purpose. But it is not done away with altogether because there are always new students, those who need the schoolmaster to continue to bring its students to Christ.
But what Jesus is talking about here is fulfilling the very purpose of the Law which was to get men right with God. And He was doing this where no other could.
Matthew 5:18-19
18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Here Jesus affirms that in terms of the Law, its precepts are eternal down to the gnat’s eyelash.
The original has the terms iota and keraia. The former is the name of a Greek letter, the latter is the Greek equivalent of the name for Hebrew’s smallest pen strokes or marks, called horns. It is likely that Jesus, speaking Aramaic, used the name for the smallest letter (yod) followed by the name commonly coined for the marks (keh-ren - horn). The tiny distinctive end marks on Hebrew letters were called horns, and they distinguished letters with similar strokes from each other ( ב , מ ,ה , ת ).
In translating this speech into Greek, the writer must have perceived that his readers would not relate to yod or to its equivalent in Greek (upsilon) as the smallest of letters, which would frustrate the point being made. Instead, he chose to substitute the same concept in Greek, which was to employ the name of Greek’s smallest letter, iota (ι).
But when he came to ‘horn,’ it was clear that Greek had nothing equivalent in concept (Greek had no horn-like embellishments). It may very well have seemed that the clearest course was to simply translate Hebrew’s word for horn into the Greek equivalent – keraia.
When it came to English, the KJV rather crudely referred to the letter iota as a mere jot, and the horns as a “tittle.” In the NASB we find restored the original ideas of ‘smallest letter or stroke.’
Jesus was saying in metaphorical language that the Law was so permanent in its righteousness, that not even those marks associated with its transcription would pass away. Paul in his great treatise on Law and Grace, reiterates that the Law is righteous and good (Romans 7:12)
But if Jesus did not come to annul the Law then it is still binding. And if it is still binding, from what are we said to be free? We are free from the use of the Law to establish right standing before God. The Law tells us what perfect righteousness is, but it cannot help us achieve that righteousness by trying to follow it.
It condemns every attempt, because we are made weak by it. We are freed from this aspect of the Law in that our righteousness before God is now accomplished in Christ.
19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
To annul is to take on the attitude that a commandment is no longer valid or applicable, and more so in following through by ignoring it as archaic and of no personal import. This attitude usually doesn’t stop with oneself. The pride that makes this decision must be shared, people must be made aware of this “enlightened” wisdom, and so this annulling is “taught” to others, leading them also astray.
We wouldn’t expect such people to be anywhere in the Kingdom of Heaven, so why the thought that they have the least respectable position there? In some contexts, the Kingdom of Heaven includes all living persons as the created beings of God. The Kingdom is therefore sometimes pictured as the grand play in which God and mankind have their roles and the story unfolds as it has.
In perhaps another sense, those who do such things may in fact be believers who have become deceived or are in error, and their place in the Kingdom is not removed entirely, but they suffer the ignominy of having led people astray in their error.
Matthew 5:20
20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
This is one of the hardest sayings we can find and for these hearers, even more so because they were under the OT economy that listened to the teachers of the Law and regarded diligent compliance a life long challenge. The Pharisees, despite their sectarian errors and hearts of stone, were diligent in the extreme as to the dictates of practicing the Law. They were the ultra-conservatives of their day. Folks may have had doubts about their party in this or that issue, but everyone concurred that the Pharisee knew more than anyone else all the requirements of the Law in behavior and deed.
It would be enough to tell people that every person must meet the righteousness described by the Pharisee. But to tell people they must exceed this standard was overwhelming. But the intent was to create the hardest scenario that could be imagined. It was intentional on Jesus’ part to portray the most arduous arrangement perceivable. Why? Because the hearer would eventually cry out, “Who can be saved?” and would fall on the mercy of God. Such a man would be where God wanted him, bankrupt and helpless to fulfill it.
We see this pictured in the case of the two men in the Temple, the one a Pharisee, busily recounting all his successes before God, and the other a tax collector feeling so wretched that he could not lift his eyes toward Heaven. He asked that God be merciful to him, a sinner. (Luke 18:3) That is the heart in which men are to come to Christ, not justifying this or that, or minimizing their wrongs and emphasizing their good, but bankrupt and ready for the mercy of God.