The Cycle begins with commands. Since the Garden of Eden, unfortunately, it has continued with temptation, disobedience, disunity, warnings, and judgment. In the last blog we saw that judgment for believers in Jesus Christ and Savior as Lord ends up blasting away the darkness of our flawed humanity with the glorious sunrise (that is, “Son-rise”) of the never-ending love of God.
This is made possible only by our repentance, which leads to restoration, eternal life in the kingdom of heaven (I use “heaven” here because Matthew does, but I prefer “kingdom of God” as Mark teaches it), and perfect unity with God.
But in this life, the Cycle has a short-circuit: we fall back to temptation, disobedience, and disunity over and over again.
Matthew Chapter 5 as Jesus’ introduction to his entire ministry to come is, in my opinion, the greatest example of “tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em” ever spoken, because it points the way to ending the short circuit of sin and points toward perfect unity, both with God and with each other.
Recall that Jesus began in the beatitudes with the four characters of true believers which are blessed by God and which lead to the kingdom of heaven: mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, and persecution for righteousness (5:7-10).
He then said what we strive for: to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (5:13-16).
Then, as we saw last time, he began a series of seven startling commands using razor-sharp hyperbole to show us how to improve incrementally, not become perfect (impossible!) in this life. Hyperbole is defined by Webster as “exaggeration for effect and not to be taken literally.”
In studying these commands, I came to the conclusion that looking at them all together is more powerful than five straight blogs addressing the same thing:
“…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20).
“…whoever insults his brother…and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Mt 5:22).
“…everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart…” (Mt 5:28).
“…everyone who divorces his wife…and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:32).
“…Do not take an oath at all…Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Mt 5:34, 37).
“…Do not resist the one who is evil…Give to the one who begs from you…” (Mt 5:39, 42).
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:44, 48).
Each of these seven begins with “You have heard it said…” and then in contrast “But I say to you”.
Please, take a little extra time today to read these commands together and ponder them in your heart.
I believe Jesus is saying that the point of departure leading to the short circuit, which darkens our pathway to perfect unity with God and with each other, is temptation in the form of listening to what the world tells us.
“But I say to you” that, while we cannot be perfect in this life, we can strive to improve each day by practicing mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, and even accepting persecution as our beacons of light in the darkness.
Why?
Because temptation will evolve within us from a trickle to a blaring alarm; disobedience will become obvious sooner; disunity will chill us like losing our warm blanket on a frigid winter night; repentance will be as natural as breathing; restoration will flood our souls; and perfect unity will answer our Lord’s prayer at last.
What seems impossible, with hyperbole revealing our need for grace, is actually a guided tour to daily growth toward perfect unity along the road to meeting Jesus in person!