The Law and the Prophets - Final
The Spirit, Not the Letter
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 (NKJV)
The scribes and Pharisees were meticulous about obeying the Torah (Law). If righteousness was understood as literal obedience to the Law, then there was no one more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. For anyone to exceed their keeping of the Law was virtually impossible. However, the righteousness Jesus was speaking about wasn’t literal Law-keeping.
R. T. France wrote:
Jesus is not talking about beating the scribes and Pharisees at their own game, but about a different level or concept of righteousness altogether …Within that new regime [the kingdom of heaven], different standards apply. Those who are to belong to God’s new realm must move beyond literal observance of rules, however good and scriptural, to a new consciousness of what it means to please God, one which penetrates beneath the surface level of rules to be obeyed to a more radical openness to knowing and doing the underlying will of “your Father in heaven.”25
Jesus didn’t abolish the Old Testament. How could He, since it pointed to Him, and He fulfilled it? As we will see in the next verses of Matthew chapter 5, He moves beyond the concept that strict obedience to the Law brings righteousness, as He introduces a deeper understanding and application of the principles which stand behind the Law. In doing so, He reveals the inner attitude of spirit, which coincides with the Beatitudes, that brings forth the righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees.
**
G. H. Twelftree, Scribes, in J. B. Green & S. McKnight, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 734–35.
25 France, The Gospel of Matthew, 190.
(Continued in part 2.)
Note
Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version--a division of Good News Publishers.
Director's Corner TFI