The Fool May Say but Dare We/

Meditation May, 20 2020

21“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, ^a and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister ^{b c} will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ ^d is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Well, my dear, we have spent far more time on two verses than I would ever have thought we might. If it seems we have passed the same tree more than once, we have. Sometimes you just need to circle the block until you have seen the tree from different angles. I needed to circle until I felt satisfied I hadn’t missed anything of importance. Thanks for riding along.

Now we come to the last of the instances of murder as a sin of the heart; i.e. calling someone a fool. The text, in both the textus receptus and the Byzantine majority text (my personal preference) says “angry with a brother…says to a brother….” Sister is added by NIV since brother here is to be taken as a general reference to any fellow human.

We have learned that it is sinful, a violation of the sixth commandment, to be angry with a fellow human without cause, i.e. to be angry for any reason but those for which God would be angry. Further, we have learned it is a worse violation to be angry and say of them ”raca”; i.e. intellectually disgusting empty-head, something of that sort. To do that is to impugn their intellect, their industriousness etc. thus implying they are incapable of productivity, if not dangerous to society, and thereby obstructing their ability to pursue gainful employment by which they may provide for themselves and their families.

We see in these verses a progression from the lesser to the greater both in the offense and in the punishment due the offense. Unjust anger left unresolved (do not let the sun go down on your anger – Eph. 4:26) is the beginning of the pathway the end of which is the actual taking of the life of another human.

The Westminster Larger Catechism fleshes out the ramifications of the sixth commandment. This would be a good place to insert that. Perhaps I should have inserted it at the beginning.

Q. 135. What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
A. The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavours, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defence thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreation; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild, and courteous speeches and behavior: forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.

Q. 136. What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others, except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defence; the neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life; sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge; all excessive passions, distracting cares; immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations; provoking words; oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any.

We have heard Jesus say that unjust anger is a violation of the sixth commandment. At that point it is in the strictest sense a sin of the heart. Only you know it but it is sin nonetheless. To let unjust anger spill out to unkind, disparaging words is yet a greater violation. At that point, anger has gone from the heart into action and, although it has not entailed the actual taking of a life, Jesus says it is nonetheless to be considered under the command against homicide.

For homicide, the shedding of blood, the killing of a brother (i.e. another human) God requires punishment in kind. "'Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6)  From this we may rightly conclude murder is a sin against both God and man. It is the destruction of life and the destruction of the image of God; thus, an attack on God.

 Thus when one says, raca, he is already showing contempt for both man and God who created him. And yet worse than raca, worse than calling man an empty-headed worthless human, and of still greater worthiness of judgment and severe punishment was to say of a another, “you fool”. Whoever says that “will be in danger of the fire of hell”

Some question whether more’ (fool) is a Greek word. Because more’ bears the same consonants as the Hebrew for ‘fool’ it is thought Jesus is referring to a Hebrew word that is found in the Deut. 21:18, Psalm 14 and other places where it refers to idolators, those who are rebellious or without morals. More’ in the Greek, according to the lexicons, means basically the same as raca – stupid, blockhead, empty-head etc. – but Jesus is clearly using it differently as he assigns to it a different judgment. I think, then, Jesus, whether using Greek or Hebrew, used it to mean as it did in the Hebrew, a rebellions person; i.e. one without morality. To call a man a fool was call him not simply an ungodly wretch but to imply a creature devoid of the image of God. Thus, in anger, calling a person a fool was to reduce them to beasts and thus declaring that the taking of their life would be not more sinful than the killing of a wild beast. I wonder if we are not today guilty of the same sin in reverse when we put the killing of beasts on the same moral plane as the killing of humans.

It is said there was a saying among the Jews that “everyone that calls his neighbour ‘a wicked man’, shall be brought down to hell.” It is unclear whether that is hell as we understand it or sheol, the abode of the dead. I am inclined to think the saying, assuming there was such a saying, referred to sheol or the grave. It is said in other places the saying was such a man who calls his neighbor a fool “deserves to go, not to the seven or the seventy, but to hell, his sin altogether damnable.” The meaning of that being such a person need not be adjudicated by the courts but may be summarily put to death. However all that may be, Jesus says such a person as calls his fellow man a fool is in danger, not simply of death, but Gehenna or as it is translated ‘hell of fire.’

It is worth a little of the history of the word Gehenna to understand the reference. Gehenna was Greek for gehinnom or the valley of Hinnom, a valley to the south of Jerusalem, where children were sacrificed to the Caananite god Moloch – a practice in which the Jews engaged against God’s command (Jeremiah 32:35). When revival came for a time, Josiah, in his religious reforms, defiled the valley – probably by casting bodies of enemies and criminals into it. When the Jews returned from captivity, they displayed their remorse and hatred of the idolatry of their forefathers by making the valley of Hinnom a garbage dump. It is said that fires there were burned incessantly to consume the garbage. Thus, before Jesus time, the valley of Hinnon (Gehenna) had become a metaphor for the final resting place of those were of such moral character to be considered garbage or vile refuse.

The anger condemned to Gehenna is that which has gone unchecked from the heart to words that provoke bias and oppression against a brother to no longer recognizing a fellow human in the person against whom we have taken offense but now see him a no more worthy of our consideration than a beast of the field. Thus, we dishonor and impugn God Himself. Such as do so, Jesus says, are in danger of hell fire. Even for the one who against whom we have taken the greatest offence we must hold our reverence for humanity.

Jesus is clearly saying then that any unjust anger against a fellow human is an attack on the image of God, the taking away, if only in the heart, the moral image of God in man and seeing him as no more than the beast of the field.

We must be careful to guard our tongues and our hearts out of which our tongues speak lest we be found guilty murder.

Meditation May 18, 2020

Matthew 5:21-26

21“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, ^a and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister(without cause) will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

23“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

25“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

I am taking more time on this section of the Sermon on the Mount than I ever anticipated. Undoubtedly that is because it has hit me where I need to be hit. I suspect if most of us could hear past comments played back to us or would read again some of the things we have posted on various social media, we would have to confess it is correction we sorely need.

Yesterday I was surprised to discover there was much more to be said about this segment of the Sermon on the Mount than I had anticipated. I will blame that in part on the fact that I don’t recall I have ever heard sermons on this segment that gave it more than the passing recognition that Jesus is teaching that God judges a man’s heart and not just his actions. Thus later, when men come to Jesus saying Lord, “We have done this and done that, we are going to be in paradise with you now, right?” He is perfectly consistent with His teaching when he tells them, “Depart from me. I never knew you.”


Here, Jesus, has just taught the beatitudes. In the beatitudes He lists the characteristics of the blessed, not what they need do to become blessed but what they are having been blessed. God has made us alive (made us blessed) by grace through faith; not works. (Eph. 2:44) We are His handiwork, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). As it was in the beginning so it is in the new beginning that God has made us and not we ourselves. (Psa. 100:3) In the beatitudes, Jesus is describing that new creation, a new character, that which constitutes a new heart and a new creature. He then makes that personal. In vv. 13-16 He speaks of you who are the new creation; you who now have these characteristics. You, He says are salt and light in the world. And in so saying He clearly implies that apart from believers the world is normally without salt and light. It doesn’t take genius to deduce from that that if we see the world about us rotting in darkness, we need to examine not the world but ourselves.


Beginning with v13 that we looked at yesterday, Jesus begins to put flesh, as it were, on the characteristics of believers. A believer is not a person who is abstractly poor in spirit, mourning, meek, a peacemaker but a believer is such a person in fact and in deed. That means there are definite things a believer does and there are definite things a believer does not do. Jesus is now teaching those with a Jewish background, those who have grown up with a  knowledge of the law of God as a measure by which the gauged their conduct and their standing with God, and turns now to law to explain it as it is; not as they suppose it to be. Having in the beatitudes shown the character of a believer to be of the heart, of the inner man and not of the external deeds of religious fidgeting, He now begins to show that sin is of the heart.


Thus, He says, “You have heard”; i.e. you have been taught by the scribes, Pharisees, Rabbis etc. that you shall not kill, an outward act, the taking of another person’s life. Yes, you had heard that and Yes, that is correct you should not do that.  “But I say” if you are angry “without cause” you are just as guilty of murder as if you had laid them in their grave. Laying them in their grave is the ultimate outcome of the violation but violation lies elsewhere and is no less subject to judgment. The violation lies in unjust anger, i.e. anger that has no cause - an excuse perhaps but no cause.


Anger, in and of itself is not sin. Jesus was angry. In the Bible, God is said to be angry. Matthew Henry has this explanation: The reason God planted “this passion (anger) in the mind of man is to rouse him to an immediate defense of himself when suddenly attacked, and before his reason would have time to suggest the proper means of defense.” Anger becomes sin when we let it act when there is no real threat, i.e. without cause or when we let anger, defense act beyond that which is necessary to protect life.

Without, at this time, getting lost in the details of anger, suffice to say the point is that anger without cause is a violation of the new character you have as a believer, Anger without cause is contrary to being meek and a peacemaker.

The Jews were a narrow interpretation of the law. We generally are given to the same interpretation; i.e. to kill is to unjustly and physically take the life of another person. Jesus is showing that murder is a matter of the heart and one that does not necessarily take the physical life of another. Not only are their violations of the commandment “You shall not kill” that do no not entail taking the physical life of another but the implication is that they are the worst of the violations. Jesus says, “again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, Raca, is answerable to the Sanhedrin.” The Sanhedrin had the jurisdiction to impose death by stoning. I suppose, once one is dead, the manner of death is of little consequence; nonetheless, we all recognize there are manners of death we would prefer to others. In considering death, I much prefer a nice peaceful lethal injection to being tied to a post eaten at leisure by a wild beast or flayed or slowly roasted. Besides that, there are manners of death, like that of the Roman crucifixion, that are particularly ignominious and leave a taint on any memories of a person for as long as any memories of that person last. Such was stoning. 


Now, Jesus says, such a judgment and punishment, death by stoning, a painful, ignominious death, will be faced by those who say of their brother or sister, Raca. The exact meaning of Raca is unclear. Most think it meant empty headed, vain or useless. Some say it was an Aramaic expression of disgust which had no real meaning apart from the fact that it was and expression of disgust. That comports well with Augustine who says he was told by a Greek that it probably had no real meaning per se but was simply an expression of disgust; a sound one made to express inexpressible disdain as if on hearing another person’s name one spat on the ground as if to clear having even entertained taking the other person’s name into his mouth. It is as if the person in question is considered so far beneath us that a fit description is impossible and the very thought of attempting to form such a vile description is an abomination that gives a bad taste in the mouth. 


I was blessed to learn this lesson as a kid in high school - I would like to say I learned it better than fact will allow me to say – when my Mom corrected my indiscreet tongue. There was in the town in which I grew up, the town prostitute. It was known to everyone from grade school on up that this woman was a prostitute and not just a prostitute but an undiscriminating prostitute. There is no way to tastefully describe the depth of depravity to which she had fallen. Almost all those in grade school in the fifties in the little southern town where I grew up had absolutely no clue what was meant by a prostitute other than that whatever a prostitute was, it was something that was not good for a person to be. Nonetheless, this woman was so well known to be a prostitute that she had become a byword for those from grade school to adults. If you wanted to call someone a bad name, you would say “You Suzie” – not he prostitute’s real name. One day I made the mistake of letting that slip out in the presence of my Mom. “Son, I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. She is wrong but God made her.”


That is the sin Jesus is dealing with here; i.e. the sin of failing to recognize and respect the image of God in man. It is not so much a sin against the person per se, - though it is that –

And yet worse. of still greater worthiness of judgment and severe punishment was to say of a another, “you fool”. Whoever says that “will be in danger of the fire of hell” or as it is as it is a veiled charge against God that He made a mistake in breathing into such a worthless creature the breath of life. Murder is despite for that which God has created. It may take the form of taking another persons life or it make take the form of an indiscreet tongue or thought of the heart. The one, Jesus is saying, is no less murder than the other.

But I say...

Meditation May 18, 2020

Matthew 5:21-26

21“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, ^a and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

23“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

25“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

     I was overly optimistic when I began this. I soon discovered that there is far too much here for one sitting so I will only cover verses 21 and 22 in this post.
 We come now to a section of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus deals with what is often referred to as sins of the heart although they are not, as we will see quite just that, and although none or few actually say they are thus not quite of such serious consequence as sins committed in the flesh, the general attitude is that such is the case; that somehow they are not quite as iniquitous and if not entirely justifiable at least defensible. One may control his deeds but who can control the thoughts that pop into his mind?

Jesus clearly teaches on the contrary that sins of the heart are no less offensive to God and consequently no less punishable by God that are deeds done in the flesh. Thus, rather than taking this section of His sermon as a whole, it will be profitable to take each sin separately as He addressed them that we may better understand their scope against which scope we may judge ourselves to repent and seek forgiveness as needed. After all, as the scriptures teach, it is only by the law, by understanding the scope of the law, that we know sin and it is only in knowing sin that we flee to Christ. Self-justification for sins of the heart damn no less that those done in the flesh.

Thu, Jesus begins, “You have heard…” There are few, if any, places where Christianity has gone this is not true. Those who have heard may not agree, but they have heard. If by nothing else we know they have heard by the all too often justified charges of hypocrite they like to cast against those professing to be Christian. Among believers, it is without question “you have heard”; that it has been taught and preached to you. When Jesus says “you have heard” He is referring to the common interpretation; one that is not different then that it is now.

You have heard that it was said to the ancients, it was spoken or told to men from the beginning, from as far back as can be remembered, you shall not….. The Jewish people, those to whom he was speaking had been taught the law all their lives by the Scribes, Pharisees, priests etc. But, by what follows we know they had been taught the law only as it applied more or less to violations done in the flesh. As taught elsewhere, Jesus is about to clarify for them that while man looks only on the outward, God judges the heart. Thus, of the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus say woe to you for while you refrain from sin in the flesh, you keep the law in your actions, inwardly you are full of corruption.

“You have heard (as may be said of us) that it was said to the ancients, ‘You shall not murder’”.  We know by that which follows that then, as now, murder was presumed to refer to the act of unlawfully taking the life of another person, to bodily killing them; putting them into a grave. That was the law as they had been taught and as we are taught. Jesus does not deny that is the law, nor, as some were wont to think, as previously noted and denied, had He come to abrogate or replace the law. He is rather about to speak to them as the Lawgiver. You have heard, they the ancients have said, in that they are correct insofar as they go. They have said but I say….

One can only imagine the astonishment (Matt. 7: 28-29) of the people and the consternation of the religious teachers on hearing thsi. All their lives the revered religious teachers had told taught this is the law; this is what was said to them. The Rabbis and religious leaders spoke to them as authorities but as authorities speaking on the authority of another. Throughout the Old Testament we hear “thus says the Lord.” Jesus speaks to them as one having authority of Himself, as one Himself having His own authority to speak for Himself. He does not say “thus says the Lord”, rather He says, “But I tell you….”  Jesus does not say to the people that the ancients did not hear this or that they heard but misunderstood, that would have been astonishing enough, but He speaks as the One giving the law and says to them as it were, yes, that was said to them, “but I say to you….” The law given Moses was interpreted and taught to apply only that actually done in the flesh. Its spiritual meaning, if ever fully comprehended was had been lost; thus, the rich young ruler could say to Jesus, I have kept all the law from the time I was a child.

Such law you have heard, by such law you govern yourselves; and such law you keep and by such law you judge yourselves and we alike with them; Now Jesus says, listen up, that is what you have heard but this is what I say. It is as if he had said to them you have been taught that and that is right but now, we are going to get to the heart of the matter.

I say to you, whoever is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. In some manuscripts the phrase ‘without cause’ is not included. Whether it belongs or does not belong to the original is somewhat a moot point. Whether included in the original, righteous anger is accepted and approved in the Bible. With this Jesus puts meaning on the fifth commandment that was not until then embraced and is little embraced even now. Whatever is entailed in “anger” is something that is outwardly expressed else it could not be subject to judgment.

To understand this, it is needful to know that in each city the Jews had a local court. These were the courts mentioned e.g. in Deut. 16:18. These courts were composed of twenty-three men who heard and decided complaints, were charged by God with judging the people fairly and who had, before the Roman government governed Judea, the authority to punish by strangulation or beheading. This was referred to among the Jews as ‘the judgment.’

Capital punishment was reserved for those who took the lives of others. That, however, encompassed more than putting another into their grave as was commonly understood then and now. It included any unjustified ruination of another person’s life. The Westminster catechism catches the meaning when it observes that ‘you shall not kill’  includes obstructing, “neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life (thus)… all excessive passions…provoking words, oppression, quarreling…and whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any.” In short, whatever course you might let unfettered passion (anger) take that would take away another person’s lawful preservation of their own lives which would include such as would prevent their gainful employment by which they provide sustenance for themselves and their families.

We begin to see how serious a matter can be unbridled tongues. Let them but run to anger and quickly they may run to the ruin of the lives of others and consequent judgment against one’s own life. And note that Jesus does not say such should be subject to the judgment but that they will be so. Thus, he indicates whether or not justice against unjustified anger is exacted by the courts of men or not, there will be a judgment against it.

Being sentenced to death by the courts may seem to us extreme but we can see justice in some punishment against those who let their passions ruin the lives of others. Jesus, however, is going to take it yet to a something that never occurs to most of us to be a violation of the sixth commandment and to that he is going to assign a still harsher judgments.
We should take seriously the exhortation to be angry and sin not, i.e. to be certain our anger is justified on God's basis, and then be certain the judgment is suitable to that about which we are angry lest we discover we have let ourselves run contrary to meek peacemakers and thus contrary to Christian character. 

Meditation May 16, 2020

MATTHEW 5:17-19

 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Perhaps the best-known rallying cry of much of the church within my memory is “We are not under the law.” Misunderstanding regarding the relationship between the law and the gospel often divides us into camps of legalists and antinomians and has even been the occasion for a number of Bible commentators to pit Paul against Jesus. You would expect a Bible commentator to have read the Bible but to make that division, whatever you view on the law, is simply ignorance or deliberately making controversy where none exists..  While that is true insofar as it goes, it is generally taken in such a way by a large portion of the church that it completely contradicts what Jesus teaches.

John Newton, the converted slave trader, wrote that "Ignorance of the nature and design of the law is at the bottom of most of our religious mistakes. I have heard many well-meaning believers express their belief that the God’s given in Scripture has been completely abolished and believers have no obligation to make the moral law the rule by which they judge and guide their conduct. Not surprisingly but with glaring inconsistency seem by all but themselves, they will quickly judge others by the law. Their problem, I suspect, is a misunderstanding of grace; an ignorance of the Person and work of Christ. Perhaps I will get to that one day, but at present, we have Jesus’ affirmation that whatever else he may have come to do, abolishing one jot or tittle of the law was not part of it.

Up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaching must have a bit befuddling to the people and, if there were Scribes and Pharisees among them, His teaching to this point must have been in their minds nothing short of blasphemous. In his specification of the characteristics of believers, He has said nothing about the law, or the importance of observing them which was rudimentary in the Jewish mind, nor has he said anything about the Scribes and Pharisees and the following and deference they thought due them.

Jesus, who knows the minds and hearts of men, as he has shown on many occasions, must have anticipated or known what was going through their mind. So, He said to them, as it were, Look, I know where you mind is going, but “do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. His words imply that is exactly what they had begun to think. Preaching as He was, forgiveness and focused on what was on the inside as opposed to the religious rites and practices that were on the outside, His teaching appeared to be an attack on the two means on which the Jewish religion stood; i.e., the law and the prophets. The whole of the Jewish scripture, that upon which they built their religion, that by which they guided their lives and that by which they presumed to find favor with God is found in the law and the prophets, they two great Jewish divisions of the Old Testament.

“Do not think,,,” Jesus says. Not to get lost in grammar but that is said in the aorist subjunctive indicating such thinking was definitely happening. The sense is stop thinking that by what I have been saying that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. In contemporary vernacular we might read it as, I know where you mind is going, just don’t go there. Abolishing the law and the prophets hasn’t happened, isn’t happening, and will not happen. That is about as emphatic as it can be put. Not only is it the case that I haven’t come to abolish the law and the prophets but, on the contrary, “I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.” By living sinless Jesus fulfilled the moral law, all that encompassed in the Pentateuch, which as we will soon see included far more than they thought, he fulfilled all the ceremonial law in His sacrificial death and in doing so fulfilled all the prophecies. Not one jot or tittle was abolished or left unfulfilled. Jesus used jot and tittle as a metaphor to express the thoroughness of His fulfilling the law down to the most minute aspects. In the Hebrew language, something as small as a tittle could change the meaning much as a missing comma in English can change a meaning or make it ambiguous.





Jesus words make it clear that not one whit of the law is no longer applicable. One greatly errs to suppose that Christ allows any trifling with the word of God, the prophecies of the Old Testament or the commands of God holy law. The moral law is the believer’s rule for life and conduct. “Blessed is the man…whose delight is the law.” (Psalm 1) Anyone professing to be a disciple of Christ, who encourages himself or others in any disobedience to the law of God by some supposed abrogation of God’s moral demands is a false prophet and should not be heard in the church of God.

Many argue that the most obvious instance of Christ abrogating the law, at least in part, and adding something new is the change of the Sabbath. Far from supporting their antinomian position, such argument proves no more that that they have read the law as Pharisees for nowhere in the Pentateuch is it commanded that Saturday or Sunday or Wednesday is to be kept holy. The command is one day in seven.

The dissimulation of antinomians under the skirts of Paul are quickly exposed by the reading of Paul’s letters. Some apparently have never done that for early in his letter to the Romans he writes “Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Absolutely not. Instead we uphold the law. (Ro. 3:31) Again in Ro. 7 Paul writes, “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.” He has the same message for Timothy; i.e. “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” (1Tim. 1:8) Except for the law, says Paul, we do not know sin. Christ did not come to bring any new way of righteousness and salvation into the world, but to fulfil that promised and foreshadowed in the law and the prophets. He did not come to do away with the law but to teach fulfill true obedience and by grace to deliver man from the curse, not the demands,

Sinclair Ferguson explains it this way: “Jesus shows us what the promises of the Old Testament really meant. Until he came, God's people knew them and believed them, of course. But only when he fulfilled them were they able to say, 'Now I understand them…'Jesus says the same is true of God's law. That point is often overlooked. In Matthew 5:17 , Jesus is teaching that if we want to know what the law really means, we must look at Him and what He does with it because He fulfils, or `accomplishes,' the law (Mt 5:18…Jesus did not weaken the law. On the contrary, He let it out of the cage in which the Pharisees had imprisoned it, allowing it to pounce on our secret thoughts and motives, and tear to pieces our bland assumption that we are able to keep it in our own strength."

It is only in the face of the law that believers are continually poor in spirit, mourn their sins and with gladness proclaim “Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” (Lam. 3)

Shine

Meditation May 15, 2020

Matt. 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

I need to introduce my thoughts on salt and light by saying that on these verses are my thoughts are musings. That is to say, I have some apprehension of where I think they are leading but I haven't yet managed to bring that into clear focus. Of this much I am convinced: While I am yet unclear on the ultimate meaning, I am convinced that contrary to commonly accepted renderings Jesus' purpose here is not to teach us that believers are to be moral guides for the world showing the world how it should live if it would please God. The point Jesus seems to be making is that as useless as salt that is not salty so also light that doesn't light. Salting and lighting is not being set forth as something we ought to be but as something we either are or are not. In reality, salt that isn't salty and light that doesn't shine are useless absurdities. So also the notion of a believer who does not have the characteristics, all of them, listed in the beatitudes. That is, after all, still the subject. A worldly person and a  merely religious person is simply a clump of dirt and an unlit lamp. I am persuaded that is the point although I don't yet quite know what to make of that.


It should go without saying that we are not “(t)he true light that gives light to light up everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:9) There is but one who can be identified as the true light. However, being in Christ, we are lit up (enlightened) by Him through His indwelling in the Person of the Holy Spirit and thus, we are the light of the world. God has chosen that, through those born from above who put their trust in Christ, He would make known to the world what it is that He has done for man, making of us His workmanship to perform the good works He appointed to believers (Eph. 2:10) one of which is to be the light of the world. If we may be allowed an analogy, we could say as light bulbs do not of themselves produce light but only serve as the means by which energy is converted to light, we are the light bulbs through which the True Light shines.  


Notice Jesus does not say we are “a” light but “the” light. Thus, while God the Holy Spirit may work when and where He will, ordinarily there is no light to the world except that we as believers shine as the light of Christ on a fallen world. One has said, “to put it plainly, if we aren’t shining, Christ isn’t flowing.” If that be the case, if we are not shining, Christ is not in us. There is no feigning to be ‘lit up’ by Christ. We are in Christ or we are not. If we are not in Christ, then in no sense are we light but rather darkness. On the other hand, if we are in Christ, we are shining and can no more choose not to shine that the moon can choose not to reflect the light of the sun.


When God made man, he breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living soul. In a similar manner, when God remakes man, when we become new creations in Christ, he enlightens us and we become shiners. One follows in course as does the other. Jesus does not say, I want you to be the light of the world or You should be the light of the world, or I would like for you to be the light of the world, but you “are” the light of the world.. 

Now, if you are a light, you are going to shine. To think otherwise is an absurdity. Think of the absurdity of trying to hide a city built on the top of a hill. What fool, He might have said, lights a lamp then puts a cover over it so that its light cannot be seen. To do such would be an absurdity. No one lights a lamp except that it may give light. The point of saying you are the light of the world is that you should be evangelists or less so that you should be moral guides but that by exhibiting the characteristics listed in the beatitudes, light, your are a living, walking, talking testimony to the grace of God in Christ, Because your life is so distinctly different from the world they cannot but see that which lights you up is far different from the darkness that, to put it in an absurdity, lights them up..

Therefore, Jesus does not say, you should or I would like for you or I command you “shine your light before men that they may see how they ought to live.” That is the way it is most commonly read or understood. But as it actually reads, Jesus is saying, being shiners (you are not ought to be light) “shine your light before me that they may see  your good works and glorify your Father in the heavens.” The point of our being lights in the world is not, it seems to me, that we may by life and word be preachers of morality and direct the world in the way that it should go but that we may shine forth the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To be light as was to be salt, is to be the character described in the beatitudes, As surely as one is alive into whom God has breathed the breath of life, so surely does one shine into whom Christ has shined. To think otherwise is to suppose you could build a city on a hill and no one would notice.

Sand in the Salt Shaker

Meditation May 14, 2020

Matthew 5:13

“You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will it be salted? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot”

You are the salt…  You whom? Those he has just described. All those who are the blessed he has described in the preceding verses. Jesus in the beatitudes has given the characteristics of believers as a class, in the verse preceding this he has narrowed his address from speaking of His followers as a class to apply them personally and not abstractly to a class of people saying “when you, you who are before me, you who profess to be my followers, are persecuted etc.” Now, in v13 he continues with that personal application and expands on our role in the world as believers by which we bring on ourselves persecution. He is speaking to us personally, as an individual, as one he has called by name. I suspect I am not the only one who sits under the preaching of the word and think from time to time, no doubt too often, “Boy, is know some people who need to be hearing this.” Jesus at the point is saying Right, you. You will be persecuted; you are the salt and if the salt is saltless it is you. Well, that is getting a little personal. Yes. That is the intent.

Metaphors are tricky to translate and we must be careful we are not comparing apples to oranges. The salt common in the Mideast and around the Dead Sea was salty to be sure but in varying degrees depending on where it was mined, the degree it was admixed with other minerals and the extent to which it was exposed to the elements. It was not the table salt with which we in the west, and nowadays likely the rest of the world as well, are familiar. The salt they had was harvested, gathered, mined where is was found naturally in areas where the salt waters had receded leaving salt deposits. It was an impure salt being mixed with other minerals in which it was found in various concentrations. Exposure to the elements caused the salt to leech from the other minerals. That process would reach a point at which the salt was no longer useful. It had neither enough flavor nor enough preservative power to make it useful; yet, it was still of enough concentration that it was damaging to plant life. It was no longer potent for flavor or as a preservative but still potent enough that it was damaging where plants might grow (let that thought sink in). Consequently, it was thrown into the streets where it could do no damage and was thus trodden under foot.

Mr. Maundrell, who visited the area of Israel writes “you may see how the veins of it lie (i.e., salt); I brake a piece off it, of which the part that was exposed to the rain, sun, and air, though it had the sparks and particles of salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savour. The innermost part, which had been connected to the rock, retained its savour, as I found by proof.” (One could make a sermon from that bit of information alone) He goes on to say, “There is no place about the house, yard, or garden where it can be tolerated. No man will allow it to be thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the street, and there it is cast to be trodden underfoot of men." I grew up on the Gulf coast of Florida where the beaches sands are as fine as sugar and as white as snow, The Gulf  waters are as slalty as a box of Morton's but the sands of the beach are tasteless grit and little living but sandburs and sea oats will grow in them. Whether or not those sands were every salty, I have no idea. Perhaps; perhaps they never had more than the appearance of salt. Those beaches always come to mind when I read this verse. .

Whether that salt can really become tasteless and completely lose its essential property, does not seem to me to be the question. It seems to me this is the point Jesus was making is that believers who do not live as believers, believers who do not manifest in their lives the iterated graces with which they are blessed are like salt that had lost its usefulness. In short, they are useless both to the world and to the kingdom. The point, it seems to me, is not on that for which salt may be used but on the uselessness of salt in which the characteristics of salt had become too benign to serve its purpose. Jesus is  simply made reference to a common occurrence, one with which his audience would be familiar, to make a point regarding the uselessness of believers who failed to live as believers.

Salt is obviously distinct. Whether as a flavoring, a preservative or waste ill-advised introduced into the garden, its effect cannot be missed. When salt is absent (or impotent, tasteless) it is distinctly obvious there is no salt. Thus, also the Believer in the world. Read again the eight characteristics of a believer.

Christians, you and I do well to admit it, are all too prone to be profuse with accusations and negative comments about the ungodly condition of the world in which we live. But check this out; the world is only doing what comes natural to the world. It has only its own heart which is only always wicked to guide it. When we see the world rotting around us, we should start asking ourselves where is the church? Why is the church not doing a better job? Have we become so bland we no long have any influence? John Stott asks the appropriate question when he when he observes that “when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world but should we not rather reproach ourselves. One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question is where is the salt?” 

The promise of God still stands; i.e. the land will be healed “when my people….” Father, you have not called us to judge the world but to be examples to the world, to be its salt. When we see the world rotting about us, grant us the grace to humble ourselves before your word, examine ourselves and turn from our wicked ways that you may come and heal the land.

Bad Things Are Said About the Followers of Jesus

Meditation May 13.2020

Matthew 5:11-12

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus turns now from giving the characteristics of believers as a class or group, to speaking directly to his disciples or those gathered with them. What he says now they, and we who are His disciples, are to take personally. You, not they, will be persecuted. It is as if he is anticipating the “name and claim it” believers and their notion that suffering want, ridicule, need persecution etc. is the result of a lack of faith. No, in fact, Jesus is saying, it is just the opposite. Faith in Me, following Me is going to bring you persecution, it is going to result in people insulting you and speaking evil against you.

When that happens, Jesus say, “blessed are you”. He is not saying you are blessed because you are insulted and lied about but that you are blessed because you are my follower and being my follower has brought you slander. There is no blessing in slander and persecution itself but there is boundless blessing in being a follower of Christ. Being lied to and lied about, slandered, misrepresented and persecuted is not a blessing but when you received such for being a follower of Christ, you have reason to rejoice for it is a clear indication your faith is genuine and your standing with God is to be envied.

Thus, He says “blessed are you when people…falsely say all kinds of evil against you.” Notice that Jesus does not say “if” people say false things but “when” they say false things. It will happen. He has told us plainly that the world hated Him and they will hate His followers. Make no mistake about that. And make no mistake that it is not true accusations that are an indication that we are blessed followers of Christ. There is no cause for rejoicing if accusations made against you are true. If the accusations are true it is time then for a broken and contrite heart; not rejoicing. Some say the word “falsely” is not found in the best manuscripts. I do not quite get how they know one manuscript is better than the next but it really matters little in this instance for it is clear, whether found in the original manuscript (which we do not have) or not it requires no genius to get that falsely is necessarily implied whether actually included or not. There is a saying, an aphorism among the Jews says ‘being cursed, do not curse’; ‘being reviled do not revile in return’. The idea is to bear patiently the curses of others against you. Jesus takes that up a notch from simple patient bearing and says to His followers, if you are falsely accused, slandered, persecuted “for my sake.” Peter, remembering no doubt this teaching of Jesus, teaches us the same when he says, “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened. But in your hearts revere Christ as LORD. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3:14ff)

The lesson is simple, the sufferings in this life for the sake of Christ are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in heaven. (Ro, 8:18)