You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Matthew 5:21–22
Everywhere Jesus went, things were turned upside down. His birth brought a lot of attention to a low-profile town in Judea. When He entered the temple after His baptism, He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and drove out the merchants along with their four-legged wares. When He visited the land of the Gadarenes, His power to cast out demons so terrified its inhabitants that they begged Him to leave. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).
Not only did Jesus challenge the long-standing political and social structure of first-century Palestine, but He also openly took on the religious establishment of the day. There is no clearer demonstration of this than in the well-known Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus challenges everything. If anyone wanted to pat himself on the back for not killing a brother with whom he had a quarrel, he would have been shocked to hear Jesus say that he was guilty of his murder already. Jesus then intimates that lust is the germ of adultery and that their statutes regarding divorce were nothing short of the legal sanction of sin. Then to a group of people zealously opposed to Roman occupation, Jesus proposes that retaliation is contrary to the nature of our benevolent God, who loves even those who blaspheme Him.
Jesus goes on to assault their notions about charity and religious practices. The people in Jesus’ audience had been brought up to expect a receipt for every prayer, offering, and act of piety. It was the public knowledge of one’s good works that determined a man’s rank in this society which had become replete with ceremony that lacked any substance. To these people Jesus says, “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3). If they did these works in such guarded secrecy, how would others learn about them? How would they be rewarded? “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (v 4, ESV). The word “openly”––present only in the KJV and NKJV––translates a phrase which lacks strong textual support. Jesus isn’t promising a public reward, but a better one––a reward that only God can give.
Jesus said, “I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Indeed it was the hypocritical self-righteousness of the Pharisees that the people admired and aspired to, but Jesus, in His typical fashion, dismantles this flawed model and gives them a better one. After what were they to pattern their lives? What would be their standard if the example of the Pharisees wasn’t sufficient? Jesus’ answer: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Jesus didn’t want them to settle for the Pharisee’s style of righteousness; He inspired them to seek God’s instead (Matthew 6:33). God’s ways of doing things are vastly superior to man’s. Who but Jesus would have dared to think to look to God as a model for living a mortal existence, but Jesus has a way of turning our way of thinking upside down and inside out––if only we will listen!