Matthew 5:17-20
Particleboard is a unique invention. The innovation of taking wood scraps and pressing them together to make lighter and cheaper wood has helped to lessen waste and provide for many people, and as that, has some advantages. However, though it may look like real wood, it’s just not the same. You can try all you want, but there is no substitute for real wood furniture. And neither is it possible to make oneself holy enough for God. It’s just not possible.
The Pharisees had spent centuries trying to live up to the standard of perfection God demanded. From Abraham in Gen 17 to the giving of the Law and the instructions of the prophets, there was no question that the Creator God is holy and demands the same level of perfection from His people. The big question was how to get it.
The Problem of Earned Holiness
For Christmas a long time ago, my grandma gave me a memory book. It had a page for each school year, with a place for a picture and favorite things during that year, plus other details. Being that I was in middle school at the time, I automatically assumed that the older years were unnecessary. Before giving myself time to think through what a memory book is, I started ripping out all the old pages as I didn’t think they applied to me anymore. The Israelites did the same thing with God. Instead of stepping back and taking a moment to see the bigger picture of what God was communicating through things like the near sacrifice of Isaac, the day of atonement, and the prophecy of writing His words in our hearts, the Pharisees instead dug their heels in and tried to figure out how to make themselves look as good as they could in the moment. They thought that had to look as good as Jesus, earning their own righteousness. They missed the point He was making, that He earned it for them.
In response, they turned the OT law into 613 detailed commandments they followed with rigid legalism. In the end, it became all about how they looked on the outside, keeping God at arm’s length. Jesus is proclaiming to them that this is all impossible! It’s exactly what He meant when He called them whitewashed tombs in Matt 23:27-28. Instead of living in His fulfillment, they kept trying on their own, and looked good on the outside, but inside they were dead. If you try to earn your holiness on your own, no matter how noble the effort, the end of that line will always be death by legalism: we saw that in Jesus’ day, in the medieval era with the monks and today with Buddhism and others. Earned holiness isn’t holiness. It’s legalism and failure. Jesus fulfilled the Law – that’s enough, we don’t have to! We only have to depend on Him!
The Blessing of Imputed Holiness
Galatians shows us that the law was never designed to make us holy. Instead, it shows us that holiness on our own is impossible. Just like Abraham needed that ram as s substitute to sacrificing Isaac, we need help because we can’t live up to the law. We can’t achieve it or fulfill it. No matter how much I wanted to be the energetic person that my mentors Gary and Rudy were, I had to come to a point to accept that I wasn’t them and youth ministry wasn’t my calling. I had to accept that it just wasn’t me. I chose to switch over to the pastoral ministry program and felt so much freer accepting my limitations and realizing how much more fun I had in accounting and management classes than in youth classes. When we reach the point to where we understand and accept that we cannot ern our own holiness, we begin to experience our first real breaths of freedom. No longer do you have to try to be someone you’re not or try to do something that you will always fail, you are now free to accept help.
This is the point of the law and the desire God has for all of us to reach – the point to where we know and accept that we need help. Through Christ’s perfect life and sacrifice on the cross, those of us who trust in Christ are given His perfection as a cover. Much like hiding under a blanket is a good idea in a game of hide and seek, Christ becomes to us a covering blanket. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus, not us. Our sins, our mistakes, our issues are covered and hidden and God sees the perfection of Christ. We did nothing to earn holiness, but are declared holy because Christ achieved it and offers us His purity. Jesus’ sacrifice is our blanket of righteousness, because He fulfilled the law – He completed its requirements for us.
The Freedom to Live Righteously
That blanket does more than cover us, though, it empowers us. Now we stand at a point of holiness, of perfection in Christ, and it is from this stance that we can begin to live that out. Imagine being tasked to run a marathon, but being given a car to do it. There is still the 26 miles to go, but instead of destroying your legs, you have a full tank of gas and some good music on the radio. We are given the power to be holy and the majority of the work is already done for us. With holiness as our starting point and with the Spirit living in us have the power to live up to it, and even then, God still sees us as holy despite the fact that we still mess up! This is what Jesus is talking about in v19 – we still need to live out our faith well, but with His help, you can. Jesus is covering you and the Holy Spirit moving you forward in sanctification. This is how we live as citizens of the Kingdom.
Next Steps
The Sermon on the Mount is a guide of what a person looks like with Jesus living in them, not an expectation of an impossible standard. Dependency on Jesus makes our inner life as clean as the pharisees wanted their outer lives to be. Start your engines and choose holiness by:
- Own your failures and ask for help through faith in Jesus
- Seek freedom through Jesus by letting go of your expectations
- Give the Holy Spirit leadership over your life, let Him drive you
We don’t live up to God’s standard. He lives up to it for us and through us. The Sermon on the mount is what that looks like, so ask yourself today – are you trying to make it happen on your own, or are you letting Jesus drive?
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