Alastair's Adversaria - Biblical Reading and Reflections: September 3rd (Micah 1 & Matthew 5:21-48)

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Micah of Moresheth. A righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. My reflections are searchable by Bible chapter here: https://audio.alastairadversaria.com/explore/. If you are interested in supporting this project, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://bit.ly/2RLaUcB), or buying books for my research on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/36WVSWCK4X33O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035?mt=2.

Micah chapter 1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Marosheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear you peoples, all of you, pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the

House of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting bignards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley, and uncover her foundations. All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return. For this I will lament and wail. I will go stripped and naked. I will make lamentation like the jackals and mourning like the ostriches, for her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah. It has reached to the gate of

my people, to Jerusalem. Tell it not in gath, weep not at all. In Bethleafra, roll yourselves in the dust. Pass on your way inhabitants of Schaefer, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitants of Zeyernan do not come out. The lamentation of Beth Isle shall take away from you at standing place, for the inhabitants of Mayroth wait anxiously for good, because disaster has come. come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem. Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lakers. It was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel. Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Maresheth Gath. The houses of Axib shall be

a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel. I will again bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Maryshire. The glory of Israel shall come to Adulam. Make yourselves bold and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight, make yourselves as bold as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile. The Book of Micah, the 6th of the Book of the Twelve, is written by a late 8th century BC prophet of Judah during a period of rising Assyrian power.

Uzziah's successor Jotham came to the throne around 740 BC, while Tiglaf Pileza III was on the throne of Assyria. He would be followed by Shalmaniza V, who would bring about the end of the northern kingdom of Israel, which finally fell to his successor Sargon II in 722 BC. Hezekiah, the final of the three kings during whose reign Micah ministered, ruled until about 687 BC. During Micah's ministry, the Syrians and the northern kingdom of Israel, both of them tributary nations to Assyria, sought to rebel against Assyria and attack Judah. They sought to depose King Ahaz, who had not joined their coalition.

The Cyro-Ephromite war was fought between the combined forces of the war. of Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel against the southern kingdom of Judah. Judah was devastated by them and brought to its knees. Jerusalem itself was besieged, but after appealing to the Assyrians for aid, the Assyrians subdued the Arameans in Israel, and Judah was given a reprieve. About 10 years after the end of the Cyro-Ephromite war, the northern kingdom would be finally removed. However, Judah was now a tributary of Assyria. Chafing under the yoke of Assyria later on, Hezekiah influenced by Babylon and Egypt, sought to lead his own rebellion against Assyria. In 701 BC, under Senechereb, the Assyrians all but completely overwhelmed Judah.

The Lord saved Jerusalem, but Senecherev took 200,000 people of Judah captive. In the end, to pay the tribute required of him by the Assyrians, Hezekiah had to strip many of the riches of the temple, his own palace and the national treasuries. Although the Lord struck the Assyrians and delivered Jerusalem from their hands, the outcome of the war was certainly not a victory for Hezekiah, who remained a vassal of Senechereb. Unusually among the minor prophets, the prophet Micah is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, in the book of Jeremiah, well over 100 years later. In Jeremiah chapter 26, verse 17 to 19, we read,

and certain of the elders of the land arose and spoke to all the assembled people, saying, Micah of Marosheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and said to all the people of Judah, thus says the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be ploughed as a field, Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house, a wooded height. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death?

Did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favour of the Lord, and did not the Lord relent of the disaster that he had pronounced against them? But we are about to bring great disaster upon ourselves. This external reference to Micah allows us to date the prophecy of chapter 3, verse 12 to some time during the reign of Hezekiah. However, the more precise stating of many prophecies within the book is unclear, although various parts can be placed within certain temporal bounds. More generally, we should recognize that Micah's ministry was contemporary with that of Isaiah and Josea. In addition to being an eventful period on the international stage, the time of Micah's

ministry was also one of social upheaval in Judah, with the rise of larger estates and of a landless, unemployed class as smaller ancestral land holdings were taken over by those larger estates, something described in Isaiah chapter 5 verses 8 to 10. Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing, surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of six, and a homer of six,

seed shall yield but an ether. Micah came from a town to the west of Jerusalem and a few miles northeast of Lakish, Marashath, which was in the Sheffala, the Judean lowlands. However, his ministry seems to have been focused in and around Jerusalem. He also spoke concerning the northern kingdom. In verse 2, the Lord assembles the people for a great trial. He is the guard of the whole earth, and he is summoning all to his act of judgment. He is arriving on the scene, and all must be ready, Coming forth from his holy temple or palace, he arrives with a shaking of the earth. The imagery of verses 3 and 4 is of a theophani, with the natural order being thrown into commotion as the Lord comes on the scene. We find very similar descriptions in places like Psalm 18.

To this point, we don't know who is being judged. All of the nations have been assembled, but we haven't yet seen who is standing in the dark. In verse 5, we finally discovered that the judgment is against Israel and Judah. At first, we might think that the judgment is against Israel and Judah. At first we might think that the judgment is really focused upon Israel, the Northern Kingdom. Jacob is a term that is often used for the Northern Kingdom, and while Israel can be used for the people more generally, it's usually focused upon the Northern Kingdom at this time. However, by the end of the verse, it's very clear that Judah is included in the judgment.

The rath of the nations starts in the very centre. The transgression of Jacob of the Northern Kingdom is Samaria, the capital, the place from which everything is spreading. The high place of Judah is Jerusalem. Zion is the place where the sin of Judah is most pronounced. The Lord is going to devastate Samaria for its sin. It's going to be made into a heap in the open country. Its hill reduced to a place for vine terraces.

Its stones cast down into the valley beneath. It's laid bare, stripped naked, its sin exposed. Drawing upon the same sort of realm of imagery that we find in the book of Hoseer, the Lord describes Israel as like a prostitute. All of the paraphernalia of her infidemiced. will be destroyed. Her carved images broken to pieces, her idols laid waste. She had gained these riches from her infidelities, and now the riches would return to her lovers as they stripped her bare. All of this probably refers most especially to the destruction of Bethel and its site of worship.

When he overthrew it, it does not seem that Sargonne II devastated Samaria in quite the physical way described here. Rather, the language here should be taken more symbolically. It describes the decapitation of the great head of the whole nation of Israel, and with it the whole nation being cut off. The prophet's response to this message is to mourn, to mourn loudly in the greatest expression of anguish. He strips himself of all of his glory, going around naked. He makes lamentation like the jackals, howling, and screeching in his pain like the ostrichers. There is no hope for the Northern Kingdom, and the shadow of the judgment that has fallen on the Northern Kingdom hangs heavily over Judah itself. Micah recognises that a similar destiny threatens his own

nation. Versus 10 to 15 contain a litany of place names and instructions given to the inhabitants of them. We find a similar list in Azaya chapter 10 versus 28 to 32, where it's a line of invasion. Here however the names are more random. The names seem to be of places within the Sheffeler, the region from which Micah himself came. Although we don't know the precise location or identity of some of these places, the logic of their inclusion is not hard to discover. The names are mostly selected for the purpose of wordplay. As Leslie Allen observes, they come to serve as omens of the coming destruction, a destruction that probably refers to the time of Sargon's campaigns against Philistia in 720 BC or 714 to 711 BC. The opening words are taken from David's lament over the

death of Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel chapter 1 verse 20, tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashgolan, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, less the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. This coming destruction upon the nation has been compared with that dark day of Israel's history, with the death of the king and the crown prince. We should also recognize that Gath was the nearest foreign city. It would be the first place where Israel was shamed among the nations by news of this devastating defeat. Beth Leaffra plays upon the word for dust. Shafir is similar to a word for beautiful. Zaynan plays upon the sound of the verb go out.

John Goldingay provides a loose rendition of this particular part of the prophecy. Dirt house cover yourself in dirt. Beautiful people in shameful nakedness. Exit people don't exit. Withdrawal house adopts its stance. Bitter people writhe for something good. Harness the chariots, chariot town. You will give a marriage gift for betrothal town.

The houses of disappoint. will disappoint. I will bring a dispossessor to the possession people. All of these familiar place names for people in the region would now bear an ominous sense of foreboding, each testifying to their coming devastation. Perhaps even the name of Jerusalem is being used in this way. Disaster is coming to the place that has peace as part of its name. The glory of Israel finally comes up to Adulam. Adulam was a fortified location, a place where people would retreat when they were under attack. It's also a place that reminds us of the story of David. David and his man hid in the cave of Adulam when he was fleeing from King Saul. As at the beginning of this section of the passage,

there is a reminder of David, the one who founded the dynasty. His heirs would soon find themselves lamenting with him and retreating to Adulam as he had once done. Jerusalem and Judah would be stripped of its glory, its children taken from it. The reference to the exile here is probably not to the exile in Babylon, but probably to the captivity of many Judah. heights under Seneca rib, those remaining in Judah and Jerusalem would be in the situation of mourners. Having lost such a great population of the land, they would shave their heads and mourn their devastation. A question to consider, where else in scripture can you find examples like theophanie of verses 2 to 4? Matthew chapter 5 verses 21 to 48.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

So, if you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court,

lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison, truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members, than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the grounds of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again you have heard that it was said to those of old,

you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends reign on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. In the second half of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus continues the teaching that he has begun in his statement that he has come to fulfil the law and the prophets. And this part particularly concerns the fulfillment of the law. Jesus goes through the second table of the ten words, the ten commandments, going through murder, Lust, which is connected with the Seventh Commandment concerning adultery. Divorce, which in the unpacking of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy in Chapter 24 is connected with the Eighth Commandment. Oaths, which are connected with false witness. Vengeance, connected with the Tenth Commandment.

And then finally, focusing upon the summary statement of the whole second table of the commandments concerning loving your neighbor as yourself. How are we to understand Jesus' teaching concerning the law? It's often treated as a set of antithesis, with Jesus contrasting his more radical teaching with that of Moses. Moses is supposedly concerned with external action, but Jesus highlights the internal reality of the law. And many Protestants have suggested that Jesus is radicalizing the law in order to drive us to despair of our good works and to turn to Christ for the gift of righteousness. But I don't think that's what's going on here. against the suggestion that there is an internal external opposition Jesus typically focuses upon action

not merely upon an inner state Jesus is calling for integrity the marriage of internal and external but he focuses upon particular proactive practices of righteousness by which we can pursue these things to understand what is going on I think it's important to see the logic of Jesus' argument it's generally read as antitheses Jesus says that the law teaches X, but I say why.

Why is some more radicalized teaching of the law that internalizes it or puts it beyond our reach? But that doesn't seem to be what Jesus is doing here in Matthew. Indeed, if we read it this way, it can often make some of the interpretations very clumsy. Jesus does not give a prohibition much of the time, but states a fact. So there's another way to read it. The other way to read it is to think that Jesus is present. presenting the traditional teaching, he is then highlighting a vicious cycle associated with that teaching, and then finally presenting his transformative initiative.

And so what Jesus is presenting here is filling out what he means by a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. So it addresses the internal state, but it does so in a proactive external manner, not just ordered around avoidance. Another thing to notice here is the authority with which Jesus is speaking. I say unto you. He's speaking with authority not just as one who's making a theological argument, but one who's speaking and addressing people with authority making a claim upon their practice. So the first teaching concerns murder. The traditional teaching is you shall not murder, but there's a vicious cycle here.

And the vicious cycle is being angry with and insulting your brother. Now, when that is at root within your heart, it'll be very hard to avoid that coming out in various ways that actually take the form of violence. And so what Jesus teaches is a response to the vicious cycle that fulfills the traditional teaching. And that response is a transforming initiative. And it's found in being a reconciler and making peace. And this is where the imperatives are found, not in addressing it to the heart in a way that radicalizes it. but in addressing positive action to the problem. Jesus identifies the problem of unaddressed sin in the heart.

This is a seed that can grow into the sin of murder. Now think about the story of Kane. Before Kane actually kills his brother, something else happens. He's angry with his brother. And it's that anger that leads him to act. And God stops him. He stops him and he addresses his anger, says you need to deal with this. There's a beast crouching at the door.

and if you do not deal with it, it will seek to control you. And so he has to deal with that anger first. Now, how would Cain have dealt with that? By making peace with his brother straight away, by being a reconciler, by taking positive action in that way, because as long as he did not do that, the sin within his heart would fester. So what is Jesus' alternative to the problem of this vicious cycle of anger within the heart?

to Cain, leave your gift at the altar, be reconciled with Abel, and as you are reconciled, you'll find that that anger problem is dealt with. The response is proactive reconciliation and peacemaking. And this, again, note, is acting redemptively. This is not just a righteousness for our own sake, a righteousness to get us merit before God or for God to look on us and approve of us. This is about acting within the world in God's name to bring peace, to bring reconciliation, to bring love where hatred and animosity used to exist, to overcome hostility with forgiveness and reconciliation. Jesus then moves into teaching concerning lust. The traditional teaching is you shall not commit adultery. But there's a vicious cycle here, because if you look at a woman with lustful intent, you've already harboured that sin of adultery in your heart and it's already at work, it's already at work.

germinating. It's already moving towards the surface to be expressed in dangerous ways. And so what is the alternative? The alternative is a transforming initiative of taking radical action to address the cause of the temptation in yourself. Now sexual immorality Jesus highlights is a sin of great seriousness. It puts your entire body in jeopardy of hell. And the alternative is to sacrifice members of your body so that the whole will not be lost. is a focus upon the man's duty in this case. It's not denying that women should not purposefully excite men's lust, but Jesus is focusing upon the agency of the man here.

It's very easy to blame other people for our sins, to say, the woman that you gave me, or something like that. But the point that Jesus wants us to grasp is that we have within the realm of our own responsibility causes of sin that are far more immediate to us. So Jesus uses hyperbole here. the focus is upon changing practice. Cut out whatever it is that is causing you to engage in that sort of sin.

Cut out certain context from your life. Avoid certain persons. Sacrifice certain things and pleasures and activities that you may find yourself led into temptation in. Jesus' focus is upon intimate obstacles, your own eye or your own hand. It highlights just how unsparing we should be in rooting out the sin. but Jesus' emphasis on causes of sin is no less important. Some people like to believe that sin is merely a matter of a lack of virtue. But Jesus teaches here that we need to recognize our own weakness

and remove things that tempt us to get rid of the obstacles that might stand in our way. So when you see yourself falling into the trap of the sin of adultery and lust, what do you do? You deal with those things that are nearest to you. You recognize your own limitations and you take radical action. Now Jesus is teaching here in part that we need to use wisdom in our struggle with sin. We need to recognize those things that give sin some sort of perches upon us in our lives, some sort of power over us,

and deal with those little footholes that sin has in our lives radically and decisively. Jesus goes on to teach about divorce. He presents the traditional teaching and the vision. cycle, but not the transforming initiative here. What is the transforming initiative? Well, I think we find it in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 10 to 11, where Paul presents a transforming initiative as the charge of Christ himself. He writes, to the married I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to husband and the husband should not divorce his wife. What's the point of all of this? Well, the point is not

so much a sort of halakic teaching concerning divorce, what cases it legitimate in, what cases it not legitimate in. The point is not legalistic prohibition, but rather a presentation of the way of the kingdom, which restores and upholds the good intent of the original creation. So the contrast is between legal permission and positive action. So you may have permission to divorce in this particular instance. But as those committed to the way of the kingdom, your duty is to seek reconciliation where at all possible, to heal wounds, not to allow these things to be undermined. God created marriage to be good and to be lasting. And so the way of the kingdom is to pursue that. And even when it's difficult to seek reconciliation above all else. Jesus moves on to oaths. The traditional

teaching is do not swear falsely but perform your oaths. Now there's vicious cycle here. Oathmaking, particularly in a context of deceit and manipulation, simply multiplies and becomes a means of falsehood. You can see this in Matthew chapter 23, the different escape routes that you could have for oaths. What oaths count and what oaths do not count? All of this, is a way of avoiding truthful speech. But the transforming initiative is to avoid oaths altogether and to engage in truthful and transparent speech. Is this ruling out oaths under any particular situation? No, it's not. There are plenty of oaths seen in the New Testament. Paul makes a number of oaths. Rather, the point is to address the root problem, which is of falsehood. When people who have been

so used to speaking falsehood, use oaths to bolster speech to give it some sort of credibility when it really has none. And I presume many of you have met people who are like this, who just compulsively speak falsehood. And then because everyone knows them to be liars, they will bring forward all these oaths to bolster words that are fundamentally empty. They will swear upon their children's lives. They'll swear upon their parents' graves. They'll swear by God. They'll swear against hell. they'll swear against all these different things and then you find that their words have no substance to them and the oaths are provoked simply in order to bolster something that has no substance

and Jesus is speaking a transforming initiative into this situation that we should be people of truthful, forthright and transparent speech so we do not need oaths at all and so that when we do use an oath it's used in its proper way not to veil falsehood or to bolster words that are fundamentally empty, but to accentuate truth. And this is something that we see it used to do in the New Testament. From oaths, Jesus moves on to the subject of retaliation. And the traditional teaching is the law of retribution, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But the problem is there's a vicious cycle here, and that's resisting by evil means. Now this is translated as do not resist the one who is evil in most translations, but I think that's not capturing the true sense of what's being said here. The point is rather that we should not resist in an evil way. What is the transforming initiative? The law of retribution was designed to limit vengeance to prevent people from taking two eyes when they lost one. Jesus advocates resisting vengeance but accepting rather than giving the second slap, a reasonable. arresting the process of vengeance before it ever gets started. When people use the process of vengeance,

often what happens is it just spirals out of all control. And the point of the traditional teaching was to arrest the process of vengeance, not to give warrant to it. And so Jesus teaches that we should arrest it before it ever begins. You can think of the teaching in John chapter 8, where Jesus draws attention to the person who cast the first stone. once the first stone has been cast every successive stone is so much easier to cast

and a similar pattern can be seen in the case of vengeance once one person has avenged themselves upon someone else that other person will seek vengeance in return and as a result you have these cycles of vengeance that just cannot be broken and just as Jesus teaches that we are to be people who make peace and reconcile with others that we are to be people who remove any obstacle

to faithfulness, that we are to be people who speak truthfully and reconcile when there is division in our relationships. Jesus teaches here that we should prevent the development of a cycle of vengeance. The final teaching that Jesus gives in this chapter concerns loving your enemy. Now the traditional teaching is love your neighbor. This is the teaching that sums up the entire second table of the law, love your neighbor as yourself. But attached to this in many people's mind is the teaching, love your neighbor, but hate your enemy. Or the question, who is my neighbor? This person isn't my neighbor, is he? And Jesus challenges that. The transforming initiative is to love your enemies and pray for them so that you may be like God in heaven, that you may be sons of your

father in heaven. Jesus has earlier declared, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. And here he's stressing that teaching again. Once again, there is a vicious cycle. There's no reward for those who merely love those who love them. That's not true love. True love must take the initiative. And once again, we're seeing the characteristic of this true righteousness is a righteousness that takes the initiative that goes out, that brings peace, that restores things that are broken, that brings reconciliation, that seeks to be reconciled with people who are divided from, that seeks to root out any obstacle, anything that might cause bitterness that seeks to deal with sin in a radical way. It's that pursuit of righteousness that

distinguishes the true people of God from the scribes and the Pharisees and their hypocrisy. And this is the righteousness that will fulfill the law. This is the way in which we truly love our neighbor. This is the way in which we rise to perfection. Now, the use of the language of perfection here is referring to maturity. We fulfill the intent of the law, not merely the external form. Now the external form of the law can be fulfilled in a legalistic way, but the intent of the law had always been to bring new life, to bring delight to the heart in the law of God, to bring people to meditate and rejoice at God's judgments, to bring them to express those judgments in healing practice, in ways that restore relationships, that make things whole again, and ways that bring peace where there's

conflict. Now that is what it means to fulfill the law and this is the sort of practice that Jesus calls his disciples to. This is how they will be perfect. This is how they'll be like their father who is in heaven. This is the way of the kingdom. Jesus began by saying that he came to fulfill the law. As we go throughout the Old Testament, the law is always straining towards a fuller expression of itself, an expression that is truly from the heart that is characterized by positive practice, not just negative prohibitions. We see this in the Psalms. The Psalms bring the law into song. So we delight in the law of God. We sing about it. It's seen in the book of Deuteronomy when the laws are unpacked and we see wisdom within them and we see the way in which they're

leading us towards positive practices. So we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength. That's what the law was always pointing towards, not just prohibitions. Likewise, we fulfill things like not coveting by practicing thanksgiving, practicing contentment and generosity. And so when Jesus speaks about fulfilling the law, he's not speaking about some cold legalism, but the fresh, clear air of a new liberated life, a life that's freed to express the law of God from the heart by the spirit. And this is what he's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. This is what God's righteousness looks like when it comes. It brings forgiveness and it brings restoration.

And it makes us part of that process of bringing forgiveness and restoration. We are part of the means by which God's righteousness is being expressed in the world. And the fact that this chapter ends on the note of being perfect as our heavenly father is perfect and being sons of our father is no accident. That language is not common in the Old Testament at all. We see it from time to time, but it is uncommon. Here we find it coming to the forefront, and it's because God is acting through Christ in the world at this time

in a way that forms people in his likeness, that makes them participants in bringing a new order of peace in such a profound way that in those acts they are seen to be his children. A question to consider, as we read the description of what it looks like to fulfill the law, our minds may be drawn to Jesus Christ himself and his practice. What are some of the ways in which we see Jesus as the exemplar of what it looks like to live out the law and fulfil righteousness in this manner?