I spent some time wondering about this passage in verses 17-20. Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, and then says those who keep these commandments will be great in his kingdom, and those who break and discourage them will be least. The most puzzling part is that if your righteousness doesn’t exceed that of the great lawmakers and enforcers, the top religious people of the time, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
What does this mean?
I feel like one must read the following paragraphs to understand. Like this verse is the thesis and the rest are demonstrations, arguments, proofs. Jesus mentions several laws, but he takes them farther than just laws to keep and makes them matters of the heart. And interestingly enough, they all tie in to the greatest command: Love. Let’s take a look.
21-26. Murder begins with lack of love in your heart. First make peace, and love one another, and the murder won’t even take place.
27-30. Adultery often begins with lack of committed love replaced with lust. Cut out the things in your life that cause you to act without love towards your partner or towards anyone else.
31-32. Divorce often results from loss of love and lack of loving actions towards one party or the other. Someone cheats on the other, someone abuses the other, someone acts in their own interest at the expense of the other, and the marriage can no longer continue in a healthy way. Love for your partner will do its best to avoid these actions that would lead to the pain of divorce.
33-37. Making a promise and breaking it begins with lack of love. Stop trying to cover your unfaithfulness with fancy oaths and stop bringing God into it when you don’t even mean it; loving the other person means honesty and consistency.
Contrary to what some have concluded, I don’t think Jesus was laying more burdensome laws on people or trying to prove how we will never be good enough to get to heaven. I believe he was trying to teach us the very basic and yet the greatest commandment: Love. Love for God and neighbor. Once that is rooted in our hearts, it will guide our actions to be what they ought to be. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t teach us how we can’t possibly do right; it shows us how to do right.
Love also seems to have been the key element missing from the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, who taught rote obedience, but condemned and mistreated those who failed their morality test. Jesus set a new way for life– that was really the way all along. That is why he said he was not here to nullify the Law, but to show us what it really means– loving God and loving our neighbors– and how to live it out in our hearts and then in our lives.
Melanie Anderson, Pilgrim 