Was Jesus a Law Hater? A Law Corrector?

There are some who mistakenly think that Christ in this sermon expounds a new and improved moral code. I hope as we review the balance of Matthew 5 to persuade you that he speaks with one voice with the OT revelation. There is a unity of doctrine all throughout Scripture, rooted in the divine authorship that permeates this book. Some people think that the OT is “narrow, harsh, cruel, bigoted, imperfect, impure, and semi-barbaric, and that this is all corrected by Christ”¹  in this sermon. They think that “Christ here supersedes the moral teachings of the OT.” But a careful study of both Old and New Testament morality and worship will show that the OT is quite full of mercy and grace; meanwhile the New Testament preserves elements of God’s wrath and judgment. These are not two different testamental plans of religion. The Old Testament points precisely to Christ who fulfills it perfectly—not differently.

 

J. B. Shearer wrote: “Doctrine is the basis of morals. There can be no moral system that is not grounded in doctrine. If one is true, the other is sound; if one is false, the other is perverse and corrupt. If the doctrine is inadequate or variable, the moral system is vitiated to the same extent.”²  Thus, if the OT doctrine is corrupt, all the ethics and other teachings founded upon it are corrupt.

 

In order to vindicate Jesus’ teaching, review the assumptions behind this sermon. What does this great discourse pre-suppose? Or what has gone before that must be understood?

 

A. Old Testament Background. Jesus knew and loved his Old Testament (his Bible has the same message as ours). He drew from it, cited it, quoted freely, interpreted, and even clarified the Old Testament. Many times in this sermon, we can only glean the real meaning if we flip back to an Old Testament reference. Let us never disparage or minimize the need to understand the Old Testament.

 

B. New Birth is Pre-requisite. Although Jesus never uses the word “re-birth” in this particular sermon, he taught about it earlier and insisted that no one can live in his kingdom unless first re-born. These standards are not attainable to the natural man, but only to those newly re-born children of God. Jesus spoke this sermon directly to those who were already his disciples. Accordingly, in Matthew 4:17 Jesus began his ministry calling for repentance—one must be changed first before being able to love and serve the Lord. Six times in this sermon, our Lord refers to listeners as special children of Heavenly Father. “It is wrong to ask anybody who is not first a Christian to try to live a practice [it] . . . to expect Christian conduct from a person who is not born-again is heresy.”³

 

The whole sermon assumes (though never explicated) justification by faith—not salvation by works. The third assumption below follows from second.

 

C. The Holy Spirit working in the “new creation” can effect this law as the ethic of the Christian church. This sermon assumes that once born-again people will certainly continue to grow in Christ-likeness. We are made “new creatures” and the old passes away. We become re-made after God’s image. Only after we are re-constructed by God can this sermon become our ethic. But, as certainly as the Holy Spirit indwells every true believer, then the Holy Spirit can make this teaching to effectively become our marching orders, game-plan, or by-laws. Hence this sermon is a description of Christian character. We could sum up: Because you have been reconstructed, the Holy Spirit will bring your will and life into conformity with what is taught in this sermon. With this understanding then the Sermon on the Mount can change our lives, the life of this church. The words themselves, apart from Christ, are nothing but a devastating statement of God’s radical demands. Only “in Christ,” said Helmut Thielicke, “do these words of the law become the glorious gospel, promising that for every man, life can begin again.”⁴  This sermon cannot possibly be practiced until we know the Proclaimer of the Sermon on the Mount. Then and only then, because he has born our sins away and inhabits his new creatures, can we practice what is here preached.

 

Again, obeying the Law is not what saves us. That’s good news. If you’ve been trying this to obtain your salvation, you can love God and trust him to change your will and abilities. Luther spoke clearly about the relation of the Christian to the Law when he said, “The Law sends us to Christ for justification. And Christ sends us back to the Law for our sanctification.”

 

So the Law is at the beginning and the end with Christ in the center. The Law convicts and points out our sin and should drive us, helpless, broken and poor-in-spirit to Christ. Christ then justifies us and puts a right spirit in us and tells us to show the by-product of our love for him which is obedience to this Law. Thus once saved by grace, we’ll not say “no more law!” 

 

Christ was not a law-hater; and any disciple of Jesus will not want to cross him in this attitude. Rather than being a law-hater, Jesus was a law-corrector—He came to fulfill the law and to put it back in proper light. 

 

Let me conclude with this. Christ honors the Law. The Pharisees thought they did. However, their tragic mistake was to try to live or keep the Law apart from Christ. I wonder, if an awful lot of church-goers aren’t guilty of that. If one does, it is because one separates Christ from the Law.  Whenever this happens a person disregards the Law Giver and, afraid of the Law, tries to work his/her way to heaven by being good.

 

Are you one of those? Are you one who fears the Law or hates it because it unavoidably condemns you? Then come to Christ . . . and start a new life by loving him. 

 

Or are you one of those who, like David, loves the Law because you know it is from God? If so, you seek to love the Law-Giver and obey the Law.

 

These are the only two kinds of righteousness or people in the world—a self-made righteous or one that follows God’s way. May your righteousness exceed a human-made righteousness. And all this is compatible with Christ as the Law-Corrector.

 

¹ J. B. Shearer, The Sermon on the Mount: A Study (1906; rpr Greenville, SC: GPTS Press, 1994), 9.

² J. B. Shearer, The Sermon on the Mount: A Study (1906; rpr Greenville, SC: GPTS Press, 1994), 11.

³ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1960), 34.

⁴ Helmut Thielecke, Life Can Begin Again: Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), 37.