A lesson in righteousness from the Law

Sermon for Trinity 6

Romans 6:3-11  +  Matthew 5:20-26

You and I have come to believe that the God of the Bible is the true God. The people to whom Jesus was speaking in the Sermon on the Mount believed the same thing. And yet, even with the Old Testament Scriptures lying open before them, many of them failed to grasp what God actually requires for a person to enter into His kingdom, to sit down at His table with Him, to live forever with Him in the kingdom of heaven. They knew it had something to do with righteousness, being a good person, obeying God’s rules, doing the right and avoiding the wrong. But few of them grasped just how much God’s Law required. So in today’s Gospel, Jesus began to explain it to them. And the answer He gave here in our text isn’t at all encouraging.

For 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. The scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders among the Jews, boasted about their righteousness. They were confident about how righteous they were. They deserved a seat at God’s table, they thought. But, no, said Jesus. Their righteousness wasn’t nearly good enough. To sit at God’s table, to enter the kingdom of heaven, your righteousness has to be far better than that of the scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus goes on to explain what He means His listeners. He used a couple of the Ten Commandments as examples of the deeper meaning of each of the commandments. Our short text focuses on the Fifth Commandment, so we’ll start there.

You have heard that it was said to the people of old, ‘You shall not murder,’ and, ‘Whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ will be subject to the council; but whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.

People heard the commandment, You shall not murder, and thought, “Well, then, I’m a righteous person according to the Law. I’ve never killed anyone. I won’t be subject to judgment!” But Jesus explains that God’s Law speaks, not only to a man’s deeds, but also to his words and thoughts. But let’s start with deeds. There are the obvious ones. Killing a person—homicide—is obviously an unrighteous act. So is human trafficking or drug trafficking. So is drunk driving or other negligent behavior that results in someone else’s death. Then there are the not-quite-so-obvious deeds. Suicide. Infanticide. Abortion. Supporting such things. Defending such things. Promoting or enabling such things. Those are unrighteous acts, too. Then there are the good things that God’s Law requires, like helping your neighbor with his bodily needs. Failing to do that when you can do that is also considered by God to be unrighteous.

Then there are the thought crimes. Yes, God gets to command your thoughts, too. Jesus mentions anger toward your brother. Also hatred. Condescension. Those things are sins, examples of unrighteousness. Also indifference, not caring that someone has something against you, not caring that you’ve wronged someone. Not letting it bother you. Not doing everything in your power to make it right. That’s unrighteousness, too. Luther’s summary of the Fifth Commandment in the Small Catechism captures it well: We should fear and love God, that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body; but help and support him in every bodily need. Anything short of righteousness makes a person subject to hellfire.

Right after our text ends, Jesus goes on to do the same thing with the Sixth Commandment, opening it up to His hearers so that they could see, it wasn’t just about the actual act of “committing adultery” that was unrighteous in God’s sight. Yes, all sex outside of marriage is sinful. So is all homosexual behavior. But so is divorce for unscriptural reasons. So is viewing pornography. And the commandment goes even further. Lust is sin. Tempting others to lust is sin. Not caring whether or not you’re tempting others to lust is a sin. Husbands and wives failing to love one another as they took a vow to do and as God commands is a sin.

For the sake of time, let’s jump to the Ninth and Tenth Commandments where God forbids coveting. Coveting simply means to desire something God hasn’t given you. It’s a sin of the rich as well as the poor. You wish you could live someone else’s life or have someone else’s possessions. Because, why? What’s the problem? You’re not content with the life or the possessions or the body God has given you. Covetousness is at the root of all racism. Wishing you didn’t have to live around certain kinds of people. Covetousness or “envy” is at the heart of all socialist policies. Wishing you had the so-called privileges that other people have. In fact, covetousness is the source of all unrighteousness, as a person desires something other than what God has given him, and then acts out on those desires in one way or another.

And we haven’t even mentioned, by the way, the many ways people are unrighteous when it comes to the worship of God!

As Jesus unfolds the Law of God and His requirements to enter into the kingdom of heaven, there are several ways people tend to react. Some react with denial, still claiming to be good people and worthy of heaven. That’s just delusional; it’s also blasphemous, because it’s calling God a liar, when He says there is no one righteous, no, not one. Others react with anger, angry that God would dare to expect more of them than they have provided or are able to provide. Others rightly react with fear, or hopelessness and despair, or maybe with tiredness as they consider just how much is required of them to be righteous. To the fearful, to the hopeless, and to the tired, the Christian Gospel offers a solution—one that doesn’t say, “You do better now!” One that doesn’t say, “You’d better shape up and be more righteous!” No, St. Paul summarizes the Christian Gospel this way in Romans 3: We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith…to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The term “justified” is actually directly related to the word “righteous” in Greek. To be justified is to be “righteous-ified,” to be made righteous, first of all, before the judgment seat of God. It means to be declared righteous and free from punishment instead of guilty and condemned. In our brief text today from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t get into how sinners can actually be justified, namely, by faith in Him, because first He has to explain to the people why no one can be justified by trying to be righteous enough according to the commandments.

But Jesus explains justification by faith elsewhere, like in John chapter 3, or in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And later He sent His apostle Paul to spell it out in Romans 3 (and 4, and 5), and also in the epistle you heard today from Romans 6, where he explains the connection between Baptism and righteousness.

Baptism was God’s way of connecting us with Christ. We were buried with Him, through Baptism, into death. When we were baptized into Christ, His substitutionary death for sin was applied to us, as if we had provided the atonement ourselves, as if we had died.

But it’s more than that, too. Paul goes on to explain that, since we died with Him when we were baptized, we will also be raised from the dead just like He was. And since we died to sin and will be raised from the dead just like He was to live forever with God in holiness and righteousness, that’s also how we should think of ourselves: as those who have nothing to do with sin and unrighteousness, as those who live, instead, for righteousness.

So now we come back to Jesus’ teaching about righteousness in the Gospel, as those who have been baptized into Him, as those who have already been justified through faith in Christ. And we should take His words to heart as He describes what living for righteousness looks like. We’ve already been made righteous in God’s courtroom through faith and through Baptism. From now on, let us be made righteous in our thoughts, words, and actions as well. That’s the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of sanctification, and God takes it very seriously. He calls on us to avoid murdering people, yes. But He also calls on us to avoid anger and the hurtful words that flow from it. He calls on us to care about our neighbor and to take seriously our responsibility to make up for any wrongs we’ve committed against our neighbor. He calls on us to lead pure and chaste lives, as those who have died to sin and who now live for righteousness. He calls on us to live a life of love.

In summary, the Law of God requires righteousness in order to live with Him in His kingdom, in order to avoid eternal death and hellfire. Christ has provided for us the righteousness that God requires, since we couldn’t provide it ourselves. His righteousness is ours through Baptism and through faith. So let us recommit daily to leading holy and righteous lives here on earth, according to God’s commandments, until we are united together with Christ in a resurrection like His. Amen.