Matthew 5:17-20
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Throughout my time as a minister and someone committed to studying the Bible, church history, and theology, I have continued to come back to an old struggle and debate between grace vs law. This debate, while an important one, is often oversimplified and dismissed without probing too deep into the actual complexities it brings. There is a tendency to simplify the question as “What must I do to be saved?” When we place the conversation in this mindset, we sometimes slide into an approach to following Jesus where he invites us to follow him and then we respond, “What’s the least I have to do in order to be called your ‘follower’?”
You could say that there is a tension in the Christian walk because our entrance into the Kingdom is of no cost to us. Jesus paid it all. But when he calls us to follow him, he asks for every part of us to follow him and he asks for everything. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls us, he bids us come and die.” Bonhoeffer challenged the church of his day to not fall into “Cheap grace” where baptism does not require repentance and communion does not require confession. When we have no expectations of ourselves, or one another, because we are all “saved by grace,” we miss what Jesus calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is not against the law but is countering ways in which the law was interpreted amongst the Pharisees and teachers of the law in his time.
One of the biggest issues with the “law” in the church is that we have often constructed outward focused rules for distinguishing who the “true followers of Christ” are. These markers seem to change from one generation to the next and rarely translate from one culture to the next. In my experience, people put on the good face around their Christian friends and at church on Sunday but are rarely challenged to become more like Christ. These markers often do more to create a divide between “us” vs “them” rather than creating a community focused on following Christ on the journey of transformation into his likeness.
Jesus’s fulfilment of the law takes the law to a level of transformation from the inside out. If we’re merely trying to keep a set of rules in order to keep someone happy or receive a reward; we are likely to fail. If we allow the law to transform us from the inside out, we will find new life in ways we never would have imagined. Grace is there when we fall short of what we’re called to. The law Jesus gives in his sermon provides a structure for transformation. I really like the way Richard Rohr articulates this in his book “Falling Upward.” He talks about the two halves of life. The first part of your life needs to focus on building a structure for transformation in Christ. The second part of life is the life of freedom living out of that structure. The problem, as he articulates it, is that many Christians never leave the first half of their life. They focus on the structure, fight to protect it, and never find their freedom in Christ to live. Practicing the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t mean you’ll do it perfectly, that’s where grace comes in. As you practice the Sermon, you’ll soon realize that you no longer notice the law and you’ll be more focused on the life it brings. When you choose to not be angry, anger ceases to be your initial reaction and you are set free from the cell anger keeps you in. Let’s find fulfillment together in practicing the law as Jesus calls us to follow him.