The Attitude Behind the Act B

It is the spirit of the law that is the priority, not the letter. The law, beloved, is not mechanical. That's what Jesus is saying.

It is not simply functional. It is the inside that God is concerned about. God is not looking for externals. He's looking for changed hearts. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Consider these two people. One of them is committed to his wife. He's a diligent worker, and he's always happy to serve others. Person number two, well, he has lustful thoughts, he thinks evil of his boss, and he wishes that people would just stop pestering him. Now consider this.

Those two people are actually the same person. He looks great on the outside, but his inward attitudes are anything but lovely to God. That gets to the core of John MacArthur's current study, titled The Sinfulness of Sin. Simply put, it's a call to examine your heart attitudes, the breeding ground for sin. So to help you make sure you're honoring Christ on the outside and on the inside, here's John with today's lesson. In Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 to 48, as our Lord gives standards for living in his kingdom, as he redefines and re-emphasizes the divine standard given in the law of God, what he wants to say here is the inside is infinitely more revealing, infinitely more important than the outside. What you are on the inside is what God is concerned with. Jesus emphasized here in the Sermon on the Mount, and frankly throughout his whole ministry, that external ceremonies, that external religious rites, that certain works are not the whole issue, that God is concerned with the heart, and that is precisely the thrust of verse 20.

Look at it. I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now the scribes and the Pharisees had a righteousness that was external, and what Jesus is saying is you must have one that exceeds that which is internal. God is concerned about what you really are, not what you appear to be.

It is the internal that is infinitely more important than the external. That is essentially what verse 20 means. The righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees was an external, ceremonial, ritualistic, hypocritical legalism.

And the righteousness that God demands is something internal. Look at verse 21 and watch this common occurrence. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of judgment.

Stop right there. The key statement that we saw, and we'll see it all the way through, is ye have heard that it was said by them of old. Verse 21. Now there is a slight variation in the form, but that's basically the way it is in each of the six incidents.

And a couple of them, it is abbreviated, but it essentially says the same thing. Now, there are two possibilities with this. I want you to notice this. Get a little Bible study here.

It will be helpful. It could read, ye have heard that it was said to them of old. Or by them of old. It could be either way.

If it was two, it probably would refer to the Bible, the law of Moses, the Old Testament. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old. But, ye have heard that it was said by them of old, indicates that it isn't the Bible speaking to the people, but some antiquity, some ancient people speaking by them of old. Frankly, I think by them is the proper rendering.

I think the authorized is right in using that for several reasons. I don't think that we should make it the law of Moses. Jesus isn't saying, you have heard that it was said to them of old by Moses or by God. But I'm saying this, or he'd be contradicting God. He'd be contradicting Moses. He'd be contradicting the Old Testament.

Set aside the law. Set aside the prophets. And that would be ridiculous because in verse 17 he just said he wouldn't do that. So it isn't Moses and the law that he's referring to. By the way, if it was Moses, I think he would have said, you have heard that Moses commanded.

Or, you have heard that it is written. Because that's what he said in chapter 4, three times when he referred to the Old Testament. And in chapter 8 of Matthew, when he refers to the Old Testament, he says, Moses commanded. So his way of referring to the Old Testament in the first eight chapters of Matthew is, Moses said or it is written.

This statement is not used to refer to the Old Testament. And by the way, rabbis were called fathers of antiquity or men of long ago. That was a common term for rabbis. And that is what our Lord is referring to.

You have heard that it was said by the rabbis of old. In other words, this is a designation related to their oral teaching that glossed over the true law of God. That added their own thoughts to the revelation of the Old Testament. And so Jesus is not contrasting the New Testament with the Old Testament.

Not contrasting his word with God's word. But with the word of the rabbis and their traditional interpretation which had been given to the people. When Israel had gone into captivity in Babylon. When they went into the Babylonian captivity.

They remained there seventy years. And during that time, historians tell us for the most part, they lost the Hebrew language. They ceased to speak Hebrew. They picked up a language known as Aramaic. And so when they came back from captivity, they spoke Aramaic. In Jesus' time, they spoke Aramaic. Jesus taught probably in Aramaic.

And of course the New Testament was written down in Greek. But the people, the Jewish people spoke Aramaic. They were for the most part completely unfamiliar with Hebrew.

As Jewish people are for the most part today. So, the rabbis would come along. The rabbis would read the Hebrew which the people didn't understand. The rabbis would interpret it.

The people couldn't argue because they didn't know what it said either. And so they begin to build an entire system based upon the ignorance of the people regarding the Hebrew text. And so when the Lord says you have heard that it was said by them of old. He is saying the religion you have is the oral tradition of the rabbis. Not the written word of God, you see.

Very critical. The embellishments and traditions and interpretations and deletions and additions. Which became the Mishnah, the codification of oral law.

The Talmud and all of that other stuff. Which padded the truth of God into obscurity. Jesus says that's what you've been hearing.

And because they couldn't speak Hebrew, they couldn't verify what they were getting. And so our Lord comes along and says, I am here to loose the law of God from the shackles of rabbinic mishmash. And most significantly He attacks their emphasis on external works righteousness. And so He says, you have heard it said by them of old. And then He says in verse 22, but I say unto you. And beloved here He sets Himself up as the authority. This is tremendous. He says, I tell you what God's law is. This literally shattered the people.

They couldn't handle this. They were shocked. They said of Him, He taught as one having authority not as the scribes. Mark 1 22. In Matthew 7 as He concluded His sermon, they said He taught as one having authority and not as the scribes.

Twice that is said. They couldn't believe that He would stand up and say that. They were shocked for someone to set Himself as equal to the law of God.

Oh my. You see the Jews felt that this traditional law which they believed to be the law of God was so sacred. Philo said for example, quote, only Moses decrees are everlasting, unchangeable, unshakable. The rabbis said, quote, those who deny that the law is from heaven have no part in the world to come. So they believed this was the only law and that eternal destiny was dependent upon this law. And here comes Jesus along and He says, I say this.

And He never quoted a rabbi and He never quoted a group of rabbis and He never quoted anything but His own authoritative statement. And they were literally shocked. Do you know the first act in a synagogue, if you were to go to a synagogue in Jesus' time to worship on the Sabbath, the very first thing the service would do, you'd come in and sit down, men on one side, women on the other. And a man would go up to the front and he would scoop up all of the scrolls of the Old Testament and he would walk all the way around the synagogue, all the way around the synagogue in silence so that the congregation would reverence the law of God. And Jesus stands up and says, I say unto you, and they were devastated.

Who are you? The prophets always said, Thus saith the Lord. The rabbis always said, There is a teaching that says. But Jesus said, I say unto you.

And William Barclay says, Clearly one of two things must be true. Either Jesus is mad or unique. Either He is a megalomaniac or else He is the Son of God. No ordinary person would claim what He claimed. He claims the authority of God.

Devastating. And He strips all of the garbage off and lifts God's law back where it belongs. Now let me close this introduction by summarizing the key principles He's teaching in the passage. Principle 1, and I want you to remember, these are the things that are in the mind of Jesus in this whole section. Number 1, it is the spirit of the law that is the priority, not the letter. It is the spirit of the law that is the priority, not the letter. The law, beloved, is not mechanical. That's what Jesus is saying.

It is not simply functional. It is the inside that God is concerned about. You can be all white on the outside and a wretched, vile grave on the inside. It is not the letter.

The letter kills. It is the spirit that gives life. God is not looking for externals.

He's looking for changed hearts. The scribes and the Pharisees thought that because they didn't murder they were all right, but they hated. And because they didn't commit adultery, they were all right, but they had evil thoughts. And their religion was legalistic, phony, hypocrisy of the worst kind that damns the soul. Conformity to God's law is a matter of the heart, not simply a matter of the outside.

Oh, what a lesson this is for us who tend, too, to justify ourselves. In Luke 16, 15, Jesus said to the Pharisees, Ye are they who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. Men and God judge differently about you. You can play the game, talk the talk, do the works in the energy of the flesh, and justify yourself in your own eyes and in the eyes of others and be an abomination to God because your heart is full of corruption.

That's what he's saying. It is the spirit of the law that is the priority, not the letter. Second principle. The law is not just negative, it is also positive. The law of God is not just to prevent us from doing certain things. Its real object is to lead us to right attitudes.

It is a positive thing. You're not justified by not doing certain things, but you are justified by thinking certain ways, positive righteousness. They were concerned with what they didn't do. God was concerned with what they did do inside. Did they hunger after righteousness? Did they thirst after righteousness? Did they seek to be merciful? Were they pure in heart? Did they mourn over their sin? Were they poor in terms of spirit?

Were they peacemakers? That's what God was concerned with. This is spiritual character.

Positive, not just negative. Third principle. The law is not an end in itself.

Get it? The law is not an end in itself. It has a purpose. What is the goal of the law?

It isn't just an end in itself. Listen, the Pharisees said, the goal of the law is to glorify me. When I keep the law, look at me.

See how righteous I am. But the end of the law was to glorify God. Don't ask yourself, have I kept all the laws today? Ask yourself, have I glorified God in my spirit today? Have I glorified God in my desires today? Have I glorified God in my wants and wishes today? Have I been free from phoniness?

Have I had a pure heart that had no thought of evil or anger or hatred or bitterness or lust or unrighteousness? To the glory of God, the end of the law is not to justify me. That's the way the Pharisees saw it.

It's to glorify God. John Calvin in his Institutes makes this tremendous statement. Let us agree that through the law, man's life is molded not only to outward honesty but to inward and spiritual righteousness.

Although no one can deny this, very few duly note it. This happens because they do not look to the law giver by whose character the nature of the law is to be appraised. Listen, if some king by edict forbids fornication, murder or theft, I admit, says Calvin, that a man who doesn't commit such acts will not be bound by the penalty.

That is because the mortal law giver's jurisdiction extends only to the outward political order. But God, whose eye nothing escapes, and who is concerned not so much with outward appearance as with purity of heart, forbids not only fornication, murder and theft, but lust, anger, hatred, coveting and deceit. For since he is a spiritual law giver, he speaks no less to the soul than he does to the body." What Calvin means is if you think God's laws are only external, then you don't know the character of God. A fourth principle, God alone can judge men.

God alone can judge men. Listen, He alone sees the secrets of the heart. He knows you. He knows if you're really a Christian or if you're playing a game. He knows if you're really carnal or spiritual as a believer.

He knows. He knows whether it's just a matter of acts or attitudes. He knows whether the heart matches the outside.

Only God knows the secrets of the heart. In Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12, the word of God is alive and powerful, and it says it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, neither is there any creature not manifest in His sight. All things are naked and opened under the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. God knows everything, but oh, the next verse says, we have a faithful, sympathetic high priest, and let us come boldly before the throne of grace to seek mercy in time of need.

Isn't it great? God knows our hearts. He knows if they're rotten, but He stands with His arms open as a sympathetic high priest ready to give us grace and mercy. God alone can judge the heart. And tell me this, isn't it true? Many a man and a woman can stand the judgment of men, but will fall before the discerning eye of God.

And you better examine your own heart. The final principle, every person is commanded to live up to divine standards. That's right, every person. Every person is commanded to live up to divine standards. I say unto you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.

Chapter 5 closes with this, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. Every person in the world is required to live up to that standard. You say, you've got to be kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

You mean I have to live to that standard with a pure inside as well as a right outside? Yes. You say, but I can't. You're right. You are absolutely right. And that's why the Apostle Paul gave us the solution in Romans chapter 3. Romans 3, 10, there is none righteous. What's the rest of the verse?

No, not one. You say, John, Christ set a standard I can't attain. And so says Paul in verse 21, the righteousness of God is apart from the law manifested. How? Even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.

Did you get it? You can't be that righteous. But listen, Christ is that righteous and he gives his righteousness to those who believe.

Is that great? God sets a standard. You can't live up to it. And God says, my son is not only the law giver, but he is the redeemer who makes it possible for you to live on that level.

Beloved, it's a fantastic thing. The standard is so high, we can't attain it. Christ met the standard and imputes to us his righteousness. Apart from the law, we couldn't keep the law. Oh, what a blessed thing.

You look at your heart and you say, the outside is not bad, the inside is rotten. And if God did what was right, he would consume you in a blast of his fury. But because he's a merciful and gracious God, he makes his law giver not just a law giver, but a redeemer. And Jesus perfectly kept the law. And he imputes his righteousness to us so that when God looks at a believer, he sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ covering that person. And I stand before God as righteous as Christ. But beloved, you can't even have that gift of righteousness unless you recognize that what you need is that gift of righteousness.

As long as you live your life justifying yourself on your external behavior, you'll never come to the desperation that reaches out and accepts the gift of righteousness. The great preacher of many years ago, Henry Ward Beecher, had a clock in this church that didn't keep good time. It was always too fast or too slow. And he fiddled with it month after month after month trying to get it right.

And it became kind of a standard topic of conversation in the church. And finally, in desperation, he put a sign over the clock that said, don't blame the hands, the trouble lies deeper. That's how it is in life, isn't it? Don't blame the hands, the trouble lies deeper. And until you deal with the deeper trouble, you're not going to change the hands. Let's pray. Father, we know that only the righteousness of Jesus Christ can grant us the power to fulfill the law of God. Only the righteousness of Jesus Christ can grant to us what we could never gain, what we could never earn.

The standard is so high, which makes the gift so wonderful. Lord Jesus, help us to take that gift. And then, Lord, as Christians, help us to live without hypocrisy, being on the inside, what we feign to be on the outside, and doing it all for your glory, for Jesus' sake.

Amen. The sinfulness of sin. That's John MacArthur's study here on Grace To You. Along with teaching each day on radio, John also serves as chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Now today, John, you talked about how people in Jesus' time depended on their leaders to explain the word of God for them. And of course, we still rely on Bible teachers. Certainly the church you lead relies on your teaching, I rely on your teaching. But isn't it also true that where understanding Scripture is concerned, your goal, and even the goal of Grace To You, is to help people stand on their own? Yeah, as teachers, God has raised us up.

He's given to the church, pastors and teachers, and we understand that calling and that gifting. We understand the responsibility to rightly divide the word of truth because that's critical to the life of the church. But I've always believed, Phil, from the very beginning that it wasn't for me to tell people what the Bible meant. It was always for me to show them why it had to mean that.

It's different. I could say, well, this verse means this, and this verse means this, and you can just believe me because I'm the expert. Or I can say, look at this verse this way, look at how this compares to other verses, look at the context of this, and you can see that this is exactly what it means yourself. So the right kind of expository preaching makes the hearer part of the process. So if you teach them what the process is, then they can dig into the word of God on their own.

And that's what we've always endeavored to do at Grace Church. But just having your Bible there, you may say, boy, I wish I had a little more information about this or a little more information about that. And that's why, well, 25 years ago now, I wrote the MacArthur Study Bible. Twenty-five thousand notes on every page of the Bible explaining some of the most important aspects of a given passage, kind of a get you started with a right interpretation of that passage. The MacArthur Study Bible has been going on now, as I said, for almost 25 years in multiple translations, multiple styles available in the ESV, the New American Standard, which is what I preach from, the New King James, hard bound, leather bound, all kinds of choices. It's a biblical library in one volume, and if you want to know what the Bible means by what it says, this is an initial resource. This is your foundational resource. There are so many options, so many available. You can order yours today from Grace to you.

You can write, you can call. Check the website. That's the best way to find out all the options and even all the translations that the MacArthur Study Bible is now available in. And the MacArthur Study Bible can help you understand practically any passage in God's Word. It is a great resource for personal Bible study or for family devotions. To purchase a copy, contact us today. Again, the MacArthur Study Bible comes in the New American Standard, New King James, or English Standard versions.

It's reasonably priced in hardcover, leather soft, and premium leather. To find the one that's best for you, go to gty.org, or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE. That's 800-55-GRACE. And our website, gty.org. Before you visit gty.org, make sure to enjoy the various opportunities to listen to John's verse-by-verse teaching. You can download 3500 of his sermons, free of charge, in audio or transcript format.

You can search by topic, date, or book of the Bible. And if you're not sure where to start, log on to GraceStream. That's a continuous broadcast of John's teaching, beginning in Matthew and going all the way through Revelation. So whether you have a few minutes or a couple of hours, you'll be encouraged from God's Word. The sermons, GraceStream, and much more are available at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John continues his study from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, titled, The Sinfulness of Sin. Don't miss the next half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.