The selection of illustrative instances is made with consummate skill.
Our Lord, avoiding that which is specially Jewish in its interest,
treats of matters that are of world-wide importance. He deals with the
broadest principles of righteousness as adapted to the universal
conscience of mankind, starting at the lowest point of mere earthly
morality and rising to the very highest development of Christian
character, thus leading up to the magnificent conclusion: "Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
He begins with the crime which the natural conscience most strongly
and instinctively condemns, the crime of murder; and shows that the
scribes and Pharisees, and those who had been like them in bygone
days, really destroyed the sixth commandment by limiting its range to
the muscles, so that, if there were no actual killing, the commandment
was not broken; whereas its true sphere was the heart, the essence of
the forbidden crime being found in unjustifiable anger, even though no
word is uttered or muscle moved,--a view of the case which ought to
have been suggested to the intelligent student of the law by such
words as these: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart" (Lev.
xix. 17); or again: "Whoso killeth his neighbour ignorantly, whom he
hated not in time past, ... is not worthy of death, inasmuch as he
hated him not in time past" (Deut. xix. 4). Hatred in the heart, then,
is murder. How searching! And how terribly severe the sentence! Even
in its least aggravated form it is the same as that decreed against
the actual shedding of blood. All the three sentences are
death-penalties, only there are aggravations in the penalty where
there are aggravations in the offence. Such is the Saviour's teaching
on the great subject of sin. Yet there are those who imagine that the
Sermon on the Mount is all the gospel they need!
The two practical applications which follow press the searching
subject home. The one has reference to the Throne of Grace, and
teaches that all offences against a brother must be put away before
approaching it. The other has reference to the Throne of Judgment, and
teaches by a familiar illustration drawn from common experience in the
courts of Palestine that it is an awful thing to think of standing
there with the memory of a single angry feeling that had not been
forgiven and utterly removed (v. 26).
The crime of adultery furnishes the next illustration; and He deals
with it on the same lofty principles and with the same terrible
severity. He shows that this crime, too, is of the heart--that even a
wanton look is a commission of it; and again follows up His searching
exposition by a twofold practical application, first showing that
personal purity must be maintained at any cost (vv. 29, 30), and then
guarding the sacredness of home, by that exaltation of the marriage
bond which has secured the emancipation of woman and her elevation to
her proper sphere, and kept in check those frightful evils which are
ever threatening to defile the pure and sacred spring from which
society derives its life and sustenance (vv. 31, 32).
Next comes the crime of perjury--a compound sin, which breaks at the
same time two commandments of the Decalogue, the third and the ninth.
Here, again, our Lord shows that, if only due homage is paid in the
heart to reverence and to truth, all swearing is superseded. Let a man
habitually live in the fear of the Lord all the day long, and "his
word is as good as his oath"--he will always speak the truth, and will
be incapable of taking the name of the Lord in vain. It is of course
to be remembered that these are the laws of the kingdom of Christ; not
laws meant for the kingdoms of this world, which have to do with men
of all sorts, but for a kingdom made up of those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness, who seek and find purity of heart. This passage
accordingly has no bearing on the procedure of secular courts of
justice. But, though the use of oaths may still be a necessity in the
world, in the kingdom of heaven they have no place. The simple "Yea,
yea," "Nay, nay," is quite enough where there is truth in the inward
parts and the fear of God before the eyes; and the feeling of
reverence, not only for God Himself but for all the works of His
hands, will effectually prevent the most distant approach to
profanity.
The sin of revenge furnishes the next illustration. The Pharisaic
perversion of the old law actually sanctioned private revenge, on the
ground of a statute intended for the guidance of the courts of
justice, and given for the sake of curbing the revengeful spirit which
without it would lead a prosecutor to demand that his enemy should
suffer more than he had inflicted. In this way they really destroyed
that part of the Mosaic legislation, whereas He fulfilled it by
developing still further,--bringing, in fact, to perfection,--that
spirit of humanity which had dictated the law at the first. The true
spirit of the Mosaic legislation was to discourage private revenge by
assigning such cases to the courts, and curbing it still further by
the limitation of the penalty imposed. Was not this spirit most nobly
fulfilled, carried to its highest development, when the Saviour laid
it down as the law of His kingdom that our revenge is to be the
returning of good for evil?
The four practical illustrations (vv. 39-42) have been a source of
difficulty, but only to those who forget that our Saviour is all the
while warning against "the letter that killeth," and showing the need
of catching "the spirit" of a commandment which "giveth life" to it.
To deal with these illustrations according to the letter, as telling
us exactly what to do in particular cases, is not to fulfil but to
destroy the Saviour's words. The great thing, therefore, is to catch
their spirit; then they will be found of use, not for so many
specified cases, but for all cases whatever. As an illustration of
the difficulties to which we refer, mention may be made of the
prejudice against the passage which suggests the turning of the other
cheek, on the ground that it encourages a craven spirit. Take it as a
definite command, and this would be in many cases the result. It would
be the result wherever fear or pusillanimity was the motive. But where
is there in all this passage the least trace of fear or pusillanimity?
It is all love and magnanimity. It is the very antipodes of the craven
spirit. It is the heroism of self-denying love!
The last illustration cuts at the root of all sin and crime, the
tap-root of selfishness. The scribes and Pharisees had made use of
those regulations, most needful at the time, which separated Israel
from other nations, as an excuse for restricting the range of love to
those prepared to render an equivalent. Thus that wonderful statute of
the old legislation, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," was
actually made a minister to selfishness; so that, instead of leading
them to a life above the world, it left them not a whit better than
the lowest and most selfish of the people. "If ye love them which love
you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?" Thus
was the noble "royal law according to the Scripture" destroyed by the
petty quibbling use of the word "neighbour." Our Lord fulfilled it by
giving to the word neighbour its proper meaning, its widest extent,
including even those who have wronged us in thought or word or deed,
"I say unto you, Love your _enemies_, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you."
How lofty, how far beyond the reach of the natural man!--but not
impossible, or it would not have been demanded. It is one of the
things of the kingdom concerning which the assurance is given later
on: "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find." Still, the
Master knows full well that it is no small demand He is making of poor
human nature. So at this point He leads our thoughts upward to our
Father in heaven, suggesting in that relationship the possibility of
its attainment (for why should not a child be like its father?) and
the only example possible, for this was a range of righteousness
beyond the reach of all that had gone before--He Himself as the Son of
the Father would later set it forth before the eyes of men in all its
lustre. But that time is yet to come, and meantime He can only point
upward to the Highest, and urge them to this loftiest height of
righteousness by the tender plea, "That ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
How beautiful and expressive are these symbols from nature, and how
encouraging the interpretation of nature His use of them suggests! And
what shall we say of their suggestiveness in the higher sphere of the
spirit? Already the Sun of Righteousness is rising with healing in His
wings; and in due time the rain of the Spirit will fall in fulness of
blessing; so shall His disciples receive all that is needful to raise
them to the very highest in character and conduct, in beatitude and
righteousness; and accordingly their Master may well finish His whole
exposition of the morals of the kingdom with the stirring, stimulating
call, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect."