If one starts Deuteronomy and Matthew at the same time and reads at the same pace, one will find striking similarities between the two books in chapters 5 and 6. There are also striking similarities between Israel and Jesus Christ, the true Israel. The Hebrews, after passing through the waters of liberation from slavery in Egypt, is tempted in the wilderness for forty years. Jesus, after being baptized, is tempted in the wilderness from forty days. Moses then brings the law down from the mountain from God to the people. Jesus returns from the wilderness and preaches a sermon on a mountain, aka the Sermon on the Mount. In it, he exegetes what it looks like for the people of God to follow God's law from the heart. External obedience is not enough; one must obey from a pure heart. The two are not that different. Both are in response to God's faithfulness. Both are from a heart of reverence and trust. We fear God and at the same time know that his commandment are for our good. Deuteronomy 6 reads:
When your sons asks you in time to come, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?' then you shall say to your son, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, TO FEAR THE LORD OUR GOD, FOR OUR GOOD ALWAYS, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.'
The commandments of the Lord do not include only the Ten Commandments, but also the "greatest commandment" to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deut. 6:5). This certainly informs the Sermon on the Mount, which shows us that pleasing God is not about keeping rules, but is a matter of the heart. That brings me to the third reading on that day from Metaxas' biography of Bonhoeffer. He wrote to his friend and fellow student Elizabeth Zinn:
I plunged into work in a very unchristian way. An...ambition that many noticed in me made my life difficult...Then something happened, something that has changed and transformed my life to the present day. For the first time I discovered the Bible...I had often preached. I had seen a great deal of the Church, and talked and preached about it--but I had not yet become a Christian...I KNOW THAT AT THAT TIME I TURNED THE DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST INTO SOMETHING OF PERSONAL ADVANTAGE FOR MYSELF...I PRAY TO GOD THAT THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. Also I had never prayed, or prayed only very little. For all my loneliness, I was quite pleased with myself. Then the Bible, and in particular THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT FREED ME FROM THAT. Since then everything has changed.
It took a lot of consideration and struggling over the first words in CAPS to come to terms with what Bonhoeffer meant. Is the gospel of Christ not of personal advantage to all Christians? But in context, he is talking about ambition. I confess that I have at times struggled with the same thing. I have made my knowledge of the gospel my ticket to impressing people, to people thinking highly of me. This is what the Pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus' day sought to do as well, and they misunderstood what the gospel was all about because their hearts were far from God. They didn't love him with all their mind and soul and might, but they loved him externally in order to get something from him...fame, reputation, status, etc. Bonhoeffer is writing here that he had the same approach until he was freed from it by his reading of the Sermon on the Mount.
One last thing...The Sermon on the Mount has at least two purposes: to expose our unrighteousness so that we might cling to the righteousness of Christ and to challenge us to live a life of Christlike obedience from the heart. When Jesus tells his listeners that their righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20), he is making a statement that merely external righteousness (law-keeping without the heart) is no righteousness at all. When he says that "you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48), he is leading people to himself, for only Christ can make us perfect by his blood. At the same time, his blood motivates us to strive for perfection, not outwardly by rule-keeping, but a continual renewing of the heart leading to a continual renewing expression of love for God in action. There are Christian teachings/teachers that emphasize one and forget the other. The Biblical message is that we should rest in the grace of God while always working to further his kingdom. While we bear our crosses, we may rest in the fact that he bore the cross for us.
I would like to offer that perhaps the reason why people turn "godliness into gain" (1 Tim. 6:5), is that they seek to gain something besides Christ Himself as their highest treasure. If KNOWING HIM and being conformed into His image is your highest joy, then the temptation to do such a thing is impotent. "Nothing crucifies the flesh like joy of the Spirit." (George Matheson)
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