What does it mean to be a good person, or Christian? In Jesus’ day, people held deep convictions of what it meant to be a good Jew. At the core was their interpretation of the Law (Torah) and Prophets. The Scribes revered the Scriptures, meticulously copying every letter with the precision of a modern copier. The Pharisees attached little boxes, called “Phylacteries,” filled with Scripture, to their wrists and foreheads. They were first to invent on-demand content! But as they would learn… wearing Scriptures as an accessory is not the same as having them written on your heart or obeying them!
A good Jewish person would have treasured the Ten Commandments, given by God through Moses. Exodus 20:3-17. The first five commands relate to our love for God: Do not have any others gods besides me. Do not make an idol for yourself. Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath. Honor your father and mother. {Honoring parents because they are to be seen as extension of God’s authority, to help the coming generations stay rooted, live a long life, and flourish. The second set relates to our love of one-another. Do not murder, commit adultery, steal, give false statements against your neighbor, do not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, servants, ox, donkey, or anything else…
But what happens is, in time, our notions about what it means to not murder, steal, or covet, drifts. Moses was Israel’s shepherd, charged with judging matters of the Law. People would come to him and say, “We know what the Scriptures say, but what about…” As God's people wrestled with how to apply God's commands to real life, questions multiplied. What exactly counts as murder? What about intention? self-defense? negligence? war? Some of those questions are legitimate.
But here's what can happen: the more exceptions we construct, the more God’s command becomes distorted, domesticated, minimized. Just as in the days of Moses, we begin to reinterpret God’s commands in the direction of moral permissiveness. We reduce his commands to manageable rules that allow us to congratulate ourselves while condemning others. We become lawyers (experts) in finding technical loopholes. We create moral frameworks in which things God calls evil can become acceptable, even while we convince ourselves we remain righteous. In the end, we convince ourselves that God's command doesn't really apply to us after all. One by one, God’s commands lose their ethical edge, dulled by worldly sensibilities. And that's a temptation in every generation—including ours
Into our moral malaise steps Jesus. Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to our ancestors. . . But I tell you…” Some six times in his Kingdom manifesto Jesus uses this expression. The ethical revolution that’s so badly needed today is to let God once again be Lawgiver and Judge. To let Jesus be our teacher, exemplar, and interpreter of true righteousness. At every point Jesus rescues God’s commands from practical abolishment and rescues us from moral bankruptcy.
Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” Three observations…
First, Jesus commands Heart-Level Integrity. Our core problem is not taking God’s command seriously enough. Maybe we think about them too superficially, such as they have no teeth. Maybe we approach them hypocritically—straining some legalistic gnat while swallowing the camel. Maybe we think about them judgmentally—how often do we weaponize God’s commands for rhetorical affect—we use them to blast the speck out of some opponent’s eyes while ignoring the plank in our own.
Matthew 23:25–26: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean."
Jesus doesn't move from “murder” to “anger” to somehow make anger and murder identical. He’s saying murder doesn’t begin with our hands. It begins much earlier, with what we cultivate, justify, nurture, and turn against others. Jesus doesn't just want to keep your hands from hurting somebody. He wants to transform the heart that wants to hurt them. What if we invited God’s Spirit to search our hearts—to convict us of sin, expose our self-righteousness, and teach us true righteousness? “Lord, show us the plank in our own eye…” This alone would be nothing less than revolutionary!
Second, Jesus commands Peaceable, Redemptive Speech. Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder. . . But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court. And whoever says, ‘Fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.”
First there is the heart, but then there is our speech. The many Proverbs! When words are multiplied, sin is not far off. With words we justify our anger, assuage our conscience, minimize our complicity. You know the dance. “Well, this person is just really stupid, empty headed (raca). That person is a total fool, utterly unredeemable, unworthy of mercy, totally beyond hope. Not even the Spirit of God can change them!”
What if we saw our angry words as just a grave a transgression against God’s command as murder itself? What if we saw our insulting, caustic, condemning rhetoric as evil as murder itself? Just as our heart attitudes are a precipitator to actual violence… so our cruel words. By evidence of your words, who have you and I decided is beyond God’s mercy? Who have I reduced to a label? Who do you talk differently about because you’ve stopped seeing them as someone made God’s image? Whose failure has become entertainment for me? Whose humiliation makes you feel justified?
Murder must be eradicated as much from our speech as our heart. How did James reframe Jesus’ command? James 3:9–10: "With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who have been made in the likeness of God. Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, things shouldn’t be this way."
Third, Jesus commands Proactive Peacemaking (over Visceral Retaliation). Peacemakers break the escalation between murderous attitudes, to destructive words… to committing permanent, relationship-altering damage. Matthew 5:23-26, “So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you’re on the way with him to the court, or your adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out of there until you have paid the last penny.”
The best time to curtail the kind of violent escalations that turn friends into foe, brothers and sisters into enemies… is right now, before the sun sets. Shockingly, it’s also before you take one step closer to the altar. Imagine the scene. You come to church ready to worship, family in tow. But God stops you at the door. “First go and be reconciled.” The truth is God would rather interrupt our worship, than allow our worship to become a mask, hiding the true condition of our heart.
Now granted. Reconciliation isn’t always immediately possible Sometimes the other person refuses. Sometimes there are serious boundaries to be maintained, because there’s been abuse, or there are legal issues, safety concerns. What’s in view here is not that we recklessly endanger ourselves in the name of reconciliation.
But what is in view, is not cherishing the alienation, not egging on escalation. Don’t take a step further until you check your heart, tongue, and motives at the door. First go and be reconciled. It’s not to ask, “how do I win the argument?” Or ask, “Who started it?” No, it’s to ask, “What can I do to stop the escalation? Reach a settlement quickly Jesus says! We might assume our irreconcilable hatred somehow helps us while injuring our adversary. Jesus reminds us we pay the greatest price for our hatred of others. It costs us every last penny of time, energy, wealth in this life. And in the end, if not confronted, stakes are ultimately eternal. Our heart, our speech, our motives must be checked at the door.
Now what is Jesus doing? Is he just trying to expose our moral failure? Is he just trying scare us straight with hellfire? If so, that isn’t any kind of revolution we’d ever sign up for. Here is the good news. Jesus’ revolution isn’t a self-help revolution. It’s a Holy Spirit-shaped, God-enabled revolution. Instead of lowering God's standard… Jesus takes God's standard heartward—and offers his Spirit to help us live it (to fulfill command, not abolish it!) In fact, the beatitudes offer a kind of preview… not of what a good, self-made religious moralists can make of himself…. But what a Holy Spirit shaped life can be… what the Holy Spirit can make of a man! Of how Christ forgives and re-forms us, when we give anger wholly over to Him!
Matthew 5:7, only by Christ’s Grace, and the Spirit’s power! “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Matthew 5:8-12, only by Christ’s Grace, and the Spirit’s power! “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 11 “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others your Father will not forgive your offenses.” Jesus isn't teaching us that we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others. He's teaching us that people who have truly received mercy become people who extend mercy. Again, by Christ’s grace and by the Spirit.
The gospel tells us how deadly serious Jesus is about making peace and reconciling all things to himself. Colossians 1:19-20, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Deadly serious enough, he freely died to decimate the dividing walls of hostility that form between us and God, between us and our fellow man.
God didn’t just say he loved us, he initiated mercy and demonstrated that love “while” we were still hostiles. But now Jesus wants to do an even greater miracle. He wants to transform us by his Spirit, that we’d reflect the same love, same mercy, same grace he himself gave. The same revolutionary who came to make peace calls us not to just “hope” for peace, but to go and multiply peace.
What does a good Christian look like? Certainly not someone whose mastered all the loopholes. Not someone who can prove, technically justify, that they've never crossed the line. Not someone who can forensically identify everyone else's sins. Not someone who steps in to play judge, jury and hangman. Not someone who can simply muster up willpower to stop being angry, watch their mouth, or go be better.
A good Christian is someone whose heart is increasingly being conquered by the love of Christ. We don’t merely avoid murder… We surrender our hostility to Jesus. We don’t merely avoid hurtful words… we surrender our tongues to Jesus. We don’t merely avoid conflict… we pursue peace because Jesus pursued it with us. We don’t merely extend mercy because people deserve it… we show mercy because we have received mercy. Jesus takes his Law inwardly, to write it on our hearts, and then by his grace, and through his Spirit, begins making our hearts look like his.