Sanctification

Matthew 5: 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.2 - The Sermon on the Mount, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

Note:  all posts on the Sermon on the Mount can be found here.

This chapter of Matthew finishes with this verse.  It seems to me a good place to summarize the Sermon to this point, as, given the word “therefore,” it seems Jesus is wrapping up His Sermon thus far with this teaching to be perfect.

I have previously offered a summary of the Beatitudes here, so I will not go into that detail again; only a reminder of what was taught:

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

As has been mentioned often, the order is important.  Also, that none of this is possible for the natural man; it is only with the Holy Spirit that such growth is possible for the Christian.

I also note: the first Beatitude promises the kingdom of heaven to those who are poor in spirit.  As has been emphasized, the order of not only the Beatitudes, but the entire Sermon, is purposeful.  Therefore, I conclude that one who is poor in spirit is justified.

The last Beatitude, persecution, also offers the promise of the kingdom of heaven.  But this promise has already been given.  So why a second time?  I can only surmise (and keep in mind, in no way am I a theologian) that living all of the Beatitudes affords us perfection in being, which is the prerequisite for the perfection in doing that the rest of this chapter describes. 

In other words, I see this second promise of the kingdom of heaven as describing sanctification.  I know, perhaps rather shallow thinking on my part, but I feel some desire to try to understand the same promise in two places.

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

The Beatitudes offered an answer to being: how a Christian should be.  It is aimed at the heart.  The Sermon transitions now to how a Christian should live – how is this heart to be made visible to the world:

DMLJ: Salt is essentially different from the medium in which it is placed and in a sense it exercises all its qualities by being different. … The Christian is a man who is essentially different from everybody else.  He is as different as the salt is from the meat into which it is rubbed.

MHA: Like the soul in a body, [Christians] are to animate the life of the world.  Like salt in food, they are called to make people’s lives rich and filled with meaning, guarding human society from corruption and destruction by enmity, hate, conflicts, and vengeance.

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

DMLJ: He goes so far as to say that nobody but a Christian can give any helpful advice, knowledge, or instruction with respect to it.

MHA: … before the lamp was lit, it was necessary to endure that there was oil in it and adjust the wick.

The oil must constantly be replenished; the Christian replenishes the oil of his lamp through prayer – regular communication with God.  As to the wick, it must regularly be trimmed.  Lloyd-Jones offers that we do this by revisiting, every day, the Beatitudes: reminding ourselves that we are to be poor in spirit, merciful, meek, etc.  We are to live accordingly, every day. 

This is also a reminder that the Lord did not make the statements in this Sermon in a random order: living the Beatitudes is necessary to then be salt and light.

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20 For 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.

DMLJ: everything that is in the law and the prophets culminates in Christ, and He is the fulfillment of them.  It is the most stupendous claim He ever made. … He says that everything He is going to teach is in absolute harmony with the entire teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures.

MHA: Jesus draws out the very essence of the law from the multitude of Old Testament regulations, while the Pharisees and teachers of the law prided themselves on being experts in the law’s many stipulations.

This teaching is both complicated and simple.  Complicated: when writing the post, I had to break it down verse by verse, as each statement was packed with meaning.  Simple, because Jesus both fulfils the law and boils it down to its essence. 

One need not be an expert of the law; if that is your game, you can never outshine the Pharisees; I think this is at least one aspe3ct of Jesus’s teaching.  Instead, one need understand the essence of the law, and live accordingly – beginning with the heart.

Jesus next enters into a new phase: Ye have heard that it was said…

MHA: Of the multitude of moral topics discussed in the Old Testament, Jesus selects six: (1) murder and anger, (2) adultery and struggle with temptation, (3) divorce, (4) swearing oaths, (5) not resisting evil, and (6) love for one’s enemies.

DMLJ: These six examples are nothing but illustrations of principles.  It is the spirit not the letter that matters; it is the intent, object and purpose that are important.

21 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

DMLJ: But, as long as one did not actually commit murder, all was well, and he could face the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ with equanimity and say to himself, ‘I have kept and fulfilled the law.’

‘No, no,’ says the Lord Jesus Christ in effect.

Basically, keeping the Ten Commandments, or at least the second table, is pretty easy for many people.  “I haven’t murdered anyone.”  No problem.

DMLJ: It is possible for us to face the law of God as we find it in the Bible, but so to interpret and define it, as to make it something which we can keep very easily because we only keep it negatively.  So we may persuade ourselves that all is well.

MHA: The general idea of the entire admonition is that it is not enough simply to punish a person for a crime; one must fight against the reasons for evil that are rooted in the soul.

MHA: This is about a person’s responsibility for his or her own feelings and words: he or she answers for them not before a human court, but before the court of God’s justice.

27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: 32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

DMLJ: If we can conceivably be satisfied with our lives because we have never committed an act of adultery or of murder or any one of these things, I say that we do not know ourselves nor the blackness and the foulness of our own hearts.

MHA: We can assume that Jesus used these images repeatedly in referring to the difficulty of struggling with sinful desires: to tear the latter out of the heart is no less difficult and painful than to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand or a foot.

33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: 34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: 35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. 36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

MHA: In this case, the saying ought to be understood as a reminder of one’s responsibility for one’s own words.

Metropolitan Hilarion offers this teaching as he indicated several passages in both the Old and New Testament that the words spoken were not limited to such a clear “Yea, yea; Nay, nay.”

38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

DMLJ: …if our interpretation ever makes the teaching appear to be ridiculous or leads us to a ridiculous position, it is patently a wrong interpretation.

MHA: [The Sermon on the Mount] does not contain any call to change the structure of society, but…is filled with calls to transform our inner world….

DMLJ: It means that we must rid ourselves of the spirit of retaliation, and of the desire to defend ourselves and to revenge ourselves for any injury or wrong that is done to us.

MHA: …evil is not healed by evil; rooting out evil is possible only by opposing it with good. … The advice that Jesus gives relates not to the legal sphere, but to the sphere of interpersonal relations.

DMLJ: Our Lord desires to produce in us a spirit that does not take offense easily at such things, that does not seek immediate means of retaliation.  He wants us to reach a state in which we are indifferent to self-esteem.

This one was the most difficult for me to work through, and I cannot easily summarize it here (as you can see already).  There is more; this passage has been meaningful to me perhaps more than any other thus far:

DMLJ: We must rid ourselves of this constant tendency to be watching the interests of self, to be always on the lookout for insults or attacks or injuries, always in this defensive attitude.

I wonder whether we have ever realized the extent to which the misery and the unhappiness and the failure and the trouble in our lives is due to one thing only, namely self.  Go back across the last week, consider in your mind and recall to your conscience the moments or the periods of unhappiness and strain, your irritability, your bad temper, the things you have said and done of which you are now ashamed, the things that have really disturbed you and put you off your balance.

Look at them one by one, and it will be surprising to discover how almost every one of them will come back to this question of self, this self-sensitivity, this watching of self.  There is no question about it.  Self is the main cause of unhappiness in life.

‘Ah’, you say, ‘but it is not my fault; it is what somebody else has done.’  All right; analyse yourself and the other person, and you will find that the other person probably acted as he did because of self, and you are really feeling it for the same reason.

If only you had a right attitude towards the other person, as our Lord goes on to teach in the next paragraph, you would be sorry for him and would be praying for him.  So ultimately it is you who are to blame.

Now it is a very good thing on the practical level just to look at it honestly and squarely.  Most of the unhappiness and sorrow, and most of our troubles in life and in experience, arise from this ultimate origin and source, this self.

Jesus came to deliver us from self.  He did not consider Himself at all.  After understanding the magnitude of meaning behind His death on the cross, on what basis do we remain standing on self?

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44 But 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; 45 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.

46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

MHA: …our attitude toward someone should not depend on his attitude toward us; love should not be merely mutual; good cannot be merely reciprocal. …he should not merely react to the feelings and behavior of others, but should himself become a source of love and good.

MHA: But it is one’s ability to love one’s enemies that turns out to be the main indicator of how fully one has absorbed the Christian teaching on love and to what degree one is ready to put it into practice.

DMLJ: It is the definition of what the attitude of the Christian should be toward other people. … it is, of course, the very climax of Christian living.

MHA: The commandment to love one’s enemies can be called the quintessence of all of Christian ethics; in it, as at a focal point, Jesus’ other commandments are reflected.

Per Metropolitan Hilarion, Origen would work through a hierarchy of love: we love Christ more than our children, our children more than our neighbors, our neighbors more than our enemies.  Later tradition did not support this view, although exceptions were made for heretics and in times of war.

I am with Origen on this one.  There are times when choices have to be made.

Conclusion

48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

MHA: From the concept of Christian perfection we cannot exclude any of the qualities that are included in the moral program of the Sermon on the Mount.  Perfection is not simply a quality; it is a totality of qualities. … Consequently, the sentence “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” can apply to all the qualities listed in the Sermon on the Mount.

Which leads to the title of this post, sanctification:

DMLJ: The Christian is essentially a unique and special kind of person. …it is a uniqueness that separates him from everybody who is not a Christian. … he does what others cannot do. …he is meant to be positively like God and like Christ. … He is meant to live as the Lord Jesus Christ lived, to follow that pattern and to imitate that example. … He is meant to be like Christ.

MHA: The call to perfection is the vector that shows a person the direction of his or her spiritual path.  The end of this path is God himself – the eternal and unattainable ideal, revealed to humanity in the person of his only begotten Son.