SM #15: The End of the World as We Know It (Real Righteousness, part 2)

For Amen I tell you, until the heavens and the earth pass away, not the smallest letter or even a part of a letter will pass away from the Law, until everything comes into being. ~ JESUS (Matthew 5:18)

CORE (The heart of the message):

The end of the Old Covenant and the birth of the New Covenant is an earth-shattering event that Jesus describes in apocalyptic language. This transition changes everything about how we relate to God and one another and even our own Bibles, now according to love instead of law.

CONTEXT (What’s going on before and after this passage):

This study is the second of a four-part series to help us unpack what scholars agree is Jesus’ thesis statement for the entire Sermon on the Mount. Because it is the central theme of the central sermon of Jesus, it is worth taking the time to understand it well.

We are dealing with some theologically dense material. For some of us this is exciting news. For others, it will feel too intellectual to be practically helpful. Either way, keep in mind that learning how to relate to our own Bibles will influence the kind of people, and the kind of Church, we become.

As we discussed in our previous study, where our section is situated in the Sermon makes a difference. Zooming out to get the big picture, a basic overview of the full Sermon on the Mount looks something like this:

• PRELUDE: Jesus is seen as the new Moses, bringing his followers true freedom. After going through the water and into the wilderness, Jesus ascends a mountain to give God’s people God’s will and God’s way. The values of the New Covenant are being written, not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts (see 2 Corinthians 3). Crowds are listening, but Jesus directs his teaching toward his disciples.

• INTRODUCTION: Beatitudes + Salt & Light (Matthew 5:3-16)

• MAIN THESIS: The Bible leads us to Jesus, and Jesus leads us into his Kingdom of true righteousness. Real righteousness is not rule-compliance but right-relatedness, going beyond law to love, and beyond justice and judgement to grace, mercy, and peace (Matthew 5:17-20) <– YOU ARE HERE

• THESIS DEVELOPMENT & ILLUSTRATIONS: the Six Antitheses (Matthew 5:21-48)

• WARNINGS: Hypocrisy, Materialism, Worry, Judgementalism, Falsehood, and Inaction (Matthew 6-7)

• CONCLUSION: Building our lives on Jesus’ teaching (Matthew 7:24-27)

• POSTLUDE: The crowds are amazed at Jesus’ teaching because of his “authority”. Jesus is not just exegeting Scripture, but taking charge of and centring himself in the whole narrative.

All four verses of the thesis presentation hang together and give each other proper context.

[17] Do not think that I have come to cast down the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to cast them down but to fill them up. [18] For Amen I tell you, until the heavens and the earth pass away, not the smallest letter or even a part of a letter will pass away from the Law, until everything comes into being. [19] Therefore anyone who loosens one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. [20] For I tell you that unless your righteousness goes above and beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of the heavens. ~ JESUS (Matthew 5:17-20)

To help us interpret this passage, we should keep in mind that Matthew’s first recorded acts of Jesus after the Sermon on the Mount include Jesus repeatedly breaking ritual purity laws. Matthew records ten miracles in rapid succession in Matthew 8-9, probably paralleling the ten miraculous plagues associated with Moses freeing Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Whereas Moses’ Old Covenant freedom-miracles are all destructive, Jesus’ New Covenant freedom-miracles are all restorative. Whereas Moses turned water into blood, Jesus turns water into wine (John 2). These ten New Covenant miracles recorded in Matthew include such miracle hits as healing a leper with a touch (see Matthew 8:3 in light of Leviticus 5:3; 13-14; Numbers 5:2-3), allowing a bleeding woman to touch him (see Matthew 9:20-22 in light of Leviticus 25-30), and pursuing contact with a dead girl in order to resurrect her (see Matthew 9:18-25 in light of Numbers 5:2; 19:11-14). Jesus interprets his own sermon through his post-sermon actions, and so should we. And Jesus will also go on to override divorce laws (Matthew 5:31-32; 19:8-9), oath laws (Matthew 5:33-37), justice laws (Matthew 5:38-39), and dietary laws (Matthew 15:11; Mark 7:14-19). Keep your eyes on this one – he’s up to something!

Jesus breaks the Law of Moses by touching lepers. Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, the effect flows in the opposite direction, and the lepers become clean.

CONSIDER (Observations about the passage):

For. This small word (Greek, gar) connects this verse with the one before. It reminds us to keep all four verses of Jesus’ thesis statement in mind while we focus in on exegeting one of them.

Amen. Sometimes when Jesus wants to make a strong point, he does this unusual thing: He says “Amen” first about something he is about to say (and sometimes he even double-amens himself). Amen is an affirming word that Jewish believers (and then Christians) would say at the end of something someone else said that they approved of. It roughly means “Right on” or “I agree”. You can probably think of other amen-equivalents we use today. Saying it at the beginning of your own statement, the way Jesus does, was not normal and is one of those small verbal peculiarities that makes Jesus’ teaching style unique. It is one of Jesus’ signature phrases that helps set him apart – Jesus sees himself as worth Amening.

Until the heavens and the earth pass away. A key interpretive question is: Does Jesus mean this literally or figuratively? Is he saying that the Law endures as long as the universe endures, so we better get to obeying it? Or is he using poetic language to talk about the end of an era? We use similar apocalyptic language today when we talk about “earth-shattering” events or ideas. If Jesus is talking this way, what earth-shattering end-point does he have in mind? His death and resurrection? His second coming? Pentecost? Or is this end of an era – the era of Law giving way to the era of grace and truth (John 1:17) – a progressive transition marked by a number of key New Covenant events? For instance, Jesus says that the coming of John the Baptist somehow marked the end of the age of law (Luke 16:16-17). And Jesus says his death would be “the New Covenant in my blood” (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). Yet the New Covenant is predicated upon the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit available to all (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27; Joel 2:28-29), so maybe Jesus was predicting Pentecost. Then there is the cataclysmic destruction of the Jerusalem temple and end of the sacrificial system, which Jesus prophesies with similar earth-shattering language: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken“ (Matthew 24:29) – which Jesus says will take place before that current generation passes away (24:34-35). More about this below, but for now we can say one thing with certainty: whatever Jesus means by this phrase, Jesus sees his own teaching as more enduring by comparison. About his own teaching, Jesus says: “The Heaven and the earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). Whenever it is that the Law comes to an end, the teachings of Jesus will keep right on going.

The Arch of Titus depicts Romans parading the spoils of the Jerusalem Temple after their military victory

EXCURSUS: What is the link between the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and Christ’s “Second Coming”? Throughout Matthew 24, Jesus prophesies the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in terms of the coming of the Son of Man, and says it will all happen within one generation (Matthew 24:27-30; 34-35). To give this prophecy context, the Old Testament records instances where God judges a nation by using another nation as his instrument of judgement (e.g., Deuteronomy 28:15-57; 2 Chronicles 36:15-19; Isaiah 10:5-11; Jeremiah 4:11-18; Habakkuk 1:5-12). The temple was destroyed by the Romans, the circling “birds of prey” Jesus identifies in Matthew 24:28 (the word used there can mean eagle or vulture). Jesus takes credit ahead of time for the Roman advance on Jerusalem in the first century, saying this will be his personal return to judge the system! The prophet Isaiah (in 19:1-2) records God using “riding on a cloud” language for his coming in judgement, just like Jesus uses in Matthew 24:28-30. It seems that the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD was, at least in part, Jesus’ second coming in judgement. This doesn’t nullify a future coming of Christ and the consummation of all history, but it does help us see how Jesus’ fully established the New Covenant once and for all, including closing down the Old Covenant sacrificial system for good. (By the way, this vivid and validated prophecy of Jesus which came true one generation later is stunning evidence embedded in history of Christ’s miraculous powers. It is also the main reason why skeptical scholars refuse to believe the gospels were written before 70 AD, insisting that the prophecy is so accurate, it must have been added to the lips of Jesus by writers after the events took place. But all other dating points to early writing of at least the synoptic gospels, where this prophecy is recorded. For instance, Luke would have mentioned the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as a final exclamation mark at the end of the book of Acts had it already taken place. Instead, the apostle Paul is still alive and the Temple is still standing at the time of Luke writing Acts. And Luke wrote his Gospel before writing Acts, and at least Mark is dated before Luke. We are left with a real written record of Jesus’ miraculous insight.)

The siege of Jerusalem and eventual destruction of the Temple really was the end of the world as they knew it for Israel

The Greek word for “eagle” is the same word for “vulture” as used in Matthew 24:28

The smallest letter or even a part of a letter. The two words here are “Iota”, which was the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, plus the word for “horn” which referred to a small pen stroke, like the mark that makes the difference between an O and a Q, or a C and a G, or a P and an R. Today we might talk about dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s. The “horn” of a letter could also refer to what today we call “serifs” – those little flourishes that appear only in some fonts. For reference, this paragraph is written in a font with serifs (tiny bobbles or lines), while the rest of this 1820 study is written in a sans serif font. Jesus is redeeming rather than rejecting every bit of every law of the Bible, all 613 commandments (248 positive and 365 negative). Bottom line: We can’t separate, slice, or dice up the law. We can’t keep what we like and throw away the bits and bobs that we don’t like. The Law all endures until it all passes away all together.

Until everything comes into being. This is a parallel phrase to “until the heavens and the earth pass away”, making them mutually interpreting phrases. Jesus keeps putting qualifications on the enduring nature of the Torah of Moses. Yes, the Law will last (and conservatives breathe a sigh of relief), that is, until the new thing happens (and conservatives say “huh?”). Jesus tells his disciples that there will come a time when the world as we know it will end, but that will also just be the beginning, a time when something new is birthed into being. The Greek word here (ginomai) means to become, to come into existence, to emerge, to transition from one way of being into a new way of being, and so it tends to point forward to something new. Jesus is likely referring to the birth of the New Covenant. Matthew’s Jesus uses the same Greek word (ginomai) when prophesying the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:34). This New Covenant birthing process certainly centres on the cross, when the curtain in the Jerusalem Temple was torn from top to bottom in an act of Divine vandalism (Matthew 27:50-51; Mark 15:37-38; Luke 23:44-46). But as discussed above, the birth of the New Covenant also includes demarcation events before and after the cross. It began with Christ’s incarnation, takes its next step with the ministry of John the Baptist, and includes Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension, as well as the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the final “no turning back now” event that Jesus prophesied – the destruction of the temple sacrificial system in 70 AD. This multivalent approach to the birth of the New Covenant makes sense of the biblical data, and of life. For instance, when is a baby born? When the head is out? The shoulders? The whole body? First breath? When the umbilical cord is cut? Or, when does a river that flows into the sea actually become the sea? There is always a transitional area. In terms of Old Covenant transitioning into the New Covenant, that transitional area is primarily the first century AD, and yet, even today in the 21st century, we still await the final consummation of it all. And in the meantime, Jesus will teach his disciples by word and example how to live in the New Covenant world where law gives way to love.

Therefor, brothers and sisters, we enter the holy place boldy by the blood of Jesus, who inaugurated a new and living way for us to pass through the curtain, which is his flesh. (Hebrews 10:19-20)

When he speaks of a “new covenant”, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear. (Hebrews 8:13)

CONFESSION (Personal reflection):

I confess that I wouldn’t like the Bible if I didn’t know it was all really leading me to Jesus.

I remember reading through the Old Testament and making it as far as mid-way through the book of Joshua. After repeated chapters of violence, somewhere around chapter 10, I wrote in the margin of my Bible “I don’t like this page of my Bible”, closed it, and spent some time away from it, waiting for the thunderbolts to strike. In the quietness of those moments, I felt God’s assurance of his Christ-like, cross-shaped love. So I returned to my Bible, and under what I had already written, I added “I don’t think God likes it either.”

I’m not trying to make a theological point, but sharing the struggling development of a young Christian. I didn’t have the robust theological tools to explain the difference I was seeing, but the difference was and is a real thing to be reconned with: passages of God inflicting extreme and wrath-full violence VS passages of God graciously receiving our extreme and wrath-full violence while forgiving us for all of it. Somehow, each of us will need to resolve the theological tension, cognitive dissonance, and emotional conflict between what appears to be the life-taking God of the Old Testament and the self-sacrificing God of the New Testament. It is the difference between the God who slays his enemies (and teaches his people to do the same) VS the God who lays his life down for his enemies (and teaches his people to do the same).

Some Bible stories don’t make for good bedtime stories.

It might be tempting to argue that these two visions of God cannot be reconciled and that we simply have to choose between them rather than hold both together. And some have tried this approach. In the early church, one popular theologian named Marcion of Sinope (85-160 AD) taught that the Old Testament Scriptures are so different from the teaching of Jesus that they must be written by a different god altogether and should be abandoned by Christ-followers. But Jesus doesn’t leave that option open to us. He tells us that every word and every letter of the Old Testament is really all about him, not some other false deity.

I have had some version of this conversation many times: I’m asked about some objectionable Old Testament passage (usually something to do with extreme violence) and I respond something like, “Ya, I find that revolting too. That’s why it makes me want to follow Jesus all the more!” Then they respond, “You can’t answer every Bible problem with Jesus!” And I say something like, “Yes I can, in fact I have to. If you want me to talk about the Hebrew Bible without connecting it to Jesus, you probably really want to talk to a Rabbi. That’s their job, not mine.”

Over the years I have had the privilege of speaking with a number of Rabbis about this very issue, and they have always been gracious, kind, and articulate. I learn so much from them! But for me, I can’t make sense of it all without Jesus.

At the same time, I have found it important to acknowledge Jesus is the reason for the tension in the first place. Let me explain… I’m still uncomfortable with large portions of the Bible, but I’ve realized something important: most of my discomfort with parts of the Bible developed specifically because I have become morally influenced by the ethics of Jesus. For instance, Old Testament violence only becomes philosophically problematic once our understanding of morality becomes increasingly shaped by Jesus’ nonviolent love ethic. Jesus creates the problem, and I’m glad he does! Otherwise, Bible-believers could just accept the coherent (if less compassionate) idea that the God of the universe is often wrathful and violent and that’s just the way things are. We might not like that, but it would be a coherent and consistent position to hold. Then along comes Jesus, the Bible-character who calls all Bible-believers to repent of that Bible-influenced but thoroughly unbiblical idea.

Today, I still don’t have all the answers I wish I had on this topic, but I have started to embrace the tension itself as positive evidence that my heart is being shaped by Jesus and his love ethic. And when someone says to me, “I really struggle with all the violence in the Bible”, I respond, “Good! That means your heart is being shaped and your faith is being formed by Jesus!”

Just like Jacob wrestled with God, I wrestle with Scripture, not because of a lack of faith, but precisely as an expression of my faith in Jesus.

This painting of Jacob wrestling with God by Anabaptist artist Jack Baumgartner captures so much. The violence and intimacy intertwine as the curtain is pulled back. Naked Jacob (for nothing is hidden from God) now has his heal grabbed, as he once grabbed his brother’s heal at birth, forcing Jacob to kneel before God.

COMMENTARY (Thoughts about meaning and application):

In this passage, Jesus ties two truths together:

1. The Law endures until a time of cataclysmic transition. (By implication, the Law is therefore less enduring than Jesus’ own teaching, which according to Matthew 24:35, lasts forever.)

2. At that time of the Law’s end, something new will be birthed into being.

It all seems straightforward, and yet raises questions at the same time: When does the law end and the new thing come into being? Will the Bible have any use after that point? Will we read the Bible in heaven? And in the meantime, how do we make use of every letter of the law today? Or should we even try?

Different Christian groups respond to these questions differently. For instance…

• PRESERVATIONISTS (Seventh Day Adventists and most Protestants) suggest we should still work diligently to follow every Old Testament command as much as possible today, even if we have to make some New Testament adjustments. To help Christians navigate what laws to follow and what ones to ignore, these Christians will often speak of three categories of Laws: Civil, Ceremonial, and Ethical/Moral. They will point out that the civil laws governed the state of ancient Israel and the ceremonial laws governed the sacrificial system, so they don’t apply to Christians today (e.g., see Hebrews 9:11-14). But the ethical or moral laws endure, they say, and we should all follow them. This group, for instance, would at least agree that the Ten Commandments endure as a good moral guide for Christians. But they disagree on whether it is okay to adjusting the Sabbath keeping command (referring to Saturday) to allow for the transition to Sunday worship. This group might also be more inclined to get into debates about whether Christians should get tattoos (according to Leviticus 19:28) or have Christmas trees (according to Jeremiah 10:1-5). And what about clothing woven of two kinds of materials (Leviticus 19:19) or getting a haircut (Leviticus 19:27)? Are these enduring moral laws? This position leaves the door open for lots of debate and, unfortunately, division.

• ABOLITIONISTS (Radical Reformers / Anabaptists / New Covenant Theologians) suggest our best approach is to focus on following the teachings of Jesus directly and exclusively and not try to draw our ethics from the Old and New Testaments equally. They point out that the Law of Moses does not come with clearly demarcated sections for civil, ceremonial, and ethical laws. The whole Torah comes as a package deal. Likewise, Jesus and the New Testament writers never discuss this divide-into-categories approach, but always treat the Torah as a whole. In fact, the New Testament writers specifically emphasize that following the way of law is an all-or-nothing proposition (e.g., Galatians 3:10; 5:3). And the apostle James writes that “whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all” (James 2:10). Abolitionists (using the word the way it is used in Ephesians 2:14) also remind us that, unless we are Jewish, the Old Covenant was not even made with us in the first place. Gentile believers enter into covenantal relationship with God at the point of Jesus and his New Covenant. Sometimes called “Red Letter Christians”, these believers emphasize the authority of Jesus and his teaching (often in red lettering in Christian Bibles) as normative for all Christians. The Old Testament is viewed as inspired background information to lead readers to Jesus and to help us understand the life and times of Jesus better, but it is not our source of moral guidance.

Which approach have you heard most in church? Which approach do you think is the most correct? What do you think are the possible strengths and weaknesses of each approach?

Both Christian groups are trying to honour the Old Testament while admitting that and explaining why Christians don’t follow all of it. After declaring that through Jesus a person is justified (made righteous) “by faith apart from the works of the law”, the apostle Paul concludes, “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:28-31). So how do we “uphold” the law? We know from other parts of the New Testament that the early apostles came to believe that Christ-followers do not have to obey the law of Moses (e.g., see the Church’s developing thinking about key Old Testament issues like dietary laws and circumcision in Acts 10-11; 15; Romans 7; 2 Corinthians 3; Galatians 2-4; etc). In fact, Paul says that trying to follow the letter of the law is the way of condemnation and death (2 Corinthians 3:6-9). And yet we can still “uphold” the law, meaning we hold it up in honour and respect as a source of truth.

Is the Law pointing at us in condemnation, or pointing to Jesus who saves us from all condemnation? (PS: Charlton’s beard is epic.)

We don’t obey the law, but we learn from the law so we can obey Christ. There is a difference. In this sense, the Bible has no authority over us, but it does lead us to Jesus who holds all authority in heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18). Authority resides in a Person, not a book, not even an inspired God-given book.

Like John the Baptist, the Bible points us to Jesus and says “Behold!”

CONCLUSION (One last thought):

When we read Jesus’ words that every bit of the law, every letter and part of a letter, will endure until the world as we know it is ended and a new thing is birthed, it makes sense to see this ending and beginning as having already taken place through the coming of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant is already over and the New Covenant has already begun. And yet, as we learned in our last study, we continue to cherish all of Scripture, because the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, is really all about Jesus. Like the apostle Paul says, we “uphold the law” (Romans 3:31). Yes, the writer of Hebrews tells us that the Old Covenant is indeed “obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13), absolutely. But notice that author doesn’t say that the Old Covenant Scriptures are obsolete. What a significant nuance. The Old Covenant of Law is done. But the scriptures of the Old Covenant continue to lead us to Jesus.

CONTEMPLATE (Scripture passages that relate to and deepen our understanding of this topic):

Matthew 5; Luke 16:16-17; 24:13-49; John 1:1-18, 45; Acts 17:11; 20:20-24; 26:22–23; Romans 1:1-3; 4:23-24; 6:14; 7:1-6; 10:1-4; 13:8-10; 15:4; 1 Corinthians 9:8-12; 10:11; 2 Corinthians 3; Galatians 3:8, 19-25; 5:1-6, 14; Ephesians 6:1-3; Colossians 2:17; 1 Timothy 3:14-15; 5:17-18; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 4:2-4; Hebrews 1:1-3; 8:13 (and really the whole book of Hebrews); 1 Peter 1:12-16; 2:21

CONVERSATION (Talk together, learn together, grow together):

1. What is God showing you about yourself through this passage?

2. How do you reconcile the enemy-killing violence in the Bible with the enemy-loving peace teaching of Jesus?

3. What is one thing you can think, believe, or do differently in light of what you are learning?

4. What questions are you still processing about this topic?

THANK YOU for tracking with this challenging yet foundational material! Bless you!