SO far in this great sermon which Jesus preached, Jesus has described to us the life, experience and character of the real Christian. This is set forth in verses 1-12 which we call the Beatitudes. The real Christian is blessed because this is the experience that he or she knows through the work of grace God has done within. Then in the next verses, verses 13-16 Jesus describes the purpose of the Christian’s life. The Christian is to be salt and light in society. Then comes the last section we have considered together where Jesus has been speaking of what is true righteousness, and pointing out that this righteousness is the perfection of God expressed in the whole Law and prophets God has given, that is the Old Testament, and that the righteousness which was set forth in the teaching and practice of the Pharisees fell far short of this.

All the rest of the sermon really is Jesus expounding what true righteousness is, and it is a righteousness that surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus commences this great theme and illustrates it by showing the true meaning of the Law of God given by God through Moses. This takes us to the end of chapter 5.

There is a principle which runs through all that Jesus is teaching here, and that is that the understanding of the Law of God reaches beyond the simple letter of the Law. It was the letter of the Law that the Pharisees taught, with the Scribes. Because of the sinfulness of the human heart even the meaning of the letter of the Law had become corrupted because fallen human nature is expert in justifying ways of watering down the Law of God, and so being able to imagine and feel that righteousness pleasing to God had been achieved, and all is well with the soul.

This teaching of the Pharisees Jesus expresses by the phrase in verse 21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago”. (NIV) or “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,” (AV). Here we have a difficulty that needs to be resolved. The translation favoured by the NIV suggests that the one speaking is Moses declaring the given Law of God. The AV translation points us not to Moses but to the teachers of old who had sought to interpret and explain the Law given by God to Moses. If we take the first meaning given by the translation in the NIV we will find ourselves in difficulties, because then Jesus seems to be changing this law in the teaching that follows. But the truth is that Jesus is not changing the Law in any way whatsoever. Instead he is explaining the true meaning of the Law of God, which had become corrupted or diminished by the explanations given by the Jewish teachers of the Law in the past.

On textual ground alone, I am led to understand it can’t be determined which rendering of the original Greek is right. This is because the Greek language supports either translation. The meaning therefore must be determined by the context. The context points, without question, to the AV rendering, which is pointing us to the interpreters of the Law of God given by God down the history of the Jewish people. This is plain because Jesus has already affirmed that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it, and to fulfil it perfectly. If we are to live the Law as God meant it to be lived then we must understand it as Jesus explains it.

The fact is that the Jewish people had to depend on the teachers of the Law, the Scribes and Pharisees, for their understanding of the teaching of the Law, and this was because most had lost their understanding of the original Hebrew, speaking rather Aramaic, and so were not able themselves to read the Old Testament to determine the meaning given by God.

This warns us all that it is not the teaching of men we should take as truth, but only the teaching which is verified by the true meaning of the Scriptures. In a perfect world there would be no problem. Ministers and preachers would be faithful to the right understanding of the Word of God. The fact is that human understanding, even amongst those led by the Spirit, is not always perfect. This is because of our limited understanding and intellect, and also because, though born again and renewed, we still have sin’s corruption residing in this fallen flesh. For this reason all should search the Scriptures to see that what is taught is true to the meaning of the God given revelation in the Bible. This is what the Bereans did when they heard the preaching of the apostle Paul (Acts 17:11).

The fact is that we all accumulate understandings concerning spiritual truth throughout our lives. Some of this will be false understanding. This is inevitable. We all need to be careful that we examine our understanding all the time by the Word of God, and be ready to be corrected, even though what needs correcting sometimes is hard to relinquish.