Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Is murder wrong? Of course it is. Is it against the law? Yes, and not only is it against the law, it has been for thousands of years in multitudes of cultures. Is hatred wrong? Yes. Is it against the law? Despite so-called hate crime legislation, how can you outlaw hatred? Someone may say, “You can’t legislate morality,” but we impose things on people all the time to tell them what they can and can’t do. But, there is a sense in which you cannot mandate people to be right before God. In other words, a person cannot be made right simply by keeping some kind of code of conduct.
What makes murder and hatred wrong in the first place? Is it always wrong? The answer is that there has to be an absolute standard. There has to be a God. Aristotle and such philosophers argued about what virtue actually is. What defines virtue? Ironically, sometimes people dismiss the existence of God claiming that there is so much evil in the world that there could not be a God. But how could there even be evil if there is no standard by which to judge that? Is morality simply something that changes with society? Some would think so, but that is not the case.
In Matthew 5 Jesus is talking to the multitude that followed Him. You find in verse 17 that Jesus takes up the law of God. He says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” So, what Jesus is presenting here is more than the law. It is a completion of the law, even the law that God Himself has given.
In verse 20 He goes on, “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.” How could you possibly act better than a Pharisee? These were patriots who had kept alive Jewish nationalism at a time when many of their countrymen had flipped, like cowards, to the Roman government. So, as good as they were, Jesus says that our righteousness needs to be greater if we are going to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
How do you do that? What follows is an explanation. In the next verses Jesus says, “For ye have heard that it was said… but I say…” He was speaking in contrasts. He gives a number of cases where there is a law that had been accepted by Jewish people, a law that was good, but a law that was not enough. While such a law may have outlawed murder, people were missing the point if they thought they could have the heart of murder and still be innocent before God.
Jesus says, “Ye have heard it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.” Jesus goes on to say, essentially, “There is something more than this. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even thugs do that. How does this make you better than other people? Don’t even publicans do this?
Then, Jesus says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” The fact of the matter is that the only way to be like the Father is to be the Father or to allow the Father to be in you what only He can be.
The Bible tells us in Matthew 3:17 that Jesus pleased the Father. In Matthew 4:1 it says that Jesus was led of the Spirit, and the following verses indicate that Jesus knew the Word. The bottom line is that rules can be good. God’s laws are certainly just, but no rule or code of conduct can make you right before God, not for Heaven and not in your daily life. What you need is the God of that law, the God of that virtue, to be God in your heart and life and to help you do what you don’t even want to do let alone have the power to do.
The Pharisees had law, but they didn’t have God because God didn’t have them. Only the Lord can do what the Lord would do. Surrender to Him today and live beyond the law. Live a completion of what God would have you to be and do as you let Jesus Christ and His Spirit live His life through you.