Matt 5:21-49 give specific examples of the attitude and behaviour required of Jesus’ disciples. They can be seen as a sample of kingdom ethics. Jesus gives the true and ultimate meaning of parts of the Torah and they are contrasted with the common understanding of these at that time. Jesus deepens their meaning by internalising and extending them. The disciples are to strive for purity of inner disposition and be obedient to God’s will with as little concession to sin as possible. There is an emphasis on the love of God and neighbour and even to extend this to love of one’s enemies (Matt 5:44). Oaths are prohibited and so are lust and anger. Altruism is to be shown to all and disciples are expected to go further than what is expected of them (Matt 5:38-42). Jesus is defining righteousness by expounding the true meaning of the law that is to be implemented by the disciples. The commandment is given to love all people, whether neighbours or enemies, and this is the final and most important truth of the chapter. It can be seen as a summary of the preceding teaching and relates to the ideal that the disciples should imitate Jesus and show God’s love.
The teaching about discipleship in Matthew 5 is challenging and highly demanding, but it needs to be viewed in the knowledge of Matthew as being an extremist gospel and as within a tradition of Jewish apocalyptic literature.
It was written for a people suffering persecution and a community seeking to define, separate and establish itself. This can make it difficult to relate its teaching to the disciples of the 21st century in the Western Church and this is one of the challenges of preaching on Matthew’s gospel. However it should also be remembered that many Christian communities around the world do still face persecution and problems of boundaries with their surrounding culture. Also that the insidious cultural demands such as materialism and falling church numbers in our country, give further value to the teaching about discipleship in Matthew 5.
Discuss whether or not Matthew’s gospel offers a new interpretation of Torah requirements.
The word Torah comes from the Hebrew root yrh meaning to guide or to teach and therefore its meaning is more to do with teaching rather than law. It is the Torah to which Matt 5:17-20 is referring when it mentions law. Although it is often used to refer to the Pentateuch, it can also relate to the entire Hebrew Scriptures. The term also refers to the written and oral teaching given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Torah was the central religious symbol of the Pharisees and became this for the whole of Judaism following the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.
The setting of the SM has been taken to present it as Christian Torah with Jesus as the new Moses,. Support for this view is drawn from the idea of Bacon that Matthew structured his gospel in five major teaching blocks to parallel that of the Pentateuch, the Moses typology of the Infant Narratives in Matthew 1-2, the fact that much of the SM relates to Torah and the observation in Matt. 5:1 that Jesus sat down to teach mirroring the customary teaching position of Torah in Judaism, . However W.D. Davies concludes that the Moses typology is not the dominant feature due to the absence of any definite reference to Moses and the giving of a new Torah. The Moses typology where present, is overlaid by a higher Christology. It has also been observed by Wellhausen that any parallels with Exodus are inexact and in fact Jesus seems rather to play the part of Yahweh with the disciples taking the role of Moses. So although links to Moses can be argued, they do not provide definite evidence for a new interpretation of Torah.
Most commentators seem to agree that the SM is given as part of an event of eschatological fulfilment, , The Messianic age has come with the presence of Jesus and therefore the righteousness of Torah can be fulfilled,,. There was an expectation that the Messiah would preserve Torah but also interpret its true and full meaning, bringing a renewed obedience to the will of God. As the Messiah Jesus has the authority to do this according to Matthew. In Matt 5:27-48, the repeated words,
“you have heard that it was said”
were a well-known device used by the rabbis of that time. However the accompanying words,
“but I say to you”
denote a special authority which would have been alien to the rabbis and reflect the identity of Jesus as the messianic bringer of the Kingdom. Jesus’ teaching here is to be seen as the eschatological fulfilment of Torah.
In Matt 5:17 Jesus states that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. Various interpretations of fulfil have been propounded, including that Jesus meant to make the Law valid, to obey it, to bring a new Law, to enable others to meet its demands, or to bring a new spirit of love to the Law. The overriding conclusion is that the coming of the Messiah reveals the true inner meaning of the whole Torah. Indeed the mountain setting of the SM may be seen as being a Mount Zion relating to the eschatological expectation of a great gathering of Israel on the holy mountain. This also links to Matt 5:14, where the city on the hill that cannot be hidden is interpreted as the new Jerusalem. The messianic interpretation of the Torah by Jesus describes a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20) and this is outlined with examples in Matt. 5:21-47. Here Jesus quotes Torah and claims knowledge of its original intent. He demands an interior purity of heart that matches outward action, (Matt 5:8, Matt 5:21-24), absolute adherence rather than a mere token observance, (Matt 5: 31-37, and also a response that goes even further than the statutes (Matt 5:38-47).
The argument has been put forward that Jesus made a distinction between ceremonial ritual law of Temple sacrifice, which he opposed and the moral law that reflects God’s will. However it is difficult to make a case that Jesus’ attitude to the Temple could be dissociated from his overall attitude towards Torah as the Temple rites were based on Torah and there is no precedence for this distinction in first century Judaism. Furthermore Jesus is shown to attend the prescribed Temple festivals. Another argument is that only some of the so called Antitheses of Matt 5:21-47 are authentic, but this selective approach whilst unable to be completely disproved remains an unsatisfactory one on which to build and maintain any argument for or against a new interpretation of the Law.
In the rest of his gospel, Matthew presents Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of Torah. He challenges his opponents’ understanding of Torah and puts human need above the strict letter of the law (Matt 12:1-8). Jesus directly quotes Hosea 6:6 underlining the importance of the message that God’s true desire is for mercy (Matt 12:7). In the many formula citations in Matthew (e.g. Matt 1:23, Matt 21:5), Jesus is presented as the fulfilment of Torah. Indeed he may be seen as the personification of Torah as God’s Word implied in Matt 12:6, 12:41, and 12:42, which can be taken to reflect him standing above the three parts of Torah, i.e. Law, Prophets and Writings.
Jesus can be said to show an authoritative freedom over Torah, but he did not demonstrate by this that the Law could be broken. E.P. Sanders argues that apart from the demand to the man whose father had died, (Matt (8:22), which occurs in a passage emphasising the supreme call of discipleship, Matthew’s gospel does not show Jesus transgressing the Law. Furthermore the disciples did not uphold the idea that the Torah was valueless and this can be seen in the subsequent and continuing disputes of the early Church. However, although Matthew’s gospel is stating that the Torah should be adhered to ( Matt 5:17-19, Matt 15:4) he is also showing that Jesus as the eschatological Messiah is bringing a new interpretation of God’s will in the Torah in a Hasidic sense, which emphasises the true spirit of the Torah and its inner observance in the hearts and minds of the disciples of Jesus. God’s will puts human need, purity of heart and mercy first and as disciples, that is also what followers of Jesus are called to do.
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