NOTES for Mat 5:17-19

Truly nothing is hidden from the Lord, and He knows everything. The psalmist writes: "Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thoughts from far away. Whether I go or rest, You surround me, and all my ways are known to You. There is not yet a word on my tongue, but You, Lord, already know it completely" (Ps. 138:1-4). And, naturally, He sees both the good and all the evil in our hearts.

But despite this, He continues to love us. And He does not deny us His Kingdom, even knowing that at every moment we are capable of breaking His commandments. In the New Testament, the main thing becomes the striving, the direction of the vector of our life. And it is precisely this striving that is rewarded in the end with the "Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 5:19).

And if, in our search for God, we understand that "there is no limit to perfection," that is, we do not stop at what has already been achieved, and at the same time we realize that we make mistakes but keep going, then the goal becomes the Kingdom itself, not the place we will occupy in it.

Jesus teaches, "as one having authority," clearly moving sin from the realm of actions into the realm of thoughts. For us this is a hard saying: we can still somehow control our actions, but thoughts... It is like "not thinking about the white monkey" (remember the old fairy tale about how, in a certain situation, you could receive the fulfillment of all your wishes if only, at the most important moment, you did not think about the white monkey?)

But we can avoid thinking about the white monkey, if only we think about Someone else! We can avoid sinning in our thoughts if we think about Someone Sinless, Who is righteous and true.

And when do we think about someone constantly? When we love him. That is the whole secret.

In conversations with the disciples and in sermons, Jesus often speaks about the Torah and its proper understanding. In the Synodal text the Torah is usually called the "Law," but, though such a translation is formally correct, it still does not fully convey the meaning of the corresponding Hebrew word. Torah is more than simply law in the sense in which we usually use that word, more than only legislation or the legal order defined by it. Torah also implies a way of life corresponding to the law, including the inner, spiritual state of a person that corresponds to such a way of life. In Gospel times, in the rabbinic environment and in the Synagogue in general, the concept of the "living Torah" had spread rather widely, and ideally every believing Jew was to become such a Torah. What was meant was a person's spiritual state in which the Torah becomes something inwardly inherent to him, defining the whole of his life in all its manifestations. This understanding was very close to Jesus; it is no accident that He Himself says that He came not at all to destroy or change the Torah, but to bring it to fullness (v. 17; in the Synodal translation this thought is conveyed by the word "fulfill").

And the first thing to which He draws His listeners' attention is their intentions, or, as psychologists say today, their intentionalities. If you hate, consider yourself a murderer (vv. 21-22); if you lust, consider yourself an adulterer (vv. 27-28). Otherwise, according to Jesus' word, our righteousness does not go beyond ordinary religiosity, it "does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" (v. 20), who, being deeply religious people, outwardly, on the behavioral level, of course kept all the commandments of the Decalogue.

But it turns out that for the Kingdom this is not enough. And this is not about requirements raised especially high in order to be "holier than everyone else." It is simply that in this world our spiritual quality and state determine our actions, while in the Kingdom our intentions do. One might say that in our fallen world we are what we do, while in the Kingdom we will become what we desire. And if, while hating someone, we refrain from murder for God's sake, this is a serious spiritual achievement for our fallen world. But for the Kingdom it is a failure. And the spiritual bar raised so high by Jesus is needed in order to protect us from such a failure.

“Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees”—these words were probably received like a proposal to drink the sea or leap higher than one’s own head. The scribes and Pharisees were precisely the people who paid special attention to righteousness: they tried to fulfill every religious prescription so as to please, by their life and conduct, the God who had given people the Law. Yet these words were addressed to Jesus’ disciples, among whom were people of limited understanding, weak people, people of doubtful reputation—in a word, sinners. And they were supposed to live more righteously than the “specialists” in right living! Perhaps this obvious moral dead end was meant to transform fundamentally His listeners’ whole understanding of the world. God cannot be pleased by our wretched righteousness; in His eyes, irritation or a lustful look at another man’s wife is as much a crime as murder or adultery. He does not count our sins and good deeds—it is useless, because a relationship with Him is not a trade. Clearly, Christ’s disciples must live differently, in a new way, as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. They must become a place of God’s presence on earth.

The first property of salt that comes to mind, the salt with which Christ compared His disciples, is its ability to keep any substance from decay, the companion of death. We also know that only a very small amount of salt is needed to change the taste of a large portion of food, which means that even while remaining a minority, Christians can have a positive effect on the whole world. But the point is not only in these qualities of salt, which have not changed over the centuries: the listeners to the Sermon on the Mount knew and observed ancient customs connected with salt. Salt was a symbol of faithfulness; sharing salt together sealed an alliance more firmly than an oath and was a sign of unbreakable friendship. This means that Christ's disciples too are called to be such bearers of truth and reconciliation in a world torn apart by hostility.

He also called the disciples the light of the world, and this is striking, because another time He called Himself that (John 8:12, 9:5). Here is one of the first indications of the height to which He wants to raise those who trusted Him and followed Him. Yes, He came not to trample us into the dirt by His greatness, but to pull us out of the dirt and cleanse us.

And naturally, though for many people still unexpectedly, He begins to emphasize how His actions correspond to the law. Today many find it hard to connect what Christ brought into the world with the provisions of Old Testament law. But what seemed to some people to be a novelty was revealing precisely what had been laid down from ancient times.

Speaking about the need to surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus reveals that the motivation of actions, and the condition of soul that dictates them, are no less important than the actions themselves. If hatred leads to murder, then hatred is already the beginning of murder. And however important it is to cut down a poisonous tree that has grown large, it is even more important to keep it from taking root.