Jesus exposed the Pharisees’ application of the Exodus 21:24 command, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’” (Matthew 5:38). They measured righteousness by personal retribution. They took a law meant to curb sinful retaliation and used it to justify personal vendettas. This is what moralism always does: It picks and chooses what it wants to obey. In this case, the Pharisees rejected Leviticus 19:17-18, “You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart…You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And in its place, they chose eye-for-eye payback. Why? Because moralism always panders to our fallen nature.

“Do not think I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”
Matthew 5:17
 
Tunes we hear as children often stay with us as adults. Who doesn’t know Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star? Even after many decades, who couldn’t start a round of Wheels on a Bus? Children’s songs are nostalgic, bringing us back to a time of simplicity and safety—who can’t hear their mom singing a sweet lullaby in their ear? 
Today’s Siren also has a childhood song. It’s the song of moralism—the chorus we heard growing up, the melody that plays in the background of our mind, and the ditty we hum to ourselves without even realizing it. Be Nice is the title. Do good things is the refrain. And God will accept you is the message.
It’s the song that prioritizes external behavior. In Christian circles, it sounds like this: Put something in the offering plate and say your evening prayers, and then God will bless you; you’ll put a smile on His face and earn His favor. After all, “God helps those who help themselves.” Right?1 
An Oldie, But Baddie
Moralism is an oldie—the song the Pharisees sang as they followed their man-made rules for righteousness, measuring personal holiness by external benchmarks and their own legalistic traditions. But it is not a goodie. It is a damning song that dismisses God’s requirement for acceptance and spurns Jesus’ words, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). 
Jesus Was No Moralist
Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus addressed a person’s inner condition over their external obedience. He searched hearts; He didn’t offer lists to cross off. He called His hearers to recognize their spiritual bankruptcy (Matthew 5:3); He didn’t give boxes to check. Jesus pleaded with men to sorrow over sin, humble themselves, and seek a righteousness they could not earn (Matthew 5:4-6). 
The contrast was unmistakable. Jesus taught that only “the pure in heart…shall see God” (Matthew 5:8), while the moralistic Pharisees promised divine acceptance based upon ritual adherence (Mark 7:3-4). No wonder Jesus said, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20)—a standard that still applies today. 
Cleaning Up the Moralistic Mess
Moralistic righteousness is the context of Jesus’ mission statement in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” 
For centuries, the Pharisees had elevated their oral traditions to the status of Scripture. According to the Talmud, “It [was] more culpable to teach against the ordinances of the scribes than against the Torah itself.”2 The rabbis commanded, “Give more heed to the words of the rabbis than to the words of the Law.”3 They even warned, “He who transgresses the word of the scribes throws away his life.”4 By opposing the Pharisees’ moralistic application of the Old Testament, Jesus knew He was stepping into dangerous territory. 
Thus, to avoid any misunderstanding, Jesus defended His heart-probing teaching from the outset. Yes, His teaching would differ significantly from the religious leaders’ hallowed traditions, but He was not “abolishing the Law” in any way. He was fulfilling it—filling out the Law’s true meaning, something the Pharisees had covered up for centuries. 
This is why the next 31 verses of Matthew 5 are framed by the statement, “You have heard it said…but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21–22; 27–28; 31–32; 33–34; 38–39; 43–44). Jesus was cleaning up the moralistic mess the Pharisees had made. He was contrasting His gospel with theirs, making it clear that no amount of outward obedience (“you have heard it said”) could ever earn acceptance into God’s presence (“but I say to you”). The righteousness God requires must surpass the Pharisees’ external behavior. Nothing less than a sinless mind, righteous motives, and flawless attitudes would suffice.. 
Exposing the Heinousness of Hate
Jesus began to unmask the Pharisees’ moralistic gospel by setting His sights on their view of murder. “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court’” (Matthew 5:21). Who would disagree with that? Murder is a heinous sin (Exodus 20:13). 
But Jesus was not disparaging the sixth commandment. He was showing how shallowly the Pharisees had interpreted it. Simply checking off the box, “I did not murder,” was never what God intended—though that is what the Pharisees taught. God demanded much more. His requirement ran much deeper. He was looking for a murder-free spirit, a heart without hatred, and a mouth free from insulting speech. 
This is why Jesus added, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell” (Matthew 5:22–23). 
Quite a contrast, isn’t it? Even the unseen sins of anger and hatred, and the all-too-common sin of insulting words, are worthy of hell. This is no moralistic message. 
Condemning an Adulterous Mind
Jesus then turned to the Pharisees’ superficial application of sexual purity.
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God is love. Throughout all eternity the three divine Persons have known and delighted in one another, living together as a Holy Family bound in perfect love. But the love of the triune God is also focused on his creation, and in particular on us human beings, creatures uniquely fashioned in his own image and likeness, and who therefore have the ability to know and love God. In our text Christ is telling us that God the Father has gone to extraordinary lengths to make this precious ability ours once again.

Christian or not, every student of history knows that the Bible’s majestic story of creation, fall, and redemption through Christ turned the Roman Empire upside down, laid the foundation for Western Civilization, and even today is transforming people and nations all over the world.
But here is something you may not have known: John 3:16—the most famous verse in the Bible—contains the whole message of the whole book in a nutshell. It’s like a beautiful pearl tucked deep inside a giant clam or oyster. Here, Jesus Christ himself gives us the heart, the core, the very essence of the Word of God.
So then: For folks who may be new to the Bible, here are a few thoughts designed to open up the rich meaning of this pearl of great price.
GOD: This is the Supreme Being whom we encounter in nature, conscience, and the sacred scriptures of the Jewish people, through whose holy prophets he was pleased to reveal far more than nature or conscience ever could. In these scriptures we learn that there is one God—the creator, possessor, sustainer, and ruler of the universe—eternally existing in three divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here in John 3:16 Christ is specifically referring to God the Father: He who gave God the Son to the world.
SO LOVED: God is love. Throughout all eternity the three divine Persons have known and delighted in one another, living together as a Holy Family bound in perfect love. But the love of the triune God is also focused on his creation, and in particular on us human beings, creatures uniquely fashioned in his own image and likeness, and who therefore have the ability to know and love God. In our text Christ is telling us that God the Father has gone to extraordinary lengths to make this precious ability ours once again.
THE WORLD: The reference here is primarily to the family of man that God, in the beginning, created to rule with him over the earth, and to journey with him down the long corridor of history. The human father of this family was the man Adam. In the Garden of Eden God tested him, to see if he would love and honor his creator by believing and obeying his word. It was a test of great consequence, since, by God’s wise decree, Adam stood in Eden as the head and representative of both man and nature. Alas, it was a test that Adam failed, with the result that evil, suffering, and death invaded the very good world that God had made. In particular, because of Adam’s plunge into sin, all of his children would henceforth be born in a state of sin: alienated from the life of God, centered on self, driven by dark passions, hostile to God, and disobedient to God in thought, word, and deed. What’s more, because of their sin, many of those children stood—and now stand—beneath God’s righteous anger, and are in danger of eternal punishment. Yet despite the depth of its sin, God still loves this family, just as he did its father, Adam. Indeed, his love is so deep . . .
THAT HE GAVE: It is God’s nature to depend on nothing; it is man’s nature to depend on God. It is God’s nature (and joy) to give to man; it is man’s nature (and joy) to receive from God. As the Bible teaches, God is the One who gives life, breath, and all things to his beloved creations. Here in John 3:16 Christ is speaking of a very special gift. Indeed, he is speaking of the Father’s supreme gift to the sinful family of man: his uniquely begotten Son.
HIS UNIQUELY BEGOTTEN SON: Throughout all eternity the divine Father uniquely begets the divine Son whom he loves. The Son is “God himself from God himself.” With a view to saving sinners from eternal punishment; with a view to begetting them afresh as his own dear children; and with a view to uniting them forever with the Holy Trinity, the Father, in an act of supreme love, gave his Son to the world in the form of the God-Man: the Lord Jesus Christ. Through his incarnation the Son entered the world as a last and better Adam: as the head and representative of the eternal family that God is now creating.
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Written by R. Scott Clark |
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
When we think about film we should ask, “is this a good piece of filmmaking? What is the nature of film? What makes a good film (e.g., screen writing, cinematography, directing, editing, acting etc)? These are the sorts of questions that Christian film critics ought to be asking and answering about film
.
I love a good film. I took three courses in film criticism as an undergraduate. They were more difficult than one might think. First, taking notes in the dark is challenging and reading them afterward is even more difficult. Second, I had to watch a lot of hard-to-watch films, which I would not recommend. Still, I got to watch a number of great films and got to learn a bit about how films are written, shot, and edited. I learned that the really great thing about Citizen Kane is not the banal script or even Orson Welles (1915–85)—the best performance in the film is Joseph Cotton’s—but the cinematography of Gregg Toland (1904–48). The opening shot amazes me still, even after CGI, etc. By the way, the best way to experience Orson Welles is to listen to him. If you enjoy podcasts go to archive.org and search for “Orson Welles old time radio.”
There is an approach to film criticism popular among evangelicals that seeks to find some aspect of a film, e.g., a theme, a story arc, or a character that somehow connects to the Christian faith. This is a mistake driven by a confusion over nature and grace. Evangelicals have long had trouble with the category of nature. For the most part they do not have that category in their intellectual toolbox. Things are thought to be valuable only insofar as they relate to grace (e.g., the new life).
When I became a Christian in the mid-70s, one of the fist things I learned informally, from other Christians, was that once a Christian has been redeemed he should no longer be interested even in the ordinary things that interested him when he was a pagan. Thus, an interest in sports must be replaced by an interest in what they called “spiritual things.” What they were saying is that Christians need to abandon nature for grace.
The Three Ways of Relating Nature and Grace
My new evangelical friends did not realize it but they were repeating an Anabaptist way of thinking about nature (creation) and grace (e.g., redemption). There are broadly three ways of relating nature and grace. The Anabaptist view is, as the Reformed complained, that “grace destroys nature.” The way I explain it to my students is to say that, in the Anabaptist view (which has greatly influenced American evangelicalism since 1800), grace obliterates (i.e., paints over) nature. They think this way because they have an over-realized eschatology, they expect too much of heaven and the future state now. This over-realized eschatology iReas a leaven throughout their theology. It leavens their theology, their ecclesiology, their view of the sacraments, their ethics, and their rejection of nature as a category of thought. In the Anabaptist/evangelical system, nature is thought mainly in terms of fallen nature and thus there is a quasi-Manichaean quality to the way they relate nature and grace.
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