Coming of the King: Week 10

Matthew 5:43-48: The Foreign Policy of the Kingdom

• 5:43 "Love your neighbor" - Leviticus 19:9-18. "Hate your enemies" - this is not a real quote. This prompts us to notice the phrase, "you have heard that it was said". This does not refer to an actual quote, but what the Pharisees taught. Jesus is not adding to the OT - God has always made it clear that He is concerned with the heart, not externals. The Ten Commandments begin and end with requirements that are not enforceable in any human court. The Pharisees clung to the external, hence they were "whitewashed tombs". "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD sees the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 Your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees because theirs was external only.

  "Hate your enemies" refers to Deuteronomy 23:3-6. "never seek their peace or prosperity" - never make a treaty or alliance with them. But what does it mean by "none of their descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD"? The assembly of the LORD is the gathering where community decision making took place. I.e. the Moabite or Ammonite could not "vote". (I had the question of whether David could enter the assembly of the LORD being less than 10 generations from Ruth.)

  Jesus' instruction to love your enemies is not new, or foreign to the Torah. The Torah says the same, in Exodus 23:4-5, in Proverbs 25:21, and many other places. So where and why did the "tradition of the elders" start? Susan Preston summarizes it this way:

  “It has been said that in an effort to prevent this [captivity] happening again, the sect of the Pharisees ‘arose’. Their original purpose was to prevent people from breaking God’s laws, including the Sabbath.

  It developed into Judaism. Judaism is not the ‘religion of Moses’ as is generally assumed.

  From ‘A history of the Jews’ by Paul Johnson – Judaism dates from the time just after the Babylonian exile.

  American Rabbinical scholar Stephen S Wise stated, ‘The return from Babylon… marked the end of Hebrew-ism and the beginning of Judaism.”

• 5:48 "Be perfect" - this is "whole" or "complete", as when James says, "perfect and entire, lacking nothing". James 1:4 You must be right in heart, not just in externals.