Matthew 5:21f “You have heard that it was said…But I say to you…”

Did Jesus reject the moral teaching of the Old Testament?

William Barclay thinks that

‘Jesus quotes the Law, only to contradict it, and to substitute a teaching of his own. He claimed the right to point out the inadequacies of the most sacred writings in the world, and to correct them out of his own wisdom.’

More generally, Richard Rohr writes this:

‘It is rather clear in Jesus’ usage that not all scriptures are created equal. He consistently ignored or even denied exclusionary, punitive, and triumphalist texts in his own Jewish scriptures in favor of passages that emphasized inclusion, mercy, and honesty. Check it out for yourself. He knew what passages were creating a highway for God and which passages were merely cultural, self-serving, paranoid, tribal, and legalistic additions. Jesus read his own inspired scriptures in a spiritual and highly selective way, which is why he was accused of “teaching with authority and not like our scribes” (Matthew 7:29). He even told the fervent and pious “teachers of the law” that they had entirely missed the point: “You understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Mark 12:24).’

But sayings such as that recorded in Mt 7:29 do not imply the highly selective approach claimed by Rohr.  For, on the one hand, our Lord repeatedly endorsed the OT without equivocation, and, on the other hand, uttered many statements which, in their own way, are quite as troublesome as any found in the OT.

A number of things can be said by way of elaboration:-

(a) The labelling of this section as a set of six antitheses is potentially misleading.

Yang (DJGSE): This title gives the mistaken impression that Jesus rejects the Jewish law and replaces it with a new law.  This promotes the unethical doctrine of supercessionism.

(b) Jesus has just said, ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them (v17).’ He isn’t likely to have completely changed his mind within two sentences, is he?

(c) In all six pairings Jesus is referring back to some statement in the Pentateuch.

It is thought by some that when he declares, “It was said” (rather that “It was written”) that he is referring not so much to the words of Scripture themselves, but to the ways they have been misquoted or misinterpreted or misapplied by the Jewish teachers of the day.

But the NT frequently uses the passive voice (“It was said”) for quotations from Scripture.  It might even be regarded as a ‘divine passive’ (= ‘God said’; Stanton, DJG, thinks that this is ‘almost certain’, and adds that Jesus can hardly be thought of as contradicting what God has said).  Moreover, according to Jesus these words were spoken “to an older generation” (lit. ‘to the ancients’).  The sayings are all quotations or paraphrases taken from the Pentateuch; we know, therefore to which ‘generation’ they were ‘said’.  Jesus cannot therefore be referring to a recent or contemporary teaching.

(d) France comments on the peculiar nature of the citations:

‘While the first two are straightforward quotations of two of the ten commandments (in the first case supplemented by an additional pentateuchal principle), the third is significantly different from the text of Deut 24:1 and is angled in a different direction from the Deuteronomy text, the fourth merely summarizes pentateuchal guidelines on oaths and vows, the fifth quotes the text exactly but the discussion suggests that it was being quoted for a purpose other than that of the original in context, and the non-pentateuchal addition to the sixth places a negative “spin” on the commandment of Lev 19:18 which that passage in no way supports….The general impression they create is that Jesus is here presented as citing a series of “legal” principles based indeed on the pentateuchal laws but in several cases significantly developing and indeed distorting their intention. In other words the dialog partner is not the OT law as such but the OT law as currently (and sometimes misleadingly) understood and applied.’

(e) in all six examples, Jesus does not subtract from the Law; he takes it further

Davies and Allison: Jesus’ demands surpass the Torah without contradicting it.

Hartin and Kugler (An Introduction to the Bible): Jesus does not contradict the law, but rather insists that it must be followed in a much more intense way.  The righteousness of his hearers must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, Mt 5:20.

Thus in the first example he does not say, “You have heard that is was said, ‘Do not murder’, but I say “Go ahead, kill anyone you like.” Rather, he says, “Don’t limit this commandment against murder too closely. You can break it simply by being angry with people.” It’s the same with adultery. You can break God’s command not only by your outward act, but also by your inward attitude. And similarly with divorce, with the taking of oaths, with revenge, and with love. The standards of the kingdom are in each case more demanding, more far-reaching, more radical than people have been led to believe. How radical? Mt 5:48, “Be perfect…even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Hamilton (God’s Glory in Salvation Through Judgement): ‘Jesus is not abolishing but fulfilling the Law and the Prophets (5:17–20). The Law and the Prophets pointed forward to a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15–18) who would mediate a new covenant (Jer. 31:31–34). Jesus announces himself as the fulfillment of these expectations.’

(f) The law, accordingly, is reinterpreted and internalised.  According to Blomberg:

‘In these six antitheses Jesus illustrates the greater righteousness he demands of his disciples. With each example he contrasts what was said in the Torah and in its traditional interpretations with his more stringent requirements. In the process, however, he contravenes the letter of several of the Old Testament laws, not because he is abolishing them but because he is establishing a new covenant in which God’s law is internalized in a way that prevents it from being fully encapsulated in a list of rules and that precludes perfect obedience (cf. Heb 8:7–13).’

According to the Holman Apologetics Commentary:

‘In each of the antitheses, Jesus demonstrates how the OT is to be properly interpreted and applied, and thus, how the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled (cf. 5:17). This elevates Jesus above all interpreters, making his pronouncements equivalent with Scripture itself. The scribes and Pharisees held sway over the common people, mapping out a course for attaining righteousness through their interpretation and application of the OT. They emphasized legalistic, external obedience to the Law without calling attention to an inner heart-obedience. They were therefore “hypocrites” in their practice of the Law (see on 6:1-18), and were responsible for leading the people into hypocritical practices. Jesus looks at several examples of how they had done this, and demonstrates how correct interpretation and application of the Law must be based upon proper intent and motive. Jesus does not say, “Hear what the OT says,” but rather, “You have heard it said.” He is not negating the OT, but the people’s incorrect understanding and application of it.’

(g) France (TNTC) notes that Jesus is often thought here to be either merely reinterpreting the law (by pointing beyond its letter to its spirit) or to be going so far as to abrogate it.  France himself thinks that no simple explanation is possible in the light of the varied nature of the six ‘antitheses’:

‘The introductory formula introduces sometimes a literal Old Testament quotation, sometimes a summary or expansion or even apparently a perversion of an Old Testament law. The treatment varies from a radical intensification of the laws against murder and adultery but with no suggestion of weakening their literal force (vv. 21ff., 27ff.), to an apparent setting aside of the law of equivalent retribution in favour of forgoing legal rights (vv. 38ff.). No consistent pattern of argument need therefore be discerned, beyond the formal contrast of Jesus’ radical ethic with what was previously taught. The emphasis is on Jesus’ teaching rather than on his relationship to either the Old Testament law or scribal tradition. It is to legalism as a principle, not to a specific code of law, that he is stating his opposition. How this attitude will relate to the application of Old Testament regulations can therefore be expected to vary from one case to another, as we shall see that it does. Jesus’ radical ethic takes its starting-point from the Old Testament law, but does not so much either confirm or abrogate it as transcend it.’

Moo (in Five Views on Law and Gospel): No one interpretation fits all six antitheses.  In the third, Jesus is expounding the law.  In the first and second, he is deepening it.  But in all he insists that he is the one with authority, not the teachers of the law.  Jesus ‘fulfils’ the law (v17) in the sense that the entire OT anticipates and points forward to himself.  Specifically, he ‘fulfils’ the law by making demands to which the law pointed.

(h) Carson (EBC) insists that the contrast is not between inner legalism and inner spirit, or between false interpretation and true.

‘Rather, in every case Jesus contrasts the people’s misunderstanding of the law with the true direction in which the law points, according to his own authority as the law’s “fulfiller” (in the sense established in v.17). Thus if certain antitheses revoke at least the letter of the law, they do so not because they are thereby affirming the law’s true spirit, but because Jesus insists that his teaching on these matters is the direction in which the law actually points.’ (My emphasis)

Schreiner (40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law): In this passage Jesus corrects misunderstandings of the Mosaic law, and explicates its true meaning.