You can’t become righteous by trying to become righteous

One of the things Rabbi Yeshua said to His talmidim was that they had to be more righteous than those chasidim who were at that time held in the highest regard for their righteousness.

“For I say to you, If your righteousness is not greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never go into the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 5:20

Now, most of the time when we read about Yeshua’s comments regarding this bunch, they don’t come off as sounding very righteous, but I believe that in this instance (and in some others) He was not speaking of them quite that way. I believe that at this point he was referring to the highest attainable standard.

But they had to do better than that.

He was trying to get them to understand that the only way to succeed was going to be by the new covenant He had come to ratify with His own blood (in a little while). And because through that new covenant, He would inscribe His very Torah in their hearts, their very being.

But this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, declares YHWH, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Yermeyahu 31:33 [31:32]

Now of course, all you learned theologians out there (you’re still out there, aren’t you?) know that books and books and books have been written on this, and I don’t plan to write a new one.

But I would like to point out that, although Christians are always saying that this is why our covenant is better than their covenant, we don’t seem to be any better at walking in it. Do we?

But all is not lost. We do need to keep this covenant, and all the Torah of God, before our eyes continually, and endure the exhortations of our elders to not just throw in the towel, saying what’s the use.

Having said all this, I want to insert here an exhortation from an elder named Oswald Chambers, who wrote quite a few piercing admonitions about 100 years ago. (I’ve put a link in my blogroll to a source where you can read him.)

In his entry for July 24, in his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, he wrote:

His Nature and Our Motives

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, “If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind.” Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.

No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations — He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature — He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about dying and going to heaven

I had written an earlier post in this spot, but since that time I’ve seen over and over again where well meaning believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have been caught up short when speaking with Jews who rightly point out that God’s purpose for us is to live righteously in this present world, not muddle through this life in order to go to heaven when we die. And why are we so looking forward to death? Death is a thief and a robber.

Jesus came to give us life, but the only way we can have life is by doing the complete and perfect will of God. And it was only He who accomplished the work of living perfectly and righteously before God in this world who then became qualified to pass that ability on to all who come to him through faith.

I began to realize that I could never say enough about this in a blog post, so I’ve put this discussion in a separate page here. And yet I know that I can never say enough about this in a blog page, or in an entire blog, but we all have to start some place. Since there isn’t a spot to comment on a WordPress page as far as I can tell, I welcome your comments, corrections, or challenges under this post. Just don’t expect me to argue with you much about it. Sometimes one just has to put forth “the foolishness of preaching” for them that choose to believe.

Ts’daka, shalom, v’chedvah b’Ruach Haqodesh