Righteousness - Chambers, Oswald
Bear in mind that our human life viewed from a moral standpoint is a tragedy, and that preaching precepts while we ignore the cross of jesus christ is like giving a pill to cure an earthquake, or a poultice for a cancer. Our attempts to face the problems of human life apart from jesus christ are futile. It is good for us to use our common sense and not live tragically, but remember, immediately you touch the moral problem you find that things are damnably wrong, the book says so; they are so far wrong that it takes the cross of jesus christ to put them right, and we live in a fools paradise if we ignore the terrific tragedy at the bottom of everything.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (matthew 5:6)
blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (matthew 5:10)
Most people use righteousness as a term for the behaviour of man to man; and it includes this; but, when Christ speaks of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and of being filled with it, there can be little doubt that, in accordance with the usage of his race, the prize he has in view is the favourable verdict of god on a mans character and conduct.
Stalker
The majority of us know nothing whatever about the righteousness that is gifted to us in jesus christ, we are still trying to bring human nature up to a pitch it cannot reach because there is something wrong with human nature. The old puritanism which we are apt to ridicule did the same service for men that pharisaism did for saul, and that roman catholicism did for luther; but nowadays we have no iron in us anywhere; we have no idea of righteousness, we do not care whether we are righteous or not. We have not only lost jesus christs idea of righteousness, but we laugh at the bible idea of righteousness; our god is the conventional righteous- ness of the society to which we belong. The claim that our lord was original is hopelessly wrong, he most emphatically took care not to be; he states that he came to fulfil what was already here but undiscerned. Think not that i am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: i am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. That is why it is so absurd to put our lord as a teacher first, he is not first a teacher, he is a saviour first. He did not come to give us a new code of morals: he came to enable us to keep a moral code we had not been able to fulfil. Jesus did not teach new things; he taught as one having authority with power to make men into accordance with what he taught. Jesus christ came to make us holy, not to tell us to be holy: he came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. The great tendency to-day is that we are looking for another teacher. The world is sick of teachers and of ideals, the point is, have we ever lived up to any of our ideals? It is not more ideals we want, but the power to live up to what we know we ought to and don’t. It is shallowness, not ability, that makes people say we want more teaching and higher ideals model Sunday school classes, model bible classes; it is all model. Do this and don’t do that, but where is it being carried out? Jesus Christ does not add one bur- den to the lives of men; he imparts the power to live up to what we know we ought, that is the meaning of his salvation.
For i say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the king- dom of heaven. (matthew 5:20) the sympathy of christ with the training imparted by the old testament, and with the passion for righteousness thereby generated, is expressed very distinctly in the sermon on the mount, before the preacher proceeds to the exposition of his own ideal; the motive underlying this declaration being a fear lest his subsequent references to the old testament should be understood as disparaging to its authority. In order to avoid this danger, he prefaced his exposition with the statement: think not that i am come to destroy the law or the prophets: i am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Stalker
Jesus christ contrasts his conception of righteousness with the one already familiar to his hearers. It is not a new gospel we need, that is the jargon of the hour; it is the old gospel put in terms that fit the present-day need, and for one man or one book that does that there are hundreds who tell us that what we want is a new gospel. What we want is men who have the grace of their lord to face the present- day problems with the old gospel. What is the good of my talking to the crowd of to-day about the conceptions men had in luthers day? The thing is, can i make the gospel i have meet the problems they are facing, and can i show them where other solutions are wrong? If not, i had better keep quiet, i have not been called of god to preach. The majority of us have our own idea of what the gospel is, but we live aloof from the time we belong to and what we preach is altogether apart from the lives of the folks we talk to.
Our lord followed the simple line which the prophets took, he took the conceptions he knew men had and compared his own interpretation with theirs and made them judge, with what result? Absolute despair for everybody. Have we ever got hold of the idea that if jesus christ was only a teacher, he was the most tantalising teacher that ever came to this earth? If Jesus christ came to interpret to us a standard infinitely more profound than the one we already have, what is the good of it? He tells us that if we want to see god we must be pure in heart how are we going to begin? He tells us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, to pray for those who despitefully use us, and persecute us how can we begin to do it? If he is a teacher only, then he is a most cruel teacher, for he puts ideals before us that blanch us white to the lips and lead us to a hell of despair. But if he came to do something else as well as teach if he came to re-make us on the inside and put within us his own disposition of unsullied holiness, then we can understand why he taught like he did.
It is by facing our lives with the conceptions of Jesus that we understand the meaning of his cross. One of the most despairing things of our day is the shallow dogmatic competence of the people who tell us they believe in the teachings of jesus but not in his atonement. The most unmitigated piece of
Nonsense human ears ever listened to! Believe in the teachings of jesuswhat is the good of it? What is the good of telling me that i have to be what i know i never can be if i live for a million years perfect as god is perfect? What is the good of telling me i have to be a child of my father in heaven and be like him? We must rid our minds of the idea that is being introduced by the modern trend of things that Jesus christ came to teach. The world is sick of teachers. Teachers never can do any good unless they can interpret the teaching that is already here.
For i say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. (matthew 5:20 rv) having thus cleared the ground, the great teacher proceeds, in the sermon on the mount, to expound his conception of righteousness; and, in so doing, he adopts a method frequently resorted to by every expositor who knows his business: he contrasts the conception of the subject in his own mind with one already familiar to his hearers. . . . The righteousness of the scribes was external; that of jesus is internal. Theirs was a righteousness in words and actions; his flows out from the innermost thoughts and feelings. Theirs was conventionalthat is to say, it was intended for the eyes of society; his was a righteousness of the conscience having regard only to god.
Stalker
Except your righteousness shall exceed not be different from but exceed, that is, we have to be all they are and infinitely more! We have to be right in our external behaviour, but we have to be as right, and righter, in our internal behaviour. We have to be right in our words and actions, but we have to be as right in our thoughts and feelings. We have to be right according to the conventions of the society of godly people, but we have also to be right in con- science towards god. Nominal christians are often without the ordinary moral integrity of the man who does not care a bit about jesus christ; not because they are hypocrites, but because we have been taught for generations to think on one aspect only of jesus christs salvation, viz. , the revelation that salvation is not merited by us, but is the sheer sovereign act of gods grace in christ jesus. A grand marvellous rev- elation fact, but jesus says we have got to say thank you for our salvation, and the thank you is that our righteousness is to exceed the righteousness of the most moral man on earth. Jesus not only demands that our external life is above censure but that we are above censure where god sees us. We see the meaning now of saying that jesus is the most tantalising teacher: he demands that we be so pure that god who sees to the inmost springs of our motives, the inmost dreams of our dreams, sees nothing to censure. We may go on evolving, and evolving, but we shall never produce that kind of purity. Then what is the good of teach- ing it? Listen: if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of jesus christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. That is the gospel; jesus christ claims that he can take a man or woman who is fouled in the springs of their nature by heredity and make them as pure as he is himself. That is why he teaches what he does, and it is his standard we are to be judged by if we are his disciples. No wonder the disciples when they heard jesus speak, said, who then can be saved? The greatest philosophy ever produced does not come within a thousand leagues of the fathom- less profundity of our lords statements, e. G. , learn of me; for i am meek and lowly in heart matthew 11:29). If jesus christ cannot produce a meekness and lowliness of heart like his own, christianity is nonsense from beginning to end, and his teaching had better be blotted out. The crucial point of the whole matter is our personal relationship to jesus christ. It is far more hon- est to discard him absolutely than to play the fool with your own soul and pretend you agree with his teaching while you despise the very central part of it. No wonder jesus said to a fine godly old man, mar- vel not that i said unto thee, ye must be born again. If we cannot be made all over again on the inside and indwelt by the spirit of god, and made according to the teaching of the sermon on the mount, then fling your new testament away, for it will put before you an ideal you cannot reach.
The only way to get out of our smiling complacency about salvation and sanctification is to look at Jesus christ for two minutes and then read matthew 5:4348 and see who he tells us we are to be like, god almighty, and every piece of smiling spiritual conceit will be knocked out of us for ever, and the one dominant note of the life will be jesus christ first, jesus christ second, and jesus christ third, and our own whiteness nowhere. Never look to your own whiteness; look to jesus and get power to live as he wants; look away for one second and all goes wrong. When the son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? We all have faith in good principles, in good management, in good common sense, but who amongst us has faith in jesus christ? Physical courage is grand, moral courage is grander, but the man who trusts jesus christ in the face of the terrific problems of life is worth a whole crowd of heroes.
