Salt and Light 5:13-16
1. Salt was very useful as a flavoring and a fertilizer and as a preservative in meats. But salt could become useless.
2. Christians are to be a preservative in a sinful and corrupt society. Salt keeps a dead thing from going rotten.
3. The disciple is to be BOTH salt and light. He is not called to merely be a preservative, to stand against the spread of corruption in society. He is also to bear a positive witness to that society.
The Fulfillment of the Law 5:17-48
1. Jesus completes the law. He views the law in eschatological perspective. That is, he expounds it within the context of his foundational message about the dawning of the Kingdom of God. He completes the law, or fills up the law.
2. The OT revelation—the Law and the Prophets—are not complete in itself.
3. The Age of the Law has been superseded by the Age of Messiah. Far from abolishing a building partially constructed, Jesus brings it to completion. By inaugurating the kingdom, Jesus brings the OT to its appointed goal.
4. Jesus realizes the law. By his teachings and his actions, he perfectly expresses all aspects of the covenantal relationship to which God summoned his people through Moses and the prophets. In Jesus an OT design is for the first time realized in an actual building!
5. As those who honor human tradition in place of God’s law, the Pharisees and teachers of the law are in the deepest sense antinomian. Jesus censures them, not for taking the Law too seriously but for failing to take it seriously enough. They preach but do not practice; they heed the minutiae of the Law and neglect its weightier matters (23). I have been astonished at the continuance of this practice among Christians. We love to pick out two or three pet issues (drinking, gambling, watching certain TV shows, or whatever), but we don't attend to the more important issues (gossip, our bad attitudes, our lack of discipline, our lustful thoughts, our lack of love). I once heard a great expositer of the Scripture preach and teach. He truly was a gifted man. But he lacked love. Scripture calls people like these "noise makers", "clanging cymbals", "gongs." I have also noticed that people are legalistic about things they may not desire to do. For instance, a person who doesn't normally drink alcohol may get all fired up about this particular issue, yet they watch R-rated movies. A person may judge another for gambling, yet they play the stock market. A person may judge another for posting her bra color. But they themselves wear a bikini (or a bathing suit for that matter), on a beach. I know the arguments for and against these specific issues and I am not saying one is right and the other is wrong, that is not the point. The point is that people are extremely inconsistent. This is what Jesus was talking about, I believe. Inconsistency. Hypocrisy isn't only failing to practice what you preach, but it is failing to truly believe what you preach.
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