Smoodock's Blog

In Matthew’s first “book” of his Gospel narrative (chapters 4 through 7), he has Jesus come announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, or Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:17). What’s happening is that Jesus is telling us that the time has finally come, when God intends to fulfill his promise to confront the rebellion of mankind (Genesis 3:15). In other words, the promised Seed has come, who will deliver the death blow to evil and bring mankind back into the Presence of God. In the beginning, man dwelt in the Kingdom of God; he lived in God’s Presence. However, by eating of the forbidden fruit, which in essence declared mankind’s independence from God, man decided that he knew better, about what was good or not good for himself, than God did (Genesis 3:4-5).

Nevertheless, man’s decision brought slavery instead of independence, sorrow instead of joy and death instead of life. Man’s choice turned out to be a slippery slope that took him farther and farther away from the Lord, until he didn’t wish to know anything about his Creator (Romans 1:21, 28). The Lord accommodated mankind, so that, as man showed himself determined to move away from God, the Lord withdrew himself more and more from mankind (Genesis 3:22-24; viz. God gave them up in Romans 1:24, 26, 28). Once man steps away from the Presence of God, there is no path to return, unless God, himself, reaches out to man to create a way back into his Presence.

It is this return to God that Matthew narrates, as it pertains to Jesus’ ministry. Just before Jesus’ death he told his disciples that he was returning to the Father, and they could be with him, because they knew the way (John 14:1-4). When they doubted that they knew the way, Jesus explained: “I am the Way, (I am) the Truth, and (I am) the Life! (John 14:6). It is this Way, this Truth and this Life, that Jesus came announcing in the beginning of his public ministry (Matthew 4:17). It is the Truth about the Way back into the Life of the Presence of God (the Kingdom of Heaven). Matthew wants his readers to know about the Truth, concerning God’s rescue of mankind.

Jesus came to confront the evil in the world, to expose man’s wickedness for what it was in the Light of God’s Presence (cp. John 1:4-5, 9; 3:19). The Law of Moses showed man how to identify what sin was, but what the Law could not do was tell man how to be like God (cp. Genesis 1:27). Beasts are without sin, but no beast is like God. While it is true, that God can be known in what he has created, only mankind is like God by choice. In this context, then, Jesus came into the world (cp. John 1:1, 14) and showed mankind what God’s Presence was like (John 1:18), and in his Presence, there was no sin (cp. 1John 3:5).

Thus, mankind’s return into the Presence of God is his return to life under the reign of God. In other words, God gets to say what good is and what evil is. We are free to live our lives in his Presence, but we also live in submission to his discipline of our behavior. Christ is King, and we are not. We don’t get to tell him, what he should do, which was Jesus’ first temptation (Matthew 4:1-4), nor do we get to try to cause him to prove himself, before we submit to him. That was Jesus’ second temptation (Matthew 4:5-7), nor do we get to blaspheme, telling him: if he wishes to participate in his creation, he must serve our desires, vis-à-vis Jesus’ third temptation (Matthew 4:8-10). This is the old man, but the new man is equipped with the Spirit of God (God’s Presence). The new man willingly seeks to be like God, which was the purpose, or prime directive, which God gave him from the beginning (Genesis 1:27).

Matthew closes the first book of his narrative of Jesus’ life, with what has been called the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 through 7). This is Jesus’ first large block of teaching, and it concerns what man should be like, as he lives in God’s Kingdom (Presence). Obedience to the Law is powerless to make one like God. The absence of sin is not the same thing as fulfilling our prime directive to be like God (Genesis 1:27). However, living in the Presence of God isn’t the destruction of the Law; it is its fulfillment. With God as our Parent, our desire to be like him fulfills the Law, because there is no sin in God (1John 3:5).