On Sin and Righteousness - Part 3

Like sin, our tendencies to make sense of righteousness flows through our need for correct behavior. Also, like sin when we restrcit our sense-making of becoming righteous to a behavioral modification program, we miss the richness of what God intends for us and we fail anyway. This is what Jesus was getting at in what we call the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5 - 7). The key point He makes is that "our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees for us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt 5: 20). Now, our flesh wants us to see this as just a higher standard and bigger challenge. Jesus quite often taught in contradictions and hyperbole. Such as the case here when He really means behaving to a standard is the wrong way to amke sense of righteousness. Right before this He already told us He has taken care of our failure to obey God's laws. Even prior to this He decribes that our well-being (Beattitudes) is an internal derived joy that is related to our appropriation of Grace (receiving the provisions and privileges of the Heavenlies) in contrast to getting the right circumstances around us to meed our needs.

Back to Matt 5:20, the word "enter" here means "coming and going". Thus, Jesus is relating righteousness to the continual interaction we have with the Heavenlies. This is consistent with John 17:3 which defines eternal life as an intimate realtionship with God thru the person of Jesus. This righteousness, according to Paul in Romans 4: 3 - 5, is a result of faith. Jesus paved the way for our righteousness by taking all our sin on Himself (II Corinthians 5: 21).

Making sense of our righteousness then can use several different frames of thinking. One is an intimate relationship with Jesus. Another is the notion of being in harmony with the Heavenlies. I like the latter as a helpful way to understand the rest of Matt 5 - 7 where Jesus is simply contrasting Social Exchange with Harmony with the Heavenlies - man's view of well-being versus God's view of well-being.

I'll end with an example that has helped me make sense of  a life of harmony with the Heavenlies. Those of us that play golf enough know what we must do to hit the ball perfectly and have occassionally found the perfect swing, one in which our head is down, our elbow is tucked, and our arm is extended. We don't always, even often, find that sweet spot because we get distracted and lose focus and what we believe about the golf swing is dishonored so to speak. Our swing is not in harmony with what we believe and our shot is flawed. But when our concentration is right and everything in our swing is in harmony, our behavioral outcome honors what we believe.   And sometimes we even say, "Praise God!"