When we’re angry, don’t we wish those persons harm or even death? This is what leads to murder, just as lust leads to adultery. Not just the end-product of murder is wrong, but this whole beginning is wrong also. When we insult, we view the objects of such contempt as being inferior and not real worthy of being called human, created in God’s image?

Often we will read in the news or see on the TV news about a road-rage killing or some other situation in which anger gets out of control and leads to a homicide. For example, a woman is attacked, her attacker was consumed with anger, and her husband, as a result, could not forget the event; he could only think of taking revenge on the attacker. Recently, DC saw a brutal shooting of young Jewish staffers by a “Free Palestine” shouting assassin. Anger can lead to many dire consequences, death among them. Pent-up rage may lead to heart attacks, strokes, or other illnesses—mental or psychological.

Anger, in many forms is one of the largest problems in our world, and it can lead to death. Often even the best of Christians can get angry at other persons or at situations. If it is not dealt with properly, anger can become consuming. Maybe if you have a problem with anger, or don’t even know you do, these verses will help you.

Last week we saw how Jesus was in harmony, not collision, with God’s Law. Yet he remained in utter contradistinction to Pharisees interpretation of God’s Law. Over the next 27 verses, Jesus gives six examples of this perspective. Each has a distinctive form: “You have heard it said . . . But, I say.” The phrase “You have heard it said” refers to the Scribes’ oral law. It is not a reference to what was written; that is used of Old Testament quotations. The written law was fairly simple; however, the Scribes developed another layer of interpretation over the written law. Their words had become nearly on par with God’s law. In so doing, the Scribes had over-extended the law by implications and deductions to cover every possible situation.

For example, the fourth commandment said the Sabbath is to be kept Holy and no work done on it. Scribes forgot why God said this and instead went to great extremes to define work. Thus they classified the ff: as work: to carry food weighing as much as a dried fig, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put on a wound, oil enough to anoint, water enough to moisten, eye salve and ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet! Endless hours were spent to decide whether a man could lift a lamp from one place to another on the Sabbath. Whether a tailor committed a sin if he went out with a needle in his robe, and whether a man could lift his child on the Sabbath: these were burning questions (Barclay, 124-5 on Sabbath)

On and on they went with their religion of legalism, missing the whole point and use of the Law. The Problem was that they tried to make the law do something for which it never was intended. The law was not intended by God to be either an agent of justification nor a casebook of petty guidelines. Rather, it was given for general rules, and with these believers were to seek God’s will. The Scribes enlarged the 613 commandments into the Mishnah (by 250 A.D.), which comprised ca 800 English pages. Then the commentary on the Mishnah (called Talmud) was written, expanding up to 60 printed volumes. They had stretched or enlarged the law beyond its intended scope. It had become a beast, a killer, and it is against this that Jesus stands. “You’ve heard it said,” then, refers to one of the oral scribal traditions found in these over 60 volumes.

The second phrase in the form “But I say” refers to Jesus’ authority as Law-giver. This was a bold claim for his authority. The new Moses claims the authority for divine-ly-infallible interpretation of the law, not based on what another said, but based solely on “I”. His person was authority enough. That Jesus would claim this authority for himself, apart from rabbinic training, was a scandal to these Scribes. (Lloyd-Jones 214)

The Jews had put God in the box of their Law. God and true piety were exploited by the Jewish rendering of the Law. God was swallowed up by the idolatry of the Law by the Jewish nation, and the Law rather than God was Lord of Israel. Jesus sought to liberate the true internal law from this entrapment and encumbrance. Thus in these six examples Christ frees the Law from the encumbering Jewish oral tradition and seeks to reform it back to its original place. The Pharisees had obscured the law. Jesus restored it to its integrity. He was an expounder nor a legislator.

What Jesus did was similar to this. Suppose there was a group called the “Presbycees.” And they defined Presbyterianism by the following terms:

• Well educated
• Socially prominent (many times members of some social elite)
• Upwardly mobile
• From a long tradition of Presbyterian families. Many a Presbycee could be heard to say, “My great-grandpappy was an elder during the Civil War.”
• Traditional in values
• Emotionally reserved (“stuffed shirts”)
• Strong emphasis on family.

Now suppose that John Calvin came back. He might well seek to change these mutations of the Presbycees without being opposed to original Presbyterianism. He could attack the above as not being primary so much as cultural and insist on Presbyterian being defined as one who believed in:

• Jesus as the Son of God; and divine election, regardless of economic class;
• Saved by grace alone irrespective of education or heritage;
• Bible alone is God’s revelation, no matter whose parents or grandparents believed it or didn’t.
• Church should be led by elders—not a democracy—according to scriptural pattern;

This would not be novel, but a return to the original. Similarly, Jesus came to deepen reform, and return to the demands of the Law rather than destroy them.

The area of his concern that we’ll view today is the subject of anger. Now I know that none of you have these feelings to deal with. Well maybe some of us do. Jesus takes the sixth commandment “Thou shalt not murder” and interprets it here as including a prohibition against anger. I think we all need to look at this because I’m sure that you all have been angry recently. If you think you haven’t let me just mention a few phrases that make some blood pressures rise. This is how practical the Sermon on the Mount is. All must admit sin.

Here are some angering subjects:

• That co-worker who’s not carrying his load
• That child of mine
• That person acting like such a spiritual Christian when she’s not at all
• That stupid IT network
• That committee or board or commission
• The guy in front of me who can’t drive
• Your mother-in-law
• Those Middle Eastern terrorists
• Taxes or IRS or the Postal service
• That impossible teacher or politician
• Why, some even have high blood pressure at the mere mention of a certain preacher’s or elder’s name.

Some of these set us off just thinking about them. Well if you’ve felt that kind of anger, be honest enough to confess it and delve into this passage to see what Jesus says.

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