Spirituality of the Law
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Spirit of God that gives love for hatred. To be kind to the unthankful
and to the evil, to do good hoping for nothing again, is the insignia
of the royalty of heaven, the sure token by which the children of the
Highest reveal their high estate.
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“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect.”—Matthew 5:48.
The word “therefore” implies a conclusion, an inference from what
has gone before. Jesus has been describing to His hearers the unfailing
mercy and love of God, and He bids them therefore to be perfect.
Because your heavenly Father “is kind unto the unthankful and to the
evil” (
Luke 6:35
), because He has stooped to lift you up, therefore,
said Jesus, you may become like Him in character, and stand without
fault in the presence of men and angels.
The conditions of eternal life, under grace, are just what they
were in Eden—perfect righteousness, harmony with God, perfect
conformity to the principles of His law. The standard of character
presented in the Old Testament is the same that is presented in the
New Testament. This standard is not one to which we cannot attain.
In every command or injunction that God gives there is a promise, the
most positive, underlying the command. God has made provision that
we may become like unto Him, and He will accomplish this for all
who do not interpose a perverse will and thus frustrate His grace.
With untold love our God has loved us, and our love awakens
toward Him as we comprehend something of the length and breadth
and depth and height of this love that passeth knowledge. By the
revelation of the attractive loveliness of Christ, by the knowledge of
His love expressed to us while we were yet sinners, the stubborn heart
is melted and subdued, and the sinner is transformed and becomes a
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child of heaven. God does not employ compulsory measures; love is
the agent which He uses to expel sin from the heart. By it He changes
pride into humility, and enmity and unbelief into love and faith.
The Jews had been wearily toiling to reach perfection by their own
efforts, and they had failed. Christ had already told them that their
righteousness could never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now He points
out to them the character of the righteousness that all who enter heaven
will possess. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount He describes its