anger – JARRETT FLETCHER

Have you ever spent a long day working outside in the heat? During the warmer months, I spend at least one day a week working in the yard. After such a day, my clothes are usually a dirty smelly mess, and I have to shower before doing anything else. My clothes are so filthy that I almost feel bad even putting them in the dirty clothes basket alongside other dirty clothes (that aren’t nearly as dirty).

Now imagine what it would feel like to put those clothes back on after getting out of a nice long shower. It would be just…wrong. Why? Because after getting clean, you should put on clean clothes. You should adorn yourself with what is now true of your nature. You’re no longer a dirty sweaty mess, so you shouldn’t wear dirty sweaty clothes. You’re clean. So you should wear clean clothes. Simple enough, right?

This is essentially Paul’s argument in Colossians 3:5-17. Since we have died to our old selves and old ways, we should put off our old clothes. Since we have been cleansed and raised with Christ, we should put on new clothes of righteousness. But how do we do that? What clothes should we remove, and which should we put on? What does that look like in real life? This passage has the answers.

Grave Clothes

First, we must take off our grave clothes, “for we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). However, Paul uses much stronger language than just “putting off” our old clothes. He says that we are to, “put to death” certain characteristics of our life before Christ (3:5). We are to kill our old habits and ways- sexual immorality, impurity, passion (lust), evil desire, and covetousness (3:5). All of these lead to idolatry because we cannot pursue them and also submit to the Lordship of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, if you are still in sexual sin, you must put it to death. It is a suffocating garment of death that rots the soul and destroys relationships. Do everything you can to put a bullet in the head of sexual temptation and sin!

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In Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus begins his commentary on the traditions of the Law by defining his relationship to the Law. His definition is staggering. Not only does he claim that he did not come to abolish the Law, nor that he has perfectly kept the Law, but that he is the fulfillment of the Law.

What does this phrase mean? It means that the Law points to and culminates in Jesus. It means that he is the righteousness that the Law points to. It means that his life and his work are the epitome and the completion of the Law. He himself, who he is and what he does, is the fulfillment of the Law.

As the Law’s fulfillment, Jesus can free his people from the demands of the law (Galatians 3:24) and enable them to live in accordance with the true intention of the Law. What is that true intention? To possess a genuine righteousness that is a light to the world and brings glory to God (Matt 5:6, 14). This righteousness, Jesus says, must far surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt 5:20). How can it do that? Because it is a different kind of righteousness altogether.

In Matthew 5:21-47, Jesus begins to unpack the meaning of the true righteousness of the Law in the context of relationships. This should not surprise us, because Jesus himself describes the law as loving God and loving our neighbor. The two go hand in hand! Consider 1 John 4:20, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.”

Jesus begins by quoting the law and confronting the religious leaders’ surface-level adherence to them. I believe He does this for three reasons. First, to expose the false righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. Second, to help us be poor in spirit by revealing our lack of true righteousness. And third, to motivate his people to pursue true righteousness (i.e. to be those who ‘hunger and thirst’ for it; Matt 5:6). Let’s consider these reasons in light of murder and anger in 5:21-26.

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