Free Legal Advice for the Guilty from Matthew 5

Law and Gospel as illustrated in the lives of two great Americans

A long time ago, I wrote a piece called Christians are Nazis. The reason for the title was to compare our love for damning those who don’t meet up to our standards with the Nazi Final Solution of genocide. It was admittedly and deliberately a bit over the top but I meant and still mean what I said.

I’ve thought many times about deleting the post or unpublishing it or at least changing the title, but everytime that I do, I read it before I change anything(I at least have to get it fresh in my mind if I want a new title) and nothing ever changes, because it is, despite the many problems with the writing, too perfect. This is why I created the Rock of Offense section on the website, for those of you who click to the site instead of just reading the email. The quest to speak Grace to Sinners plainly has often led me to speak it in ways that can be offensive or need a little forewarning and so I put the posts that need that in there. The Rock (of Offense) We have a strong bias towards hearing things that we already believe are true, and while I despise novelty or shock tactics for their own sake, using such means to open a wedge for the Good News to enter our heads is a legitimate and necessary tactic.

To a great extent, that is what the Sermon on the Mount is about. Here we find the ‘Stone cut out without hands’ smashing all of the kingdoms and greatness of the world to establish His own kingdom which shall fill the whole earth. And that Rock cannot be eroded by 2000 years time, or any amount of time. It cannot be softened by wind and rain. Its sharp edges stand perpetually ready to tear every climber to bits, to break us that we might be healed, grieve us that we might be comforted, that the proud who would lift themselves up might be made low. But there is a job for us to do here. The sharp edges of the Rock, the Sermon on the Mount, can be covered with the moss of familiarity. They can be obscured with the glosses and interpretations that we have built upon them. The Lord is no ‘household god’ who fits comfortably in the alcoves of your life, who dwells in a temple and defined role in our civilization. Rather He is rough and flinty, a God of the Wilderness much like His representatives; eating locusts and honey, wearing camel hide and a leathern belt, despised and rejected by men. And we must clear off the growth so that the Rock is exposed to the view of men. This is the work of those who would proclaim the Gospel, not to add sweetness and light, not to try and make the Good News good or the Lord’s Victory ‘winsome’, but to clear away the moss of familiarity, the soil of tradition. The Reformer’s work is to tear down, to uproot, to wreck, to dig down to the Foundation. The force that builds and ‘grows’ the church must ever be countered by a force whose one battle cry is ‘Allein!’, ‘Sola!’, ‘Only!’, ‘Alone!’ We find Him and His ways offensive but He is not afraid to proclaim that ‘He who scattered Israel shall gather him’ and that the ones who survive the Sword find Grace in the Wilderness and anything that moves away from that is not Good News, but just more of the Same Old Shit of our ways, our works, our schemes from which we cry, ‘Lord, deliver us!’

So, let’s see if we can see Matthew 5 without all of the garbage that we have added to it. See if we can see the Rock under the graffiti.

I love a good caption…

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:17-20

Anyone who heard Jesus pronounce the Beatitudes, his blessings on sinful, lawbreaking men must have found these words so surprising that he(the listener) would have thought that Jesus was talking about an entire abolition of the Law. He pronounced His blessings not on the spiritually rich, the happy, the well-adjusted, or the righteous but on those who were lacking all of those things, who failed in each point. The whole of the Law can be summed up as Moses did in Deuteronomy 29 by pronouncing all blessings on those who keep the Law and all curses on those who fail to do so. The man who keeps the Law shall live by it, the man who doesn’t shall die. And so, perceiving what His audience thought, Jesus quickly counters that He is not abolishing the Law but establishing it permanently. But how does He do this?

The Beatitudes in my normal elegant Prose

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Jesus takes our understanding of the Law and shows how inadequate it is. It is not just killers who are in violation of the Law but haters and the scornful who despise their brothers, whether legitimately or not makes no difference. When He connects divine offerings to relations with your brother He begins to get into our first big problem with the Law. The first big problem is that it is all connected. We can’t keep some laws and break some and get partial credit. The only test that God gives is an all or nothing/pass or fail. Our constant attempts to divide the Law, whether into duties to God and duties to men, or into Moral Law and Ceremonial Law-that is Law that is binding on all of us and law that was only binding on the Nation of Israel, or to divide the Law in any way are merely products of our own imagination. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to divide the Law or told where or how to make such a division. Rather, every such division is condemned. It all stands or it all falls and it is not Christ’s grace that threatens to abolish the Law but our lawyerly schemes towards it. This is why Jesus above comments on those who break ‘the least of these commandments’ that is those who think that they will get some sort of credit for the laws that they do keep and some sort of excuse can be made for the laws that they don’t keep. Not gonna happen. Our situation is worse than we imagine.

Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.

When we are accused of breaking the law we should make no effort to justify ourselves or prove our innocence as doing so will only land us in worse trouble. Why is that? A good example from American law is what are called ‘process crimes’, that is when the accused is not deemed to be sufficiently cooperative with his prosecution he becomes guilty of additional crimes, such as not showing up to court, obstructing justice or concealing information, and even if he is not convicted of the original criminal act he may go away for life for not cooperating with the process. That is, the crime against the system may well be far more serious than the original moral failing. Perhaps the collision between a recent very popular leader in this country and the Federal Justice system is the best illustration of this. He is not even accused of doing anything immoral or unethical nor even of doing things that are uncommon for people in his situation. The prosecution doesn’t allege that anyone was harmed by his actions or even that they were not committed in good faith, but simply that they are statutory violations, and that he was insufficiently cooperative-process crimes rather than ethical violations. The prosecution has a bad bad case of TDS(Trump Derangement Syndrome). What I would say to the president is, ‘Even if you are right in a particular instance, justifying yourself is always a mistake because you have a general unrighteousness which makes each specific act that you do heinous, even if it might be righteous if performed by an righteous man it is sinful when you or I do it.’ What I want you to understand about your relationship to God’s Law is that you stand before it as Citizen Trump before a Justice system that sees you as a threat and a rebel. You should not live your life as if you are an ordinary citizen going about your business in God’s kingdom. You should live your life as a defendant currently out on bail. The attorney prosecuting your case is literally the Devil. Assume that the legal system is constantly surveilling you, not with good faith but with the intent to find some technical violation for which you can be nailed. Don’t talk to the Law. Don’t negotiate with the Law. Don’t be friends with the Law. If you are a sinner, then your only connection to the Law should be to fight for your life. And for God’s sake don’t blather on about how perfect your behavior is and was.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

You can’t be a pilgrim without leaving your home. When you acknowledged yourself as a sinner, you became dead to the life that you built under the Law. Holding on to it while it goes one way and you go another will only rip you to pieces. Live your life as a fugitive, burning anything that connects you with your old life.

“Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

I just pause here to note that while Jesus is not here giving moral or marital advice or tips on how to live your life, that everything that He says is true, and its truth is necessary to His point. Marriage is made to be between one man and one woman for life. And if you have found yourself in some other situation then this is not a time for excuses or justification but for recognizing yourself as a Law Breaker. You may point to the circumstances of your life and say, ‘but look I can’t change this I can’t leave my new wife that would be wrong, and I can’t go back to my old wife even if I want to she won’t have me. I can’t undo what I have done, so why do you keep condemning me?’ Because that is what the Law does. That is what it is. It is a damning machine, an automated high speed Damnomatic3000(patent pending) and you and I are the raw material that it turns into damned souls.

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

But I hear you saying, ‘Well, Ron is that all that the Damnomatic3000 can do?’ NO! The Law slices, it dices, and it even has its own Hellfire so cleanup’s a breeze! But it never ever justifies, never brings you one step closer to God and moral perfection won’t make you one inch more like Christ. He receives Being and Perfection and Deity continuously from His Father, from eternity past through eternity future as an unmerited gift, He is the First and Greatest example of His Father’s Sovereign Good Pleasure, as Calvin says somewhere. He didn’t become Himself by being morally perfect so following the Law can’t make you like Him in any degree whatsoever.

But do you get it yet? If you even try and establish that what you are saying is true you are giving the Enemy somewhere to catch you by. The greatest piece of legal advice that anyone can receive is ‘Don’t talk to cops.’ That is what I am saying. Have nothing to do with Law. Stop justifying yourself. This isn’t some fair trial. This is Entrapment. This is Pretextual Prosecution in which the prosecutor has determined to find you guilty and will use all of the resources of the State to find something he can get you for. Whatever our sins are or aren’t, no defense or excuse will do us any good, you are literally damned if you do and damned if you don’t. We will be run over by the Damnomatic. The Pharisees got run over in a pretty epic way and I promise you that they tried harder and were better lawkeepers than we are. So, let’s not play that game at all.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.

Why do we keep playing?

You are to put up no defense. The only winning move is not to play. Make no effort to prove yourself right or justified, Donald. Allow yourself to be cheated. Let them investigate you. Let them throw the book at you. Actually, go further than that. I said that you are Trump before the TDS DOJ and that is true, but here is where the analogy breaks down and we have to turn for illustration elsewhere.

I have encouraged you to avoid the Law, to hide, to evade, to struggle against it for your very survival. One might easily infer from that that I am saying that Jesus came to destroy the Law and the Prophets. I take that as a positive sign. Because Christ’s audience inferred the same thing from His words else He would not have said,

What then does it mean for the Law to be fulfilled? Obviously it doesn’t mean what His audience thought it meant. And that strongly suggests that it doesn’t mean what we think that it means either. To understand fulfilling the Law we must ask, ‘What is its end, its purpose, its telos?’ It is to cause men to despair of their own righteousness. It is to bring to you the knowledge of your sin. Having done that, the Law is entirely fulfilled in your life. Whenever we justify ourselves, whenever we see as right our actions, our motives, our thoughts or any other part of ourselves we benefit from having Satan, the prosecutor, in our lives. One who digs up the dirt is necessary and beneficial to the dreamer who thinks that he is clean. But when we give up all hope in ourselves, there is nothing more for the Law to do in our lives and it is time for the demon to go.

It is true that like Mr. Trump the prosecutor is pursuing you like a roaring lion. Your guilt, and my guilt, is more than keeping folders with the word Classified stamped on them, is more than negotiating with law enforcement concerning your legitimate rights. Your guilt, my guilt, is treason. It is selling out the Kingdom to the forces of ChinaChaos and Corruption. It is evil of the most venal and repellant kind and if we wish to escape punishment for our sins then proclaiming our innocence is the last thing that we should do. Rather, I suggest that you leave the evidence of your guilt lying around, as if it doesn’t concern you. Because it doesn’t! Hand over the evidence of your plotting and don’t deny anything. Let your sins stink like a Russian hooker with a line of coke on her backside. None of it matters. Your sin couldn’t be worse or your getting off more certain. After all, your dad is paying the salary of every officer of the court.

Yes, Mr. Trump has been our model of the man pursued by the Law who justifies himself. Our model of the man who is done with the Law must be that other great American, Mr. Robert Hunter Biden Esq.(And here you thought I was gonna compare you to a Nazi.) ‘Thou art the man!’-to borrow a line from Nathan the prophet. You are the one who’s corruption stinks to high heaven. You are the one without one plea. I encourage you to lean into your model. Be the one who gushes about being 100% certain of exoneration. Be the one who never says a word in your own defense but merely trusts in his dad. Be the one who sits down at the State Dinner to the unearned, undeserved bread and wine. Be your Father’s son.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:21-48