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Matthew 5-7 – The Gospel of the Kingdom: The Right, The Left, The Truth
The meaning of the gospel marks one of the greatest divides within modern Christian Theology, marked by both a Right and a Left. The truth, like in much of life, is found in the middle.
The Religious Left looks at the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount as a call to Social Justice. Earth, man’s existence, is the center of righteousness. Belief in heaven and God is not even necessary. Justice is the transfer of wealth and power, which is their version of the righteousness of the kingdom.
What is right about this is that in the Sermon on the Mount, righteousness is very love and action oriented. Righteousness is not a status from God, but an imitation of God. What is wrong is that the Religious Left remakes Christianity into a political movement, marked not by free will, but by political power. But the Sermon begins with “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt.5:3).
The Religious Right considers righteousness as a call by God to a spiritual declaration of justification. Heaven, man’s eternal existence is the center of righteousness. Interpreting Jesus by Paul, they focus only on the “how” of righteousness, as in how can the unrighteous becomes righteous.
What is right about this is that man is a sinner and therefore has earned his unrighteous status which can only be changed by the declaration of God through the blood of His perfect son. What is wrong is that the Religious Right makes righteousness only about what Christ has done, and never about righteous works commanded by Christ for us to do. To them, Righteousness is only about what Jesus did for us and not about what we are commanded to do by Jesus for God. But the Sermon ends with ““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord! ’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Mt.7:21).
If the Religious Left and Religious Right are wrong, then what is left is right which is that the truth is in the middle. The gospel is both the solution to sin and the solution to sinning. The solution to sin is found in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, which is a Christ-centered view of heaven. Jesus is the only solution to sin. Nothing man can do is the solution to our sin. The solution to sinning is a transfer or transformation to righteous living which is a Christ-centered view of earth. This is done by escaping self-righteous religion which focuses solely on forms and neglects showing mercy to others. And this is done by escaping the self-inflicted, repeating cycles of sin where we keep making the same unrighteous decisions. Freedom is found by making righteous decisions, which is practical righteousness.
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