Matthew 5:19

5:17-20 Let none suppose that Christ allows his people to trifle with any commands of God's holy law. No sinner partakes of Christ's justifying righteousness, till he repents of his evil deeds. The mercy revealed in the gospel leads the believer to still deeper self-abhorrence. The law is the Christian's rule of duty, and he delights therein. If a man, pretending to be Christ's disciple, encourages himself in any allowed disobedience to the holy law of God, or teaches others to do the same, whatever his station or reputation among men may be, he can be no true disciple. Christ's righteousness, imputed to us by faith alone, is needed by every one that enters the kingdom of grace or of glory; but the new creation of the heart to holiness, produces a thorough change in a man's temper and conduct.

{4} Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the {h} least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (4) He begins with the true expounding of the Law, and sets it against the old (but yet false) teachings of the scribes: He is in no way abolishing the least commandment of his Father. (h) He shall have no place in the Church.

Matthew 5:19 . ὃς ἐὰν οὖν λύσῃ , etc.: οὗν pointing to a natural inference from what goes before. Christ’s view being such as indicated, He must so judge of the setter aside of any laws however small. When a religious system has lasted long, and is wearing towards its decline and fall, there are always such men. The Baptist was in some respects such a man. He seems to have totally neglected the temple worship and sacred festivals. He shared the prophetic disgust at formalism. Note now what Christ’s judgment about such really is. A scribe or Pharisee would regard a breaker of even the least commandments as a miscreant. Jesus simply calls him the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. He takes for granted that he is an earnest man, with a passion for righteousness, which is the key to his iconoclastic conduct. He recognises him therefore as possessing real moral worth, but, in virtue of his impatient radical-reformer temper, not great, only little in the scale of true moral values, in spite of his earnestness in action and sincerity in teaching. John the Baptist was possibly in His mind, or some others not known to us from the Gospels.— ὃς δʼ ἂν ποιήσῃ καὶ διδάξῃ , etc. We know now who is least: who is great? The man who does and teaches to do all the commands great and small; great not named but understood— οὗτος μέγας . Jesus has in view O.

T. saints, the piety reflected in the Psalter, where the great ethical laws and the precepts respecting ritual are both alike respected, and men in His own time living in their spirit. In such was a sweetness and graciousness, akin to the Kingdom as He conceived it, lacking in the character of the hot-headed law-breaker. The geniality of Jesus made Him value these sweet saintly souls.

(19) Shall break one of these least commandments. —The words seem at first to imply that even the ceremonial law was to be binding in its full extent upon Christ’s disciples. The usage of the time, however, confined the word to the moral laws of God (as in Ecclesiasticus 32:23-24 ), and throughout the New Testament it is never used in any other sense, with the possible exception of Hebrews 7:5 ; Hebrews 7:16 (comp. especially Romans 13:9 ; 1Corinthians 7:19 ). And the context, which proceeds at once to deal with moral laws and does not touch on ceremonial, is in accordance with this meaning. The “least commandments,” then, are those which seemed trivial, yet were really great—the control of thoughts, desires, words, as compared with the apparently greater commands that dealt with acts. The reference to “teaching” shows that our Lord was speaking to His disciples, as the future instructors of mankind, and the obvious import of His words is that they were to raise, not lower, the standard of righteousness which had been recognised previously.

Shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.—The consequence of tampering with the great laws of duty, or the least laws, which are practically great, is described in terms at once severe and gentle; gentle, because the sentence, where the guilt is not wilful, or is repented of, is not one of absolute exclusion from the kingdom; severe in so far as being the “least” in that kingdom, the object of pity or sorrow to others, involved a severe humiliation to those who aimed at being the highest. To that condemnation many in every age of the Church have been liable, the Anthiomian fanatic and the Jesuit casuist standing so far on the same footing. Whosoever shall do and teach.—Here again the teaching work of the disciples is prominent. The combination is in this case even more significant than in the other. Not right doing only, still less right teaching only, but both together, made up the ideal of the preacher’s work. Great.—Not “greatest.” The avoidance of the latter word, interpreted by the later teaching of 18:4, would seem to have been deliberate. Men might aim at a positive standard of the greatness of the true teacher and the true worker, but the conscious aim at being “greatest” was self-frustrating. That honour belonged to him only who was all unconscious that he had any claim to it.

Whosoever shall in his practice violate but one of the commandments of God, which the Pharisees judge of the least, and which possible are so compared with others, and shall teach men that they may do as he doth, making such false interpretations of the law as may warrant such a practice, he shall be accounted of the least value and esteem in the church of God, and shall never come into the kingdom of glory: but he who shall strictly and uniformly obey all the commandments, and teach others to do the like by his doctrine and example, that man shall have a great renown and reputation in the church, which is the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and shall have a great reward in the kingdom of glory hereafter.

Matthew 5:19 . Αύσῃ , shall break ) The antithetical word to this is ποιήσῃ , shall do , which occurs further on in this verse. The Scribes, who thought themselves “ great ,” were in the habit of breaking them. The same verb, λύω , occurs in John 7:23 ; John 10:35 .— τούτων , of these ) those, namely, which follow in Matthew 5:22 ; Matthew 5:28 , etc.— τῶν ἐλαχίστων , of the least ) These precepts, “ Thou shalt not kill ,” etc., are not essentially the least, for in them the whole law is contained. But they are so only inasmuch as, when rightly explained, they regulate even the most subtile affections and emotions of the soul, and the slightest movements of the tongue, and thus, when compared with other precepts, appear to men to be the least.— ἐλάχιστος , least ) Referring to the preceding ἐλαχίστων . An instance of Ploce .[191] As we treat the Word of God, so does God treat us; see John 17:6 ; John 17:11 ; Revelation 3:10 . “ A little ” signifies “ almost nothing ,” whence “ the least ” comes to mean “ none at all ” (for they considered anger, for instance, as of no consequence whatever); cf. in Matthew 5:20 , “ ye shall not enter .” ἐλάχιστος ; has a different force in this passage from that which ὁ μικρότερος ( the least ) “ in the kingdom of heaven ” has in ch.

Matthew 11:11 .— ἐν τῂ βασιλείᾳ τὼν οὐρανῶν , in the kingdom of heaven ) which cannot endure the presence of the unrighteous.— ποιήσῃ καὶ διδάξῃ , shall do and teach ) The same order of words occurs in Acts 1:1 .— ποιήσῃ , shall do them, sc. all; for it is not lawful to break or neglect even one of them.— οὗτος , this man, he ) A pronoun used emphatically. Comp. with this use of οὗτος , ch. Matthew 7:21 (Latin Version[192]); Luke 9:24 ; John 7:18 .— μέγας , great ) All the commandments are of great account to him, especially in their full compass[193] (see Matthew 5:18 ); therefore he shall be called great . [191] See Appendix. The same word employed twice: in the first instance, expressing the simple idea of the word itself; and in the second, an attribute of it.—ED. [192] See Gnomon on Matthew 7:21 , and notes.—(I. B.) The Vulgate, referred to, thus renders the οὗτος , etc., which abc Hil. and Cypr. read, but which BZ omit, “Qui facit voluntatem patris, etc., ipse intrabit,” etc.—ED. [193] “Præsertim in complexu suo,”— i.e. when considered with reference to all that they involve, as explained by our Lord in this discourse, v. 21, etc.—(I. B.)

19. Whosoever therefore shall break—rather, "dissolve," "annul," or "make invalid." one of these least commandments—an expression equivalent to "one of the least of these commandments." and shall teach men so—referring to the Pharisees and their teaching, as is plain from Mt 5:20, but of course embracing all similar schools and teaching in the Christian Church. he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven—As the thing spoken of is not the practical breaking, or disobeying, of the law, but annulling or enervating its obligation by a vicious system of interpretation, and teaching others to do the same; so the thing threatened is not exclusion from heaven, and still less the lowest place in it, but a degraded and contemptuous position in the present stage of the kingdom of God. In other words, they shall be reduced by the retributive providence that overtakes them, to the same condition of dishonor to which, by their system and their teaching, they have brought down those eternal principles of God's law. but whosoever shall do and teach them—whose principles and teaching go to exalt the authority and honor of God's law, in its lowest as well as highest requirements. the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven—shall, by that providence which watches over the honor of God's moral administration, be raised to the same position of authority and honor to which they exalt the law.

Matthew 5:19 . Whosoever therefore shall break — Shall himself transgress in his practice, or pervert and weaken by his doctrine, one of these least commandments, and teach men so — Shall direct or encourage men to do the same, or shall teach them, either by word or example, that the obligation of these commands is dissolved; he shall be called — Or, shall be accounted one of the least, and unworthiest members in the kingdom of heaven — Or, Church of the Messiah, and shall soon be entirely cut off from it, as unfit for so holy a society, and shall have no part in the church triumphant. “There is in the text a figure, which the rhetoricians call μειωσις , diminution, often elegantly used to convey a strong idea. Thus, Galatians 5:21 , They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, that is, shall be severely punished.” — Macknight. But whosoever shall do and teach them, &c. — Whosoever shall himself carefully practise these precepts of the law, and other parts of the divine word, and shall inculcate their universal obligation, shall be greatly rewarded.