Matthew 5:21-37

“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23–24, ESV)

I am so thankful that I live under the New Covenant. (I never would have made it under the Old Covenant!) I am grateful that we are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14). But as the apostle Paul wrote:

“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!” (Romans 6:15, NKJV)

Jesus never intended to abolish the law; He came to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). While we can never be justified by works of the law, justified people uphold the law as God’s standard of right and holy living. The scribes and Pharisees tried to water down the commandments and make them more doable by only applying them to outward actions, but Jesus interpreted them as governing the attitudes of the heart.

Jesus began with the sixth of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not murder,” and addressed the root cause. All murder begins in the heart as anger toward a person. While we can harness anger to help us put wrong things right, we can also let the sun go down on our anger and allow it to morph into resentment and hatred. There is a proper way to deal with anger. Either we put it to death and let God’s love fill our heart, or else we go to the person who has offended us and try to work it out.

But sometimes we become aware of someone having something against us. Maybe we hear it through the grapevine, or the person avoids us, or the Holy Spirit shows us. What do we do then? Jesus says that we must take the initiative to be reconciled. In fact, before we take our gift to the altar, we should first go to our brother or sister and try to put things right. This commandment was given when they were still bringing animal sacrifices or grain offerings to the temple. We can apply this by first going to the offended person before going to church. This is much more difficult than simply not murdering him or her!

I believe that one of the greatest barriers to genuine revival is division in the church. We have built walls or let others build them. Rather than keeping the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3), we have allowed petty offenses to separate or isolate us from one another. Our hearts grow hard. Sometimes these are real offenses on the part of the other person, but often we imagine them. We accuse the person of having evil motives rather than assuming positive intent. Peace, unity, and love will never rule in such an environment, and the Holy Spirit cannot bring revival.

This is why these words of Christ are so important for us to follow. It is not easy to be a peacemaker. It requires sacrifice and humility. But we are never more like Jesus than when we do it. He is the ultimate Peacemaker, and those who make peace will be called sons of God.