By Elias Aslaksen Matthew 5:20, 23:23; Malachi 3:7 ff.; Romans 4:3-6; 2 Timothy 2:19, 22; 1 John 2:29: In Malachi’s time, the people of Israel (God’s people) cheated with tithing, just as people in these days cheat on their income tax form and with paying taxes. They were unrighteous crooks. The Pharisees were very careful when it was a question of tithing and other things that weighed little in the law. As far as that goes, they were righteous. They were proud of it. However, Jesus says that they neglected the weightier matters of the law, such as justice and mercy and faithfulness. The righteousness that is required in order to enter to the kingdom of God is that we pay heed to the weightier matters of the laws, that we live according to the laws of the new covenant, the laws that are so much more severe—or purer—than the laws of the old covenant. It is a great misunderstanding to believe that imputed righteousness on the basis of the atonement is sufficient righteousness to enter the kingdom of heaven. The requirement is a personal righteousness that is worked by God’s grace, which far exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees. Giving the tithe was very easy. When they were finished with it, they had nine tenths left, and with these nine-tenths they could live for themselves and make themselves safe and comfortable to their heart’s content. It was worse (that is, better) when they were required to show mercy because it weighs heavier in the scales! Then it goes like this: When you have been merciful to one person, another person who is just as wretched and needs to be shown mercy is waiting. And when you are finished with the second person, it is just as bad all over again because a third man is standing in line, perhaps even poorer, more sickly, and more down-and-out than the previous person, etc. You are never finished with being merciful. However, when it concerns money, you are finished when you have none left. Being baptized, reading, praying, singing and playing, visiting the sick, paying your debts, giving in the collection, etc.,—these are all things that are light. You can do all these things without possessing the righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees. However, to love and to serve and to lose your life, to lay your life down for the brethren, to give everything you have, no matter what it is: that weighs heavily in the scales. You can compare the first with a 5 gram weight, and the last with a 50 kilogram weight! The Pharisees were not just some bad people that lived in Jesus’ days; they are all those people who prefer to take the easy way out, who prefer a 5 gram weight. They are the kind of people who must not by any means find a gnat in their soup or in their drinking water because it could end up in their throat and they might die. But if by chance they should get two or three camels in their throat, that wouldn’t matter at all; they would swallow them! The fear of God makes a man wise, but self-love makes a man stupid. For example: Matthew 19:5-10. When the situation is such that there is no way of getting rid of your spouse when he or she becomes unreasonable and bothersome, or, in other words, when the going gets tough, then it is very questionable whether a person should marry. Thus even the disciples were by nature Pharisees—which means they had the mindset of a Pharisee; they wanted to get off as easily as possible. However, when they realized that they could receive grace and power to accomplish what was hard, and that it was for their eternal salvation, they repented of being pharisaical. We have done the same thing, or we ought to.

It has been said that this battle ought to have ceased once and for all. By using goodwill, it may be possible to get something out of that statement, but it is not certain. This battle can and ought to cease once and for all in a certain sense; namely, in the sense that I no longer consider if I should do God’s will or not so that there will no longer be any “should I” or “should I not.” In which sense does the battle between flesh and spirit continue? After it has been decided once and for all—irrevocably—that God’s will is always to be done, so it is no longer a question of whether or not the opposition in the flesh is to be overcome when God’s will is to be executed in reality. There is definitely no such battle in some individual areas and to a certain extent in other areas, since a complete death has taken place; but in other areas something has to be overcome so that God’s will can be accomplished to the degree that God has shown it to me. Gradually, as the death of sin becomes a reality, it transitions from being a battle to becoming a delight to do God’s will. It is a joy—a feast—for the righteous to do righteousness; for example, paying your bills! But the unjust does not quite have that mindset, and usually, neither does the person who is new on the way of righteousness, but it does happen. Insofar as a person has died to unrighteousness and selfishness, that is how far it is an exquisite delight to do, or to execute, God’s will. However, where this death has not yet taken place, you can be fully and firmly decided always to do God’s will, and then something in yourself needs to be overcome so that all righteousness is executed. The person who denies this denies the truth, or he speaks of something that he does not even practice.Elias Aslaksen