why did Jesus say 'be perfect' (Mt 5), and 'enter into the narrow gate' (Mt 7) If it were impossible?
The Law says "do". Because what the Law commands is right and good, therefore it must be done (or in some cases, what must not be done, e.g. "do not murder").
But we can't do it. We
don't obey the Law.
Here is what St. Paul says in Romans 7
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For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the Law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
What then shall we say? That the Law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the Law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the Law had not said, 'You shall not covet'. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the Law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the Law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my m embers another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" - Romans 7:5-24
The Law says "do", but I don't do it--because I am sinful. I may say to myself, "I wish to do good", and yet I don't do good, I do what is evil instead. I know what ought to be done, for the Law says it--"Love thy neighbor" and yet is that what I do? It is not what I do, instead I hear what the Law says, I say to myself, "I will do this" and then what happens instead? I fail, I error, I don't do it. I know what is right, but do not do what is right, I do what is wrong instead.
The word of God is "Be perfect", that is, imitate God, be like God, in Luke's version of he Lord's Sermon it reads, "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful". Are we? Is any one of us like God? Does a single one of us love like God loves? Forgive like God forgives? Are generous the way God is generous? What is the generosity of God? It's there in John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" and it's there in Philippians 2:6-7 that Christ "who was by nature God, did not regard equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking on the form of a slave, born in the likeness of humanity"
The commandment says, "Be holy, for I YHWH your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). Who is holy? Of the billions of men who lived and died on this planet, how many were holy? The Scriptures tell us that there has only been One, His name is Jesus.
For, again,
"No one is righteous, no, not even one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." - Romans 3:10-12
God's word is truth, His commandment is Law, He declares what is good and right and what must be done. But the Law cannot make us right, the commandment cannot make us holy; for sin is like a snake in the grass, primed to strike.
So that the Law says "do" and it is never done. As Martin Luther wisely put it in his Heidelberg Disputation.
But the converse, the Gospel says "trust this" for it is already done. Christ alone is righteous, and Christ alone has kept the Law, Christ alone is holy, and here is the happy exchange: Our death becomes His death, and His life becomes our life. Exchanging death for life, we have from God in Christ what we could not have for ourselves: righteousness, holiness, and every good; an inheritance from above by which we are children of God by grace alone. In order that we should belong to God, and belonging to God, enjoy God, and enjoy all which God has made, forever.
-CryptoLutheran
