Epilog

The Cross of Golgotha is the end and fulfillment of the old ethic of following the Law. The Beatitudes are the start of a new ethic of the Kingdom of God. 

In the history of salvation, humans proved themselves incapable of keeping God’s laws and thus his covenant for extended periods of time. The old ethic could not be maintained. Jesus, with his death on the cross, washed us of our sins and closed that chapter of human history. 

Especially in the Beatitudes, Jesus presented us a new ethic which is definitely of another world: God’s world. He lived it. We are only able to partially implement it now, just as the Holy Spirit is given to us as a “deposit” (αρραβων: 2. Cor 1:22). Faith and action must become a unified entity. Just as our faith points to the Kingdom of God, our actions must reflect this. Since it will be unnecessary in the Kingdom, this ethic also implies its own abolition. Just as the church will be superfluous in the Kingdom of God (Rev 21:22). Here, however, it is desperately necessary just as ethics is. 

Jesus’ new ethic is no longer an “ethic” in the traditional sense. In actuality, it is the dissolution of all ethics, all “should’s.” It no longer describes would’s and should’s, but a state of existence. Jesus dissolves the old ethics of “should” that was replaced by Jesus’ new ethic of being. You are blessed. You are salt. You are light. Not: you should be the salt. You are that already. Your ethic has already been transformed. It is already here, begins now.