Unnatural Affection

“If you then, who are evil …”

The Lord Jesus used the phrase “your Father” a full eleven times in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7, including in this very verse. In full, it reads, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” He was primarily addressing those who believed in him, trusted in him, and were seeking to follow him. (Throughout scripture, God is never “your Father” to the unbelieving world — I have yet to discover a single instance — though he certainly created it and seeks to call its lost to himself.)

Indeed, the whole Sermon presumes the Lord is addressing not the world at large but disciples, those dedicated to his cause and seeking fellowship with God. Sure, some among these would be false, but statements like “You are the salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world” could only be true of those among the earthly people of God who were prepared to respond appropriately to his Messiah and the message he brought them. Three times he contrasts his audience with “Gentiles”, which, coming from the mouth of the Lord Jesus, was less an ethnic slur than an easily understood way to refer to the pagan world.

You Who Are Evil

So when we come to this phrase “If you then, who are evil”, it should be evident our Lord was not using the word “evil” in quite the same sense he employed it in Matthew 5:38 (“Do not resist the one who is evil”), or in 5:45 (“he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good”) or even in 6:13 (“deliver us from evil”), where, in each case, it unambiguously denotes the earthly or heavenly enemies of the people of God. This is not that: he is not comparing godly Jews to their own abusers and enemies.

Nor is it a gratuitous slur or insult. What is it then?

Regular readers of scripture have come up against this type of thing before: extreme language setting out a contrast that feels just a little bit unfair. “I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” The Lord is using the contrast between good and evil in this passage in the same way he has previously used love and hatred.

It’s hyperbole in service of a spiritual point.

Esau I Have Hated

Did God viscerally detest Esau, the man, or pour out judgment upon him? Certainly not. He blessed him almost as profoundly as he blessed his brother. Did the Lord Jesus intend his followers to abuse their wives and immediate families? Of course not. But in each case, the extreme contrast highlights an important distinction between two things that might otherwise blur together. When we contrast the believing members of the Lord’s audience at the Sermon with their Roman oppressors or their infernal enemies, of course they were the “good guys”. But when we contrast even a believing human father’s care for his children and ability to meet their needs with the love of God the Father for his own, and his endless patience and grace toward us, how could the two things ever be set side by side without requiring the same sort of extreme contrast?

So then, human fathers and mothers, however believing and well intended we may be, are “evil” compared to our Father in heaven. Our fallen human nature wants to serve self, and has to be contended with at every turn when we are dealing with our children.

Let the Children Come

This is why Paul has to state the obvious several times in his epistles, even to believing parents: “Children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” “Train the young women to love their husbands and children.” (Wait, isn’t maternal affection the most natural thing in the world? Apparently not.)

This is why our Lord also said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.” Who would even think of hindering a child from coming to Christ? The flesh would, that’s who. The little fellow might kibitz around, make unnecessary noise, embarrass his parents, or occupy time that could be better spent on ourselves.

We must acknowledge that godly, selfless parenting, though natural to the Spirit, is far from natural to the flesh. Left to our own devices, the flesh would go its own way at every turn.

Good Gifts

Still, there is some comfort in the fact that “you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children”. The situation is not hopeless. In the believer, there is also the Spirit of God, who wars against the flesh. Week by week, as I observe the conduct and faith of young men and women brought up by loving Christian parents in my own local church, I constantly marvel at how wildly different they are from the children of the unsaved: secure, confident, loving, able to express affection, hard working and sensitive to the needs of others.

We Christian parents may be works in progress, we may be “evil” in comparison to our Father in heaven, and we may continue to struggle against our natural, fleshly impulses until the day the Lord returns for us, but our Lord continues to do a marvelous work through imperfect beings in raising up godly offspring for himself.

I give thanks for that as a parent, but I acknowledge that it certainly isn’t natural.