Take heed not to do your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward with your Father who is in the heavens.
Matthew 6 opens with a warning that changes the audience for everything a disciple does. The eye that matters is not the crowd's, but the Father's. Three questions follow. What is this "righteousness"? Why does display cancel the reward? And what about the earlier call to shine as light?
"Righteousness," Not Only Alms
Older English versions read "alms" in this verse. Which word belongs here shapes the whole passage.
I take the liberty of altering the word "alms" into "righteousness" (v. 1), which a few of the very best authorities support. There are those that differ here as elsewhere, but at the same time internal and spiritual reasons confirm the external grounds. If you use the word "alms" in the first verse, is there not a mere repetition in the next verse? On the other hand, take the word as "righteousness" (so the margin), and all is plain. The context supports it. Notice how in the following verses our Lord divides righteousness into three distinct parts: first, almsgiving; next, prayer; then fasting.
So verse 1 works as a heading. The three examples that follow are not random. They cover the whole field of a life:
This principle then shows itself in three areas — toward others, toward God, and toward ourselves: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Each of these is, of course, only an illustration of the principle. But divine wisdom chose each illustration, so each one must fit in a special way.
The Target of the Warning
These words do not target obvious sinners. They target the religious performance of the most respected teachers of the day. They follow the Lord's demand that a disciple's righteousness must go beyond theirs.
In Matthew 6 the Lord sets His disciples before the Father in acts of kindness and in devotion. They were to do it all before Him who knows the heart. How completely His words must have swept the ground from under the recognised teachers of the day! He had said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (5:20). The body of chapter 5 showed the hollowness of their teaching; what comes out in chapter 6 exposes their practice.
Why the Motive Decides Everything
An objection comes up. The hungry are fed whether or not anyone watched. But the verse does not measure the outcome of the deed.
But one might say, "If someone does good to others the results will remain, even if everybody sees it!" Nobody can deny this, but it is not in question here at all. The Lord Jesus speaks of men who pretend to do something for God. In reality they look for recognition and glory from men as their reward for their alms. So the Lord Jesus says that if men admire them for it, they do have their reward. They shall not receive any reward from God. God does not primarily honour the results — even if they are most blessed — but the motives of our actions. He so much desires our love for Him (and for our needy fellow-men) to be the motive for our deeds.
Kelly puts the same point as a question about dignity: display in almsgiving is treated as a kind of acting.
He lays the utmost stress on the manner and the motive with which the act is done. Display in the doing of alms He compares to sounding a trumpet before the doer... Can anything be conceived baser than a son of God playing a part to win the notice and approval of men?
Reward Received, or Reward Forfeited
Those who win the praise of men already have their reward in full. The word "have" carries a force the English hides:
"Have" is compounded with a preposition, which gives it the force of having all they have to expect; they have the whole of it already... This is very solemn. It teaches that if we are tempted to seek the admiration, the honour, or the praise of men, we may be allowed to gain it. But then we have nothing more to expect, since we cannot then have God's favour and blessing.
The alternative is not a smaller reward but a later one.
Their reward is the approval and praise of their fellow men. This they have. It is all in the present, and there is nothing more to come. The one who gives or prays or fasts unknown to men but known to God will receive his reward openly in the day to come.
Not a Contradiction of Matthew 5
Earlier in the same sermon the Lord called His disciples the light of the world. The two passages aim at opposite results.
There He was speaking to His disciples who ought to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If their good works were seen, God would be glorified by them, and not men. In our paragraph in Matthew 6 the result is just the reverse.
Summary
- Righteousness — Verse 1 is the heading. Almsgiving, prayer and fasting are its three branches: others, God, ourselves.
- Audience — The question is not who sees the good deed. It is who it is done for — men, or the Father.
- Motive — God does not primarily honour results, however good, but the motive behind the act.
- Reward — Praise from men is a reward paid in full on the spot; nothing more is coming.
- Light — Disciples are still the light of the world. When good works show, God gets the glory, not the doer.