There is an assumption in modern culture that we are more ethical than generations before us. We speak more carefully. We value tolerance. We have systems, policies, and procedures designed to reduce harm. Compared to the brutality of the past, we appear measured, informed, and humane.
But this is not the same thing as moral transformation.
What we often mistake for ethics is simply civilized behavior. We are not less sinful than those who came before us. We are more managed. More restrained. More conditioned to behave within acceptable boundaries.
Scripture has never been optimistic about the human heart simply because behavior improves. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV).
Civilization refines individual and societal conduct.
Ethics confront the motivation of the heart.
This distinction matters, especially when we begin to question whether the justice of God is still necessary. If humanity appears improved, then divine judgment feels excessive. If we are essentially good and trending upward, grace begins to look optional.
Yet Scripture has always located the problem not in the degree humans sin, but in the reason that they do. “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, ESV). And Jesus addresses this directly.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus deliberately presses past external acts of obedience and moves the law inward to the heart. He takes commands everyone believed they were keeping and exposes how deeply they had misunderstood them. Anger, lust, deceit, retaliation, and pride were not violations waiting to happen; they were already present in the heart well before they were acted upon.
“You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…” (Gospel of Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28, ESV).
This was deeply unsettling, especially for the religious leaders of the day.
The Pharisees had developed layers of additional rules, often described as fencing, designed to prevent people from getting close to sin. Over time, those fences became the focus. Righteousness was measured by compliance, comparison, and public appearance. The result was a community that looked disciplined but remained unchanged.
Jesus did not dismantle the law. He fulfilled it by revealing its true aim. When He described the Pharisees as whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside but dead within, He was not making a rhetorical insult. He was naming a spiritual reality: “So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:28, ESV). External order had replaced internal life.
The problem was not that the Pharisees lacked religion. It was that their religion had removed the need for grace.
And this same dynamic is at work in modern culture.
Under the influence of secular humanism, we are encouraged to believe that humanity is fundamentally good, growing morally, and in need of affirmation rather than rescue. Sin is reframed as brokenness or misalignment. Guilt is treated as unhealthy. Redemption becomes self-improvement.
Within that framework, the cross makes little sense. If we only need refinement, why would we need atonement? If we are already ethically sound, why speak of judgment or grace?
Scripture confronts that confidence directly. “None is righteous, no, not one… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Epistle to the Romans 3:10, 23, ESV).
This is why the message of Jesus still confronts us.
Before someone can receive the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ and the payment He made, they must first recognize that they need it. Grace is not a reward for civility. It is a remedy for sin. It does not polish the exterior; it raises the dead. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1, ESV).
The Pharisees never arrived at that realization. Their systems insulated them from it. And modern society risks doing the same by confusing behavioral progress with moral healing.
We are quieter than previous generations.
Less violent in public.
More aware of optics.
But the human heart remains untouched by management alone.
Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is not harsh. It is merciful. It removes the false comfort of ethical illusion so that something real can begin. It shows us that civilization can restrain sin, but only grace can redeem the sinner.
Until that need is acknowledged, the justice of God will feel unnecessary and the grace of God will feel excessive.
But once it is seen clearly, grace becomes not offensive, but astonishing.
Breakwater Blessings 
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