This is an introduction to the Sermon on the
Mount spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sadducees and Pharisees
Religiously, the Sadducees were more conservative in one main area of doctrine.
But this is not a detailed study of each
sentence in the Sermon.
We are discussing here what the Sermon on the
Mount is, what is its context, what is its importance, how it recalls to our
mind the event on the Mount Sinai etc.
I am writing this study hoping that this
would help you to understand better the Sermon when you read it next time.
We find the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew chapter 5 to 7.
The traditional location for the Sermon is on
the north western shore of the Sea of Galilee, between Capernaum and
Gennesaret.
The Sermon on the
Mount is the most famous sermon Jesus ever gave, perhaps the most famous sermon
ever given by anyone.
The Sermon as recorded by Matthew, is found
nowhere else in the Bible.
The nearest
equivalent is found in Luke 6:17 - 49.
The
description in Luke is known as the Sermon on
the Plain.
Some theologians
are of the opinion that these two incidents are one and the same and others consider
it as two different events.
For a better understanding of the Sermon on the
Mount, it is good to know something about the social context of the sermon.
During the time of Jesus, there were two major
religious sects of people among the Jews.
They
were Sadducees and Pharisees.
Gospels
refer often to the Sadducees and Pharisees, as Jesus was in constant conflict
with them.
And
there were important differences between them.
The
Sadducees
The
Sadducees, during the time of Christ and the New Testament era, were
aristocrats.
They
were wealthy and held powerful positions, including that of chief priests and
high priest.
They
did not relate well to the common man, nor did the common man hold them in high
opinion.
Religiously, the Sadducees were more conservative in one main area of doctrine.
The
Sadducees considered only the Written Law to be from God.
They
rejected any authority of the Jewish Oral Tradition.
The
Sadducees preserved the authority of the written Word of God, especially the
books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy.
They
denied God's involvement in everyday life.
They did not believe in resurrection of the dead.
They did not believe in resurrection of the dead.
They
denied any afterlife, holding that the soul perished at death and therefore
denying any penalty or reward after the earthly life.
They did not believe in the existence of a spiritual world where there is angels or demons.
They did not believe in the existence of a spiritual world where there is angels or demons.
The
Pharisees
Pharisees was a
religious society frequently mentioned in the New Testament.
This group
included chiefly of poor priests and laymen.
It was a movement
toward religious puritanism.
The
Pharisees were held in much higher esteem by the common man.
They
accepted the written Word as inspired by God.
But
they also gave equal authority to Jewish Oral Tradition and attempted to defend
this position by saying it went all the way back to Moses.
It
is believed by the conservative Jews that God on the mount of Sinai, gave Moses
the Written Law during the day and the Oral Law during the night.
Written
Laws were written down while the Oral Laws were transmitted orally from Moses
to Joshua and so on.
Oral
Laws further explains the meaning and intentions of the Written Law.
They
believed that without the Oral Law or Oral tradition, we cannot understand or
practice the Written Law as intended by God.
Pharisees
sought to strictly obey these traditions along with the Old Testament.
They
believed that God controls all things, yet allowed that decisions made by
individuals also affect life’s course.
They believed in the resurrection of the dead.
They believed in the resurrection of the dead.
They
believed in an afterlife, with appropriate reward and punishment on an
individual basis.
They believed in the existence of angels and demons.
They believed in the existence of angels and demons.
Jesus had His
ministry mainly among the common people.
This brought Him
into continual conflict with the Pharisees.
Jesus and the Pharisees
The attitude of Jesus towards the Pharisees is
important for us when we study the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon offers an alternative faith and
practise to the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law of Moses.
The Pharisees were
the keepers of the Mosaic Law or the Torah.
They believed that
having guardianship of this law was proof that they were God's chosen people,
to whom the Messiah would come.
They believed that
the Messiah would be an earthly king, a son of David whom God would raise up.
He would establish
an earthly kingdom, freeing them from Roman rule.
They also believed
that in order to remain in favor with God, the keeping of the Torah was
essential.
The basic of Pharisees’
conception of religion was the belief that the Babylonian Exile was caused by
Israel's failure to keep the Torah (The Mosaic law).
And that it’s
keeping was an individual as well as a national duty.
Because of this, they
were trying to protect the Mosaic Law with precepts so as to make its violation
almost impossible.
They also added to
these laws and precepts, customs which had been handed down through the years.
They took these
precepts to such extremes that the original intent of the Written Law was often
lost.
Laws and Traditions
they had brought in to protect and raise the standard of the Mosaic Law
actually lowered the purpose of the Law and made the Laws to no effect.
To the Pharisee,
keeping the Written and the Oral Law was everything.
The condition of a
person's heart towards God was unimportant.
Because of their
strict adherence to Levitical laws of purity, they kept themselves separate
from gentile sinners for fear of being defiled.
This strict
observance of the Written and Oral Law and formal religion while paying no
attention to the motives of the heart, led to self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
Jesus’ opposition to the Pharisees
Throughout His
ministry, Jesus was openly opposed to the Pharisees.
He denounced them
publicly for their hypocrisy, spiritual blindness, and evil ways.
The law was
intended to enable the Israelites to live a righteous life.
But the Pharisees
had corrupted the law.
Disregarding any
ethical considerations and being devoid of mercy, they imposed an intolerable
burden of legal observance upon the common people.
Life for the Jews
became slavery to the legal precepts invented by the experts of the Law.
Jesus condemned
the Pharisees for being careful to appear righteous on the outside, while
inside they were full of greed and wickedness.
Sermon Mount and Sinai
Now let us
discuss the Sermon against this social and religious background.
Matthew was
writing his gospel, chiefly for Jewish Christians.
So he
follows many Jewish traditions of writing a divine history.
And Matthew
intentionally brings to our attention, parallels between the Jewish and Jesus’
concept of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Kingdom of
Heaven was not a new idea proposed by John the Baptist or Jesus.
Kingdom of
Heaven is the hope of the Jews from the Old Testament time itself.
They
expected a political King who will establish his Kingdom forever defeating and
conquering all their enemies.
Thus there
will be peace and joy in the land.
Of course, this
is the plan of God about humans, but with some differences.
The organization
of the Kingdom as a separated holy nation, with God as the King and His chosen
people as priestly kings began in the Old Testament itself.
While the
Jews were travelling through the desert, at the mount of Sinai, God came down
to declare His nation on this earth.
Exodus 19:
5, 6
5 'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My
voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above
all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 'And
you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words
which you shall speak to the children of Israel." (NKJV)
This was the
purpose of the meeting between God and the Israelites.
In another
way, this was the purpose of God choosing Abraham and his descendants.
Now, a
Kingdom need a King, sphere of action, people and laws.
Here they
had God as their King, the promised land as the sphere of action, Israelites as
the people.
For the laws
that should govern the Kingdom and its people, God called Moses to go up to the
mountain and receive them directly from the King.
The King
came on the mount of Sinai not just to give the Laws.
He came to
declare and establish His new nation.
This is the
only nation that God has declared into existence.
This is the
only nation whose King is God
And this is
the only nation that came into being by a covenant between God and humans.
Let us look
at Moses, the great prophet and political leader of Israelites, climbing up the
mount of Sinai.
Moses stood
in the presence of God for 40 days and nights.
God declared
the beginning and the establishment of the nation and prescribed the Laws of
the Kingdom to Moses.
Moses then
came down to the people with Laws to offer sacrifice and partake in a covenant
meal.
Thus came
into being the nation, Israel.
Jesus on the mount
In Matthew, chapter 5, by seeing the multitudes,
Jesus went up on a mountain.
When he was
seated, His disciples came to him.
Then he
opened His mouth and taught them the precepts of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The incident
recalled the historical event of Israel assembling in the valley of Sinai to receive
the revealed Law of God.
Matthew is
presenting Jesus as a new Moses or even as Law Giver.
Jesus is
both the Law Giver and the mediating prophet.
On the
mountain of Sinai God declared His Kingdom and on the Sermon Mount Jesus
declared His Kingdom.
These two
Kingdoms are not two different ones, but one and the same.
The true
Kingdom of God included all those who are predestined by God, those who accept
the Kingdom, by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
In the Old
Testament, the Kingdom was offered to the people, but the mystery of redemption
of humanity through the atonement of the crucifixion was hidden.
In the Old
Testament, the Kingdom of God is a promise and a mystery.
Israel was a
type of the true Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated on the Sermon Mount.
Thus the
Sermon on the Mount is the Law of the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus.
The sermon
The Sermon
took place after Jesus started His ministry on the earth by preaching and manifesting
the presence of the Kingdom of God.
The King has
come, manifested his authority and power and now is declaring the Laws.
Matthew summarizes
everything that Jesus has been doing to the present day by the end of Chapter 4.
Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
(NKJV)
Then, in
Matthew 5, Jesus goes up the mountain, opens His mouth to declare the precepts
of the Kingdom of God.
His first
words are: Blessed are the poor in
spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is
describing and explaining what life would be, for his followers in the kingdom.
And Jesus is
describing the life expected from the new generations of His disciples.
The key is
stated in the following verse:
Mathew 5:20 "For I say to you,
that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (NKJV)
Here I hope,
you would remember what we have been discussing above about the teachings of
the Pharisees during the time.
Surely there
was something wrong with the teachings the Pharisees and Jesus is correcting them.
The
Pharisees with all their precepts aiming to lift the standard of the Mosaic
Law, actually nullified it to no effect.
The Mosaic
Law was intended to lead people to salvation through Christ, but the precepts
of the Pharisees lead people to the wrong concept of “justification through
works”.
Jesus draws
the attention of the crowd to the precepts of the Mosaic Law by telling “You have heard that it was said to those of old”.
Then he goes
on to say “But I say to you that”.
Surely Jesus
is presenting his precepts better and higher than the Mosaic Laws.
Jesus
offered salvation and inheritance to the Kingdom of God by the Grace of God
through faith in the sacrificial atonement arranged by God Himself.
Abraham and
his descendants are saved by Grace through faith in the sacrifice arranged by
God.
The
sacrifice on the Mount Moriah is a type of this great truth.
Abraham
understood and had faith in this mystery and his faith was accounted to him for
righteousness.
The theme of the Sermon
The Sermon on the
Mount covers several different topics.
It is about how to
live a life that is dedicated to and pleasing to God, free from hypocrisy, full
of love and grace, full of wisdom and discernment.
The Sermon
on the Mount is a preview of Christian living within the kingdom of God.
The sermon
speaks of the true relationship of Christians to God.
The
forgiving God takes the initiative in relating to humans.
The Sermon
explains how we should correspondingly respond from our hearts to the generous
heavenly father.
The Sermon on
the Mount contains key teaching that Jesus himself demonstrated through the way
he lived and in what he taught throughout his ministry.
It starts with
the Beatitudes, short sayings about who is blessed.
Jesus goes
on to commission them to show ‘greater righteousness’ than that of the scribes
and the Pharisees.
The Sermon
covers teaching on the Jewish law, anger, adultery, divorce and re-marriage,
vows, revenge and love of enemies, charity, prayer and fasting, riches and
possessions and judging others.
Jesus
frequently uses examples from the Jewish Law to build his teaching on, and
explains that He is the fulfilment of the law.
The Sermon
ends with the story of the wise man who built his house upon the rock.
Matthew
closes the description with the observation that “the crowds were astounded at
his teaching.
The Sermon is possible
The
impossibility of earning salvation and the need for grace are the true Bible
perspective.
Leading
humans to this truth is the intention of the Mosaic Law.
The
intention of the Law was to help us see our need for gospel, the sacrifice of
Jesus.
But
the goal of the Sermon is a different one.
Jesus
was not presenting a list of impossible tasks to humans, but rather a higher standard
of living.
This
higher standard is the standard of the Kingdom.
The
Law was impossible, but the Sermon is possible.
The
Sermon is wisdom from God, inviting us through faith to re-orient our values,
vision, and habits from the ways of external righteousness to whole-heartedness
toward God.
The
Sermon is not “Law” but “gospel.”
Jesus
is inviting us into life in God’s kingdom both now and in the future age.
The
sermon offers us grace to live according the higher standard of the Kingdom.
The
Law did not offer us grace, but the sermon invites us to grace.
Understanding the Sermon
The whole
sermon must be understood under the principle that Jesus came not to destroy
the Law.
Jesus
definitely is prescribing new Laws for life without destroying the Mosaic Laws.
Matthew 5:17 "Do
not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to
destroy but to fulfill. (NKJV)
‘Fulfill’ is the opposite
of ‘destroying’.
Fulfilling the Torah was the task of a first century
rabbi.
The technical term for interpreting the Scripture so
it would be obeyed correctly was "fulfill."
To interpret Scripture incorrectly so it would not be obeyed as
God intended was to "destroy"
the Torah.
Jesus did not come to do away with God's Torah or Old Testament.
He came to complete it and to show how to correctly keep it.
One of the ways Jesus interpreted the Torah was to stress the importance of the right attitude of heart as well as the
right action.
A
summary
The Sermon
opens with the famous ‘Beatitudes’, the blessedness.
These are the
verses beginning with the word “blessed”, recorded in Matthew 5:3-11.
‘Beatitudes’
means a state of supreme happiness.
They are
not prohibiting anyone from the Kingdom, but inviting all to inherit the
Kingdom.
Jesus
was revealing God’s kingdom to real people in real cultures.
The
Beatitudes describe the new community of believers identified with Jesus.
They
are God's law fulfilled in Jesus and applied to Christians.
The
new community of Jesus include, the poor in spirit, the merciful, the
peacemakers, those persecuted for his sake and those persecuted because of
righteousness.
The
Beatitudes present the value system of the Kingdom of God.
The
Pharisees had a value system built upon the Written Law, Oral Traditions and
extended precepts of their own.
By obeying
them, they created a system of belief that is based on the merit based
salvation.
Obedience
to all precepts of the Pharisees created self-righteousness in the people.
Remember
the young rich man who came to Jesus for a righteous certificate.
He was
filled with self-righteousness on the basis of his obedience to the precepts of
the Pharisees of the day.
But Jesus
looked into his heart and rejected his claim to the Kingdom.
Jesus
wanted a person “poor in spirit”.
In the beatitudes,
Jesus is concerned with spiritual realities, not material possessions.
Poor in
spirit includes sinners, but does not mean sinners.
They are
people who realizes the truth that they need the Grace of God for
justification.
They
realize the truth that none of their works in this world will justify them.
Blessedness
cannot be claimed by anyone without the Grace of God and faith in Jesus Christ.
The sinful
tax collector in a parable who went to pray along with a self-righteous Jew is
a man who is poor in spirit.
The
parable is recorded in Luke 18: 9 - 14.
Jesus
spoke this parable about those who trusted in themselves and their righteousness.
Two men, a
Pharisee and a tax collector, went up to the temple to pray.
The
Pharisee prayed thanking God for all the good deeds that he could do according
to the Law.
He listed
his righteous deeds one by one.
But the
tax collector was poor in spirit; he had no righteous list to present before
God.
He felt
the poverty in spirit and prayed for the mercy of God for a sinner.
God
accepted the man who confessed his poverty in spirit and justified him by
Grace.
Poor in
spirit is a condition in which we realize our spiritual poverty to justify
ourselves before God and praying for the Grace of God and faith to trust in the
sacrifice of Jesus.
Surely
they are blessed in the Kingdom, not the self-justified Pharisees.
What did Jesus present in the Sermon?
What did Jesus
declare in the Sermon?
To answer this
question, we should have an idea about the ministry of Jesus as a Rabbi.
Jesus was a Rabbi
with authority.
Matthew
concludes the description of the Sermon on the Mount with the observation that
“the crowds were astounded at his teaching.
Matthew 7:28,29
28 When Jesus had finished saying these things,
the crowds were amazed at his teaching,
29 because he taught as one who had authority, and
not as their teachers of the law.
There were two types of rabbis during the time.
Most of the rabbis were Torah
teachers (teachers of the law) who could only teach
accepted interpretations.
The second group was believed to have s'mikhah
or authority to make new interpretations.
Those with authority ("ordination") could make new
interpretations and pass legal judgments.
Jesus seems to be a type of rabbi who had s’mikha or authority to
make new interpretations.
At
the end of the sermon the crowds are amazed, not because the content is new but
for the clarity, strength, and authority with which Jesus teaches.
His
teachings are radical, but not out of the blue.
The Parable of the wise builder
The Sermon of Jesus
Christ ends with a parable, recorded in Matthew
7: 24 - 27
Two people are presented
in this parable, one is a foolish man and another is a wise man.
They searched for a land
to build a house and found a suitable place.
They both got a land
equal in quality, offering the same opportunity.
Soon the foolish man
started constructing the house on the loose land, without digging deep for firm
foundation.
But the wise man found
that the land is loose and so he dug deep.
He worked hard and spend
a lot of health, time and money to go deep and deep into the loose sand.
At last he found the
strong rock under the loose land.
He build the foundation
of the house on the rock and build up his house.
The foolish man finished
his house much early than the wise man.
It seems that the
foolish man is smarter than the wise man.
But after some days,
there came heavy wind and rain.
The wind flew over and
the rain fell heavily on both the houses.
Unfortunately, the
foolish man’s house without a rocky foundation could not withstand the wind and
the rain.
It fell and its fall was
so heavy.
The same wind and rain
in the same speed and weight fell on the wise man’s house also.
But his house had a
foundation on the solid rock.
So the wind and rain
could not harm it.
All those who hears and
does the sayings of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount are like the wise man who
built his house on the rock.
Now the question is,
will we be like that wise man?
Will we take these words
from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount to our heart?
Conclusion
So the
Sermon was to His disciples and to the crowd.
Matthew
describes the event in his gospel for all those who would be added later to the
community.
None
of us can measure up to the vision of moral perfection that Jesus presents in
the Sermon on the Mount.
But it
is the goal we must continually strive for.
When
we fail to live up to the ideal, we must ask God for forgiveness and sincerely
resolve to do better in the future.
The
good news is that, no matter how serious the sin, God is always seeking us out
and is willing to forgive our sins and give us a fresh start!
Jesus
spoke the Sermon, for us to live accordingly.
Jesus
lived up to the standards of the Sermon; He taught and trained his disciples to
live accordingly.
By the
enabling of the Holy Spirit, His disciples lived to the mark.
And by
His Grace, we can also keep the standard.
That
must be attitude. It is not what we have attained; it is what we are aiming to
attain.
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