the sermon on the mount

Section 1. SECTION

SEcTION 7.

Contents

PAGE.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

SECTION I.

Introduction

N the first year of His public ministry Jesus returned to Galilee from a sorrowful journey to Jerusalem. Leaving Nazareth, which had been His home, “He

came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast.” After a day of toil, “He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer.” In the morning He called His disciples about Him, and selected twelve to be His constant companions and ministers, who formed “the glorious company of Apostles.” The place was probably the elevation known as the Horns of Hattin, not far distant from Capernaum, on the Galilean lake.

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all manner of sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain; and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him; and He opened His mouth and taught them.” With these words St. Matthew introduces the greatest sermon which was ever preached on earth, and which, from the place where it was delivered, is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount.

The scope of this magnificent oration, notwithstanding the multiplicity of the topics discussed, is not difficult to apprehend. The people were not yet prepared for a complete presentation of the Gospel with its glorious plan of salvation through faith in the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, and for this we must not look in the sermon, although it is the longest of our Lord’s recorded discourses. No direct mention is made of the redemption through His obedience unto death, and of its application by the Holy Spirit, and of its appropriation by faith. It expounds and applies the law, under whose tuition and discipline God had since the time of Moses been preparing the children of Israel for the advent of the Savior, who was promised with ever increasing clearness since the entrance of sin into the world through Adam’s fall. The scope of the sermon is therefore misapprehended when it is presumed to be the setting forth of the essentials of Christianity, that should serve as a compend of the religion which Christ introduced and established on earth for the salvation of fallen man. According to the Scriptures salvation is not by the Law, however fully and forcibly it may be presented, but by the grace of God in Christ, as it is revealed in the Gospel. ‘The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” John 1, 17. How great the error is of assuming that souls condemned because of sin are saved by obeying the divine commandments is shown by St. Paul’s words: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.” Gal. 5, 4. That which condemns us as sinners cannot be that which justifies us as sinless. The Law makes known to us our sin, which is the transgression of the Law; and it is powerless to save not only when it is misunderstood by the carnal mind, but also when it is made plain to us in its spiritual import by our Lord’s exposition of its deeper Significance. Indeed, the curse which it pronounces upon

_ Inan’s transgression becomes all the more effective and emphatic when we learn that it requires not only holy words and works, but holy hearts. The sermon on the mount gives us the much needed light on the spiritual meaning of the Law and the depth of our sinful depravity in our inward rebellion against its holiness, but contains not the slightest intimation that it would, under any view of its import or any attitude assumed towards it, deliver us from the condemnation which it pronounces upon our sinful race.

On the other hand it is an unwarranted restriction when the attempt is made to exclude the Gospel entirely from our minds in studying the sermon. The admission that it treats mainly of the Law by no means implies such a restriction of its meaning. Nothing is more needful for a correct understanding of the Scriptures than a proper distinction between Law and Gospel. We can understand neither in its pure import and purpose when we confound the one with the other. To tell people what God requires of us in the ten commandments, and then teach them that their only hope of eternal life must rest on their fulfillment of these requirements, leads to despair. It may be a correct statement of the demands which the Creator justly makes upon His intelligent creatures, but it is a false presentation of the way of salvation revealed in Holy Scripture. Even when the Law of the Lord is studied, we need the Gospel in order to understand the Lord’s will and to walk in the way by which He would lead us to the blessedness of eternal life.

That the sermon on the mount is an exposition of the Law which was given by Moses is plain to every attentive reader’s view; but it should be just as plain to every Christian reader that the exposition was not designed to ignore and set aside the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, but must stand in intimate relation to it in the divine economy. The purpose of the sermon manifestly is to show the righteousness which God’s Law re quires and which must prevail in His kingdom. It does not abrogate or mitigate the divine commands or furnish a new code to supplant the old; but it removes the rubbish under which the Jews had buried its meaning, and sets in a clear light the holiness which it requires. The righteous Law is thus restored to its original purity and majesty, and rescued from the depravation into which false teachers had brought it by their human ordinances and traditions, and thus reduced it to a level with the carnal impulses and dictates of man in his fallen estate. Our Savior, by doing this needful work, does not become a new Lawgiver, as if Moses’ work had become obsolete, but He does render the old Law, which is holy and good, effectual to accomplish its end in the divine plan of salvation.

Our study of the sermon must, therefore, embrace all the implications of its words as these are known to us from other portions of Scripture, all of which He came to fulfill. His advent into the world had not the design , to enforce the Law and its penalties upon its sinful people. “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3,17. To this the Law is meant to be tributary. It does not save us, but it can show us God’s righteousness and our sin, and thus be serviceable in leading us to the Savior. “For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Rom. 10, 4. In the light of the Gospel, therefore, we propose to study the Sermon on the Mount, not overlooking the fact that it is our Lord’s exposition of the Law, but always keeping in mind that the Law was always and is now, not an independent way of salvation, but “our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster. [Tor ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Gal. 3, 24-26.

It must not be inferred from the words of St. Paul, “we are no longer under a schoolmaster,” that the law has lost its divine authority and is now without a vocation and a purpose in the divine economy. That would indicate a reckless reading of the apostle’s statement. If the inference were true, the sermon on the mount would be of little moment to us Christians, who are saved by grace and rejoice in the hope of glory through faith in a crucified and risen Savior. But it is not true, and the sermon does concern us and all men as a revelation of God’s holy will, that binds us all and holds us all to a strict account, as the law by which the whole earth shall be finally judged.

Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are indeed no longer under the schoolmaster who was appointed to lead them to the Savior. When that is accomplished in them they have become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and are justified by that faith, because Christ is “made unto them wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” 1 Cor. 1, 30. They have no cause to tremble at the fulminations of God’s wrath upon every soul of man that doeth evil, because they have found refuge in One who is mighty to save and whose robe of righteousness covers all their sins, so that for the sake of His merits, acquired by His vicarious obedience unto death for all men, they stand acquitted now and shall stand acquitted on the judgment day.“ Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Rom. 3, 28. They are not under the curse of the law which is revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, neither are they under the constraints which are laid upon men by its threatenings of indignation and wrath upon those who transgress its holy commandments. In that respect they are free from the law. They are not required to fulfill it in order to be saved from its condemnation; for Christ has fulfilled it for them, that they might be saved through Him. They are not driven to obey its righteous requirements by fearful menaces of eternal perdition; for Christ has given them hearts that love righteousness and delight to do His holy will. “Ror we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Eph. 2, 10.

The schoolmaster has done his work when he has brought us to see our sinfulness and helplessness and to realize our wretchedness under the fearful penalties which the law denounces upon the sinner, and when he has thus prepared the way for the Gospel with its gracious announcement of pardon and peace to all who repent and believe. And for this the law, and the sermon on the mount which expounds its spiritual meaning, is still necessary. For all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and none can escape the condemnation declared against sinners except by coming to the Savior, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. But to this end a knowledge of our sin is indispensable; for no one will come to the Savior who denies his need of salvation and no one will accept His help who proudly denies that he has any need of help. The way into the kingdom of God is the way of repentance. There never was and never can be any other way to the salvation prepared for us in Christ than that of recognizing our lost estate in sin, that we may flee for refuge to the hope set before us in Christ. Therefore men everywhere need the law now as they did when our Lord preached the sermon on the mount.

And we Christians need it still, though its office of schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ is accomplished in all them that believe and are thus no longer under the schoolmaster. But our relation to it is changed. It is to us a revelation of God’s will in His holiness, as it is to all men. This will is unchangeable, as God Himself is unchangeable. Its authority is universal and eternal, because it is divine. But believers are not under it as man is in his natural condition of slavery to sin. He is free from its condemnation, because Christ, who is mighty to save, assumed our nature and our sin, and accepted its condemnation in our stead. For God “hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 1 Cor. 5, 21. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Gal. 3, 15. The way of salvation is plain. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3, 16. He came into this world of sin and death not to condemn fallen mankind, and not to teach us how to save ourselves from the curse which the violated law pronounces upon us, but to save us. No teaching could enable us to do what sin has made impossible. We cannot fulfill the holy law of God, and we cannot by any power in our disabled nature escape the penalty of transgression. The wages of sin is death. Only God can save us, and He sent His Son to effect our salvation. “ For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3, 17-18. Salvation is by faith in the Savior. “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we Aus be saved.” Acts 4, 10-12.

It is plain therefore that salvation cannot be by the law. That would mean that we need no Savior, implying either that we have no sin on account of which the law could condemn and pronounce its sentence of eternal death upon us, or that, if we have transgressed or in any way come short of the law’s requirements, we are able to make good our failure and satisfy all just demands that righteousness may make upon us. Lamentable as it is, not only are there millions who sit in the darkness which Satan has brought into the world and persist in denying their sinfulness and asserting their own righteousness, but there are also other millions who profess to be Christians and still nurse the flattering delusion, that they are good enough to have a just claim upon the mansions in our Father’s house, and a cheering hope that the God of love will not banish them from His presence for any little faults, which are common to men, that may still appear as defects in their righteousness. Thus the Savior stands at the door of multitudes and knocks in vain for entrance into their hearts, because they feel no need of any closer communion with Him or of any saving grace that He might impart. People who have the Bible and access to the preaching of the Gospel have no excuse for such a treatment of the Savior, who died for their offenses and rose again for their justification. They have the opportunity to know better. The natural man, in his ignorance of spiritual things and in his blindness under the disabling power of sin, may deem his course reasonable when he prates of his own goodness and glorious deeds which even transcend the requirements of the law, but the regenerated soul, confessing faith in

Christ, must blush and tremble at such a treatment of the Savior; for He comes to deliver us from the satanic dream of self-righteousness, which has no room for salvation by grace and tramples under foot the purchase of His blood, and to extend His pitying and powerful arms to snatch us as brands from the burning and bring us, notwithstanding all our sin and unworthiness, to His glorious abode of bliss in heaven. The hope of righteousness and salvation by our own fulfiilment of the law is suggested and encouraged by the enemy of our souls to keep us away from Christ, who alone can save us. Of this faithful Christians who believe the Word of God are sure. For the Holy Spirit explicitly declares, not only that there is no other name than that of Jesus given whereby we can be saved, but also that the law, in which so many trust, is not available for the sinner’s justification, and that trusting in it can only lead to destruction. “Wor if there had been a law given that could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith might be given to all them that believe.” Gal: 3, 21. 22. The law could only demand that we should be holy, and thus pleasing to God, but it could not and cannot make us holy and remove God’s displeasure when we have transgressed its holy requirements. Only God, against whom we have sinned, can deliver us from the curse which sin has brought upon us. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

Rom. 8, 3, 4. Therefore it is emphatically declared that those who rely upon the works of the law to establish a righteousness which will entitle them to admission into the kingdom of glory, are deceiving themselves and coma passing their own ruin, because while they thus trust in that which cannot save they are rejecting the only Savior of men. “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law: ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” Gal. 5, 4. 5. The law serves a good purpose still, and Christ expounded it that it might accomplish its end; but that purpose is not the sinner’s justification by the works of the law, which is impossible. On the contrary, it is, aside from restraining bad men from nefarious deeds by the terrors of threatened damnation, the exposure of sin in the sinner’s consciousness, that he may give heed to the remedy that is offered him in the Gospel. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Rom. 10, 4. The sermon on the mount was preached in the interest of the great salvation which came by the grace and truth which were revealed through Christ, and its preaching of the law as a schoolmaster to bring us unto Him for salvation is always needed in our world of sin.

But more than this concerns us in our Lord’s exposition of the Law. It is meant for all Christians of all time, and when men err in its application, the error does not lie in assuming the sermon to be authoritative as a divine guide to right life in Christ’s kingdom. That is not a mistake. The will of God always was man’s righteousness and never could be otherwise. Be ye holy, for the Lord your God is holy. That has ever been the law of God’s goyernment. And that is the law which our Savior explains and enforces in this sermon. The error of the legalists “ies in their attempt to substitute that law for the Gospel, and thus to make Christ a minister of Moses instead of accepting Him as the Savior of the world. The effect of such error is to keep people under the bondage of the law, and to deprive them of the grace and truth which came by

Jesus Christ, and of the peace and joy which come by faith in Him as their Redeemer from sin and death. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past.” Rom. 3, 19-25. It is a grave offense against the majesty and mercy of our Savior, and a fatal subversion of the grace and truth which He brought to men, to represent the sermon on the mount as expounding the law with a view to securing the salvation of sinners by their obedience to its holy commandments. The law declares all men guilty and pronounces condemnation on them; by the law is the knowledge of sin. Not a word is spoken in the sermon that would be fairly subject even to the suspicion that it teaches justification by the deeds of the law. By these no flesh can be justified. Christ came to save us from the sin and death which the law makes known to us, and which thus becomes our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ that we may find salvation in Him. He “is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” and for this purpose He expounds the law.

But when this purpose has been accomplished and souls have been brought to repentance and faith in Him unto the forgiveness of their sins and everlasting salvation through His grace, and when the law has done its work as the schoolmaster and these believing souls are free from its bondage and its condemnation, it still has an office to perform with regard to them, and the sermon . on the mount effectually performs it. The law does not regenerate the sinner and fit him for the kingdom of righteousness and glory, but it does show believers how they ought to live and please God when they have been thus fitted by His grace. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Rom. 38, 31. For our Savior fulfills it in our stead by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, and gives us grace that we may delight to do His will and freely walk in the path of His precepts.

The disciples of Christ are therefore exhorted to walk worthy of their vocation in that holiness which grace has made possible to them when their hearts have been purified by faith. “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not haye dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Rom. 6, 9-15.

The believer, who by the faith which the Holy Spirit has wrought in Him through the Gospel has escaped the curse of the law, is now empowered by the grace of God to love the way of holiness and bear fruit to His glory.

The law is to him still a guide on that way, because it is the revelation of his Maker’s holy will, for whose service he was created and redeemed and renewed. It is not made more rigorous by our Lord’s teaching, for it was perfect from the beginning; but neither was it softened and lowered in its requirements by His mercy, because the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Those who look upon the new covenant as a modified legal system of righteousness, by which the demands made upon man are diminished and the way of salvation is made broader, have yet to learn the first elements of Christianity, which knows no salvation by the deeds of the law. But still Christians need it, though they are not under its consiraints and its curse, but under grace. The Holy Spirit who is given them sanctifies and leads them in the way of the divine commandments, which is the way of holiness. Freedom from the law therefore does not mean license to live after the lust of the flesh, but liberty from the bondage of sin, that we might freely serve the living God. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” 2 Cor. 5, 14-15. When under the law they have learned their sinfulness and their condemnation and their helplessness, and despairing of Ssalvation by any righteousness which their efforts could secure under its terms, they have come to Jesus and accepted His pardon and peace through faith in His name, they are blessed with the good will to serve the Lord that bought them, and bear fruits of holiness to His praise forever.

That Christians, who are thus inwardly disposed to live righteously and who are led by the Holy Spirit in the paths of righteousness, should still be exhorted to do what they are disposed to do with their might, seems an inconsistency. But it can seem so only to those who have little knowledge of the Christian life. St. Paul explains the difficulty when he writes: “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.” “TI delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Rom. 7, 15-23. This warfare between the spirit and the flesh is a matter of common Christian experience, and it imposes upon us a struggle against the sin that is in us which continues during our earthly life. Satan, by craft and cunning, by menaces and enticements, makes use of the trying situation to compass the believers’ fall from grace, and they are in daily danger, because of the infirmity of the flesh, of growing weary in well-doing and yielding to the allurements of sin. They must watch and pray that they enter not into temptation, and earnest warnings are given of the peril that besets them if they become careless in using the means of grace and turn to the beggarly elements of the world. “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Rom. 8, 13-14.

In the light of these truths, which will serve for our guidance at many a point, we propose to enter upon a practical study of the great sermon on the mount, hoping that the occupation with its heavenly lessons will, by the blessing of our ever present Lord and. Savior, be profitable for the reader’s instruction in righteousness and his establishment in grace. We shall divide the sermon into Sections for greater convenience in considering its comforts and setting forth its various topics. These divisions are mostly indicated by the different subjects presented, although in a few instances, especially in the seventh chapter, the verses have no obvious connection as parts of a larger theme. In all cases it shall be our endeavor to ascertain and set forth the truth which our Lord’s words were designed to convey.