The heights of Christian Living; a study of the Sermon on the Mount

Front matter

OTHER BOOKS BY DOCTOR HAYES

PAUL AND HIS EPISTLES ’

JOHN AND HIS WRITINGS | |

Foreword

ONE of my students writes: “I very much hope that your next book will give us your study of the Sermon on the Mount. You should call it THE HEIGHTS OF CHRISTIAN Living. ‘The Sermon was preached on the heights. It was filled with the most lofty thoughts. It sets forth the highest standard of Christian conduct and life.”

We have followed his suggestion. We trust that all who may read the great Sermon through with us once again may feel some inspiration to leave the lower levels and to live with the Master on the higher planes of the Christian life.

This book is a sequel to The Heights of Christian Blessedness in that it continues the study of the Sermon on the Mount there begun. Its second chapter is a very brief summary of some of the things said in that volume. It proceeds upon the supposition that Jesus meant what he said and that he intended his disciples to live according to these rules. It is as pacifist and as literal in its interpretation as the preceding volume was. It tries to show clearly that if the Christian Church

FOREWORD declares that war is un-Christian it must, to be consistent, denounce and renounce all participation in the un-Christian thing. The moment the Christian Church arrives at this position war will be outlawed and ended.

Chapter I Introduction

1. The Mountain-Top Sermon. The Sermon on the Mount is the mountain-top sermon of all history. It was preached in the heights and it represents the heights of Christian living and spiritual experience. It has the heavens above it and the world beneath it. It has no suggestion of the dim religious light of cathedral aisles; it is flooded with the sunshine of God’s love and grace. Its outlook is not limited by any inclosing or excluding walls. It has far horizons stretching beyond human sight on every side and reaching upward into the infinite blue.

2. Its Setting. With the mountain for a pulpit and the broad slopes of the mountain for the ranging tiers upon tiers of the congregation, the Sermon in the elevation of its thought and the sweep of its sympathy matched its surroundings, was worthy of its setting, and is the towering, unapproachable presentation of the fundamentals of the Christian faith. It has all the freshness of the morning air and all the freedom of God’s out-of-doors. In that mountain solitude the Father’s lavishness in nature’s loveliness was apparent on every hand. The winds blew there, the birds flew there, the lilies grew there; and there it was that God’s supreme revelation was given to man through the lips of his Son.

3. lts Time. The sermon was preached in the early dawn of the day, and it represented the dawn of a new era in the history of the race. It was preached in the spring of the year, and it has in it ali the promise and the potency of new life for the world. The Sermon on the Mount is the Sermon of the Dawn and the Sermon of the Spring, a sermon full of new light and of new life for all men. It was preached by a young man, and it is the Sermon of Youth in the dawn of its powers and the springtime of its career. The Gospel according to Luke would lead us to think that this Sermon was preached directly after the appointment of the twelve apostles,’ and it would have been altogether appropriate to have this statement of fundamental principles in the gospel which the apostles were to preach set forth at this time. There is all the enthu- Siasm of a new and untried movement in it. It is full of the vitality and the hopefulness ~ aLuke 6, 12-20.

and the boundless faith of youth. Its day has not declined, its strength has not abated, its harvest has not yet been gathered in. It is still the Sermon of the Dawn and of Youth and of Spring. The Sermon on the Mount always has been and it still is a source of inexhaustible inspiration to the successive generations of men.

4. Its Place. The tradition is that it was preached on one of the Horns of Hattin, not far from Capernaum, nine miles from Tiberias. There the preacher and the people could look down toward the east upon the flat roofs of the distant city and the blue waters of the shimmering Galilean sea, and northward towered the snow-crowned summit of Mount Hermon, and off in the southwest lay Tabor, and all the plain of Esdraelon stretched away to the south. Here above the turmoil of the city streets and the toil of the fishermen and the farmer folk on the waters and in the fields below, on the green grass of the heights, with daisies, anemones, and hyacinths blooming here and there among the black basalt rocks, the Preacher took his seat and the people gathered about him to hear what he had to say.”

2 The exact site is not known, and it never will be known. The Latin tradition we have quoted dates from the thir-

5. Its Hearers. There were great multitudes of hearers, come from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and beyond the Jordan.? The Samaritans and the Greeks may not have been present but there were crowds of people from all the Jewish portions of Palestine. The Preacher was about thirtyone years old and he had been teaching and preaching for about eighteen months. He had gained quite a following, and he had just appointed twelve apostles to accompany him in his travels and assist him in his labors and attend to whatever organization his growing popularity might necessitate among the sympathetic and enthusiastic people. Evidently the time had now come to set forth his message more formally to the men of his generation and through them to the men of all time.

This is no esoteric instruction for a selected few, as Bacon and Burton have supposed. These sayings were not intended only for immediate and intimate disciples and simply overheard by the crowds gathered about their teenth century only and represents probably nothing more than a plausible conjecture. Any mountain peak on the west or northwest shore of Gennesaret may have been chose

for the site of this Sermon. The Horns of Hattin meet th

conditions and are as likely as any. Stanley, Plumme and others decide like ourselves to follow the tradition at this point.

inner circle, as Tholuck and Bernard Weiss have thought. Jesus stood on the mountainside and his eye swept over the serried ranks of hearers on the mountain slopes, and his voice rang out over them all, and his thought included them all. This was the life for all men to live. Jesus addressed them all and appealed to them all.4 They never had heard such preaching. Their hearts never had been stirred after this fashion before.

6. [ts Simplicity. The consummate genius of Jesus is apparent in the utter simplicity with which he presented his truth. His language is plain and clear. His thought is simple and understandable by all. There is no sesquipedalian terminology. There is no mystifying theosophy. There is no intricate theology. It is all clear as ‘the mountain air, simple as the sunshine, just plain common sense which every man there could comprehend and practice if he would. The illustrations were drawn from the life familiar to all of them. The salt of their daily use, the lamp found in every house, the measures of the market place and the pearls of the peddler’s merchandise, the dogs and the pigs, the flowers and the birds, the serpents and the stones,

« This is the opinion of Bleek, Bruce, Godet, Meyer, Votaw, and others.

food and drink, fish and bread, broad ways and narrow gates, good fruit and evil fruit, thistles and thorns, the sandy soil swept away in the flood and the solid rock unscathed in any storm—the people who listened knew all about these things and they remembered what he had said concerning them as they went about their daily toil.

The Sermon does not deal with scientific abstractions or metaphysical disquisitions or philosophical definitions. It has to do with the religious practices and the social customs and the natural phenomena with which all its hearers were acquainted. It has no involved reasoning and it gives no evidence of the pedantry of the schools. Its lessons are based upon neither learning nor logic, except the learning open to all in daily avocation and observation and the logic inevitable to all in daily experience and environment. Its power lies in its utter simplicity both of matter and style and in its ultimate intuition of essential spiritual truth.

7. Its General Course of Thought. It may be that portions of this Sermon had been spoken at other times and places, but at this time and place the Preacher gathers together the product of his previous thought and gives it a unified structure which it never had had before this time. It is a more formal and complete pronouncement than the people have yet heard. His theme is The New Kingdom which John the Baptist had prophesied as at hand and which he in turn had come to proclaim. He first discusses The New Citizens of this new kingdom, setting forth their character in the Beatitudes and then their infiuence under the figures of salt and light. That leads him, in the second place, to discuss The New Law which governs the character and accounts for the influence of the new citizens of the new kingdom. He declares that this law is not destructive of the old law, but interpretative of it and superseding it because it fulfills and perfects it, and he illustrated his thought in the cases of murder and adultery and divorce and perjury and retaliation and hatred of enemies. Then he went on in the third place to discuss The New Life of the new citizens of the new kingdom and he declared that it would be free from ostentation in almsgiving, in prayer, and in fasting, and that it would be free from selfishness and therefore free from anxiety. He added that it would be free from the critical temper and yet discriminating in its conduct, not foolish in dealing with men, but full of faith in the goodness of God. He climaxed this section 17 with the Golden Rule. Then he closed with the three exhortations based upon the three illustrations of The Two Ways, narrow and broad, and The Two Prophets, the true and the false, and The Two Houses, built one upon the sand and one upon the rock.

‘There would seem to be a clear course of thought through the Sermon as it stands, although our report of it may be simply a summary of what was said at this time. It would not take more than twenty minutes to say all these things which Matthew has recorded and in all probability Jesus talked on this occasion for several hours. If the Sermon as recorded were simply a eollection of unconnected apothegms it would be a treasure beyond compare. The Golden Rule, the Beatitudes, the Model Prayer would be priceless jewels if they stood alone. Every sentence in this Sermon is of value in itself, but we think that we can trace its connection with all that goes before or all that comes after and the Sermon seems to be one whole with unified structure and logical development of its thought. |

8. [ts Pre-eminence. It sets forth with crystal clearness the conception which Jesus had of the ideal life. Was Socrates the wisest man among the Greeks? Jesus was the wisest man the human race has seen. He is the supreme Lawgiver of all history. In this Sermon we have a summary of his teaching, and it is not to be equaled by the sayings of any other sage or seer. It represents supreme wisdom. It comprises ultimate truth. No other selection in the world’s literature can parallel it or approach it in the comprehensiveness of its morals, the sublimity of its standard, and the simplicity of its expression. It is a complete code for Christian conduct. It sets forth all the beauties of Christian character and all the duties of the Christian life. Did John Stuart Mill say, “Not even now would it be easy to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Jesus Christ would approve our life’?> This Sermon shows us the life which Jesus would approve. It has been universally recognized as the highest standard of living ever presented to the race. All the future ages may be fully occupied in its realization, and its ultimate acceptance and attainment will mark the final goal of human history. The life set forth in this Sermon is not an easy life to live. It demands superhuman unselfishness. It demands a perfection like unto that of the ’ Mill, Three Essays on Theism, p. 255. 19

Father in heaven. No man can attain unto these things of himself. No man will maintain these things without a profound theology.

9. lts Theology. It is quite usual for folks to say: “I do not believe in theology; I believe in the Sermon on the Mount. Why bother about dogmas and creeds? Why not be content with the religion of the Sermon on the Mount? There is no mysticism in that Sermon, nothing but plain morality. The Sermon on the Mount is sufficient for me.’ It is sufficient for any man, but it has more than mere morality. It has something to say about forgiveness of sins and likeness to God. It has much to say about faith and prayer. It is all based upon a profound belief in the being and the goodness of God. There is a deal of theology underlying it. There is a very definite creed demanded by it. No man can obey it fully without supernatural help, a mystical union with God which is quite another thing from man’s unaided attainment of morality and far superior to it. Jesus had no conception of a morality which was not religious. The morals of this Sermon are the morals of the children of God.

With these implications of the Sermon in mind we may well say that the Gospels and the Epistles have little to add to the fullness of the revelation found in it concerning God’s will for our lives, and in that sense the Sermon on the Mount may be an all-sufficient guide in the way of life and salvation. No developed doctrine of the person of Christ could have been presented at this time. There could have been no theological statement of the atonement and the time had not yet come for the prophecy of the resurrection from the dead. The later facts all gave their sanction to the statements of this Sermon, and the later faith founded on these facts came to know that the life pictured in the Sermon on the Mount could be realized only through and because of them. At this time only a preliminary statement could be made concerning the nature of the new kingdom and the character of its constituent membership. After the crucifixion and the resurrection and the experiences of Pentecost the disciples and the apostles were prepared to measure up to the high requirements of this Sermon on the heights of Hattin.

10. Contrast With the Creeds. In the Sermon on the Mount we have the authority of the Master himself. That cannot be said of any of the later creeds of Christendom. There is a marked difference between the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds and the Augsburg

Confession and the Westminster Catechism and the Wesleyan Articles of Religion on the one hand and the simplicity and the authority of this Sermon on the other. They move on different planes and they breathe a different atmosphere. The creeds are metaphysical and the Sermon is ethical. The creeds are interested in intellectual conceptions: Jesus is interested only in spirit and chgracter.

Conceivably, one might be dissatisfied with all of the creeds and yet be willing to profess allegiance to the ideal of this Sermon. He might find it difficult to assent to the formulations of the faith in the later Church Councils and yet endeavor to maintain a clean heart and to attain the perfection of love in dependence upon the Father and in the faithful discipleship of Jesus. Such an one might be a heretic from the standpoint of orthodoxy and a saint from the standpoint of this Sermon.

Al. [ts Contrast With Sinai. It is always tempting to draw a contrast between the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the giving of the new law on the Mount of the Beatitudes. There, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, Paul declares that the law was mediated by angels.° Here there are no angels "Gal. 3. 19, except the angels of the sunshine and the spring breezes and the spring flowers and the birds flying from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. They may be God’s messengers to men, but their message is mediated through the lips of God’s Son. As on the Mount of Transfiguration, so here on the Mount of the Beatitudes, the divine Voice might have declared to the multitudes, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him.”’ No manifestation of divine splendors here and no mediation of angels; only a young man sitting on the mountain slope and talking plainly to plain people.

In the day of the ancient lawgiving Sinai was a great and terrible mountain which burned with fire, and there was blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, and the voice was so awe-inspiring that they who heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more, for they could not endure to hear it; and so terrible was the sight that Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake.’’® Could any contrast be greater than that with the scene here at the great Sermon? No thunder and lightning here; only the still small voice of One who promised blessedness and peace. The hundreds or possibly thousands of hearers were not fearful or repelled, but attracted to listen spellbound to the message of grace and of truth. The law was inaugurated in the fury of a tempest; the gospel is preached in the quiet of the spring morning and in all the glory of the spring sunshine. Before the giving of the law there had been great prodigies of God’s power, Egyptian plagues and Egyptian hosts drowned in the Red Sea. Before the great Sermon there had been miracles of mercy and a ministry of healing and love. The law was given in the desolate wilderness; the gospel is presented on the sunny slopes overlooking the fertile land about Gennesaret. The old law was written on tablets of stone; the new law is written only on the fleshly tablets of the heart. Moses veiled his face; Jesus with unveiled face reflected as a mirror the glory of the Lord.’ The old law began with prohibitions and threats; the new law begins with beatitudes and promises of eternal good. The old law was enforced by terrors and penalties; the new law attracts by its winsomeness and Sweet reasonableness. There is a marked contrast between the old and the new dispen- » 2 Cor. 3. 13, 18. | sation. There is a great difference between Moses and Jesus. John realized it when he wrote in the prologue to his Gospel, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Chapter II The Disciples’ Character

THE people had wondered at the gracious words which proceeded from the mouth of this young evangelist. They had gathered on this day to hear more of them. They were not disappointed. He began with a series of blessings. The eight beatitudes with which his Sermon opened presented the character of the true disciple in God’s kingdom and the rewards=and the persecutions which that character would be sure to have.’

I. CHARACTER. The beatitudes do not present different classes of people who are blessed. They give different aspects of the one character to which blessedness is assured. Put together they form the complete portrait of the truly blessed man. All the promises attached to the several beatitudes apply to the one character in its many-sided manifestations. Each promise includes all spiritual blessing. Each beatitude can claim all the promises.

1A full discussion of the beatitudes will be found in the author’s book, The Heights of Christian Blessedness.

1. Poor in Spirit. Jesus began by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’ 5.3. His hearers knew something about the kingdom of heaven pictured in the Old Testament. Probably most of them thought that it would come apocalyptically. Jesus promises them now that it will be given to the poor in spirit and the persecuted for righteousness’ sake. To these it may be a present possession. ©

Who are the poor in spirit who are to be thus blessed? They are the humble and the lowly in the land, who feel and acknowledge their constant dependence upon God and who are devoted to the kingdom of God and his righteousness in such a measure that they show a certain detachment from the motives which sway the worldly mind. They do not worry about wealth. They are rich in faith, rich in love, rich in good works. They are meek, but not spiritless or spineless. God blesses them and gives them his kingdom.

The poor in spirit would not desire above all things to be rich or to gain personal prominence and power. They would not be so selfreliant as to live a prayerless life. Their blessedness would be found in being the servants of all. This first beatitude challenged the serious thought of all who heard it. Were they too arrogant and haughty, too selfish and prayerless, to inherit the Kingdom? Must they be poor in spirit even to enter the royal palaces?

2. Mourners. Jesus went on to. Say, “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted,’ 5.4. His first statement had been startling: this second statement must have seemed pure paradox. How could blessedness be found in the midst of miseries and of the mourning caused by them? How could they be sorrowful and yet always rejoicing? They would not be blessed if their mourning was caused by any form of selfishness or sin: but mourning for any other reason might be accepted submissively and might be consistent with the consciousness of God’s presence and of God’s comfort and the experience of consequent spiritual victory.

If the mourning was in repentance for sin they might be comforted in the assurance that there was salvation from sin. If their mourning was caused by any other unavoidable calamity or disability, they might comfort themselves in the thought that God would make all things work together for their good. They would not mourn as those who had no hope. They would have present grace and the assurance of ultimate deliverance. They would be blessed with the presence and comfort divine.

Where must we look for true blessedness in the kingdom of heaven? Among those who are poor in spirit and among those who mourn. ‘hese are strange statements with which Jesus begins the great Sermon. The people who listened were poor, and they had mourned. They were hearing now that they might be among the most blessed of earth. What other characteristics must they have to qualify for membership in the new kingdom? Jesus went on to say, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall wmherit the earth,’ 5.5.

3. Meek. ‘This statement may not have been so startling to these people as the others had been. They knew that the prophets and psalmists had said practically the same thing, and they knew that the greatest man in their history had been the meekest of men. The history of Moses had proved to them that great strength of character and great meekness of disposition were not inconsistent with each other, and the promises in the Psalms had filled them with great expectations concerning their final inheritance. They knew that the more pious would be the more likely to be meek.

The meekness of which the Master speaks will root itself in true humility. It will not be proud and self-sufficient. It will not be full of self-assertion. It will have courage and consecration. It will have self-control and will be ready for self-sacrifice. It will be characterized by patient endurance. It will suffer wrong without resorting to retaliation. It will be strong enough not to strike back. It will subjugate the instincts of the brute to the purposes of the spirit. It will be gentle in behavior and tranquilin trying conditions.

Jesus said that blessedness would be found in meekness rather than in arrogance and aggressiveness. It was easier for the Orientals who heard him that day to believe him than it is for the Occidentals of to-day: but the Occident must accept this wisdom of the Incarnate One, or the future welfare of the race will lie in the hands of the Orient, where this gospel first was heard and where it yet may find its most complete fulfillment.

4. Hungry and Thirsty. The fourth beatitude was quite as comforting and not quite so startling. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they Shall be filled,’ 5.6. Hunger is very real. Thirst is very insistent in its demands. One can hunger for righteousness as much as for bread. One can thirst for the living God even as the hart thirsts for the water-brooks. Jesus promises here that the supply of spiritual manna shall be sufficient for each day’s need. He promises that spiritual thirst shall be quenched in wells of water springing up into everlasting life.

The pangs of hunger are hard to bear. The tortures of thirst are almost unendurable. The keener the hunger for righteousness the surer the satisfaction will be. The more poignant the thirst for righteousness the more pleasant the realization of continuous and abundant supply. Other fountains fail: but they who aome to this fountain are filled with all their souls’ desire. Refreshing, inexhaustible, everlasting, their blessedness is assured as long as their thirst may last, for their thirst will be the measure of its supply. It is of the mercy of God that this is true. That may have suggested the next beatitude to Jesus.

5. Merciful. He said, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy,” 5.7. The merey of God provides the filling promised in the last beatitude and the mercy of God suggests the blessedness of those who are merciful as God is merciful. The Old Testament had commanded mercy to both man and beast, and the Old Testament had promised that with the merciful God would show himself merciful. This truth approves itself to the universal conscience. Rome had its temple dedicated to Kindness, and one of the oldest altars in Athens was the altar of Mercy. Buddhism is filled with the spirit of gentleness and pity and grace.

We might translate, “Blessed are those who cherish within them the spirit of pity,” and we would come nearer the meaning of the Greek. Pity is the larger word. Mercy is only one form of the manifestation of pity. Deeds of mercy can be shown only upon suitable occasion. The spirit of pity may be always present. Jesus pitied all who suffered. He pitied and prayed for those who wronged him and crucified him. He pitied the ignorant and the erring. The compassionate Christ pitied all and was the friend of all.

In every community there are these compassionate people to whom the suffering and the needy turn at once for help or who seek out the suffering and the needy and are the first to know about them and to minister to them, God’s ministers and God’s blessed ones. Jesus was right when he said that they would be blessed far more than any hard-hearted, intolerant, and selfish souls. They have the secret of a happy life. They know life’s supreme blessedness.

6. Pure. Everybody would be ready to assent to the truth of the fifth beatitude and all would be equally ready to agree when they heard the sixth beatitude. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God,’ 5.8. Every man’s heart would tell him that heart-purity was essential to the beatific vision. If he would ascend into the hill of the Lord or stand in his holy place, his own conscience would tell him that he must have clean hands and a pure heart. Those who would see the King in his beauty must be like the King’s daughter, all beautiful within.

Without holiness no man can see God. There is the unqualified statement of an unchangeable truth. Heart-purity is the essential condition of fellowship with God and of recognition in his family. God can make the heart clean. As Jesus came down from the mountainside, having finished the great Sermon, a leper met him and said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Then Jesus touched him and his leprosy was cleansed from that hour. Leprosy was an incurable disease, but Jesus could cure it. The leprosy of sin is incurable by human power, but God can cleanse it. When Omnipotence commands it, the work is done.