Matthew 5

Chapter 5. The Righteousness of the KingdomNow when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them… (Matthew 5:1-2)After Moses had led the people across the Red Sea and they began their national history, he went up into a mountain and there promulgated God’s great law from Sinai. In like manner, Jesus Christ, the Prophet greater than Moses, when He had been formally inaugurated and announced as the Messiah, also went up into a mountain and gave forth the great law of the New Testament. Its Place and Time This is popularly known as the Sermon on the Mount. It is not introduced in the Gospel of Matthew in its chronological place, but was really delivered at a later period than the things recorded in the immediate context. This is in accordance with a principle already explained, that the writers of the Gospels were not mere reporters or historical chroniclers, but spiritual teachers, marshalling their facts, not in historical order, but rather in their logical relation to the central idea of their gospel. It was the true order, that, having introduced the King and witnessed to His character and divine commission, He should now give to us a public declaration of the great principles of His kingdom and its relation to the teachings of the past and the plan of the future. Scope of the Discourse This great discourse, which covers the next three chapters of Matthew (5-7), is an unfolding of the righteousness of the kingdom in contrast, first, with the teachings of Moses and the Old Testament; second, with the practice and conduct of the Scribes and Pharisees, the religious professors and teachers of the day; and thirdly, with the ungodly world who are traveling the broad road which leads to destruction. It is necessary at the outset to clearly fix in our minds the purpose of this great discourse. First, it is a summary of the law, presenting in concise form the essence of the teachings of Moses purged from the errors and corruptions which had grown around them through Jewish traditions. Secondly, it is a summary of the ethical teaching of the New Testament, and therein marks a great advance upon the moral teaching of the Old Testament. It is a sort of frontispiece in the opening of the volume of Christ’s life and teaching, like the first Psalm in the book of Psalms, which is a portrait of the godly man and primarily of the Lord Jesus Himself, the supreme type of all godliness and goodness. The Sermon on the Mount finds its only perfect realization in Christ Himself and so it stands like a portrait at the opening page of the Gospels. Not the Gospel But, in the third place, it must not be forgotten that even this sublime discourse falls short of the full spiritual teaching of the New Testament. It is not, therefore, in an unqualified sense, the law of Christ, and it is not correct to say, “If I regulate my life according to the Sermon on the Mount, I shall have reached the highest standard of character.” We must bear in mind not only its advance on the teaching of the Old Testament, but its defects and shortcomings as compared with the deeper and higher teaching of the later portions of the New Testament. For example, we find nothing in this sermon about the name of Jesus and His mediation with the Father as our Intercessor and Great High Priest. The Lord’s Prayer is offered to the Father direct without any reference to the Son. It is true that the “Our Father” of the first petition may be held, in the light of what Christ afterwards taught, to include the Intercessor along with us when we pray, but this certainly could not be obvious to an immediate listener to whom the great truth of Christ’s Priesthood had not yet been explained. A good deal later, the Lord Himself refers to this and supplies the lack. “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:24). Further, there is nothing here about the great work of the Holy Spirit, the next great revelation of the New Testament. This was to come later, and it would have been premature to introduce this teaching here before they were prepared to receive it. Later the Lord Himself made it preeminent in His parting messages, and the apostles of the New Testament re-echo the message on every page. It is scarcely necessary to add that the Sermon on the Mount says nothing of the atonement, the crucifixion of the natural man, the resurrection life into which we enter through fellowship with Christ, and the indwelling of Christ Himself in the heart as the great Pattern of godliness and the only secret by which we can really live the Sermon on the Mount. It is a cold yet faultless vision of righteousness, revealing, like a mirror, our unrighteousness, but as helpless as that mirror would be to wash away impurities which it had exposed upon your face. While we give this glorious message its high preeminence, let us not put it in a false place, and let us not forget the Master’s own later explanation, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12-13). It is no reflection upon the honor of Christ to say these things, or frankly acknowledge the things that are lacking in His great law from the Mount. It was the message of the King and the Son of David, and it marked a transition between the Old and the New Testament dispensations, being the law of the kingdom rather than the law of the gospel. We find 10 great points in these New Testament laws. Character

1. The Master does not speak of what we do, but of what we are, and the personal character which He here describes is strikingly different from the Old Testament ideal. The eight beatitudes mark the gradation of religious character by four steps downward and four steps upward. True spiritual character does not begin with self-effort, but self-renunciation. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3) is the first step; the people that are dissatisfied with themselves and have a deep and overwhelming sense of their failure and helplessness. The next step is also down, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). These are the people that not only realize their nothingness, but are deeply moved about it, and are tender and susceptible to the touch of God’s Spirit. “Blessed are the meek” (Matthew 5:5) marks the next descending step; the people that are yielded, broken and so far from self-will that God can mold them to His will. Finally, the fourth step is a deep spiritual hunger, a longing for righteousness, a desire so earnest that all else is gladly sacrificed for the higher blessing sought. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Now begins the spiritual ascent. The first step is love to others, that tender charity born of our own poverty of spirit and our own deep sense of nothingness and failure. “Blessed are the merciful” (Matthew 5:7). From love to man it is but a step to love to God, and so the next step is: “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8). This is literally, the single in heart, the people that have but one aim, to please and glorify God. The third step in this advancing scale brings us to positive and practical service for Christ and others, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). This does not mean the mere settling of personal grievances between people, but the sacred ministry of making peace between man and God, the reconciling of the world to Him, the seeking and saving of the lost. The last stage in spiritual life is suffering for Christ’s sake. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness…. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (Matthew 5:10-11). Christianity has its coronation in victorious suffering and patient submission to the will of God. Influence
2. Character is not a cold and ethical quality; but it has a beneficent influence. Two fine figures are here employed to express it, the salt and the light. The salt is the figure of our silent influence, that which does not express itself in action, but spreads as a sweetening and conserving influence through human society. A very large part of our influence is unconscious and intangible, forces that are held in solution and yet that hold together the family, the Church and the whole social economy. True godliness is such salt, and for the sake of the saints of God, the world is saved from utter destruction. There is also a positive influence in Christian character; it is like the light, diffused, far reaching, beneficent. It is not enough to have an absence of negative qualities. But rather, “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). They must see our good works, but they must glorify not us, but our Father. Salt and light! What beautiful figures of the influence of holy character. God help us to be as wholesome as the salt, and as bright, as pure, as far reaching in our influence for God and our usefulness to men as the beautiful light. Righteousness
3. From the 17th to the 37th verse, the Lord dwells upon the righteousness of the kingdom, showing, first, that it must not aim at a lower standard than the law, because instead of abrogating that law He has come to fulfill it. In the next place, it must surpass the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, and we know that their righteousness was most scrupulous and elaborate. Above everything else, the righteousness of the kingdom must spring from the heart and control the secret motives of the soul. The hatred of a brother is recognized as murder, the spirit of evil desire as a real transgression of the seventh commandment, and the very thoughts of the heart as constituting moral acts and qualities. Under the heart-searching light of the holy law, human nature stands convicted and condemned, and “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Love
4. The last 10 verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew reach a height which the Old Testament had not dreamed of. It teaches a love that not only sought to bless its neighbor but its enemy, and to be like the kind and beneficent heavenly Father, who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). The law of Moses had nothing to correspond with the sublime ethics of the 44th verse: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is the high plane of the fifth beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). It is more than righteousness; it is divine love. Sincerity
5. Sincerity is the issue in chapter Matthew 6:1-18. Their good deeds, their alms, their prayers, their fasting, must all be in the sight of God and not in the sight of man. Ostentation and love of human praise must be denied, and our most sacred ministries inspired by two supreme motives: the glory of God and the approval of our Father in heaven. Human praise, if sought as a reward, will destroy all claim to higher recompense. The things we do to be seen of men may bring us their approval, but their value terminates there. “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (Matthew 6:5). It is said a good man was once asked by a heavenly messenger what boon he would specially crave, and he asked that henceforth he might be made a blessing to everybody he came in contact with, but in such a way that his own shadow would never fall upon anyone else, and only God would recognize the service. The seraphim veil not only their faces, but their feet with their wings, and the highest ministry is that which is so lost in the thought of the Master that it forgets even its own footprints. A Single Aim
6. Singleness of heart is touched on in chapter Matthew 6:19-24. There must only be one Master. We cannot serve God and money. There must only be one goal, the home above. All our treasures must be there. The eye must be single to God alone, or the whole body shall be full of darkness. This is the meaning of the sixth beatitude. “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8), literally this means, “the single in heart,” people that have but one object and aim, to bless and glorify God, whether men praise or blame. Trust
7. Next, trust is present in chapter Matthew 6:25-34. The spirit of the Old Testament is work; the spirit of the New Testament is trust. Anxious care is forbidden and counted for sin. After the solemn words, “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24), the conjunction is introduced, “therefore.” “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life” (Matthew 6:25), and the inference is very plain that the taking of thought and the harboring of anxious care is a form of serving money. Worldliness consists not merely in the love of the world, but quite as much in the fear of the world. True faith trusts the heavenly Father for the present life as well as for the life to come, and if we are not trusting Him now for the things that are present and real, what evidence have we that we are really trusting Him for the things that are unseen and about which we may only be deceiving ourselves? God gives us the tests and trials of the present life in order to prove that He is indeed real to us, and that our faith does take Him for help in time of need. Righteousness is not merely doing our duty to our fellow men, or even having an eye single to the will of God. The very root and principle of it is a confidence so simple and complete that like the sparrows of the field, we can leave all our interests in His hand and trust Him for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come. Charity
8. The spirit of consideration for others, especially in our judgments concerning our fellow men, is next enforced (chapter Matthew 7:1-16). The same principle by which we judge our brothers is to be applied to us by the Supreme Judge in the last day. With burning irony, the Master exposes the hollowness and insincerity of pretending to take a little speck of sawdust out of our brother’s eye when there is something in our eyes as much greater than our brother’s fault as a great piece of timber is greater than a little speck of sawdust floating in the sunbeam. The word “plank” here literally means “a rafter,” a heavy piece of timber, and the keen logic of the comparison needs no emphasizing. We are not forbidden to judge of the moral quality of the actions of people; it is their motives that we are not to judge. Actual evil is obvious, and it is not wrong to call it by its right name. But this is a very different thing from sitting in judgment upon the motives and character of others. This is the prerogative of the divine Lawgiver, and He will not allow us to invade it. At the same time there is a fine sentence added in the sixth verse. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.” The spirit of charity does not require us to be weak and easily imposed upon. We should be so discriminating that we will not allow people to abuse our trustfulness. We should not commit ourselves to those that would take advantage of our frankness and rend us. We are to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Prayer
9. Two paragraphs are devoted to the subject of prayer in this discourse. The first is chapter Matthew 6:9-13, where the Lord’s Prayer is given as the great model of prayer. This subject is resumed in chapter Matthew 7:7-11, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). The efficacy of prayer is most emphatically announced. Further, the various degrees and forms of prayer are finely expressed by the three words, “ask, seek and knock.” Prayer is not only a matter of petition, but it is also a matter of patient and persevering search, and it is also a force that breaks down the barriers which interpose, and cooperates with God in bringing its own answer. Very beautifully does He tell us of the faithfulness of the great Hearer of prayer. He will not deceive us or put us off with a counterfeit blessing. From our own love to our offspring, He rises to the sublime argument, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). The Final Test of Character
10. Having finished the chief points of His discourse, He finally concludes by telling of the solemn test which is to come to every life and character. He gives us a simple test to apply to our own actions. This is the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12), which shines like a star of light over all the teachings of human philosophy and morals: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” This is the law of life by which we can determine for ourselves the right or the wrong of any action about which we may be in doubt. Is it according to the law of love? Will it bring happiness and blessing to my brother? Would I want him to do it to me? This will clear away every mist and enable us to act with a good conscience and a full assurance of pleasing God. Next He gives us the test of the fruit men bear. “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:16). The false prophet may come in sheep’s clothing, but if we search him, we shall find him out by the influence of his life and the fruit of his teaching and practice. Is it humility, holiness, glory to God and lasting good to men? Or is it self-aggrandizement, self-glory and gain? He gives us the test of obedience. This is to be the test of the judgment. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). God tests us now. The rain and the storm described in the closing paragraphs of this great Sermon on the Mount are not all to be revealed amid the tests of the Judgment Day. Many of these tests mercifully come to us now. God anticipates the day of judgment and gives to us the opportunity of finding out now whether we are prepared to stand the tests of the final day. Some day we shall thank Him for the trials and temptations that brought us to see whether we were wrong and saved us before the final crisis from the doom of the self-deceived. The figure of the rock refers undoubtedly to the great Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ Himself. He alone is the foundation of holy character and final acceptance. It is not enough to know these lofty teachings or even to approve them. There is no power in poor human nature to fulfill them. The law of Christ, like the law of Moses, is but a mirror to reveal us to ourselves, not a fountain to cleanse us. For this we must go to Christ Himself. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not final but preparatory. It leads us up to Christ, but we must follow until we get there; and then from His indwelling light and His enabling Spirit, get the power to make this picture a living reality in our own experience. The great Teacher did not stop with the Sermon on the Mount. He has led us all the way to Calvary and Pentecost, and now, resting upon His finished work and His indwelling life and power, we can sing in a sense which the saints of the Old Testament could never know: On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.