Matthew 5

CHAPTER V

V

Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, Chapters 5–7

In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, of course, presents an example of Christ’s teaching. For that matter, he presents various other examples in the course of his Gospel. This sermon is more. It presents the entire life in the kingdom, from the first entrance into the kingdom here on earth to the final consummation of the kingdom in the last judgment. Only when this comprehensive nature of the sermon is perceived will its true greatness be perceived and the propriety of Matthew’s placing this sermon in the forefront of his Gospel.

The Sermon on the Mount could not have been preached at the opening of Christ’s ministry in Galilee. Its entire contents, as well as the account of the circumstances connected with its delivery, point to the height of Christ’s ministry as the time of the delivery. Those who call this sermon Christ’s “inaugural,” “his introductory address,” “the revelation of his Messianic plans,” are led to this view by the prominent place given to this sermon by Matthew’s Gospel but do not take into account the entire plan of Matthew’s composition. When this sermon was preached, the Twelve had already been appointed apostles, and many others had become Jesus’ disciples. The sermon is addressed to them. The multitudes who also heard it are secondary.

These crowds were to hear and to know what the true disciples of Christ really possessed and what their lives in the kingdom would henceforth be. In this way, and only in this way, the sermon opened the door of the kingdom to the crowds, showed them what was inside, and bade them to enter and to join those already inside.

The Sermon on the Mount has often been regarded as law and not as gospel. Jesus is thought of as expounding the true sense of the law over against the shallow and perverted exposition of the Jewish scribes and rabbis, doing again the work of Moses because the Jews had lost the true understanding of Moses. But it would be an astounding thing for Christ to do this, and it would be equally astounding for Matthew to place three chapters of law in the forefront of his Gospel. This conception is due to the fact that the theme of the sermon and the hearers to whom it is addressed are not properly understood. The Beatitudes are pure gospel; the hearers particularly addressed in 5:11–16 are by Jesus himself characterized as true disciples of his, and the entire sermon is directed to them. The body of the sermon deals with the life of these true disciples and employs the law only as the Regel or rule by which they live and prove themselves to be true disciples.

The Sermon on the Mount is the counterpart to the address on the last judgment, 25:31–46, in which works are decisive both for those on the right and those on the left: works as evidence for the presence of faith, and other works as evidence for its absence. The sermon speaks of the works the disciples are to do in the power of the gospel and of faith, and the discourse on the judgment of the works the disciples have done and the ungodly have not done. In the sermon gospel and law are properly combined, and the gospel is the fundamental content.

Although it would be exegetically quite essential to outline the structure of the sermon, few attempt to do so. The following outline may serve:

Introduction (5:3–16): The blessed children of the kingdom—who they are—how they are blessed of God, despised of men, invaluable as salt and light to the world.

The theme lies in verses 17–20.

The Children of the Kingdom in the Righteousness that is theirs

I.The law is in their hearts and thus controls their conduct (5:21–48). This is developed concretely by examples from the law and personally from the disciples as followers of Christ.

II.The Father is before their eyes, and thus they are freed from hypocrisy (6:1–34). This is developed by examples from the religious life of the disciples in the same concrete and personal way (observe how “Father” runs through the chapter).

III.The judgment is their warning, and thus they attain the kingdom above (7:1–23). The development is by personal admonitions with the judgment as the background.

Conclusion: The transparent figure of the wise and the foolish builder, applying to the entire sermon and to all its hearers.

Matthew 5:1

1 Now when he saw the multitudes he went up into the mountain; and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, etc. Neither time nor place are specified. While we may be interested in both, Matthew’s Jewish readers should have their whole attention centered on the substance of the sermon. So the preliminaries are brief: only a transitional δέ, the multitudes, the disciples, and what we may gather from the sermon. From Luke 6:12, etc., we learn that Jesus had chosen the Twelve as apostles, that other disciples were present in addition to a great concourse of people.

The sermon itself presupposes a degree of advancement on the part of the disciples. Only in v. 20 does it refer to entering the kingdom, a word that was evidently intended for those who had not yet entered. In v. 12 it refers to the Twelve, associating them with the prophets of old; and in v. 19 it distinguishes between the teachers who shall be least and those that shall be great in the kingdom. According to Luke, Jesus went up into the mountain the night before and retired for prayer. It was in the morning, just after the Twelve had been chosen, that Jesus chose a spot where all could see and hear him, a large level place between the heights or along the mountainside, and there began his teaching, ἐδίδασκεν, the ingressive imperfect, R. 885.

“The mountain,” with its Greek article, is best taken to refer to the one right at hand, R. 756. The expression is similar to our “into the woods,” “into the field,” when we have no special woods or field in mind. Yet some stress the article: “the New Testament Sinai,” “the mount of sacred history,” but this stress refers to what the sermon now to be preached made of this mountain. The locality seems to have been near Capernaum; late tradition takes it to be the Horns of Hattin.

“The multitudes,” with its Greek article, points back to 4:25, and thus strengthens the inference that the sermon was spoken at the height of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. It was customary for teachers, and for preachers to sit cross-legged while speaking, the hearers assuming the same position. The writer saw a speaker sitting thus on a raised platform in a mosque in Damascus in 1925, another in the mosque of the dervishes in Constantinople, the hearers in each case sitting on the floor. The word μαθηταί means more than pupils or learners, namely those who have learned, who have imbibed their master’s spirit. They may still learn, but what they have already learned is what makes them “disciples.”

Matthew 5:2

2 “Having opened his mouth” is the common Hebrew expression pithach peh and is here added to mark the impressiveness of the occasion. The imperfect “began to teach” invites us, too, as we read, to follow this teaching.

The Introduction and the Theme

Matthew 5:3

3 Blessed the beggarly in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. The Beatitudes read like a Psalm; μακάριοι at once recalls the ’ashre of Ps. 1:1. “Blessed!” intoned again and again, sounds like bells of heaven, ringing down into this unblessed world from the cathedral spires of the kingdom inviting all men to enter. The word, like its opposite οὐαί, “woe,” is neither a wish regarding a coming condition, nor a description of a present condition, but a judgment pronounced upon the persons indicated, stating that they must be considered fortunate. The form is almost exclamatory: “O the blessedness of those who,” etc.! And it is Jesus who renders this judgment, which is, therefore, absolutely true although all the world may disagree. Each of the eight judgments is at once established by revealing in what the blessedness actually consists; and the eighth judgment is even doubled, and its blessedness is unveiled in two strong statements.

All this blessedness is spiritual, each part of it coming from the great Messianic kingdom, true soul-blessedness, a rich possession now but with a glorious promise of still greater riches—the very opposite of the word’s happiness which is poisoned already in the bud and soon blasted forever. “Blessed” means joy for those concerned. But this is the heavenly way: the great gifts of the kingdom are ours, insuring a constant flow of joy, so that, even if for a moment we be sad and sorrowful, the joy will again well up in our hearts. John 15:11.

The word πτωχός is derived from a verb which signifies cringing, crouching like a beggar. (M.-M. 559). It is stronger than “poor,” it is “cringingly, beggarly poor.” We do not regard the added dative as a locative, R. 523, as naming the place where this crouching takes place; nor is it instrumental as R. 523 maintains against B.-D.; but as B.-D. 197 says, a dative of relation: “beggarly poor with respect to the spirit,” or, imitating Luther’s rendering in v. 8: die armen Geistes sind (Zahn); like ‘ani unekeh ruach in Isa. 66:2: “But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” The poverty here referred to is not one against which the will rebels but one under which the will bows in deep submission. It is more than a state or condition, it is also an attitude of the soul over against God. It is the attitude that grows out of the profound realization of utter helpnessness and beggary as far as any ability or possession of self are concerned. These wretched beggars bring absolutely nothing to God but their complete emptiness and need and stoop in the dust for pure grace and mercy only. This is the condition and attitude of true repentance preached by the Baptist and by Jesus as basic for all who would come to God and to his kingdom. The disciples had attained it, and the Twelve gave the special evidence in that they forsook all and followed Jesus, looking to him and receiving from him alone.

The astonishing thing is that Jesus should pronounce people such as this “blessed,” fortunate in the highest degree. Pharisees, Sadducees, and the world generally would do the very opposite. But the coin of all such is counterfeit, never passes with God, who accepts no coin from men but only beggars’ empty hearts and hands. And thus it is not at all astonishing that such beggars, stooping before God, are “blessed.” “For theirs is the kingdom of the heavens,” “theirs” in the sense of “theirs alone,” barring out all others who come before God with a different attitude.

The text reads: “is” = is now; yet some interpreters would tell us that this refers to a future possession because the following verses have future tenses. But how about v. 10? Others make the copula timeless and refer to the Aramaic where the copula is omitted, and they consider “the kingdom” eschatologic: “the world as it will be when it has again become God’s in the regenerated world of the future.” But this is contrary to all that the gospel reveals concerning God. He feeds and satisfies the poor, Luke 1:53; he does it the instant they come to him and does not only promise future bread; we are to eat now, and we do eat the Bread of Life, possess the treasures of the kingdom. For the kingdom which the Baptist and Jesus proclaimed as being at hand is “within you,” Luke 17:21, an actual present possession. Christ’s kingdom is one of grace and glory combined; the grace is now here, the glory has not yet been revealed, 1 John 3:2.

“Kingdom” (compare the exposition in 3:2) must not be taken in the sense of an outward realm as we speak of earthly kingdoms, thinking of land and of people. This “kingdom of the heavens” centers in the King, Jesus Christ, and in the powers of grace, might, and glory that go out from him. Where he is, there the kingdom is because there he exercises grace and power. The rich and proud in spirit resist that exercise as it would work in and over them for salvation. The poor in spirit cry out for that exercise of saving grace and help. It is impossible that the King should let them go on crying—he at once fills their hands and their hearts.

Whatever he may have in store for them in the future, already now he has a vast abundance. Thus the poor in spirit become rich toward God, Luke 12:21. Their royal riches consist in Christ’s grace, pardon, adoption, sanctification, “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” Eph. 1:3. Not that these gifts now end the attitude of the beggarly in spirit, so that this term no longer describes them. The case is this: as long as we live in this world of sin and in spite of all grace “sin daily,” so long our poor hands are stretched out to God’s grace in Christ, daily receiving grace for grace. And the flow of God’s rich grace goes out and can go out to us only as long as we keep that attitude to which God himself has brought us and in which his grace works to keep us.

Thus the kingdom is ours now, and, being ours, in its progress it will bring us all that God still has laid up for us.

Matthew 5:4

4 Blessed they that are mourning; for just they shall be consoled. This second pronouncement is as paradoxical as the first. The verb denotes loud mourning such as the lament for the dead or for a severe, painful loss. The sorrow for our sins in true contrition should not be excluded from this mourning. Do our sins inflict no loss upon us? Do they not rob us of what is dearer than relatives, money, or other goods?

Instead of excluding sorrow for sin, this is the chief part of the lament. But, of course, we must include all other grief and sorrow due to the power of sin in the world as this inflicts blows, losses, and pain upon the godly. It includes every wrong done us, as well as every painful consequence of our own wrongdoing. It is almost self-evident that this mourning is not like that of the world which howls loud enough when its sins find it out: “but the sorrow of the world worketh death,” 2 Cor. 7:10.

Behind this sorrow of the godly lies the recognition of the merciless power of sin and of our helplessness to ward it off and to escape. Hence this mourning is a constant cry to God in their distress. The substantivized participle is the present tense and thus characterizes the godly as mourning constantly. As far as contrition is concerned, let us keep in mind the first of Luther’s famous 95 Theses, that our entire life must be a continuous contrition and repentance. As far as other sorrows are concerned, “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” Acts 14:22; in fact, all the passages that speak of tribulation belong here. God’s people are, indeed, a mournful lot!

But how can they be called blessed, emphatic αὐτοί, “they, just they,” “they alone”? Because they are the only ones who “shall be consoled.” The passive implies that God is their consoler. And this is a future tense. Chiliasts interpret: “shall be consoled in the glorious earthly Messianic Millennium, when all the forces of evil are crushed, when all the Christians shall at last be triumphant.” Until that time these mourners must remain comfortless save for the prospect of that distant comfort. But Christ says, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you,” John 14:18; and when he came, we read, “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord,” John 20:20. No; this chiliastic comfort kingdom is but a mirage.

The future tense is future to the mourning: the comfort always at once follows the mourning. Remember the “little while” in John 16:16. The greatest of all comfort is the absolution pronounced upon every contrite mourning sinner. Without this all other comfort is vain. And in tribulation God’s Word, God’s deliverance and help, God’s support, cheer and uplift us as nothing else could so. Finally, God’s promises of future deliverance from all evil in the heavenly kingdom of glory fill us with abounding comfort.

As our mourning rises unto God in this vale of sin and tears, so his constant comfort flows down to us. Thus we who mourn are of all men most blessed, for we, indeed, are comforted.

Matthew 5:5

5 Blessed the meek; for just they shall inherit the earth. The best commentary is Ps. 37; note v. 11. “The meek” are the mild, gentle, patient. The word refers to an inward virtue exercised toward persons. When they are wronged or abused they show no resentment and do not threaten or avenge themselves. The opposite are the vehement, bitter, wild, and violent. Jesus is the greatest example of meekness.

The paradox is again startling, the fact that people of this kind “shall inherit the earth.” Jesus does not say, “the new earth,” yet many regard his word as a reference to the millennial earth or to Rev. 21:1. And Jesus says “shall inherit,” namely with Christ, the heir of all the earth. This lot is theirs in accordance with their Lord’s will and testament. Read Ps. 37: the wicked shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb—evildoers shall be cut off—yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be—and so the story of the wicked goes on. There is not much inheriting of this earth according to the Psalm. But look at the ‘anavim (also in Isa. 61:1), “the meek.” Jesus is merely repeating Ps. 37:11, 22.

They are cautioned not to vex themselves when the wicked grow haughty and appear mighty and great. They may suffer, but the divine blessing constantly follows them also in this life and on this earth. It will not do to say that the temporal blessings promised to Israel in the old covenant are not to be regarded as being promised also to those living in the new covenant. The Christian Church has fared even better than Israel fared. The idea that in the Psalm “earth” signifies Canaan and thus the heavenly Canaan in Jesus’ beatitude, is specious; for Jesus indicates no difference of this kind. It will always be true (v. 16): “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked,” for his little has God’s blessing, and their much God’s curse.

Our meekness, however, often shines by its absence; our covetousness, pride, and other faults necessitate God’s discipline, who always follows higher aims that reach beyond temporalities. Chemnitz writes that God lets his children find a little nest on the house that is intended entirely for them. Luther agrees that this beatitude adds the promise of “temporal life and goods on earth.”

Matthew 5:6

6 Blessed those hungering and thirsting for righteousness; for they shall be filled. In verses 5, 6 the order is the same as in the Lord’s Prayer: first the Fourth Petition for bread, then the Fifth for forgiveness of sins. Hunger and thirst are very commonly used to express strong spiritual desires and needs. Both participles are durative present tenses, for this hungering and thirsting continues and, in fact, increases in the very act of being satisfied. Daily we cry for forgiveness, and daily God satisfies us. We are blessed just because our hunger and our thirst continue. If they should cease, Jesus could no longer pronounce us blessed because he could no longer satisfy us. Perfectionism finds no support here.

“Righteousness,” δικαιοσύνη, is one of the cardinal terms of the gospel, fundamental for the entire Scriptures. It is the quality of one who is pronounced “righteous” by the eternal Judge according to his norm of right. The term is always forensic. Always back of it stands the divine Judge and his judgment bar; always it embodies his judicial verdict of acquittal. No man, however wise and powerful, has ever discovered a way to turn a guilty, sinful soul into a righteous one. Men justify and declare themselves righteous, but this amounts to no more than the criminal’s denial of his crime and never stands before the court which has the full evidence of his guilt.

But what is beyond all human ability is brought about by Christ who by his holy life and sacrificial death met the demands of God’s norm of right, met them in our stead and now transfers his perfect righteousness to us through faith and thus wins our pardon and acquittal before the divine judgment bar. “Righteousness” cannot here mean the power of right in human affairs in the world of men generally; for the passive “shall be filled” denotes a gift of God to certain persons, rendering them “righteous” in his sight. It cannot denote a virtue, the so-called acquired righteousness, when men live righteously and do what is right. The passive verb shuts out also this. This word cannot be translated “goodness.” Δικαιοσύνη is never ἀγαθωσύνη. On δίκαιος‚ δικαιοσύνη, and δικαιόω see C.-K. 296, 311, 317, and learn once for all that these terms and other derivatives in both Testaments and elsewhere, in both secular and religious uses, are never anything but forensic, a verdict pronouncing righteous.

“Shall be filled” is again future, the verb matching the figure of hunger and thirst. But this is not a distant future in a supposed millennium or in heaven but one that at once feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty. The moment faith in Christ is wrought, at that moment righteousness is declared without even the interval of a second. And ever and ever as we yearn to be righteous in God’s judgment, his Word in a thousand places declares us so. With these declarations, all of them advance pronouncements of the final verdict at the last day, every contrite and believing sinner can satisfy and fill his soul. The verb χορτάζω is strong.

It is used to express the feeding and fattening of cattle with fodder and grain and men with abundance of food. He who is daily fed with Christ’s righteousness is blessed indeed!

Matthew 5:7

7 Blessed the merciful; for just they shall be treated mercifully. The first four beatitudes look toward God, the next three toward men. These treat of three virtues which mark the godly as blessed. “The merciful” are, of course, the same persons as those referred to in the previous beatitudes. Luther well says that in all the beatitudes faith is presupposed as the tree on which all the fruit of blessedness grows. This, then, is not mere natural mercy as it is occasionally found among men generally but the mercy growing out of our personal experience of the mercy of God. God’s mercy toward us always makes us likewise merciful, 18:21, etc.

The noun ἔλεος and its derivatives always deal with what we see of pain, misery, and distress, these results of sin; and χάρις‚ “grace,” always deals with the sin and guilt itself. The one extends relief, the other pardon; the one cures, heals, helps, the other cleanses and reinstates. With God χάρις is always first and ἔλεος second.

The agent back of the passive “shall be treated mercifully” is again God, and again the future means at once as we show mercy. In this future tense we ought to see the impossibility of a reference to the hereafter. There will be no misery there and thus no possibility of merciful treatment on the part of God. God first makes us merciful and then even blesses us for being merciful. This beatitude has stimulated God’s people to do all manner of eleemosynary work. It is well known how absolutely bare of even the idea of mercy many heathen religions are.

The mercy of unchristian men about us, such as it is, disjoined from Christ, relieving only physical distress, is one of the indirect results of Christianity, never an outgrowth of the natural heart as such. The fearful cruelty which slumbers in the unregenerate heart, when occasion brings it out, is often appalling, and its worst feature is “man’s cruelty to man.”

Matthew 5:8

8 Blessed the pure in heart; for just they shall see God. Some regard “the pure in heart” as a reference to sanctification, either in the wider sense (pardon plus good works) or in the narrower (good works); although only perfectionists think of complete sinlessness or “total sanctification.” The Beatitudes are a perfect chain not a loose aggregation. Placed between mercy to our fellow-men and peacemaking, purity in heart must denote a single virtue. A glance into the Old Testament shows us the bar lebab, the exact counterpart to καθαρὸςτῇκαρδία in Ps. 24:4; compare 73:1; Gen. 20:5, 6; and then 1 Tim. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:22; 1 Pet. 1:22, and Zahn’s conclusion is evident: “pure in heart” = sinceritas, singleness of heart, the honesty which has no hidden motive, no selfish interest, and is true and open in all things. Nothing is lost by thus specifying this virtue, for it is possible only in a heart that is justified and sanctified by God.

As the virtue, so the reward of grace: “just they shall see God.” Whatever may be said regarding seeing God in his Word by faith and regarding seeing him spiritually in communion with him in this life, “shall see God” must here be the visio Dei in the other world, promised to the glorified saints, 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2, 3. Between God who is pure and the pure in heart (the dative as in v. 3) an affinity exists, the consummation of which is reached in heaven. The greatest joy of heaven will be the vision of God. We need not think of looking into the unfathomable essence of God; for as God’s presence delights the angel hosts and fills them with ineffable blessedness, so his presence will be made manifest to the pure in heart. Blessedness will flood them like light in the beatific vision of the All-pure.

Matthew 5:9

9 Blessed the peacemakers; for just they shall be called God’s sons. Compare Eph. 4:3; Rom. 14:19; 1 Cor. 14:33; Heb. 12:14; etc. At peace with God and thus themselves filled with sweet peace, they live in peace, if possible, with all men and work to keep and to make peace wherever peace is threatened or lost. Theirs is the work of true Christians who follow in the footsteps of the Prince of Peace. Nor is this “peace at any price,” which ignores confessional principles and is unwilling to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). These are not unionistic peacemakers who combine contrary doctrines by agreeing to disagree.

Truth of God comes first, peace with men second. Friends are dear, the Word of our greatest Friend dearest. No “blessed” was spoken by Jesus upon the disrupters of the church who insist on their false views, nor upon those who regard the peace and the fellowship of their brother-confessors as being of slight value, so that they may run after other fellowships. The true peace of the church is a blessed possession, we cannot guard it too closely. Contentious, stubborn, obstreperous church members—this beatitude ought to make them impossible. Also in the world, wherever strife arises, the followers of Christ work for peace in the spirit of their Master.

The passive “shall be called” implies “by God,” for he alone can bestow the title “God’s sons” in truth and in reality. Here, too, the future tense means that God shall call them his sons now when they prove their relation to him by their peacemaking. Chiliasts again think of their future mirage kingdom, and others of the world to come. “God’s sons, υἱοί, shall they be called; the title is not τέκνα, “children.” The latter carries rather the connotation of tender affection, the former that of dignity and high standing. Hence also “they shall be called” God’s sons; this high distinction shall be accorded to them, and by God himself. God himself shall own them as sons of his. He who sent his Son to make peace between God and man will acknowledge as his sons those who in the spirit of his Son also make peace.

Matthew 5:10

10 Strange to say and a general paradox to all the designations of the godly thus far used, in particular also of the last, peacemakers, these people, loving and working for peace, shall themselves be accorded the opposite of peace in this warring world. Blessed they that have allowed themselves to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness; for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. Blessed are you whenever they shall revile you and persecute and say everything wicked against you by lying, for my sake. Rejoice and exult; for your reward is great in the heavens; for thus they did persecute the prophets before you.

In this final beatitude “blessed” occurs twice, but the second is evidently only a repetition and thus marks an emphatic conclusion of the entire line of the beatitudes. This full elaboration of the final beatitude casts a special glamour over it, making one welcome persecution when it comes. Come it will as the Lord here intimates. In the previous beatitudes present participles are used, only here we have a perfect participle and that passive. It cannot here be equal to a present: “are persecuted” (A. V.), and it seems to be more than just the ordinary perfect passive: “have been persecuted.” In all the previous beatitudes the designations indicate more than just inflictions, they show an inner attitude.

This seems to be the case with regard to δεδιωγμένοι. This passive perfect may be regarded as permissive: “who have allowed themselves to be persecuted,” or: “have endured persecution.” The idea is that they did not flee from it but willingly submitted to it when it came to them. Thus the perfect tense is explained; they held out under persecution and are now people of this kind, martyrs who have stood firm in just trials.

They endured “for the sake of righteousness,” ἕνεκενδικαιοσύνης, the same term that was used in v. 6, and it has the same forensic sense. It is God who as the great Judge pronounces his verdict upon them and thus accords them the quality of righteousness. These are true believers and as such righteous in God’s eyes. They confess their faith and live up to it in their lives and thus prove obnoxious to the world which visits persecution upon them. “For the sake of righteousness” thus means more than that they suffered innocently, although this, too, is included. They suffered because of what they were in their character and their lives, for the divine approval that rested upon them. God adjudged them righteous, the world, in flagrant opposition to God, adjudged them abominable. Because their whole character and their life, as approved of God, constituted a standing rebuke to the world, indicating God’s judicial disapproval of the character and the life of the world, the world turned against them and thus persecuted them.

Having stood firm under the test of persecution in the righteousness they attained by God’s grace, their great blessedness is that “theirs is the kingdom of the heavens,” all the grace, gifts, and glory that go with the rule of the Messiah and King. See the exposition of 3:2. Whatever the world may take from them is more than made up by this heavenly possession which no one can take from them. To have Christ and all that Christ bestows by his kingdom and rule is more than life, liberty, or earthly goods.

Matthew 5:11

11 The fact that this is still the same beatitude although “blessed” is repeated is evident from the applicatory second person which is now used and from the description of the persecution just mentioned. “Blessed are you” shows how the disciples are to apply all these beatitudes, although they are couched in the third person, to themselves, including in particular the last. The intimation in ὅταν, “whenever,” is that many cases of the kind now specified will occur. The three plural verbs have indefinite subjects: “whenever they shall revile you,” etc. No need to say who is referred to. They are the enemies of Jesus and his disciples who oppose the kingdom. The three aorists express actuality.

Men will actually “revile” the disciples, upbraid them with violent language; “persecute” or inflict injury upon them; and ever afterward “will say everything wicked against you” whenever they mention you. These certainly are painful inflictions. Two important modifiers are added: ψευδόμενοι “by lying,” for which we should use an adverb: “falsely,” and ἕνεκενἐμοῦ, “for my sake.” These two modifiers expand what the phrase “for the sake of righteousness” contains, namely the innocence of the disciples and the real cause of this persecution, their adherence to Jesus and to his teaching. On this subject Jesus spoke fully to his disciples at various times and especially on the night before his death, John 15:18, etc. Jesus never held out any false prospects to his followers.

Matthew 5:12

12 Instead of grieving and lamenting in view of this persecution or under the distress it inflicts, Jesus tells his disciples to “rejoice and exult.” The two imperatives are durative: their gladness is never to leave them, no matter what they are called on to endure. An example of how the Twelve lived up to this injunction is found in Acts 5:41: “rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame (v. 40, beating) for his name”; add all the painful experiences of Paul and the martyrdom of so many. “Rejoice” is not enough, “exult” or “skip and shout for joy,” ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, is added.

At once the adequate reason for the rejoicing under such circumstances is added: “for your reward is great in the heavens.” This μισθός is “pay,” but never in the sense of something earned by works or sufferings of ours but as something unearned and freely bestowed by grace by the generous hand of God (19:29). For he is ever a God who will let no man do a thing for him and for his Son unless he reward it with an abundance that comports with his own greatness and glory. This “pay” is “great,” not according to our merit, which does not exist, but according to him who bestows it beyond any merit of ours. It is “in the heavens,” laid up for us there like a wonderful capital drawing interest, to be paid out to us in due time. It consists, not in salvation, which becomes ours by faith before we ever do or suffer anything for Christ’s sake, but in the greater glory that shall be ours in heaven.

With γάρ an explanation is added: “for thus they did persecute the prophets before you,” namely in the old dispensation. Here Jesus points to the most illustrious martyrs of the past (23:34, etc.), so many of whom gave up even their lives for God. He ranges the Twelve and his other disciples alongside of these prophets. In one and in only one way may we join this most illustrious company in heaven: by joyfully suffering persecution for Christ’s sake. Beyond question the highest glory in heaven belongs to the martyred prophets, and next to them stand in due order all others who in their various stations suffered for Christ. Not in spite of our persecutions are we to rejoice, but because of our persecutions.

The wounds and hurts are medals of honor. They attest that we belong to Christ not to the world. In war promotion is rapid, and the war for Christ never ceases. 2 Tim. 4:7, 8. Yet, so many are afraid of a few scars for his sake.

The Beatitudes are not a string but a circle or circlet, for the last, like the first, bestows the whole kingdom. All are paradoxical but strikingly true. Together they cover the whole life of the Christian, the first four in regard to God, the second four in regard to men. The main features of life are selected and combined in a grand whole. From the second to the seventh pertinent parts of the kingdom are assured, but no disciple who has such a part can have it without having the whole. Yet, whatever our experience in the disciple life—for that experience the kingdom has a corresponding blessing.

Matthew 5:13

13 The Beatitudes (v. 3–10) are objective. Only the two applicatory verses 11, 12 are subjective. But when Jesus now turns from our relation to God (the Beatitudes) to our relation to the world (v. 13–16), his words are subjective. The transition to this second relation is made in the last beatitude, which, therefore, also received a subjective turn in v. 11, 12. First God’s blessing to us (v. 3–12), now through and by us blessing for the world (v. 13–16). You alone are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt become insipid, with what shall it again be turned into salt? For nothing is it good any longer except, thrown outside, to be trodden under foot by men. The strong emphasis on ὑμεῖς‚ which is placed forward for that reason, has the force of “you—you alone,” i.e., Christ’s disciples. The predicate, too, has the article, τὸἅλας‚ which implies that subject and predicate are identical and convertible, so that we may say, “The salt of the earth are you.” R. 768. The effort is made to limit “you” to the apostles and in connection with them to the called pastors of the church, but neither the text nor the circumstances nor the nature of the subject justify such a limitation. All believers who possess what the Beatitudes bestow by that bestowal are made the salt of the earth.

“Are” states a fact, which justifies those editors who accent ἐστέ. In preaching this is often made an admonition, “ought to be.” But the admonition would be far stronger if the incontrovertible fact were stressed that all believers are salt; their very faith makes them salt, and if they are not salt they are not believers. Much has been said regarding “salt,” its use in Jewish sacrifices, Lev. 2:13; Ezek. 43:24; Mark 9:49; in binding covenants, Num. 18:19; 2 Chron. 13:5; Elisha purifying the water of Jericho with salt, 2 Kings 2:21; a pinch of salt placed into the child’s mouth in connection with baptism; the Arab holding inviolate him with whom he had eaten salt. Commentators waver between the single use of salt in counteracting corruption or the double use of doing this and also rendering food palatable. In Christ’s word the tertium comparationis is a unit idea not a duality. The thought of making the world palatable to God is quite impossible.

All that Christ has in mind with the figure of salt is that his disciples check the moral corruption of the world, so that it does not quickly perish in its own moral rottenness. This figure by no means exhausts our function in the world, even also as other figures at once follow. The world would prefer that we were honey instead of salt (Besser). The caution is needed that salt is not a food.

“The salt of the earth,” like, “the light of the world,” has a universal sweep, it extends far beyond mere Judaism. All the earth is referred to, and “earth” because earth is correlated with corruption as in the funeral liturgy: “earth to earth.” “World” suggests darkness. The thought is tremendous that we believers should be such salt. This is due to the fact that Christ and the kingdom dwell in us, changing our inward nature and working not only in us but also through us in blessing for the whole earth.

“If the salt becomes insipid,” with ἐάν, contemplates expected cases, so that salt may actually lose its saltness, μωρανθῇ, becoming μωρόν or tasteless, ἄναλον, unsalty, Mark 9:50. Remote cases are often cited to show that in olden times natural salt, when procured in an impure state, mixed with other chemicals, might thus actually lose its power and become unsalty. This sort of proof is deemed necessary on the assumption that Jesus would not use a figure taken from anything that does not actually occur in nature. But the assumption is untenable: Jesus does use such figures. Who lights a lamp and then sets it under a bushel? What father would send his son as did the one mentioned in 21:37?

Where is the lord who would reward his servants as did the one in the parable of the Talents and in that of the Pounds? These impossible figures serve to bring out most strikingly the reality Jesus intends to picture. Let us acknowledge the fact that Jesus used figures with a mastery that goes beyond all “good writers.” The very idea of salt losing its saltness! But that is what happens in the case of Christians, the spiritual salt of the earth. The fact that Jesus is using as a figure something that is impossible in nature is shown by the question: “With what shall it again be turned into salt?” “There is no salt of salt,” Jansen. Once the saltiness is gone out of salt, nothing can again restore the saltness to that salt.

Both ideas are beyond nature—salt losing its saltiness and having it restored. Yet Jesus here speaks of both as though men had actually found the former and tried the latter. The Christian who loses his faith and thus his wholesome effect upon the world is worse than the man who never had faith.

All that can be done with saltless salt is to throw it out of the house into the road, for men to tread it under foot. The εἰμή clause has no verb, this being supplied from ἰσχύει. There is something contemptuous in both the passive aorist participle βληθέν, the worthless stuff “thrown outside,” and in the present infinitive καταπατεῖσθαι, “to be constantly trodden down” by the men who walk the street. The figure is that of judgment which begins now. As bad as it is never to enter the kingdom, to be thrown out of it is still worse. “Think of the solemn fulfillment of this word in the case of dead churches of the Orient which have literally been trodden under the foot of the servants of the crescent; think of the terrible judgments that have come upon European Christian nations.” Pank. There is bitter truth also in the fact that a saltless and powerless Christianity makes more unbelievers than all the books of infidels that were ever written. “Have salt in yourselves!” Mark 9:50.

Matthew 5:14

14You alone are the light of the world. A city lying on top of a mountain cannot be hidden. Ὑμεῖς as in v. 13: “you alone of all men.” In the supreme sense Christ is the light of the world, John 8:12; 9:5; 12:35; Isa. 49:6; 60:1. The antithesis of light is darkness, John 1:5; Eph. 6:12; Isa. 9:2, etc. In a secondary sense Christians are the light of the world; Christ immediately, they mediately; he the original, they the derived; he the sun, they the moon reflecting light. See this relation in John 8:12; 12:36; 1 Thess. 5:5. We have the same derivation of light from Christ in the figure of the lamp, which does not light itself.

Salt is for corruption, light is for darkness. Substantially both are the same, but formally one points to foulness (1 John 5:19; Gal. 5:19–21; Rom. 1:23–32), the other to ignorance, blindness, and folly (Eph. 4:18; 2 Thess. 2:10; Matt. 24:11) As the Christians oppose and overcome the foulness around them, so they oppose and drive out the falseness. All this they do through the Christ who is in them through Word and Sacrament.

“A city lying on top of a mountain” is the first auxiliary illustration, bringing out fully the point that a light must shine out afar. But the figure is now broadened. The plural ὑμεῖς does not refer merely to so many individuals, each operating for himself. They all form a grand, united whole, like a city, which at once calls to mind Ps. 48:2; 87:3: “Mount Zion, the city of the great King,” “O city of God.” The figure is concise but it pictures a safe place which, with its protecting towers and walls, is visible for many miles around, to which men may flee from the dangerous wilderness round about. Everybody can see it on top of its mountain; all can find refuge there.

Matthew 5:15

15 Neither do they light a lamp and set it under the peck measure but on the lampstand, and it shines for all in the house. The plurals are indefinite; “they,” anybody. “The lamp,” “the measure,” “the lampstand” are definite and denote these articles as they are found in the house. The figure of the lamp is the second auxiliary figure to that of the light. It emphasizes the point that a light is intended to light for somebody. The Christians as a body cannot be hid; they are like a city on top of a high hill. An individual Christian, however, may think of hiding his light and, in fact, may do so.

Hence this figure of the lamp and the peck measure. The former is a small receptacle for oil which is metal or earthenware, is provided with a wick and has a handle so that it may be carried from place to place. The λύχνος was regularly set upon the λυχνία provided for it, a slender stand, made of metal. Some old references have been hunted up which state that a μόδιον, a little smaller than our peck measure, was at times placed over a lighted lamp. But who lights a lamp in order to cover that lighted lamp? That would be ridiculous.

If the light is not wanted, the lamp is not lit, or the light is blown out. If the light is wanted, the lamp is lit and placed upon its stand. For what do you suppose Christ lighted us? To have us hidden from sight? No, but to act as a lamp (λάμπει) to all in the house.

Matthew 5:16

16 Thus let your light shine before men that they may see your excellent works and may glorify your Father in the heavens. Note the correlatives οὕτως … ὅπως (R. 710), which introduce the conclusion and the application. All the figures are now made plain by the introduction of the reality. If our faith is the light, our works of faith are the rays that radiate from that light We ourselves are the light even as the Baptist “was a burning and a shining light”; and yet, because our light is derived, we have the light: “he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” Luther reminds us especially of the confessional works of the first table of the law, “the three high commandments which refer to God’s honor, name, and Word,” not, of course, omitting the second table, the love to our neighbor with its many works. In our day of humanitarian works and “charity” and “a moral life” without Christ the chief works by which the faith of Christ’s disciples shines out and must shine out deserve especial attention: the acts of true Christian worship, the support of gospel preaching and teaching at home and afar, the stand against error and all anti-Christian and unchristian religious forces, the fearless confession of the divine truth, the loyalty to the principles of this truth under all circumstances, the readiness to bear ridicule, slander, loss, and persecution of all kinds for the sake of the faith and the truth of the Word. We all need the peremptory aorist command: λαμψάτω.

What lies in “the light of the world” is now brought out. In all these “excellent works” (τὰκαλὰἕργα) there dare never be self-glory, which would at once vitiate them all, but that men “may see” these works, whether they believe because of them or not, and “may glorify your Father in the heavens,” i.e., if possible, may be brought to that. The works wrought by the Word shine with a heavenly brightness in this dark world of sinful works; and this light will draw many to Christ, so that they, too, believe and thus give praise and glory to God, the Father, who sent Christ, and on their part join us in the same radiant works.

Matthew 5:17

17 After Jesus has described the blessed relation of his disciples to God in the Messianic kingdom, and, connecting with that (v. 11, 12), their great task of letting their blessedness shine out into the world in good works for God’s glorification, he is ready to announce the great theme of his sermon. This is nothing other than the Righteousness which the disciples must possess and display in the kingdom for the saving of the world. In presenting this great theme Jesus states most emphatically that all it contains is in absolute harmony with the entire Old Testament Scriptures but is likewise in glaring disharmony with the righteousness advocated and built up by the scribes and the Pharisees. It was highly necessary for Jesus to present his theme in this manner. The scribes and the Pharisees professed to be the genuine exponents of the Old Testament. When Jesus now contradicted them so completely in principle and in detail, the disciples were in danger of concluding that Jesus intended to abolish or at least to modify the Old Testament.

The exactly contrary was true. The righteousness Jesus sets forth as the essential of the kingdom contradicts that of the Pharisees just because it fulfills the Old Testament in reality and truth.

THEME:The Children of the Kingdom in the Righteousness that is theirs

Do not think that I came to abrogate the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abrogate but to fulfill. The aorist imperative does not imply that the disciples had such a thought, but it does emphatically forbid such a thought. R. 833 considers ἦλθον constative; it may be thus regarded “came” or “did come,” including Jesus’ entire mission. One of the common ways in which the Jews designated the Old Testament was, “The Law and the Prophets,” to which at times was added, “and the other Books.” Here the adversative “or” divides the Old Testament into two parts: “the Law” or Pentateuch; “the Prophets” or all the rest of the Old Testament. Jesus did not come to disturb or to set aside either of the two. All Jews knew that the Samaritans accepted only the Five Books of Moses and rejected the rest of the Old Testament.

Occasionally the opponents of Jesus had slanderously called him “a Samaritan.” Jesus, therefore, most emphatically proclaims his full adherence to the whole Old Testament canon. Let those note it well who think lightly of the Old Testament or question any part of the canon. Compare the Gospels and note the use which Jesus made of various utterances and portions of the Old Testament. It is one grand unit, all in perfect harmony, and the prophetic books substantiate and expound the Torah or Pentateuch.

The work and mission of Jesus is not “to abrogate,” καταλῦσαι (an effective aorist, R. 857), annul, or destroy, any part of the Old Testament because it is now useless and no longer to be respected by the disciples. The very contrary is true: Jesus came “not to abrogate but to fulfill.” No object is mentioned in the second statement although, of course, the Law and the Prophets are referred to. The whole stress is concentrated on the verbs; and “not to abrogate,” a negative, enhances the force of the positive “to fulfill,” πληρῶσαι, again an effective aorist, R. 834, and both infinitives denote purpose.

The verb “to fulfill” suggests the image of a vessel which is filled to the top. The vessel here referred to is the written Word, the Law and the Prophets; and this vessel is filled when what the Word records occurs. The mission of Jesus is to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, not partially, but in toto. His entire mission is embraced in the one word, πληρῶσαι, which, therefore, is used in the second statement without an object, in the absolute sense. When Jesus is through working, the whole Old Testament will be fulfilled. The meaning of the verb is altered when it is thought to signify “to complete,” as though by his teaching or his work Jesus is to finish what the Old Testament began.

The Old Testament is already complete, for it describes all that the Messiah and his kingdom will be. It needs no addition and should suffer no subtraction. The vessel needs no enlargement or alteration; all it awaits is to be filled full by what Jesus is and does. “To fulfill” does not mean “to develop,” as though the Old Testament contains only the germs or rudiments. In view of the exposition of various commandments (v. 21, etc.) “fulfill” cannot mean that the work of Jesus consists in adding the true spiritual exposition to the Old Testament commandments or teachings in general. For Jesus adds nothing new; he shows only what the Old Testament itself contains, and does this only because of the rabbinical perversions.

“To fulfill” cannot, as Luther and others think, be restricted to Christ’s teaching, just because Christ teaches in this sermon. It includes all for which Christ “did come,” even as the infinitive is wholly without a modifier. Another restriction is inserted when the prophecies concerning Christ are excluded from the fulfillment and only the requirements and the demands of the Old Testament are considered as the vessel that is to be filled. This restriction is based on the view that this sermon sets forth the righteousness required of us for membership in the kingdom. Christ is thought to teach us the good works (v. 16) that we must have. But this restriction of “to fulfill” is doubly specious.

In v. 17 Christ is not speaking of us but of himself. Twice he says ἦλθον, “I did come,” and all three infinitives have him as their subject. Any righteousness of ours, including all true good works, rests on him alone and on him as first having fulfilled all the Law and the Prophets. Every blessing of the Beatitudes flows from Christ and from what he did for us by his fulfillment. The moment this is overlooked the very heart of the sermon is lost; it then becomes nothing but a moral lecture, a new version of the old Pharisaic work-righteousness. Rationalism and modernism so regard the sermon, but their view cannot be accepted.

Our old dogmatical writers and the commentators who have learned from them are the ones who have really understood this sermon. They have seen that “to fulfill the Law and the Prophets” refers to the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, including the entire satisfactio with both the obedientia activa and passiva, Christ’s entire vicarious atonement, and in addition all that Christ will still do until the consummation of the kingdom is reached (1 Cor. 15:24; see the author’s exposition of this and the following verse in his commentary). Part of this grand fulfillment is Christ’s teaching regarding his own work, including that of his apostles, by his teaching and his Word enabling us to apprehend all that he has done for us, so that we may, indeed, appear righteous before God.

Matthew 5:18

18 For, amen, I say to you, until the heaven and the earth passes away, one iota or one particle of a letter shall in no wise pass away from the Law until all shall come to be. With γάρ Christ establishes the object of his mission to fulfill the Old Testament. Not one particle of the written Word will pass away without receiving its fulfillment. This statement Christ seals with “amen” and then with, “I say to you.” In the formula: “amen, I say to you,” “amen” is the seal of verity, “I say to you” the stamp of authority. “Amen” is the transliterated Hebrew word for “truth,” “verity,” an adverbial accusative in the Greek, ἀληθῶς, “verily.” In Hebrew it appears only at the end of a statement or an obligation like our liturgical Amen. “All search in Jewish literature has not brought to light a real analogy for the idiomatic use of the single or the double ἀμήν on the part of Jesus.” Zahn. This means the use at the beginning of the statement. The best one can say is that Jesus used the double “amen” when he spoke Aramaic just as John reports, and that when transcribing this into Greek, the synoptists deemed the single ἀμήν sufficient for their readers. The supposition that John’s double amen is intended to reproduce the sound of the Aramaic words for “I say” is unlikely and leaves unexplained why John still adds to the double amen the words: “I say to you.” The entire formula is always solemn and introduces only statements of great weight.

“Until the heaven and the earth passes away” means until the end of time. The verb in the singular regards “the heaven and the earth” as a totality, R. 405. The present sky and earth are referred to, but not an annihilation of both but rather a complete change, the heaven of God and the angels being joined to the heaven and the earth of man, Rev. 21:1–3. The subjunctive παρέλθῃ is the verb of the main clause, and οὐμή with a subjunctive or a future indicative is the strongest form of negation. Here the negation is a weighty litotes for the assertion: “shall most certainly stand.” The “iota” is the Hebrew “yod,” the tiniest letter, a mere little hook; the κεραία is a tiny projection which distinguishes a larger Hebrew letter from another that is otherwise quite similar. The expression that not a single iota or piece of a letter shall pass away is proverbial: not the smallest part of the written Old Testament shall fall away and be lost (ἰῶτακτλ., R.933, expressing God’s will). “The Law” refers to the Torah in the broader sense, namely, the entire Old Testament, for which the fuller term, “the Law and the Prophets,” was used in v. 17.

It is unwarranted to regard “the Law” as referring only to the legal requirements of the Old Testament, to something found in the Old Testament, a part of it. Every part of that old written Word shall stand, prophecy as well as command.

The first protasis with ἕωςἄν indicates only the time: “until the heaven and the earth passes away”; parallel with this, the second protasis with ἕωςἄν advances from the time to what shall occur during this time: “until all shall come to be” exactly as stated in the Old Testament, fulfilled by Christ in every detail. To the very end of time Christ’s work of fulfillment will extend, and when that end is reached, πάντα, “all things,” i.e., all that the Old Testament states, will have occurred. The kingdom will then have reached its consummation. There will be no need to ask about the written Word after that. The thought is not that it will then pass away. In the blessed hereafter no written Word will be needed.

And yet all that was written and that we now have in God’s writing will stand forever down to the last letter and portion of a letter. All of it will stand in the fulfillment Christ will have wrought: every prophecy concerning Christ down to the last judgment and the final glory of his kingdom; every divine requirement concerning us, wrought out by Christ in our final glorification down to our eternal glorification in his kingdom; even the letter of the Word concerning the wicked in their consignment to hell. This is what it means that Christ came “to fulfill.”

Any number of human plans, promises, resolutions, laws, and regulations prove abortive. Failing in their purpose, they are cast aside. Not so even the slightest word of God. It will attain whereunto it was spoken and written by God. Some of God’s words have already reached their complete purpose and fulfillment and now stand thus in both Testaments, for instance, all that was written about Christ’s redemptive work. Other words of God are still in process of fulfillment, for instance, what he has said about the church.

Still other words have not yet been fulfilled, for instance, those concerning the consummation. These still stand like empty vessels waiting for their contents to be poured into them. But eventually every written word of God will stand like a vessel that is filled to the brim. “Until all things come to be” will then be attained. Compare 1:22; 2:23; 3:3; 4:14, etc., showing how certain Old Testament words were fulfilled, these vessels receiving their contents. This answers the question regarding the ceremonial and ritual laws of the Jews. Their purpose was fully attained when Jesus ¦came.

Then, like vessels that were filled, they were set aside to stand thus forever. Nothing more could be put into them. The Old Testament, however, contains any number of words concerning the new covenant. These vessels are now being filled, and at the last day they, too, will be full to the brim and will stand thus forever.

Matthew 5:19

19 From himself and his own task of fulfillment Jesus now turns to his disciples and to their treatment of the words of God. Who, therefore, shall set aside one of the least of these requirements and shall teach men thus shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but who shall do and teach them, he alone shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. When speaking of the disciples Jesus cannot duplicate what he says regarding himself. He must of necessity limit the application to the ἐντολαί, “the requirements,” which God makes of us. This term, however, is more than the Mosaic or legal commandments contained in the Old Testament; it includes all that God asks of us as disciples, in particular also repentance (3:2; 4:17) and faith in the Messiah, and then, of course, also newness of life. Through his Word and his Spirit God enables us to meet “these requirements,” yet they are his ἐντολαί nonetheless. Through his power and his grace we meet them in a double way: do them and teach others to do them; in our own hearts and lives and in our teaching of others.

The two possibilities which Jesus contrasts are not the extremes: complete rejection of the requirements and full acceptance of them. This would apply only to non-disciples and disciples; to exclusion from the kingdom and inclusion. The contrast is far less, it is one so frequently found among those who are disciples. A disciple may “set aside one of the least of these requirements,” and here Jesus uses λύειν whereas in v. 17, when speaking of himself, he has the far stronger καταλύειν. We may “set aside” a word of God by our own ignorance, wrong interpretation, manipulation for selfish or other ulterior reasons, even by teaching others “thus,” i.e., to do the same, yet that fact would not in the least alter that word. In v. 17 the thought is expressed that Jesus as the Messiah might actually “abrogate” the Old Testament or part of it and do this in accord with God’s own will.

It is unwarranted to reduce what Jesus says regarding himself in v. 17, 18 to the level of what he says of the disciples in v. 19. Jesus is not considering our setting aside any of God’s requirements, for most of these are so vital that any disciple who did set them aside would cease to be a disciple and would forfeit the kingdom. He contemplates the setting aside “of one of the least of these requirements” contained in the Word. This means “least” in the objective and not merely in the subjective sense, i.e., least in our opinion. The idea that all the divine requirements are of the same importance, and that this is substantiated by what Jesus says about the iota and the part of a letter is untenable. Some requirements are supreme and essential; others, secondary; and still others, least.

To be sure, they all belong together and form a grand unit, and whoever sets aside even the least may progress in his wrong course and soon set aside some essential part; yet, for all that, “least” means “least” just as Jesus says.

Just as Jesus came to fulfill the entire Old Testament, so his true disciples will cling to its entire contents and to their fulfillment by Jesus, setting aside not even the least part. But if the wrong thing be done, nevertheless, the individual doing it “shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens” over against the one who does and teaches all the requirements and is therefore “called great in the kingdom of the heavens.” Back of the two passive κληθήσεται stands God himself. Men may applaud and call him great who in his foolish wisdom, by his practice and his teaching, sets aside one of these least requirements; they admire even those who set aside some of the essentials; but not so God. On the kingdom, etc., see 3:2; for already this passage shows that Jesus has in mind the kingdom as it is now present with us not merely eschatologically the kingdom of glory as it shall be at the end of the world. On this subject see 1 Cor. 3:11–15. Right here in the Christian Church God regards him great who does and teaches all that his will and his Word require and him least who sets aside even one of the least of the requirements of his will and his Word.

There is a warning in the word “least” and in the word “one.” For, if already he is least who cancels just “one of the least” requirements, how, then, does God rate him who tampers with several of these least requirements or with one or more that are higher? Those who regard “the kingdom” eschatologically think that “least” and “great” refer to the degrees of glory which shall be portioned out to us in heaven. Since Jesus has in mind the church on earth, “least” and “great” now apply to us. Yet it is true, in heaven the glory will be apportioned accordingly. Already here God calls us exactly what we are in relation to his will, Word, and kingdom, and will certainly do the same in heaven. Some deny the degrees of glory in heaven, but such degrees exist, even as hell also has its few and many stripes and even a nethermost part.

Matthew 5:20

20 The thought expressed in v. 20 should prevent us from letting γάρ prove or establish the ranking which God accords the different disciples in his kingdom. This γάρ merely elucidates and explains. Among the Jews the scribes and the Pharisees were regarded as those who most perfectly and completely taught and lived up to the will and the ἐντολαί of God as embodied in the Old Testament. The people looked up to them as being the very greatest in the kingdom, and they held the same high estimate concerning themselves. These estimates were, of course, wholly false, as Jesus will also show in detail in his sermon. The scribes and the Pharisees were the opposite of models for the disciples in meeting the will of God.

Hence the explanation: to be great, or to be even the least in the kingdom Christ’s disciples will have to surpass the scribes and the Pharisees by far. For I say to you, as the very King of this kingdom of the heavens, that unless your righteousness shall surpass by far that of the scribes and Pharisees, in no wise shall you enter into the kingdom of the heavens. There is but one article in the expression “the scribes and Pharisees” (see 2:4; 3:7). While it is true that the former were the acknowledged expounders and teachers of the Old Testament, and the latter the great Jewish party which professed to live up to the legal regulations of the Torah in the most scrupulous manner, here this distinction is not stressed. The two are regarded as one body, for the vital point in which they utterly failed was the attainment of the righteousness which in God’s judgment admits to the kingdom. The scribes retarded this attainment by their learning and their official teaching, and the Pharisees by the empty formalism with which they practiced this teaching.

The negation οὐμή with the subjunctive εἰσέλθητε (cf. v. 18) in the most decisive way bars out of the kingdom all whose righteousness is of the same nature as that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Some wish to make exceptions of men like Nicodemus and Gamaliel, but neither of these was in the kingdom. Jesus told the former that he had to be reborn before he could see the kingdom. The idea that the scribes and the Pharisees will be the least in the kingdom is mistaken; because of their type of righteousness they are and will remain outside of the kingdom. Δικαιοσύνη here has the same force that it has in v. 6; see the full exposition of that verse. The only difference lies in the genitive “your righteousness” in comparison with that of the scribes and Pharisees. Christ admits that the latter have a certain kind of righteousness; he tells the disciples that their righteousness must be of an entirely different kind if they expect to enter the kingdom.

It must “surpass” or be more abundant than that of the scribes and Pharisees. The adverb πλεῖον adds the idea of comparison: “by far,” magis quam, “more than.” In what respect the righteousness of the disciples must excel that of these Jews is not stated; the body of the sermon will fully show that. Luke 16:15 brings out the difference: “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” The formal, outward righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was adjudged righteousness by these men themselves but before the heavenly Judge it was the very opposite of genuine righteousness. The excess of the righteousness of the disciples, therefore, lay in this that it would be pronounced true righteousness by the one and only Judge, God himself, and would thus admit to the kingdom.

The question is asked whether Christ here speaks of the righteousness of faith or of the righteousness of life, and the usual answer is that he speaks only of the latter. This is thought to be the case because in the body of the sermon Christ contrasts the true fulfillment of the law with the sham fulfillment practiced by the scribes and Pharisees. But this fact already should give us pause that no fulfillment of the law which even the best of Christ’s disciples may attain admits them to the kingdom. The kingdom is not acquired by our good works. Luther writes: “What now is the better righteousness? This, that work and heart together are pious and directed according to God’s Word.

The law will have not only the work but the pure heart which throughout comports with the Word of God and the law. Yes, you say, where will one find such a heart? I do not find it in me; thou, too, not in thee. What, then, shall we do about it? We have no high righteousness and yet we hear the judgment that, unless our righteousness is better than that of the scribes and Pharisees, we shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. This is what we are to do: besides all the good we are able to do we are to humble ourselves before God and say, Dear Lord, I am a poor sinner, be gracious to me and judge me not according to my works but according to thy grace and mercy, which thou hast promised and prepared in Christ.

Thus this doctrine leads to this, that the Lord would warn us against spiritual pride and would bring us to the knowledge of our unclean, wicked hearts and sinful nature and thus lead us to the hope of his grace.” This, then, is the true righteousness.

Still more should be said. We cannot separate v. 20 from v. 17–19, especially from v. 17. Our entire discipleship rests on Christ’s fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Only our faith in his redemptive fulfillment makes us disciples. Thus alone are we the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and as such alone can we show forth “excellent works,” v. 16. As such alone can we be good trees bringing forth good fruit (7:16–23).

Without Christ’s redemptive fulfillment we shall never surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees which Christ rejects (7:21–23). The righteousness of which Christ speaks is not the righteousness of life over against the righteousness of faith but the righteousness of life as manifesting the righteousness of faith. Read about the works enumerated in 25:34–39, and then the verdict in v. 40: “Ye have done it unto me” (faith) over against v. 45: “Ye did it not unto me” (no faith). The Sermon on the Mount sets forth the genuine works of faith in Christ in contrast with all other so-called works.

Here, then, we have the theme of the sermon: Righteousness. It is not treated abstractly but concretely: the Righteousness which marks Christ’s true disciples. We venture the formulation: The Children of the Kingdom in the Righteousness That Is Theirs.

The Elaboration of the First Part of the Sermon

The Law is in the Hearts of the Disciples and thus Controls their Conduct, 5:21–48

Matthew 5:21

21 This is true with regard to the Fifth Commandment. You heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not murder! and whoever murders shall be held to the judgment. Jesus begins with the Fifth Commandment as a praecepto apertissimo (Bengel), the one of whose fulfillment the scribes and Pharisees most likely boasted especially. “You heard” means: from your teachers, the scribes and Pharisees, on whom you were entirely dependent for your instruction; ἠκούσατε, aorist, whereas we prefer “have heard,” R. 844. They told you that “it was said,” of course, by Moses, “to the ancients,” to whom he first brought the law: “Thou shalt not murder! and whoever murders shall be held to the judgment.” This is all the scribes and Pharisees told you regarding this commandment, and, of course, you believed them, holding that what Moses told the ancients now binds also you. The scribes and Pharisees apparently expounded this commandment correctly by adding, what Moses did not add, that the murderer “shall be held to the judgment.” That, indeed, sounded very severe. Accordingly, also you brought the murderers before your courts of law and had them sentenced to the proper punishment.

But this was all that you heard: nothing but a civil law to be applied to an actual murderer by a civil court. Just so you did not commit murder and run foul of the court! Not a word about God and what by this commandment he requires of the heart! Not a word about the lusts and the passions that lead to actual murder and, though they produce no murder, are just as wicked as murder! The ἡκρίσις refers to “the judgment” rendered by any Jewish court of law. The common local courts, arranged according to Deut. 16:18, consisted of seven judges and two shoterim or assistant Levites (Josephus, Ant. 4, 8, 14). The Talmud reports that there were courts of twenty-three judges in larger towns and of only three in villages. On the senate of the elders see Deut. 21:18, etc.; 22:13, etc., also 19:12.

Matthew 5:22

22 But I say to you that everyone angry at his brother shall be held to the judgment; and whoever says to his brother, Blamed bonehead! shall be held to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, Blamed fool! shall be held for the Gehenna of the fire. “I say to you” is opposed to “you have heard.” What the disciples now hear Jesus saying is vastly different from what they heard the scribes and Pharisees pronounce. The opposition does not lie in “it was said.” Jesus is not contradicting or correcting Moses; for he came to fulfill the very law given and written by Moses (v. 17). Right here he is expounding what Moses meant by “Thou shalt not murder,” i.e., that he never had in mind merely a civil law for a civil court but the heart of every Jew, yea, of every human being.

Thus Jesus takes up the sins of the heart against the Fifth Commandment, namely anger and its most common manifestation of calling ugly epithets. 1 John 3:15 shows us what Jesus has in mind: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” The usual exegesis regards this word of Jesus as a presentation of three sins and three penalties, the second being graver than the first, and the third graver than the second: for anger alone, the judgment of the court; for calling an ugly name in anger (“Raca!”), the court of the Sanhedrin; and for an angry curse (“Thou fool!”), hell-fire. But Jesus cannot have either such distinctions in the sins or in the penalties in mind. What about other sins such as to strike a person in anger, to wound him, finally also to kill him? What greater penalty could be inflicted beyond hell-fire? In v. 21 “the judgment” is evidently that of a civil court, remanding the murderer for execution. To what graver penalty could the Sanhedrin remand?

What court of law could possibly try a case of anger, to which no expression had been given, and order execution for anger? And who would think that the great Sanhedrin would try a man for angrily calling an ugly name? The first two mentioned are civil courts, yet Jesus is evidently not repeating the folly of the scribes and Pharisees by making this commandment a mere civil law. What court could send a man to hell? These questions are not answered by the usual exegesis. No mention is made of the fact that in God’s sight anger is equal to murder and makes us worthy of hell.

Zahn is correct. Jesus is satirizing the casuistic method of the scribes and Pharisees. They would make such distinctions in transgressions, and these distinctions would turn out a farce when it came to designating the penalties. Since anger is equal to murder in God’s sight, the angry man would have to be executed by a civil court—if this commandment is to be considered in the superficial manner of the scribes and Pharisees. Well, then the man who uttered the angry epithet would have to be taken to a still higher court, say the Sanhedrin, which, however, could do no more than the lower court. If the angry epithet should be a trifle different, well, then hell-fire might be decreed.

But by whom? There was no court higher than the Sanhedrin. According to this casuistry, what would be left for the crimes of striking, wounding, and actual killing? The purpose of this satire is to demolish the entire Jewish treatment of this commandment as a mere civil law. Civil courts cannot possibly consider the infractions that start in the heart and break out in ugly names. That is why the scribes and Pharisees omitted all these infractions and never instructed the people regarding them.

They even taught as though Moses himself did no more for the ancients to whom, at God’s command, he gave the law. Against this gross perversion Jesus hurls his satire. By saying that anger is equal to murder and worthy of the death penalty and an angry epithet likewise Jesus shows how God judges these sins; and when for a similar epithet he decrees hell-fire, he shows that in the judgment of God hell is the penalty for all these sins, beginning with anger and on through to murder.

The usual exegesis makes a distinction between ῥακά and μωρέ. The former is probably derived from req, through the Syrian raqa, and thus means an empty one who acts as a numskull. Uttered in anger, it would be something like our “Blamed bonehead!” See Zahn; M.-M. 562 is insufficient. The latter sounds like a genuine Greek word, μωρός, “stupid,” “foolish,” although in the Greek it is not used for calling names. But this Greek word was adopted by the Jews and was used by them as a vile epithet, somewhat like our “Blamed fool!” Matthew, therefore, really leaves both epithets untranslated, for his Jewish readers would understand the words without a translation. The two epithets are in reality synonymous, one referring to an empty mind, and the other to a slow mind.

The second is sometimes made far graver than the first by regarding μωρός as a Greek translation of the Hebrew nabal, “fool,” and referring to Ps. 14:1; 53:2, where “fool” is equivalent to atheist. But in the Psalm passages the LXX translates nabal ἄφρων, and in no language does the simple word “fool” mean atheist. Some fools, it is true, show their folly by talking atheistically. Or μωρέ is regarded as a Hebrew word that is derived from marah, “to rebel,” i.e., against God. Either of these explanations would make the word a kind of curse, but neither is tenable. Both are efforts to put enough gravity into μωρέ to warrant being sent to hell.

South of the walls of Jerusalem lay the valley that was desecrated by Moloch worship, in which children were burned (Jer. 2:23; 7:31; 2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6), Josiah declared the place unclean (2 Kings 23:10), and it was then used as a place for the disposal of offal (Jer. 7:32, etc.; 31:40). Thus ge ben-Hinnom, “the valley of the son of Hinnom,” became γέεννα or Gehenna, a designation for hell, the place of the damned. The addition “of the fire” refers to the fire of hell. The eleven passages in which Gehenna occurs cannot refer to the valley near Jerusalem. We have no evidence that the Jews ever burned criminals alive, or that the bodies of dead criminals were dragged out to this valley, or that constant fires were kept going there. Hell cannot be abolished by such interpretations of Gehenna.

Matthew 5:23

23 From what God thus requires of the heart Jesus draws a conclusion as to a specific instance which may illustrate a true disciple’s conduct. If, therefore, thou art offering thy gift at the altar and there rememberest that thy brother has something against thee, leave there thy gift in front of the altar, go first, be reconciled with thy brother, and then, having come, be offering thy gift. With ἐάν Jesus presents a supposed case, he puts it into the second person singular, thus making it highly personal and effective. The case is one that appears in endless variations in actual life. Of course, it is derived from the Jewish forms of worship which Jesus himself followed; in due time these forms were superseded. But the example still applies.

If not before, then in God’s presence, in our public worship any sin lying upon our conscience ought to come to remembrance. The present tense προσφέρῃς is descriptive: “engaged in bringing,” while the punctiliar aorist μνησθῇς marks the sudden remembrance. “That thy brother has something against thee,” means rightfully against thee. By word or by deed, by omission or by commission, before God and thy conscience thou hast wronged thy brother, no matter whether he holds it against thee or not. Thy memory and thy conscience hold it against thee, and that is enough. In these affairs each person must be his own honest judge. A brother may be wrongfully offended, without cause, charging thee where he has no right to do so.

Then the guilt is on him not on thee.

Matthew 5:24

24 God looks at the heart, and no act of worship is acceptable to him that comes from a heart which is guilty of unconfessed wrong to another. Burdened with such guilt, thou thyself art not acceptable, either now in his house of worship or afterward at his judgment bar. Though the scribes and Pharisees may decree that no act of offering may be interrupted, laying the emphasis on the offering instead of on the heart, Jesus commands to leave the offering right there before the screen which separates the court of the men in the Temple from the court of the priests and to go first (read ὕπαγεπρῶτον together) and be reconciled to thy brother. The passive of διαλλάσσω means that thou art to become wholly ἄλλος or “other” to thy brother. Go, confess thy wrong, and ask thy brother’s pardon. When this is rightly done, that ends whatever he rightly holds or may hold against thee.

Of course, he should be glad to have thee come, be satisfied with thy honest confession, demand no more, and cheerfully forgive. This would be the desired reconciliation for both persons concerned. But if he should be unreasonable and refuse to forgive, thou for thy part art, nontheless, reconciled; the guilt would now rest only on him. With the wrong thus removed from thee, come back (ἐλθών) and go on with thy offering (πρόσφερε, the present imperative to indicate all that pertains to the act, although R. 882 would make this present punctiliar).

This example is perfect in every way. Here is a simple case of fulfilling the Fifth Commandment with the heart. Here we have no perfectionism, for wrong is done a brother, yet the wrong is removed, and by this removal the commandment is truly kept. This is done by God’s grace, for his grace, favor, forgiveness, blessings we desire and implore by our offerings and our worship. The old covenant, requiring sacrifices in the Temple, pointed to the Messiah whose coming mediation bestowed grace and pardon on all repentant Jewish believers; and the new covenant, now without those sacrifices, points to Christ and his accomplished mediation and thus bestows grace and pardon on all repentant Christian believers. Thus the righteousness of faith brings forth the righteousness of life through grace.

Matthew 5:25

25 The specific example given in v. 23, 24 is now broadened by an admonition couched in figurative or parabolic language. Be disposed to come to terms quickly with thy opponent at law while thou art in his company on the way, lest, perhaps, the opponent at law hand thee over to the judge, and the judge hand thee over to the officer, and thou be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to thee, in no way shalt thou come out thence until thou hand over the last penny. The imagery is borrowed from the old legal method of dealing with debtors who could be remanded to prison until they paid the last cent of their debt. The parable is narrowed unduly when the application is limited to disputes about money. Jesus is expounding the Fifth Commandment not the Seventh.

He has just given an illustration of a man who has in some way wronged his brother and should go and be reconciled to him. The parable about the debtor carries this illustration to its conclusion.

The term ἀντίδικος is neutral, any opponent at law; to the plaintiff it would be the defendant, and to the defendant the plaintiff. In the parable, however, Jesus addresses the defendant; he owes the debt. The sensible thing for him to do is to make a settlement with the creditor before his case is brought to the judge. It is plain, of course, that in the parable the debtor is the man who has wronged his brother according to the previous example. Many are content to stop with that. But it would be strange if Jesus had no word of admonition and warning for the brother who has been wronged.

He, too, owes a debt to the brother who has wronged him: he owes that brother forgiveness. He owes that debt the moment he is wronged and certainly ought to pay it most joyfully when his brother comes to him for reconciliation. Otherwise the roles will be reversed. The brother who did the wrong will have paid his debt by confessing and asking for forgiveness, and the other will remain in his debt by withholding his forgiveness.

The periphrastic present imperative ἴσθιεὐνοῶν, “be well-minded,” here has the meaning, “be disposed to come to terms.” When all ill will has been dropped, this will be easy; the whole matter can at once be settled in the right way, without further damage to either party. So again, at bottom, this commandment deals with the heart. This is the real teaching of Moses and the law; this the scribes and Pharisees had lost because their hearts were alienated from God and from his Messiah; this Christ restores in the hearts of all his true disciples. “Quickly” is explained by the clause: “while thou art in his company (μετʼ αὐτοῦ) on the way,” i.e., before it is too late. While we are still together in this life we may easily settle our misdeeds against each other. But, significantly, debtor and creditor are depicted as being on the way to the judge. For while earthly judges sit only in cases that are formally brought before their courts, every infraction against God’s law, when it is without repentance, confession, etc., must finally reach his court.

Just as an ordinary creditor finally turns a refractory debtor over to an earthly judge, so, if death separates the wrongdoer from the wronged, the case between them goes to the divine Judge, and just as an ordinary judge makes short shrift of an ordinary refractory debtor, so will the divine Judge do with him who has wronged his brother and refused to confess and to seek forgiveness. As the ordinary debtor is turned over to the judge and by him is turned over to the court officer (τῷὑπερέτῃ), who carries out the orders of the judge) and is by the latter thrown into prison, so the divine Judge will dispose of the man who has wronged his brother and remained obdurate. The tertium comparationis lies in the action of the two judges. Hence we need not seek to fill in the details of the picture.

Matthew 5:26

26 Only the prison is emphasized when Jesus warns the wrongdoer that he will never be able to leave it. The φυλακή, therefore, pictures hell, “the Gehenna of the fire,” v. 22. Roman Catholicism centers on the clause: “until thou hand over the last penny,” and refers φυλακή to purgatory and thus finds ways of paying off our guilt in this imagined place. The Catholic contention that ἕωςἄν always introduces something that is expected to happen and often does happen should not be contested, not even on the basis of 18:30, 34, which are like the present clause. It is true, many an ordinary debtor who has been thrown into prison has somehow managed to pay his debt even to the last κοδράντης, quadrans, ¼ cent, the Greek term being left untranslated by the Jews. But this possibility pertains only to the figurative language of Jesus. It presents no possibility for a sinner after death and judgment because the Scriptures know of no such possibility. “Ἕωςἄν may raise the question: “But how will he pay at all in the φυλακή to which God will remand him, to say nothing about paying the last quadrans?” The only answer the Scriptures give is: “Payment there is impossible.”

Matthew 5:27

27 That the law must be in the hearts of the disciples is shown from the correct exposition of the Sixth Commandment. You heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery! From the scribes and the Pharisees you heard this, heard it as the old law of Moses (Exod. 20:14; Deut. 5:18), as a piece of civil legislation, and that is all. “To the ancients,” though here omitted, is understood. But neither Moses nor God intended that this commandment should be only a civil law or an outward rule of life. What this commandment includes Jesus now states.

Matthew 5:28

28 But I say to you that every man looking at a woman to lust after her did already commit adultery with her in his heart. So far the prohibition of this commandment extends. Even the Decalog shows this when in its final commandment it forbids lust, Exod. 20:17; Deut. 5:18. Πᾶςὁ (see R. 773) is masculine, hence “every man.” The present participle βλέπων characterizes the man by his act of continued looking. The construction πρὸςτό with the infinitive denotes purpose (not result), it is somewhat like our phrase, “with a view to,” etc. (R. 1003, 1075); the aorist infinitive is effective, referring to accomplished lusting; verbs of desire govern the genitive. Jesus does not say that by the accomplished lusting or by and during the act of looking at the woman the man in question commits adultery. The aorist ἐμοίχευσεν with ἤδη emphasizing the feature of the time, precedes these acts.

The man who casts lustful looks is an adulterer to begin with. The sin is already “in his heart” and only comes out in his lustful look. If the heart were pure, without adultery, no lustful look would be possible. Hence Jesus does not state how the guilty man can free himself of the sin as did the man mentioned in v. 23, 24. The man’s very heart and nature must be so changed by divine grace that lustful looks will become impossible for him.

It ought to be understood that what is thus said of a man (πᾶςὁ masculine) is equally true of a woman. Likewise, “every man” is general and cannot be restricted to married men; and γυναῖκα cannot refer only to a married woman who belongs to another man. A bachelor’s lustful look upon a maid is certainly as adulterous as the lustful look of a married man upon another man’s wife. To introduce a man’s look upon his own wife is specious, for adultery between these two is excluded, 1 Corinthians 7:9. Jesus uses ἐμοίχευσεν to match the μοιχεύσεις of the commandment, and both are to be understood in the broad sense, adultery including the more specific fornication. What the Sixth Commandment calls for is a pure heart which keeps even the eyes pure.

On this the scribes and Pharisees had no instruction to offer. Such a pure heart is the product of regenerating and sanctifying grace alone.

Matthew 5:29

29 But if thy right eye entraps thee, pluck it out and throw it from thee; for it is better for thee that one of thy members perish and not thy entire body be thrown into Gehenna. Here Jesus meets an excuse offered by the man with a lustful eye who blames the sin he commits onto the eye. He would shield his heart by a reference to his eye. He receives the sound, sensible, natural answer, “Get rid, then, of the eye!” The saneness of the answer is established by γάρ which presents the universal rule in the strong form here applicable. No man hesitates to have a virulently diseased part of his body amputated by the surgeon in order that he may not lose his life. It is the only thing to do; otherwise the man dies.

If, indeed, your right eye is so diseased with sin, as you assert, that this eye cannot look on a beautiful woman without trapping you into lust, then, on your own assertion about your eye, only one thing will save you from hell, to pluck it out and cast it away from you. For on your own admission the only alternative would be that the dangerous eye continue to inflame your whole body with lust and thus send it down to hell.

This case is not like that mentioned in v. 23, 24. There the conscience is aroused, and Jesus tells the man how to quiet it aright; but here a specious excuse is offered. This man claims that he cannot help it that his eye inflames him to lust, and Jesus draws from the fallacious excuse the equally fallacious conclusion as to the remedy. He tells the man that what he really proposes by such an excuse is the excision of his own wicked eye. Hence v. 29 has δέ while v. 23 has οὖν. This also explains εἰ with the indicative: Jesus takes a real case and treats it as such.

Mark 9:43–47 has ἐάν‚ with the subjunctive instead of the εἰ used in Matt. 18:8, 9 in an identical saying of Jesus. Whereas εἰ has in mind a present reality, ἐάν contemplates a future possibility, R. 1018–1019. The force of the conclusion drawn by Jesus is the same in both cases.

The fallacy lying in the excuse is thus exposed. The seat of the sin is not in the eye but, as Jesus has already indicated in v. 28, in the heart. To make this clearer he mentions only the right eye and in v 30 only the right hand. Remove either, and the left eye, the left hand will produce the same sin if, as the excuse asserts, the devil is in the member not in the heart. In fact, a blind man and even a eunuch may be lascivious. All excuses which blame the body and man’s bodily nature as though these creations of God make lust and other sins inevitable, a mere function of our bodily being, just the course of nature, end in the absurdities of successive amputations until the whole body is thrown away.

This, of course, is foolish, and that means that the premise which involves so foolish a conclusion is false. The seat of lust and sin is in the heart, mind, and soul, which abuse the eye and the other members. The commandment is intended first and essentially for the heart. The alternatives are not at all: either a mere outward, civil law against criminal acts or plucking out the eye, cutting off the hand to make the body behave. A new heart must be created in us, and this will rejoice to run the way of God’s commandments and will succeed in attaining the better righteousness.

Neither the older allegorical or the newer symbolical interpretation which make eye and hand unreal are tenable. The literalism which deals with the actual removal of eyes, hands, etc., is entirely too wooden. How many of Christ’s disciples maimed themselves thus? The verb σκανδαλίζειν always means actually to entrap, while σκάνδαλον (σκανδάληθρον), the crooked stick to which the bait was affixed and by which the trap was sprung, refers to the enticement which may or may not lure to sin. The figure in the verb is not that of stumbling over an object that lies in one’s path. M.-M. 576. Ἔξελε is from ἐξαιρέω. The subject of the impersonal συμφέρει is the ἵνα clause, R. 992.

Matthew 5:30

30 And if thy right hand entrap thee, etc., merely extends the refutation of the shallow excuse (18:8 and Mark 9:45 add also the foot). To think of spiritual amputations misses the very point of the refutation Jesus offers. This idea is somewhat ludicrous, for certainly none of us is to have only one spiritual eye, one spiritual hand or foot. What Jesus urges is the spiritualization of the heart; its renewal through grace makes all our members the instruments and the servants of righteousness. Rom. 12:1.

Matthew 5:31

31 The scribes and Pharisees not only disregarded the application of the Sixth Commandment to the heart and thus failed to see the sinfulness of lust, they extended this disregard to the outward conduct by regarding the law as actually permitting all manner of divorce and as insisting only on the outward formality of handing over a certificate of divorce. Thus Jesus adds the statement that the commandment which forbids the lust most certainly also forbids divorce. Moreover (δέ)‚ it was said, Whoever shall release his wife, let him give her a divorce-certificate, ἀποστάσιον, the same as βιβλίονἀποστασίου in 19:7 and in Mark 10:4. Here the simple ἐρρέθη is sufficient to mark the fact that Jesus refers to the word of Moses written in Deut. 24:1 etc., which was used by the scribes and Pharisees to justify their lax divorce practice. Therefore, too, Jesus summarizes Deut. 24:1 as the Jews did when they assumed that this passage allowed their divorces and demanded only that a divorce-certificate be handed to the wife. In 19:7 Jesus explains how it came about that divorce was allowed by Moses; here Jesus refers to Deut. 24 only as the false Jewish justification for their evil practice in order to place over against this practice the true intent of God’s commandment.

The school of Rabbi Shammai interpreted “the shame of nakedness” (Hebrew), “some uncleanness in her” (A. V.) in Deut. 24:1 as denoting approaches to adultery (actual adultery being punished by death in Moses’ time); the laxer school of Hillel, whom the Jewish practice followed, interpreted the expression as a reference to anything displeasing to the husband; Akiba permitted divorce when the husband found a more desirable wife.

Matthew 5:32

32 But I say to you that every man releasing his wife without cause of fornication brings about that she is stigmatized as adulterous; and he who shall marry her that has been released is stigmatized as adulterous. What Jesus declares as being the force of the Sixth Commandment regarding marriage is summarized in 19:6‚ “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” God alone severs the bond by death, Rom. 7:2, 3. Every other severance is excluded by the Sixth Commandment and takes place only when this commandment is violated. Once this is understood, the words of Jesus become clearer, and several wrong interpretations are removed. Jesus is not expounding Deut. 24:1, but Exodus 20:14 as quoted in v. 27. He is not setting up one cause for divorce over against the idea of many causes, but is forbidding all divorce and all causes for divorce as being against God’s intent as expressed in Exod. 20:14.

Speaking to an audience of Jews who knew nothing of a woman divorcing her husband, he naturally specifies only the case of a husband divorcing his wife. The fact that among us where also wives divorce their husbands his words apply to them equally, needs hardly to be added; see Mark 10:12, who writes for Gentiles.

Those who say that Jesus here makes a wife’s fornication a legal cause for which a husband may secure a legal divorce make the word of Jesus a mere legal verdict whereas, in reality, it is something far more fundamental, namely the true moral exposition of the Sixth Commandment. Fornication as such violates the commandment in the grossest fashion; and fornication on the part of a wife adds to this violation another that is equally gross: by this act the wife severs her marital bond. By it she then and there destroys her own marriage; and she does this apart from anything her husband may do in consequence, apart also from any law that he may invoke. Of course, the same effect is produced upon the marriage by the fornication of a husband. The reason that Jesus exemplifies by reference to the wife only has already been stated. Fornication on the part of either spouse breaks the Sixth Commandment in a double way: it also always destroys the marriage bond.

That is why Jesus virtually says that the offended husband may dismiss a fornicating wife; ἀπολύειν refers to the Jewish situation. He may rid himself of her; vice versa, if he be the fornicator, she may rid herself of him (not, indeed, according to Jewish law but morally before God). And she may do this without breaking the Sixth Commandment. For it is the fornicator that destroyed the marriage and left the spouse with a disrupted marriage. Jesus is not discussing the legal steps that may or may not be taken. Jesus does not legislate.

The term λόγος here used is not “report” or rumor of fornication but is like αἰτία, ratio, “cause of fornication,” the sin being a fact. It is true, the ancient legal practice stoned the fornicatress and thus ended the matter of the marriage; but she was stoned as one who had broken her marriage. At the time of Jesus this old law was not carried out; the legal practice was now that the husband might drive out the wife.

But here is a wife “without cause of fornication,” and yet for some reason or other her husband proceeds to destroy her marriage with him, ὁἀπολύωνκτλ., “he that releases his wife” by making use of the lax law of the Jews (Jesus is speaking of them). It is now the husband who destroys the marriage. The guilt of breaking the commandment rests on him. The innocent wife is by this man’s action forced into a position similar to that of the innocent husband whose wife broke his marriage by her fornication. Jesus says that by his act the husband forces the wife into a position that is contrary to the Sixth Commandment: “he brings about that she is stigmatized as adulterous.” The form μοιχευθῆναι is passive, and the agent of this passive is the husband. Jesus makes this emphatic by using ποιεῖ, “he, the husband, makes or brings about,” and adding the passive infinitive.

This is an aorist passive: by his ποιεῖν he once for all forces his wife out of the marriage. She who according to the commandment, οὐμοιχεύσεις, ought to be in her marriage, is now, contrary to the commandment, outside of it through the wicked action of her husband.

Dictionaries, commentators, and translators regard μοιχευθῆναι and also μοιχᾶται as active, and they do this in the face of v. 27, 28 where we have the actives: first the future μοιχεύσεις, then the aorist ἐμοίχευσεν. No attempt is made to prove that the passive forms of this verb have the same sense as the active. Yet the passive μοιχευθῆναι is translated “to commit adultery” (active). This is done by adding in parenthesis: “he makes her to commit adultery (in case she marries again).” But this parenthesis is untenable. When is this woman made what Jesus says? The moment her husband drives her out whether she marries again or not.

Even when women such as this eventually married again, they were made μοιχευθῆναι the very moment they were driven out. It ought also to be plain that Jesus here scores the husband who drives out his wife. Of what is the woman guilty? Jesus has no indictment against her. She is the one that is wronged; that is what the passive states, and doubly so with ποιεῖ before it. Jesus here shows against whom this wicked husband sins: first against his innocent and helpless wife, and secondly against any man who may later on consent to marry her (hence the second passive μοιχᾶται).

Zahn alone sees that the infinitive is passive, for which he deserves full credit; but under the influence of the traditional exegesis he fails to see that the agent of this passive must be the subject of ποιεῖ, namely, “everyone who dismisses his wife.” So he falls back into the old error: he makes the agent of μοιχευθῆναι the man mentioned in the next sentence who later on may marry this wronged woman. This is grammatically untenable. The agent of a passive infinitive or of an active infinitive cannot be introduced from a sentence that follows.

A further complication is due to our helplessness in translating this passive infinitive (also the passive μοιχᾶται) into English. We have no passive corresponding to the active “to commit adultery.” But this is no justification for translating these two passives as though they were actives like the two actives in v. 27, 28. Since our English fails us here, we must express the two passive forms as best we can to bring out the passive sense of the Greek forms. We attempt this by translating the infinitive, “he brings about that she is stigmatized as adulterous,” and the finite verb, “he is stigmatized as adulterous.” We are ready to accept a better translation but only one that keeps the passive sense of the verbs.

Nothing in the words of Jesus forbids such a woman (or, if the case is the reverse, such a man) to marry again. Such a prohibition is often assumed but is without warrant in Jesus’ own words. It is this assumption that led to the current mistranslations. All that the passive μοιχευθῆναι states is that this woman has been forced into a position that appears to men as though she, too, had violated the commandment, οὐμοιχεύσεις. She is an unfortunate woman whose marriage has been disrupted without guilt on her part. Her wicked husband has fastened this stigma upon her.

It is impossible for her to publish to all the world just how she comes to be in the position forced upon her. It ought to be apparent that here we have essentially the same case that Paul treats in 1 Cor. 7:15 The Jewish husband drives out his wife and thus disrupts the marriage; the Gentile husband leaves his wife and thus disrupts his marriage. Both sunder the marriage. Paul says, “the sister (or if the case be the reverse: the brother) is not under bondage,” i.e., is free from the marriage which the ungodly spouse disrupted Exactly the same is true of the Jewish wife who is driven out by her husband. These two are one case not two as is quite generally assumed. But we must stop talking about “one” or “two causes of divorce.” Neither Jesus nor Paul is stating causes for divorce; neither is legislating or speaking of legal steps.

Both are dealing with the sinful acts which disrupt a marriage in violation of the divine commandment. It ought to be a great satisfaction to see that Paul and Jesus agree in every respect, and that Paul does not add anything to what Jesus stated.

But the effect of the husband’s evil act of driving out his wife affects not only the wife but also any man who may eventually marry her. Note the passive τὴνἀπολελυμένην, “her that has been released or dismissed,” restating what Jesus said about the wicked act of this husband; he is the agent back of this passive participle. The man who marries this wronged woman, he, too, μοιχᾶται, “is stigmatized as adulterous.” The verb μοιχάω is in sense identical with μοιχεύω. But here again the passive should not be overlooked. This man as little “commits adultery” as the woman “commits adultery.” Neither “commits” anything, both have had something committed upon them. The man who marries this woman thereby shares her position.

Hence also the present durative tense μοιχᾶται: he constantly bears this stigma; he is joined to a woman whose marriage has been destroyed by her former husband. As long as both live, this shadow will follow them. It is thus that Jesus unfolds to his Jewish hearers in the Jewish environment in which they live the vicious effects upon the innocent when the Sixth Commandment is wickedly transgressed by rending the marriage tie.

Matthew 5:33

33 Another perversion of the law on the part of the scribes and Pharisees, who always leave out the heart and thus attain no real righteousness, pertains to oaths and the Second Commandment. Again you heard that it was said to the ancients (on this formula compare the exposition of v. 21), Thou shalt not make oath falsely; moreover, thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. This sums up Lev. 19:12 and Deut. 23:21, etc.; compare Num. 30:3, etc. Jesus finds no fault with this brief restatement used by the scribes and Pharisees in their teaching. Their great fault was the fact that in both of these words of Moses they saw nothing but a general permission to use all sorts of oaths and then spent all their casuistic ingenuity on determining the degree of binding force of the different forms of oaths, concluding that those which did not directly name God had no binding force. They argued that if one is not to swear falsely he certainly may swear truly; and that if he is duly to hand over (ἀποδίδωμι) what he has promised with an oath, the use of the oath must be free to all.

Jesus points out that the true deductions from these words of Moses run in the very opposite direction. They pertain to the heart as does every law of God.

Matthew 5:34

34 But I say to you not to swear at all; neither by the heaven because it is God’s throne; nor by the earth because it is his feet’s footstool; nor by (εἰς, R. 594; ἐν, 588) Jerusalem because it is the great King’s city; nor shalt thou swear by thy head because thou art not able to make one hair white or black. But let your statement (λόγος, what you say) be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; and what is more than these is due to the wicked one (ἐκ, originates from him). This is what Jesus presents as the correct deduction from the words of Moses concerning perjury and all oaths—the root of the matter which goes down into the heart. Why this prohibition of perjury? Because men not only lied but even swore to lies, both originating from the devil (ἐκτοῦπονηροῦ) Why this injunction to keep a promise sealed with an oath? Because men would break even such promises, acting on a motive prompted by the devil.

Do this prohibition and this injunction then open wide the door to the promiscuous use of oaths? They do the very opposite; they really say “not to swear at all.” Just as the permission to send away a wife for the reason of fornication does not open the door for all manner of divorces, so the regulations about oaths do not justify oaths. The law about divorce really implies no divorce, and the law about oaths no oaths at all.

Matthew 5:35

35 The fact that true oaths are here referred to goes without saying. In fact, Jesus declared that all the minor oaths, which the Jews used with the understanding that they were not binding, are also true oaths. For though God is not directly mentioned in each oath he is most certainly involved. The four μήτε merely add four further negatives after μὴὀμόσαι; in the case of only the last μήτε is the verb repeated.

“By heaven!” means, “By God’s throne!” The omission of the article before “throne,” “footstool,” and “city” places the emphasis on the added genitives, which are, therefore, also placed at the end. “By the earth!” means, “By his feet’s footstool!” “By Jerusalem!” means, “By the Great King’s (God’s) city!” Only shallow formalists would argue that Moses’ regulation about oaths justified the widest use of oaths, and that avoidance of the direct mention of the divine name, especially the name Yahweh (which all Jews avoided as being too sacred to be pronounced) justified the freest use of these oaths which were then really not binding save in some cases. For the cunning Jewish distinctions see 23:16–22. Jesus’ condemnation of all these oaths in spite of Jewish casuistry makes it certain that “not to swear at all” means exactly what he says, “Use no oaths whatever!”

Matthew 5:36

36 The elucidation about swearing by one’s head, an oath so frequently used by both Jews and pagans, follows a different line because the head is not directly connected with God. Jesus does not say that a man’s head really does not belong to the man but, like his whole body, unto God, the Creator. Here the reference to God is by way of man’s powerlessness in regard to his head. It is, indeed, his head and yet so little his to offer in pawn by way of an oath that he is unable to make one hair of his head white or black, i.e., to grow with this or that color according to his will. The skeptic may say that nature attends to that. Jesus means that God’s power is exercised over every man’s head even to the extent of controlling the color with which each tiny hair grows (compare 10:30). Only he who disregards God in his heart can swear by his head.

Matthew 5:37

37 The man whose heart is true to God utters every statement he makes (λόγος) as though it were made in the very presence of God before whom even his heart with its inmost thought lies bare. With a heart thus pledged to truth, his lips will find no need to add anything to his “yea” and “nay.” The doubling: “Yea, yea; Nay, nay” in Christ’s command merely indicates the positive nature of the assertions and the denials. Like other duplications, these two are made for the sake of emphasis. In other words, a disciple may repeat his statement. Jesus often uses such repetitions, often making the second statement fuller than the first. From John’s Gospel we see that he used the double “amen” or “verily.” A question may often induce us to reaffirm what we have already said.

We cannot make the first “yea” the subject and the second its predicate; this is likewise true regarding the two “nay.” In James 5:12 the wording is different; no tenable reasons are advanced for the assertion that James has the original form of Jesus’ words, and that the Greek of Matthew is an imperfect translation of the Aramaic original of Matthew. James is not giving the words of Jesus as they were uttered by him; Matthew, however, does. Thus for a disciple who always speaks the truth as though being in God’s presence all oaths are ruled out.

What is more than these simple, truthful “yeas” and “nays” is due to, originates from, the wicked one. The positive τὸπερισσόν is a popular substitute for the comparative πλέον. “What is more” = equals any oath added to our truthful statements. By inserting oaths we imply that our statements are not truthful, that we really cannot be believed except under oath. If this implication is true, then we are, indeed, liars, children of the devil, the father of lies and of liars (John 8:44), if the implication is not true, we are liars when making it and thus relate ourselves to the devil. The thought requires that ἐκτοῦπονηροῦ be masculine: “due to the wicked one,” not neuter: “due to the wickedness.” Why weaken the power of the thought by substituting the impersonal power of evil for the personal author of evil? And is there any wickedness that is not due to the devil?

This final statement of Jesus’ shows why oaths are still necessary. The prince of this world rules so many men that the state, which has to deal with the ungodly as well as with the godly, is compelled to require oaths in order to establish truth and to confirm promises. Since the world is so full of liars, the state cannot trust a simple “yea” or “nay.” Hence the Scriptures permit necessary oaths, Heb. 6:16. Jesus himself took an oath before the Jewish legal authorities, but Pilate did not put him under oath. Because in a lying world even God’s people become doubtful and inclined to mistrust, God, too, uses the oath, swearing by himself, Heb. 6:17. It is invalid reasoning to claim that oaths as such are “of the wicked one,” and that, therefore, every oath is a sin.

It is the necessity for the oath, a necessity due to the world full of lies, that is produced by Satan and his influence upon men. The church has no room for oaths because everything said and done in the church is done in God’s own presence. In their intercourse with men Christians will make no use of oaths, for they speak and act as being in God’s presence. This leaves the oath to the state alone, and also state penalties for perjury. When certain associations demand oaths of those who join them, their demand brands them as being ungodly; and when they exact oaths regarding promises, the contents of which are still unknown to the person concerned, they show themselves as doubly ungodly. To promise what one does not yet know is to forswear oneself, Lev. 5:4, 5.

Every oath of this kind has no binding power, should be repudiated and confessed as sin so that God’s pardon may be secured.

Matthew 5:38

38 Jesus now turns to the perversion of the penal law against crime. You heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, i.e., shall the criminal give. Thus your courts shall exact their penalties, making them equal to the crimes committed; Exod. 21:24, 25, “burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe”; Lev. 24:20, “breach for breach”; Deut. 19:21, “life for life, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Thus the scribes and Pharisees deduced that in his dealings with others every man should likewise retaliate in kind and should in every case insist on his full rights. The fact that Moses also said: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” Lev. 19:18; and that Solomon, who as king administered the penal laws, nevertheless wrote: “Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me, I will render to the man according to his work,” Prov. 24:29: this went for naught. The worst feature of this perversion was the fact that those who insisted on their rights adorned their revengeful and base actions with the very Word of God as though God himself bade them act as they did.

Matthew 5:39

39 This explains also the three illustrations of the non-resistance that is due to love. Rather than to give way to anger when struck unjustly on the right cheek, or in anger even to strike back on the principle of an eye for an eye, etc., the disciple who has Christ’s love in his heart will turn the other cheek for a second blow that otherwise would not be struck.

Matthew 5:40

40 Rather than resentfully to contest a lawsuit which threatens to attach his χιτών, the tunic worn next to the body, as payment for an alleged debt, the disciple of love will of his own accord turn over to his unjust opponent also his ἱμάτιον, the outer robe, which was considered so indispensable that, when it was taken as a pledge, it had to be returned by sundown (Exod. 22:26) since the poor man would need it as a covering for the night (Deut. 24:12, 13).

Matthew 5:41

41 The verb ἀγγαρεύειν is derived from ἄγγαρος, the Persian postal courier, and was taken over from the Persian by both the Aramaic and the Greek. The courier was authorized to requisition animals and anything else he might need to expedite him on his trip. Thus the verb came to mean “to press into service,” as Simon of Cyrene, for instance, was compelled to bear Christ’s cross. Jesus supposes the case that one is thus unjustly forced to travel, perhaps as a porter with a load, one thousand paces, 1, 680 yards, a Roman mile. Rather than rebelliously to resist the imposition with a heart full of bitterness the true disciple will of his own accord, in perfect cheerfulness of heart, add a second Roman mile.

The striking feature about these three illustrations is the doubling, and each time the second half of the deed that accepts injustice and wrong is wholly voluntary on the disciple’s part. In this way Jesus graphically despicts the disciple’s mastery over his own heart and will in keeping himself free from the natural bitter passions to which sin makes us prone. In this regard the three examples resemble the injunction given in v. 29, 30: rather to suffer anything than to lose the love that insures us the better righteousness in God’s judgment. All three examples, however, are intended only for the spiritual interest of the disciple and never for a moment for those who inflict injustice upon him, never to abet them or to encourage them in their baseness.

Matthew 5:42

42 The fourth illustration differs from the others in that it presents no doubling. To him that asks thee give; and from him that wants to borrow of thee turn not away. Jesus does not say, “Give double what is asked.” This example is in contrast with the one preceding, for here we have request instead of compulsion. Instead of harboring bitterness the heart might be inclined to hardness, lack of pity, etc. The text does not intimate that this is importunate begging or insistance on borrowing. The reading δός, aorist imperative, is preferable since it harmonizes with the aorist ἀποστραφῇς; in Luke 6:30 the present imperative is in place both on account of the idea of repeated requests lying in παντί and on account of the second durative imperative, ἀπαίτει.

The old law inculcated the duty of giving and of lending in Lev. 25:35, and forbade the selfishness of turning these acts to personal advantage as might be done by usury, Exod. 22:25; Lev. 25:36, 37. The loving desire to help is to prompt these deeds.

For the sake of the disciple Jesus speaks and not for the encouragement of the wicked man. With the latter God will deal and for his punishment God has authorized penal laws. When this is borne in mind, no extravagant interpretation will be put upon the four examples which are introduced by Jesus. “If a ruffian strikes me in wilful wickedness, or in conscious violation of all law takes away my property to gratify his greed or spite, or in bare malice to inflict an injury upon me, asks me to give or lend him my money or goods without any claim of suffering or need on his part, shall I understand Christ’s words to mean that the love which the Holy Spirit has given me will find its appropriate expression in yielding to his Satanic assaults and demands, and even doubling my loving compliance with his ungodly desires? I think not”—and Loy is right. Christ’s injunctions are not intended to be applied mechanically, just formally, or with foolish blindness which loses sight of the true purposes of love. Love is not to foster crime in others or to expose our loved ones to disaster and perhaps to death.

Coupled with selfish love is the wisdom which applies love. Christ never told me not to restrain the murderer’s hand, not to check the thief and robber, not to oppose the tyrant, or by my gifts to foster shiftlessness, dishonesty, and greed.

Matthew 5:43

43 To the illustrations of the better righteousness as exemplified by single commandments of the law Jesus now adds the final one taken from the summary of the entire second table of the law, the commandment of love to our neighbor. You heard that it was said (on this formula compare v. 21), Thou wilt love thy neighbor and wilt hate thine enemy. This is the way in which the scribes and Pharisees taught the people the great sum of the second table. They mutilated even the words they quoted from Lev. 19:18 by omitting “as thyself.” The scribe mentioned in Mark 12:33, and the lawyer in Luke 10:27 are exceptions. This omission in the usual rabbinical teaching was no innocent abbreviation. For the original command was not intended to state whom we are to love so as to raise the question as to who this neighbor is, Luke 10:29, as the scribes and the Pharisees actually did; but to state what we are to do, namely, to love, even placing ἀγαπήσεις forward for the sake of emphasis, and how much we are to do, namely, to love, even placing ἀγαπήσεις for-contrast is not at all between the persons but between the actions: we are to love, “not hate thy brother in thine heart,” Lev. 19:17; not wrong him, v. 19, or stand against his blood, v. 16.

By shifting the emphasis these false teachers brought in the question as to who our neighbor is and then limited the word so that those not included in “neighbor” were not to be loved but hated. This was a flagrant perversion of the law which included all the members of the Jewish nation down to the lowest and extended even to the stranger, Exod. 12:43–49. “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.” The question regarding the enemies of Jehovah, who are to be treated as such, does not enter here; compare Ps. 139:21. Jehovah’s enemies who reject all his love and are thus finally destroyed are not to be confounded with our personal enemies, nor are conclusions to be drawn from the former with reference to the latter. The future ἀγαπήσεις is a common substitute for the imperative (R. 330) and is volitive (R. 943).

How bold the perversion was appears in the corollary which the scribes and Pharisees drew: “thou wilt hate thine enemy,” τὸνἐχθρόνσου, thy personal enemy. It is often supposed that love for our enemies is unknown in the ancient Jewish code and came about as the product of a moral evolution; but Lev. 19:18 ushers in the commandment of love by the prohibition against taking vengeance or bearing any grudge “against the children of thy people,” and vengeance and grudges could be directed only against those who have injured us, i.e., our personal enemies. If, according to Leviticus, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves instead of taking vengeance and bearing a grudge we have exactly what Jesus here commands his disciples. So this is not a new commandment but nothing but the old commandment brought forth again. With their vicious corollary about hating our enemies the scribes and Pharisees had only fallen from the ancient moral height.

Matthew 5:44

44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you in order that you may be sons of your Father in the heavens, seeing that he makes his sun rise on wicked and good and sends rain on righteous and unrighteous. Once more as God’s own Son and the Lord of the law, with the emphatic ἐγώ and the voice of authority, Jesus crushes the rabbinical perversion and restates what Moses and the prophets (v. 17) really commanded God’s people. He uses the plural to include all his hearers, and the present imperative ἀγαπᾶτε means, “love constantly.” “Your enemies” are personal enemies who are defined in the parallel command as “those persecuting you,” hating and trying to do you injury. On their part they are flagrantly transgressing the law. But their doing so is not to induce us to follow their evil example; compare Lev. 19:18. Our enemies will have a fearful account to render to God; we are to be preserved from having such an account to meet. In spite of all their enmity we are to go on in love.

’Ἀγαπᾶν deserves careful attention. It signifies something that is altogether higher than φιλεῖν, the love of mere affection and liking. This latter kind of love would be impossible in the case of an enemy: he would not accept our affection, would strike us if we tried to embrace him. Nor would we be able to like our enemies, even as we nowhere read that Jesus liked the wicked Jews, his enemies. The verb ἀγαπᾶν denotes the love of intelligence, comprehension, and corresponding purpose. It, indeed, sees all the hatefulness and the wickedness of the enemy, feels his stabs and his blows, may even have something to do toward warding them off; but all this fills the loving heart with the one desire and aim, to free its enemy from his hate, to rescue him from his sin, and thus to save his soul.

Mere affection is often blind, but even then it thinks that it sees something attractive in the one toward whom it goes out; the higher love may see nothing attractive in the one so loved, nor is this love called out by anything that is attractive; its inner motive is simply to bestow true blessings upon the one loved, to do him the highest good. I cannot like a filthy, vicious beggar and make him my personal friend; I cannot like a low, mean criminal who may have robbed me and threatened my life; I cannot like a false, lying, slanderous fellow who, perhaps, has vilified me again and again; but I can by the grace of Jesus Christ love them all, see what is wrong with them, desire and work to do them only good, most of all to free them from their vicious ways. On God’s ἀγάπη see the author’s commentary on John 3:16.

The A. V. follows the less critical text which inserts two clauses from Luke 6:27, 28, and only reverses them. Matthew merely abbreviates. The true ἀγάπη does all it itself can and then enlists also the aid of God. Both the imperative προσεύχεσθε and the substantivized participle διωκόντων are present tenses and durative; our enemies may go on persecuting us, we are to go on praying for them. The root idea of ὑπέρ, “over,” easily becomes the notion “in behalf of,” “for the benefit of,” R. 630.

The best commentary on such praying is Jesus’ prayer on Calvary for his executioners. Our prayer will be that God’s grace may bring our enemies to see their sins and their wrong, to repent and thus to obtain God’s pardon. Only the ἀγάπη which Jesus puts into our hearts as his disciples is able to produce such prayer.

Matthew 5:45

45 How this love is to come into our hearts and completely control them Jesus has already indicated in the Beatitudes (see especially v. 6) and in the figures of the salt and the light in v. 13–16

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.