How should
we interpret the ethical admonitions proclaimed by Jesus in the Sermon on the
Mount? In Christian history, answers
have been varied and confused. For some,
Christ’s antitheses (“you have heard it said/but I say unto you”) are “counsels
of perfection,” a super-righteousness attainable only by a few saints and not
really meant for ordinary believers.
Other interpreters see them as perfectionistic ideals (“Moses
quadrupled”) attainable by no one, but meant to drive us to despair so we will
trust in Christ’s imputed righteousness.
Still others have seen Jesus’ radical vision as an “interim ethic,” a
heroic lifestyle of unprecedented commitment feasible only during the short
period before the consummation of God’s kingdom. Some dispensational theologians have thought
that the Sermon is not relevant for the church-age at all, but only for the glorified
saints who will reign with Christ during his millennial kingdom. Much American evangelical preaching wants to
apply the Sermon to every-day life but finds creative ways to soften the
surface meaning of Christ’s uncomfortable commands so that they are compatible
with American cultural norms.
The common
denominator in these diverse interpretations is that the Sermon is seen
primarily as a new “law” superseding the old Law of Moses. Whether for this age or the age to come,
whether for a few super-dedicated disciples or for the many, whether to be
taken literally or as negotiable hyperbole, Christ’s ideals are viewed as legal
requirements for some or all of Jesus’ followers. Given such a constitutional framework,
interpreters of Christ’s sermon must continually resist being sucked into a
quagmire of Christian legalism.
There is a
better way to understand the Sermon on the Mount, one that places it firmly
within the context of Jesus’ prior
proclamation of God’s in-breaking reign. Before we get to the sermon in Matt. 5-7, we
read that after his baptism in Jordan, “Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt. 4:17). Jesus’ proclamation has two poles, offering
those who believe the gospel freedom
to experience a new way of life (“repentance”) because of God’s prevenient grace (“the kingdom is at
hand”). Rather than imposing a new law,
Jesus offers a new way of grace and freedom.
The design
for Christian life in the Sermon on the Mount was preceded by the call to enter
the force-field of divine grace and the new relationship with God that grace
makes possible. Standing at the head of
the sermon, the Beatitudes affirm the blessed status of the recipients of the
kingdom—which is theirs now (5:3,
10). The descriptors of the disciples (“poor
in spirit,” “those who mourn,” “meek,” “hungry for righteousness,” “pure in
heart,” “persecuted,” etc.), are not moral qualities that merit Christ’s
blessing, but markers of their helplessness and utter dependence on him. For
Jesus’ sake, they have renounced their own righteousness, given up their
rights, surrendered completely to Jesus so that he alone may reign in their
lives, and been viciously attacked. As
Bonhoeffer writes, “He has called them, every one, and they have renounced
everything at his call. Now they are
living in want and privation, the poorest of the poor, the sorest afflicted,
the hungriest of the hungry. They have
only him, and with him they have nothing, literally nothing in the world, but
everything with and through God. . . . The
fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has
found all” (The Cost of Discipleship,
pp. 105-114; also see Robert Guelich, The
Sermon on the Mount, pp. 97-111; Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, pp. 70-99).
The Sermon
as a whole is permeated with the Good News of a Heavenly Father who sustains
all of his creation (5:45), unfailingly rewards those who seek him (6:1-7),
knows what we need before we ask (6:8), feeds the birds and clothes the lilies
(6:25-30). The model prayer Christ
teaches the disciples directs them to take a suppliant posture in which they
are recipients of an overwhelming providence and power (6:9-13). They need not be anxious about their lives,
because as they seek God’s kingdom, everything they need will be added (6:33). If they but ask, their heavenly Father will
give them all good things (7:7-11).
The utterly
gratuitous nature of the kingdom life sketched by Jesus is underlined by the
fact that it is humanly impossible. For
example, as I teach theology courses to un-churched college students, we spend
some time on Jesus’ call to “love your enemies” (5:43, 44). This idea is typically met with skeptical
amazement, and vehemently rejected as unnatural, impracticable and, well,
impossible. Students find the statement
of the philosopher Euripides (400 BC) more in line with reality: “Only a coward
or a mad man would give good for evil.” The
take-home from our discussion is that such an other-worldly way of life could
not arise from any human effort but only from the power of a God who exists
outside this world. Another example is
Jesus’ teaching about divorce and marriage (5:31, 32; 19:3-12). In this case, we are able to observe the push
back from Jesus’ own disciples who are shocked by his insistence on the
permanence of marriage. “If such is the
case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry,” they say. Jesus replies, “Not everyone can receive this
saying but only those to whom it is given.” The reality of the new life is not a matter
of law-keeping; it must be given.
If we
carefully examine the ethical antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount, we see
that they actually represent a stark confrontation between Law and Grace. “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not
murder.’” This law restrains violence.
It is something that is humanly “doable” because it deals with surface
behavior. But the offer of kingdom grace
is different, and deeper: You need not
even be angry with your opponent. This
is more than a Band-Aid. It is an inner
healing. “You have heard it said, ‘You
shall not commit adultery.’” Again, we
have an accusing finger that deters outward unfaithfulness to the marriage vow. Such an ethic is humanly possible. But the promise of Grace is a helping hand
that transforms inner motivation: You
need not even look at a woman with lustful intent. This can’t be legislated, it must be given. If the essence of Law is “evil restrained,” the
essence of Grace is “love outpoured.”
Law deals with surface behavior; Grace changes inner motivation. Law corresponds to the highest human justice. Grace corresponds to the prophetic vision of
a new world filled with agape-love.
In their
call to follow Jesus, the disciples do not start empty handed. Jesus refers to the treasury from which they
may draw (Matt. 12:35; 13:52). Even for
an un-savable rich man, the dawning of a new era makes impossible things
possible (19:23-26). The inrushing new
way of life is due to the presence of Jesus as their messianic teacher and
God’s vicegerent. Jesus is the perfect
personification of life in the kingdom of God.
The disciples will be “learners,” formed through intimate union with
their master. Jesus can assure them,
“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the
Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls” (11:27-29).
The presence and power of Jesus will never be far away, “for where two
or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (18:20), “and behold,
I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20).
The
interpretational key to the Sermon on the Mount will now be obvious. The ethical ideals in the Sermon are not laws
to be fulfilled but responses of kingdom citizens to the experienced grace of
God. This key was outlined by Joachim
Jeremias (The Sermon on the Mount, 1963)
in a series of examples. His opening
example is the statement “You are the light of the world” (5:14). Jeremias writes (p. 26), “Can it really be
said of these men, whose weaknesses and failures the evangelists do not
extenuate, that they are the light which illuminates the world? The comparison becomes immediately
meaningful, however, when we presuppose a previous, unexpressed sentence: ‘I am
the light of the world’ (John 8:12).”
Another example is the statement “Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in
heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Jeremias writes (p. 27), “Again something has
preceded the demand of Jesus: the message of a heavenly Father, which runs like
a red thread through the whole Sermon on the Mount, and of his unbounded goodness.”
Jeremias
summarizes: “Every word in
the Sermon on the Mount was preceded by something else. It was preceded by the preaching of the
kingdom of God. It was preceded by the
granting of sonship to the disciples (Matt. 5:17, 5:45, 5:48, etc.) It was preceded by Jesus’ witness to himself
in word and deed. . . . The gospel
preceded each demand. Better: the
sayings of Jesus which have been brought together in the Sermon on the Mount
are a part of the gospel. To each of
these sayings belongs the message: the
old aeon is passing away. Through the
proclamation of the gospel and through discipleship you are transferred into
the new aeon of God. And now you should
know that this is what life is like when you belong to the new aeon of
God. This is what sonship is like. This is what a lived faith is like. This is what the life of those who stand in
the salvation-time of God is like, of those who are freed from the power of
Satan and in whom the wonder of discipleship is consummated” (pp. 30-31).
Jeremias
concludes his investigation with two important points. First, because Jesus’ teaching on
discipleship is “directed to men for whom the power of Satan has already been
destroyed by the Good News, to men who already stand in the kingdom of God and
radiate its nature,” his disciples will have tasted the joy of giving up all
they have for the sake of hidden treasure, and they are thus enabled to receive
the will of God as “valid in all its earnestness.” Because they know the greatness of God’s gift
they also understand the radical nature of the call to discipleship (p.
32).
Second, what
Jesus teaches in this collection of sayings is not intended to be legalistic
“regulation” of the lives of the disciples.
Rather, what are presented here are examples of “what it means when the
kingdom of God breaks into the world which is still under sin, death, and the
devil. Jesus says, in effect: I intend to show you . . . what the new life
is like . . . . You yourselves should be
signs of the coming kingdom of God, signs that something has already happened.
. . . You are forgiven; you are a child
of God; you belong to his kingdom. The
sun of righteousness has risen over your life.
You no longer belong to yourself; rather, you belong to the city of God,
the light of which shines in the darkness.
Now you may also experience it: out of the thankfulness of a redeemed
child of God a new life is growing. This
is the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount” (pp. 33-35).
