The Sermon on the Mount by Joe La Bianca
We must read the Sermon on the Mount with the correct perspective. We must lift up the person and work of Christ in our interpretation of the Bible. Jesus came to do God’s will. Psalm 40 says this. Psalm 40 also says that Jesus would preach righteousness to the great congregation.
Psalm 40: 6Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
7Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,
8I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
9I have preached righteousness in the great congregation:
God knew that one day He would nullify the Law of Moses. That’s why it says, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire.” Jesus, the only one with the law in His heart, would become the final sacrifice. He would take that unbroken law to the cross to exchange His goodness for our wickedness. He would do the will of God, this One whose life was pre-written throughout the entire Old Testament. So Christ saw the multitudes in Matthew 5 and opened His mouth to preach the Sermon on the Mount. He started with the beatitudes.
Many understand these beatitudes with only a surface comprehension, and they preach shallow things to others. But I believe there is a deeper meaning. The beatitudes describe someone who becomes saved by faith in grace. The word beatitude means happy.
The poor in spirit are those who are sad because of their sinful heart. When someone can admit they are a sinner, only then can they have Christ and the kingdom. Sadness is the first step to God. You can’t ever get to Heaven if you’re not sad about your sin.
The second beatitude is of a mourner. When we realize that we hurt God with our sin, we mourn, but God comforts us. We mourn over sin itself. The awareness of sin causes deep sorrow. It grieves us that we are bad. The people who will acknowledge their sin will be comforted by God.
The meek will get the earth, not the prideful and self-sufficient. The earth is given to those who will not fight for it. The new Heaven and new Earth will belong to those who did not oppose God. We oppose God by not confessing our imperfection. We oppose God by saying we are good, for no one is good but God alone! Thank God that Jesus gives away His goodness when we trust in His death on the cross and His resurrection at the tomb.
After we own our sin, we realize we are empty. We are no longer deceived into a false feeling of self-fulfillment. It is then that we hunger. When someone is hungry for righteousness, they get filled with righteous, a righteousness that’s not their own. It is the righteousness of Christ that fills us. Only those who are humble can thirst for righteousness, for the prideful legalist thinks he is righteous so he cannot hunger for it.
After someone has been given free goodness by faith in the cross, this makes it possible for them to be merciful. They are merciful because they have received mercy. The one trying to earn salvation is an opponent to those around them. They are not merciful, for they want to stick out to God at the expense of others. They want God to notice them above all the other people. Be merciful and offer free salvation. Show them the same mercy you have received from Christ.
The pure in heart will see God. But Jesus called us evil later in this same sermon, “If you being evil know how to give good gifts.” Those still under the law were considered evil by God because Christ had not died yet. After Christ cleansed us by His cross and by our faith in His cross, we were considered pure by God. Those before the cross were given God’s patience until the great sacrifice. God showed His patience by leaving the sins committed beforehand unpunished, as Paul clearly teaches. The pure in heart that will see God are those who have been purified by faith in Jesus. No one can be pure in heart, for all have sinned! Purity is a gift given to those who believe.
The gospel produces peace-makers. It makes peace between God and man and between man and man. Religions cause divisions and wars. The gospel will be rejected, though, by many people. The next beatitude speaks of the persecution by those who have refused grace.
When people are honest enough to confess their sin, it makes the ones who will not confess their sin mad, so they persecute. The last two beatitudes, or one if you combine them, speak of carrying our cross. We bear the cross when the world persecutes us for Christ. God doesn’t give us the cross, as many Christians think. The world gives us a cross of suffering when they reject Jesus and harass us for accepting free forgiveness. Only cowards attack those who will not fight back. We are harmless sheep, and the tormenter’s easy prey! But “vengeance is mine,” says the LORD!
After these sayings, Jesus told us to be happy for persecution. He was thinking of the church as a whole, for he said that they persecuted the prophets who went before. The prophets were a whole group and so is the invisible church. The prophets spoke of the coming Christ. The invisible church speaks of the Christ who came. The people who believe are the invisible church. The real church is not the visible establishment of buildings, hierarchy and rule makers.
The church is the salt of the earth, not individual people. Jesus knew that one day the church would come to be known as the religious establishment, that’s why He said if the salt loses it’s flavor, it will be thrown out and considered useless. The church is the light of the world, for Jesus said it is a city. A city is not one person. Stop looking at this sermon legalistically. It’s too hard for one person to be the light of the world, but not for the body of Christ, with all its different parts. The blessed Christ-given fruit of all combined believers is what makes the world see God. The body of Christ has different parts. We are not all a hand or a foot. Just be who God created you to be and do not worry about what you must do for God.
Now Jesus talks about the law. Jesus didn’t come to destroy the law and the prophets. He came to fulfill them. Jesus fulfilled the law by never sinning. He fulfilled the prophets by answering all the predictions. The phrase, “Till heaven and earth pass away”, meant that nothing would pass from the law until Christ fulfilled it. If parts of the law had been omitted before Jesus accomplished them, then all righteousness would not have been fulfilled and we would be lost. Jesus had to complete everything for us. This saying “till heaven and earth pass away”, doesn’t mean the end of the literal world. It’s like when we say, “Until hell freezes over.” We don’t mean it literally. The Hebrews had the same kind of saying when emphasizing an important point. But now that Christ fulfilled the law, the law has passed away.
Who is least in the kingdom of God? All of us are! Who is greatest in the kingdom of God? Jesus is! He is the greatest because he fulfilled the real law, the inner Law of Moses. The surface law has murder and adultery only in the literal sense. The law of the heart has murder and adultery in the inner sense, when we have had anger without cause or when we lusted in our hearts. Jesus fulfilled this law. He never sinned in this way. He was the only one. He did the real law and taught the real law, the law that only He could perform. We have broken the least of the commandments, and we have also tried to justify it. Jesus is the only one who did the commandments and taught the commandments the way it really matters to God.
When Jesus is placed in the interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, it makes perfect sense with the gospel of Paul. But if we read this sermon with the wrong precognition, we will be mired in the mud of legalism for the rest of our lives.
The Pharisees taught a surface law. That’s why they were so self-righteous. But Jesus taught the inner law. This is the law that condemns us. God sees us as murders and adulterers. Were you ever angry at someone for the wrong reason? Did you ever lust after someone? Then you are a murder and an adulterer. All the good works in the world cannot remove the sins we have already committed. It doesn’t matter how we live now, we cannot take away the fact that at some time in the past we have murdered in God’s eyes. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God! So what do we do?
Jesus has come to fulfill the inner law for us. His death removes our murders and His Spirit gives us power over the sinful nature, so we do not walk according to it. It’s all of Jesus, folks! All the praise goes to Him for taking care of us. Never put confidence in yourself. Put all confidence in Jesus and He will bring you through to the end.
The Pharisees taught a superficial law, one that the self-righteous could attain to. In this way they deluded themselves into thinking they were righteous. But Jesus said that our righteousness must surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees. For God to accept us, we must be perfect, but Jesus called us evil later in this sermon. The whole point of this sermon was to show the difference between a watered down law and the real law that is too hard to fulfill. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. In the surface law, murder puts one in danger of judgment, but in the inner law, being angry without a cause puts one in danger of judgment. In the true law of the heart, to call someone a fool puts one in danger of being thrown into the blazing garbage dump known as the Valley of Hinnom.
Have you ever called someone a fool, or thought it in your heart? Did you ever lust after someone at any time in your life? Then that makes you an adulterer according to Jesus. Why talk about how you are living today when sometime in the past you became a murderer and an adulterer? Can’t you see what Jesus is trying to do here? This sermon was meant to drive us to Christ. True, Jesus was also preaching against hypocrites. No one has to be a hypocrite. But the deeper meaning is that the law will bring a consciousness of sin. Once we are aware of our sad condition, we can call upon Jesus for His life, love and free forgiveness.
Listen people, we have already sinned. It’s too late for us. But the good news is that Jesus died to pay for our sins. He died for us because He could die for us. Jesus, the fulfillment of the deep law died as the spotless Lamb. His sinless life made it possible for Him to give His life as He bore our sins. We cannot understand it entirely, but God doesn’t expect us to, so just trust in the fact of the cross and resurrection for our sins and that will be enough. Have a tiny amount of mustard seed faith, that’s all, and trust in the only Son of God who brings us to the Father. The Sermon on the Mount should drive us to the mercy and power of the cross if we are reading it right. So read it right, not like the hypocrites who think they can get away with obeying their own convenient law to satisfy God.