Category: Sermon on the Mount

I have written several posts in the past about the Sermon on the Mount, specifically addressing the fact that it is NOT a set of guidelines for living the Christian life.  But I also don’t believe we should just dismiss it as an old covenant message for an old covenant audience.  I think much of what Jesus said in the sermon is prophetic regarding what is coming in the new covenant.  The beatitudes in particular I think point forward to the promise of the new covenant regarding our pure heart, the fact that we will never hunger and thirst for righteousness after we believe the gospel, we will be peacemakers, etc.

Add to this how many times Jesus spoke in parables and mystery and it leaves me wondering, could the Lord’s prayer portion of the Sermon on the Mount have been a prophetic prayer pointing forward to its fulfillment in the new covenant?  Could it be that the Lord’s prayer is not a model for us today, a prayer of longing for us to repeat.  What if it is prophetic and has already been fulfilled in Jesus?  If you enjoy this kind of study, look over these thoughts on the Lord’s prayer and let me know what you think.

First the familiar prayer,

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.  ①Your kingdom come.  ②Your will be done ③on earth as it is in heaven.  ④Give us this day our daily bread.  ⑤And forgive us our debts, ⑥as we forgive our debtors.  ⑦And do not lead us into temptation, ⑧but deliver us from the evil one.  ⑨For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen” (Matthew 6:9-13).

Let’s compare, line by line, Jesus’ prayer to its fulfillment in the new covenant.  The individual phrases from the Lord’s prayer are in bold and the fulfillment text from the New Testament is in italics.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name …”

①“Your kingdom come.” 

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand’ “ (Mark 1:14-15).

Nobody knew it yet at the time of Matthew chapter 6, but the kingdom of God HAD come.  The kingdom of God was “at hand.”  The kingdom of God had arrived with Jesus.

②“Your will be done.”

“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life” (John 6:40).

God’s will is that we believe in Jesus.  This has happened all over the earth for the last 2000 years.

③“On earth as it is in heaven.”

God’s kingdom arriving with Jesus, and we on earth believing His gospel mean that now, today, God’s kingdom has come to earth and His will is being “done on earth as it is in heaven.”

④“Give us this day our daily bread.”

 “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst’ “ (John 6:35).

Our “bread” has arrived.  Jesus said that by believing in His gospel message, we would never be spiritually hungry or thirsty again.

⑤“And forgive us our debts.”

“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us ALL our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

The entirety of our sin debt was taken care of at the cross.  If we believe the gospel message of Jesus Christ, we are completely and forever forgiven.  There is no need to keep asking God to forgive us our sins.

⑥”As we forgive our debtors.”

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also HAS forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32).

After the cross, we are to forgive others BECAUSE we have been forgiven, not in order to be forgiven.

⑦”And do not lead us into temptation,”

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone” (James 1:13).

God does not lead new covenant believers into temptation.  We are led to temptation when, of our own volition, we walk according to the flesh.

⑧”But deliver us from the evil one.”

“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but He who was born of God [Jesus] protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (I John 5:18).

We who are born of God have been delivered from the evil one.

⑨“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

Miracle of miracles.  The kingdom (the kingdom of God is within you, Luke 17:21) and the power (the power of God is within you, Ephesians 3:20) and the glory (the glory of God is within you, John 17:22) of God now reside in you forever!  Amen.

This last line, number ⑨, is my favorite.  Just think about it.  We always see this crescendo of praise in the last line to be to God alone, and, yes, it is a praise He richly deserves.  But now, by our unbreakable union with Him, the kingdom and the power and the glory live in you RIGHT NOW!!!

Jesus instructed His first century disciples to pray this prayer, seeking these things.  But under the new covenant, our seeking is over.  Jesus did it.  Jesus fulfilled it.  We are no longer seekers.  Do you know what we are?  We are finders!!!

Understanding the Red Letters   Bonus

I have written previously about the challenge of interpreting the Sermon on the Mount in this series about the red letters.  To be clear, the message of Matthew chapters 5 through 7 is not a set of guidelines for living the Christian life.  But neither do we just cast it aside as an old covenant message for an old covenant people.  It appears to me to be an intertwined mix of three threads in Jesus’ teaching to His Jewish audience.  Jesus is preaching old covenant Law, Jesus is preaching Law 2.0 (an updated version of the Law), and last, Jesus is giving us a glimpse of life under the new covenant.

A passage that I didn’t cover previously because I really didn’t know what to make of it is Matthew 6:22-23.  Could these words of Jesus be a glimpse of the coming new covenant?  “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)

Think of it this way.  The eye … the eye is how we perceive the world around us.  Jesus came preaching, “Repent and believe the gospel.”  Repent, as we know is “changing one’s mind.”  Another way to say it is “changing one’s perception.”  We perceive with the eye.  Jesus spoke often about truly “seeing” the gospel.

… is the lamp … the lamp illuminates what we see with our eye … of the body … the body is our earthly experience.  What we perceive with our eyes will illuminate our earthly experience.

If your eye is clear … if your perception is seeing correctly, … your whole body will be full of light … the light is the kingdom of God inside you.  This is a preview of what is coming in the new covenant; the light of the kingdom of God will shine in us.  It will shine in us who repent (change our perception to see clearly) and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If your eye is bad … if you are not perceiving and receiving God’s offer of salvation … your whole body will be full of darkness … you will experience the total darkness that comes with being a lost person, outside of the kingdom of God.  Or said another way … If then the light that is in you is darkness … Wait a minute, how can the light in us be darkness?

Jesus said to the Pharisees, even as they were not believing in Him, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).  How could Jesus say that?  Because the kingdom of God was available to the Pharisees just as it is to all men.  But they refused to believe, they denied the kingdom available to them.  That is how the light in us can be darkness.  We reject the light when we reject the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

When the light goes out because of one’s unbelief, … how great is the darkness! … the darkness is great because it is literally the difference between life and death.  The light is life.  The darkness is death.  The darkness is spiritual death.  And the darkness is total.  There is no partial darkness for the lost.

In the gospel of John, Jesus speaks often about light and darkness signifying saved to eternal life and those who are lost.  And this passage, a bit obscure in Matthew chapter 6, is a preview of the salvation offer that is being announced by Jesus throughout the gospels, “Repent and believe the gospel.”  If you have believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, your eye is clear and you are full of light.  Shine on, my friends.

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 27

(6 minute read)

Matthew chapters 5 through 7 is one of the most preached-through passages in the gospels.  In a variety of church settings, I often find myself in a sermon series from the Sermon on the Mount.  And let me say at the outset, as politely as I can, this section of the gospels is NOT a guide to living the Christian life.  So how are we to understand the Sermon on the Mount?  What is Jesus teaching in these verses?

Please follow closely as I seek to give a concise but thorough summary of the Sermon on the Mount in this short space.  Here, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, Jesus is teaching at least three intertwined messages to His Jewish audience.  Jesus is preaching old covenant Law, Jesus is preaching Law 2.0 (an updated version of the Law), and last, Jesus is giving us a glimpse of life under the new covenant.  What makes these chapters confusing is that there is no set order as to when Jesus is speaking which of these three emphases.  We can only understand it properly when we look back through the lens of the new covenant.  And when we do that, we see that not everything in this sermon applies to believers today.  Let me give you some examples.

Let’s start with Law and old covenant.  We are all familiar with the Golden Rule.  “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).  Remember, “the Law and the Prophets” is used by Jesus several times in the gospels to refer to the old covenant.  The Golden Rule is an old covenant concept.

Or how about Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”?  This message is clearly old covenant.  Forgiving others in order to be forgiven by God was a transactional arrangement with God, an arrangement that ended at the cross.  It ended at the end of the old covenant.  This verse is the exact opposite of the promise of our complete forgiveness in Christ given to us under the new covenant, under our new arrangement with God.  After the cross, we are to forgive others – not as a prerequisite for God to forgive us – but because we have already been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13).

The old covenant has ended (Hebrews 8:13) for you and I.  The old covenant messages in the Sermon on the Mount do not apply to new covenant believers.

Next, let’s look at Law 2.0.  Jesus told the gathered crowd, “Unless your righteousness SURPASSES that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).  Every Jew in the audience that day would have thought to themselves, “It is impossible to out-righteous the scribes and Pharisees.  They are the poster children for righteousness according to the Law.”  So how is this done?  Is there a higher Law you can keep, say Law 2.0?  Jesus then launches in to what Law 2.0 looks like.

“You think you are keeping the Law if you do not commit adultery.  But I say that if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you are already guilty of adultery” (Matthew 5:27-28).  Did Jesus just raise the standard for “guilty of adultery”?  Or, “If you are angry at your brother and call him a fool, you deserve to go to hell” (Matthew 5:22).  That is an awfully severe punishment for anger.  Or, “The only way to really keep from sinning is to pluck out your eye and cut off your hand” (Matthew 5:29-30).  Huh?  Do you see where this is going?

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus starts several sections with, “You have heard that it was said …” (Matthew 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43).  Then Jesus states some part of the Law that they would have been familiar with.  He follows this with “But I say to you …”  and turns each of these commands up a notch with an even harder command to follow.

This is Law 2.0.  This is perfection.  Jesus summarizes this section with, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  I think the whole point of Matthew chapter 5 is, “Perfection is required to be right with God.  Knowing that you cannot live the required perfect life should lead you to your need for a Savior.”

Of course, at this early stage of Jesus’ ministry, no one would have known that the Savior is Him!  No one would have known that Jesus came to rescue them and us from the perfection requirement.  These chapters are long before Jesus explained to the crowds that salvation and eternal life would come through Him.  Looking back, we can see that our righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees, our perfection, our justification will all come to us through Jesus’ death in our place.  Law 2.0 has nothing for us as new covenant believers.

But there are also some glimpses of our new covenant life in this sermon.  I believe that the beatitudes of Matthew 5:3-12 are prophetic, speaking about the future us.  These verses are not character qualities to aspire to.  They are describing who you will be under the new covenant.  For example, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8).  When you believe the gospel, Jesus will give you a new pure heart.  This is forward looking.  This is not, “You need to constantly work at keeping your heart pure.”  No, your pure heart will be a one-time gift of grace.  And with your pure heart, you will see God and be blessed.

Or how about, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6)?  We often hear this preached that we need to keep a high level of hunger and thirst for righteousness at all times.  I have even heard a radio preacher question our salvation if we do not have an adequate hunger for righteousness.  This completely flips the promise around and puts the shame on us if we are not hungry enough.  How much hunger is enough?

At the risk of sounding crass, my “hunger and thirst” is now zero.  It has been completely satisfied in Jesus.  “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst’ ” (John 6:35).  Did you hear the “never”?  Jesus completely satisfies our hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Matthew 5:6 is a forward-looking promise that will be fulfilled in all future believers under the gift of the new covenant.

In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus assures us that the same God of the old covenant will be our provider under the new.  We can trust God for our needs.  Our focus will move away from money and things and possessions and onto His kingdom (Matthew 6:33) as we enter into our new life.  Again, no one had a clue at this point what Jesus’ kingdom would involve.  Only in looking back can we see our place in the kingdom as a beloved and cared for child of God.

Finally, check out this preview of the new covenant, “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:9-11).

The Old Testament included a deadly run-in with snakes (Numbers 21).  The old covenant was written on tablets of stone (Exodus 24:12), stones that Paul called a ministry of death (II Corinthians 3:7).  By contrast, the new covenant will be good gifts of bread and fish.  Jesus is the promised Bread of Life (John 6:35); a gift to us who believe the gospel.  And remember the ichthys, the fish symbol that identified the early Christians?  I don’t think it is an accident that Jesus fed a crowd of 5000 with bread and fish.  Bread and fish would become symbols of the new covenant.

Of course, no one in the Sermon on the Mount crowd would have had the slightest idea about what all this meant and what was coming.  Jesus’ ministry that followed was brand new and completely unexpected.  We see these things more clearly now because we are looking backward at Jesus’ words.  We have the rest of Scripture to explain the fuller picture to us, and to see where the Sermon on the Mount fits into the two covenants.

The Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 is NOT a “Christian Manifesto” as we have been taught.  Looking back through the lens of the rest of the gospel, we see these chapters as Jesus preaching old covenant Law, Jesus preaching Law 2.0, and Jesus giving us a glimpse of life under the coming new covenant.  It is NOT a prescription for living the Christian life.  And when we teach that it is, we place a heavy yoke of guilt, shame, and condemnation on believers who struggle with the perfection commands of Law 2.0.

Jesus became our perfection.  We are fully justified, not by living up to the commands of the Law or Law 2.0.  We are justified wholly and fully by Jesus’ death in our place on the cross and by our belief that He did this for us; by believing the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  And our Christian walk is energized by the indwelling Christ living His life through us, NOT by keeping to the letter of the Law, a letter emphasized in various ways and in various parts of the Sermon on the Mount.  We live, move, and walk under a new covenant.  The Sermon on the Mount is NOT a Guide to Christian Living.

Now ironically, the gospels do contain a multi-chapter message from Jesus that IS a Christian manifesto.  We have a message in the red letters that is 100% new covenant.  We have a message that describes what life under the new covenant will look like.  For some reason, it does not seem to be as popular of a preaching topic.  Where can we turn for an incredible life-affirming message of joy and freedom from the mouth of Jesus?  We will talk about it next time.

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 25

The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 is a very complicated part of the gospel.  In these chapters, Jesus teaches Law, Jesus teaches old covenant, and Jesus points forward to the coming new covenant.  And these focuses are intermixed throughout these chapters.  One of the undervalued pieces of Jesus’ presentation is how much of it is prophetic; again, pointing forward.  Matthew 7:1-5 is one of these passages.

I think the most well-known verse in the Bible, particularly among those who have never read the Bible, is Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.”  The command not to judge others is universally approved (though rarely put into practice).  Remember when we were kids?  One of our favorites phrases was, “You’re not the boss of me!” as we tried to announce our independence.  As adults, “You’re not the judge of me!” has become ours and society’s mantra.  But is “you’re not the judge of me” really what Jesus is saying here?

Let’s continue the passage.  “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.  Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, …”(Matthew 7:2-5a)

This is usually where we stop the thought in this passage of Scripture.  And we conclude that it teaches, “You hypocrite, you have your own giant problems so stop correcting your brother” or “With such great flaws of your own, stop trying to point out your brother’s minor ones.”  In short, “Don’t judge.  In fact, never ever ever ever judge others.”  This is where typical preaching on this passage leaves us.

But this isn’t where Jesus stops the thought.  Let’s read all of verse 5, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and you will see clearly enough to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).  Is there really a role for us to play in “taking the speck out of our brother’s eye”?  Rather than falling for the notion that we all have so many problems that we should not be assisting others with theirs, Jesus calls us to start by taking action about our own sin; removing the log in our own eye.

We are to remove the log – be willing to address our own blind spots – in our own eye so that we will be clear-seeing and equipped to help our brother.  Jesus is not saying to ignore each others’ sins.  He is telling us to take care of our own challenges first before we go too far down the path of trying to “help” our brother.

How do we get the log out of our own eye?  The short answer is that when we allow Christ to live His life in and though us, we see areas or blind spots in ourselves that need to change.  And the beautiful promise to new covenant believers is that Jesus has given us the power to change.  Sin is no longer our master.

Remember, at the time of this message, nobody knew what was coming in the new covenant.  Nobody knew about the promise of a new power over sin that was coming to those who believed in Jesus.  Nobody knew that the power to remove the log from our own eye was coming to us through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

This passage is actually being prophetic.  It is looking ahead to what is coming in this new covenant body, the church.  Fast forward to Galatians 6:1, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”

“You who are spiritual” is the one who understands grace and practices grace.  In a loving community of believers, those who are spiritual (those who has been captured by the power of grace to fuel our godly living) are to help our brothers and sisters along the way.  There no condemnation in helping our struggling brother in this way, only gentleness.

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 11

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23).

I write with great sadness at how many times this passage has been used to put believers on shaky ground.  Let me assure you as clearly as I can.  If you have believed the gospel message of Jesus, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, you are NOT part of this group of lost souls.  Jesus is not talking to believers.  He is talking to the lost.  How do we know that?

One clue is His declaration. “I never knew you.”  If you have believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, HE KNOWS YOU !!!  Jesus proclaimed in John chapter 17 that eternal life is knowing Him and Jesus knowing you.  This is the most intimate knowing possible.  And what have we learned about how we obtain this eternal life?  We have learned over and over that eternal life is promised to us on the basis of our faith in Jesus.  Once you have trusted Jesus, it is impossible for Him to NOT know you.

Jesus also says in this passage that only the one who “does the will of My Father” will enter the kingdom of heaven.  This is where teachers love to add a weight of condemnation on believer’s shoulders.  “Are you sure you are ‘doing’ the will of God?  Are you ‘doing’ the right disciplines and activities to keep you in the will of God?  Are you studying to ‘know’ the will of God?”

Let’s jump to the answer to all these questions.  “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life” (John 6:40).  The “will of God” is that simple; believe in Jesus.

Here is one last indication of who Jesus is talking about.  Lawlessness is one of the most core definitions of sin.  Lawlessness is sin to the core.  The one who “practices lawlessness” (vs 23) is the one whose identity is sin to the core.  This is a lost person who is still in Adam.  This is not us.  How do we know that?  “Every one who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness … The one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning … No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (I John 3:4,8,9).

Do believers sin?  Yes, but it is not our core identity.  Our core identity is saint.  Your core identity is child of God.  And as a child of God, you NEVER have to worry that Jesus will say to you, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”