The law can not give life because the law is a description of life. The law is a description of Jesus. And it is a description of the life of those that have the life of Jesus living in them because they are united to Christ. When Jesus stands upon this mountain as a new Moses and gives us the new law, he is giving us grace and blessing, because without it we would not know how to love Him. The Sermon on the Mount is, among other things, a description of the character of Jesus over against the character of the Israelites (in particular the scribes and Pharisees) in the first century. The Sermon on the Mount is a description of Jesus’ life, since he lived what he commanded. It is also a call to be Jesus’ disciple in a particular way. By following him, being like him, and having the same type of effect in the world that he has had.
Matt. 4:25-5:2
25And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
1And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Jesus gathers this multitude at the bottom of a mountain and goes up and turns around and opens his mouth. This should remind us of Moses with his multitude gathered at the bottom of Sinai. Jesus even fasted the same number of days as Moses in order to cement the implications (Deuteronomy 9:9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:). Jesus is reenacting this scene and placing himself in the role of Moses and his followers in the role of the Israelites of the exodus, Herod in the role of Pharaoh and the scribes and Pharisee in the role of the hard driving taskmasters. Jesus has come as the new Moses to offer freedom from slave drivers (including the Devil), rest for weary laborers, a land in which to worship God in spirit and truth, and a new kingdom law.
Beatitudes
The Beatitudes are a sort of Ten Commandments of the New Testament. The Sermon on the Mount is a correction. Not a correction of the Old Testament Law. Instead it is a correction of how the Israelites in Jesus’ day are misunderstanding the Old Testament Law. He has picked out specific places that 1st century Jews, and in particular the scribes and Pharisees, were misconstruing and misunderstanding the law in such a way that caused them to miss out on who Jesus was. The OT law was a perfect description of Jesus. The Israelites without faith were misunderstanding the law, so they were missing Jesus.
How is the Sermon on the Mount a description of Jesus?
v.3 Jesus, by joining himself to the church, by completely identifying himself with the sinful people whom he was redeeming became poor in spirit even to the point of death on a cross. The Jews had no category for a Messiah that identified and ate with sinners and tax collectors, they wanted a messiah concerned with the purity laws that separated people, not a messiah that identified with sinners, even to the point of dying for them.
v. 4 Jesus came and mourned over Jerusalem, mourned before the cross, mourned at the death of his friend Lazarus; Jesus came mourning, though the Israelites expected a triumphant king to charge in with an army, not a king who wore a crown of thorns.
v. 5 Jesus is meek. The Pharisees expected to inherit the earth through force and “cleanliness” or forced cleanliness, but Jesus was going to inherit the earth through obedience to the Father, (aka. meekness)
v. 6 Jesus hungered and thirsted after righteousness where the scribes and Pharisees wanted a bureaucratic, outward righteousness, they were just white washed tombs. The did not have the inward life that desires to do right (i.e. righteousness).
v. 7 Jesus was merciful. The Pharisees thought that if they showed mercy that they were keeping Israel in exile. They thought that they needed to be as strict as they could in keeping everyone else in line and then God would rescue them from exile.
v. 8 Jesus was pure in heart; he had no guile in him. He only sought justice and mercy and peace. The Pharisees were so interested in “keeping the law” that they forgot to love their neighbor, which of course meant that they weren’t in the least bit interested in keeping the law, which told them to love their neighbor.
v. 9 Jesus came to bring peace, he did not come to bring war the way that the Pharisees thought the messiah would. Jesus said that whoever seeks to live by the sword will die by the sword. The Pharisees/zealots sought to bring life back to Israel by the sword, and they died by the sword.
v. 10 -12 – a man hung from a tree was a man under a curse. The Israelites thought that their Savior-King (Messiah) was going to be a physically triumphant king that would charge in and kick out the Romans because they did not realize that their real problem was Sin, Death, and the Devil. Jesus came and was persecuted when it looked the fate of Jesus looked the bleakest to Israelites and they thought that he was destroyed, he was actually coming into his kingdom. John and James asked to sit on his right and left hand when he came into his kingdom, but God put two thieves on his right hand and on his left.
v. 13 -18 – where the Israelites refused to be a kingdom of priests, Jesus was the perfect high priest. Where the Israelites refused to bring the light to world and be salt for the nations, Jesus gave himself for illumination and preservation of the whole world. Where the Israelites refused to stand between the world and its God and seek their reconciliation, Jesus stood between God and the nations and died of the cross to bring them together. This would have of course made some think that he was destroying the law (v. 17), because they misunderstood what the law was teaching, that was why they were missing Jesus. Instead, Jesus was fulfilling what the law had always been about, which was the final reconciliation of the whole world by means of the nation of Israel. God became the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not to exclude the world, like the Pharisees thought, but to eventually be reconciled with the whole world through Abraham’s seed, the nation of Israel and through Jesus.
v. 19 -20 – and anyone who will not do these eighteen previous verses will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. If you continue to refuse this law, like the Pharisees won’t (v. 20) then you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven (which is not heaven, but is the rule of earth by Jesus)
Jesus verses the Pharisees
Jesus is explicitly teaching in opposition to the common teaching of his day. The “traditional” interpretation was not actually the traditional interpretation. Jesus was a reformer of doctrine. The particular doctrines are ones that was confusing the population on his identity. So these are the particular laws that the population was misunderstanding that were causing them to not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
v. 21 – 26 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time . . . but I say unto you – As long as I don’t kill anyone I won’t be in danger of judgment, but Jesus says that if you get angry and curse at your brother you are in danger of the fires of hell. The Pharisees taught that the spirit of the law was to not murder, But Jesus taught that the spirit of the law was the unity of the brethren. This is a description of what Jesus was like, he did not just refrain from murdering, but came unifying enemies and bringing peace
v. 27 – 32 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time . . . but I say unto you Even some of the Romans were astounded and sickened by the prevalence of sexual immorality. The Pharisees tried to solve the problem by stopping the adultery. We see, with the woman caught in adultery, when the one who has not committed adultery is invited to throw the first stone, that you were hard pressed to find someone who hadn’t committed adultery. There was one sect of Pharisees that were called the Bleeding Pharisees because they were so intent on avoiding lust that they walked with theirs eyes down and covered. But Jesus is saying that the spirit of the law is
v. 33 – 37 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time . . . but I say unto you The third commandment, to not take the Lord’s name in vain, Jesus takes and explicates the Spirit of the law. It means be a truth-teller. Be trustworthy with the facts. Let your communications be Yea, yea or nay, nay. And what did Jesus do? His communication was Verily, verily… He did not come swearing and making oaths that what he said was true, He would merely say verily, verily
v. 38 – 42 Ye have heard that it hath been said . . . But I say unto you Eye for an eye, which is a law that is meant to limit the governments rights in terms of the maximum allowable punishment for a crime, had been turned into a justification for personal revenge. Jesus says that the law instead insists on giving up yourself and your “rights” for the good of others. Jesus gave up all the rights and privileges of being the only begotten and eternal son of God for the good of others. They compelled him and he went the extra mile carrying his own cross. Jesus was anything but stingy even with His own person. He gave himself away for the good of others.
v. 43 – 47 Ye have heard that it hath been said . . . But I say unto you the Pharisees taught that you needed to love your Israelites, but you could hate the Romans. They were continuing to turn the light that God had given them in on themselves, but Jesus said no, you must love your enemies. And Jesus loved his enemies. When we were still sinners Jesus died for us.
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