CRITICAL NOTES
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
The aim and contents of the “Sermon.”—No mere sermon is this, only distinguished from others of its class by its reach and sweep and power; it stands alone as the grand charter of the commonwealth of heaven; or, to keep the simple title the Evangelist himself suggests (Matthew 4:23), it is “the gospel (or good news) of the kingdom.” To understand it aright we must keep this in mind, avoiding the easy method of treating it as a mere series of lessons on different subjects, and endeavouring to grasp the unity of thought and purpose which binds its different parts into one grand whole. It may help us to do this if we first ask ourselves what questions would naturally arise in the minds of the more thoughtful of the people, when they heard the announcement, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It was evidently to such persons the Lord addressed Himself.… In their minds they would, in all probability, be revolving such questions as these:
1. “What is this kingdom, what advantages does it offer, and who are the people that belong to it?”
2. “What is required of those that belong to it? What are its laws and obligations?” And if these two questions were answered satisfactorily, a third would naturally follow.
3. “How may those who desire to share its privileges and assume its obligations become citizens of it?” These, accordingly, are the three great questions dealt with in succession (J. M. Gibson, D.D.).
The originality of the Sermon.—We are not careful to deny, we are eager to admit, that many even of the most admirable sayings in the Sermon on the Mount had been anticipated by heathen moralists and poets (S. Cox, D.D.). To affirm that Christ was not in the world, nor in the thoughts of men, until He took flesh and dwelt among us, is no more to honour Him than it is to affirm that, when He came into the world, He showed Himself to be no wiser than the men whose thoughts He had previously guided and inspired.… His teaching, we may be sure, will not be new in the sense of having no connection with the truths He had already taught by them; but it will be new in this sense, that it will perfect that which in them was imperfect; that it will gather up their scattered thoughts, free them from the errors with which they had blended them, and harmonise, develop, and complete them (S. Cox, D D.).
Is the Sermon on the Mount evangelical?—You have heard, as I have, that there is no “Cross” in this Sermon on the Mount; that we are at the foot of Sinai listening to Moses, and not at Calvary “beholding the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.” Let us not be deceived. You might as well say there is no sun in a coal-pit or a geyser because you do not see his form there. Your British coalfields are as truly the-children of the sun as is the ray of light that last fell upon our eyes, and the high-pitched morality of this sermon is as really the offspring of the death and resurrection of Christ as the first pulse-beat of joy on the reception of the forgiveness of sins. Will you say that the writer of Todhunter’s Trigonometry is unfamiliar with the first four rules of arithmetic because he assumes instead of stating and proving them? No more should we conclude that salvation by the sacrifice of the Son of God for men is absent from the Sermon on the Mount, because it is not expressly stated and argued as it is in the third of the Romans. There is not a benediction that does not take us to Calvary. There is not a warning that may not urge us to Christ. There is not a mountain elevation of holiness that will not force from us the cry, “Lord, help me, or I perish.” The Sermon is full of the great principles we have to preach, and those principles are all embodied in the Speaker Himself. Teaching Him we teach the principles of this Sermon, and it is of little use teaching the ideas of this Sermon without also teaching Him (J. Clifford, D.D.). The Lord Jesus did not give the world His best wine in this cup, marvellous and precious though it be. The best thing in the Gospels is the gospel itself—that manifestation of the righteousness and love of God in the person, the life, and the death of His Son by which He wins our love and makes us righteous (S. Cox, D.D.).
The relation between the Sermon on the Mount as reported by St. Matthew and the account of it in St. Luke 6—Commentators are divided in opinion as to whether or not these are two versions of the same discourse. Augustine suggests a solution of the difficulty by saying that the two discourses are entirely distinct, though delivered on the same occasion—that reported by St. Matthew, on the mountain to the disciples; that of St. Luke, delivered on the plain just below to the multitude. Dean Vaughan concurs in this view, and says: “Men have doubted whether the discourse in St. Matthew is to be regarded as an ampler account of that which is reported by St. Luke. The general scope and purport is the same. Yet, as St. Matthew says expressly that Jesus spake ‘sitting on the mountain,’ and St. Luke says that He spake ‘standing on the plain,’ it seems not very unnatural to suppose that the one (that given by St. Matthew) was a discourse delivered, as it were, to the inner circle of His disciples, apart from the crowd outside; the other (preserved by St. Luke), a briefer and more popular rehearsal of the chief topics of the former, addressed, immediately afterwards, in descending the hill, to the promiscuous multitude.” Lange also favours this view. Carr (Cambridge Bible for Schools) states the arguments in favour of the identity of the “Sermon on the Mount” with the “Sermon on the Plain,” thus:
1. The beginning and end are identical as well as much of the intervening matter.
2. The portions omitted—a comparison between the old and the new legislation—are such as would be less adapted for St. Luke’s readers than for St. Matthew’s.
3. The “mount” and the “plain” are not necessarily distinct localities. The plain is more accurately translated “a level place,” a platform on the high land.
4. The place in the order of events differs in St. Luke, but it is probable that here as well as elsewhere St. Matthew does not observe the order of time.
Matthew 5:17.—A fresh line of thought begins here and extends to the conclusion of the chapter. Its purport is to tighten the bands of morality upon the consciences of our Saviour’s followers (Morison).
Matthew 5:18. Jot.—The smallest of the Hebrew letters. Tittle.—One of those little strokes by which alone some of the Hebrew letters are distinguished from others like them (Brown).
Matthew 5:19. Least.—As the thing spoken of is not the practical breaking, or disobeying, of the law, but annulling or enervating its obligations by a vicious system of interpretation, and teaching others to do the same; so the thing threatened is not exclusion from heaven, and still less the lowest place in it, but a degraded and contemptuous position in the present stage of the kingdom of God (ibid.).
Matthew 5:20. Scribes and Pharisees.—The frequent combination of the two words (thirteen times in the first three Gospels) implies that for the most part the scribes were of the school of the Pharisees, just as the “chief priests” were, for the most part, of that of the Sadducees (Acts 5:17). The New Testament use of the word differs from the Old. There the scribe is simply the man who writes, the secretary or registrar of the king’s edicts and official documents (2 Samuel 8:17; 2 Samuel 20:25; 2 Kings 18:18). After the return from Babylon, as in the case of Ezra (Ezra 7:6; Ezra 7:12), it was used first of the transcribers and editors of the sacred books, and then, by a natural transition, of their interpreters; and this is the dominant sense of the word in the New Testament (Plumptre).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 5:17-20
A definite aim.—To many who heard them—perhaps to most who heard them at first—the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount must have had a well-nigh revolutionary sound. How different from the thunders of Sinai their proclamation of blessings! How strange the persons declared to be blessed! How all but unheard of the character of those blessings! Was everything, then, to be new? Were the old lines to be entirely obliterated? Were all previous teachers to be superseded by this? To such “thoughts” as these—as so often afterwards—the Saviour seems, next, to reply. His hearers are “not” to “think” thus for a moment (Matthew 5:17). Alike the general character of His mission, and the special character of those older dispensations, and the special character of that which He is about to introduce, forbid such ideas.
I. The general character of His mission.—Notwithstanding what He had said, it was quite a mistake to look upon this as a mission to “destroy.” He came not to “destroy” but to “fulfil”; not to condemn, but to save (John 3:17); not to pull down, but to build up; not to diminish, but to enlarge; not to obliterate, but to restore. All the names that had been given Him signified this. He was to be a Redeemer (Isaiah 49:26), a Saviour (Matthew 1:21), a Healer (Malachi 4:2), a Rebuilder (Acts 15:16), a Shepherd (John 10:11, etc.), a Hope (Jeremiah 14:8), a “Restorer” of paths to dwell in (Isaiah 58:12). If there were, therefore, to be things of a contrary kind—if there were to be destruction and supercession—He was not the person to do them. Those after Him, indeed, might have to behold (John 4:21), those after Him might have to proclaim (Acts 15:10; Galatians 5:3), a good deal in that way. It was not for Him, with His mission, to bring it about. Rather, it was for Him, by His personal teaching, to fortify and enlarge that which previous teachers had taught.
II. The special nature of those older dispensations.—For what were those things in effect? What, if we think of them as we ought? They were declarations, in their day, of God’s will; they were words which came from His mouth (John 9:29; 2 Samuel 23:2); and they were meant to do what He wished (Isaiah 55:11). And to what, therefore, being such, were those “economies” like? They were like those created marvels which we see all around us—whether in “heaven” above, or on “earth” beneath (Matthew 5:18). For what are these also, if we think of it, but so many expressions of His will? (Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:6, etc.; Psalms 33:9). And why are these also, on the other hand, but to fulfil what He wills? (Genesis 1:14-18; Psalms 148:8). And how is it, therefore, that we may argue legitimately, as well of those as of these? Because the heavens are thus the results of God’s will, and intended also (in their way) to accomplish His will, we see them “continuing” till they do so (Psalms 119:89; Psalms 119:91). So, also, because “the law and the prophets,” in a different sphere, were the same, they also shall in like manner “abide” until their work be fulfilled. Not “a jot or tittle” of what is necessary to this can in any way “pass.” Even, therefore, if Christ had come as a destroyer, He would not have destroyed these.
III. The special character of the dispensation which He had come to set up.—In the last two verses of this passage this is mentioned three times in succession. Three times over we are told in them what is to be the rule of His “kingdom.” The rule of His kingdom towards those who shall even in part set those old commandments aside, whether in deed or in word. “The same” shall be regarded as only “least” heirs, in that kingdom (Matthew 5:19). Even if the Saviour does not proceed to extremities against such, there shall be no room for supposing that He looks upon them with favour (Matthew 5:19). The rule towards those who shall not desire, in any way, to set these commandments aside, whether in word or in deed. The same shall be called correspondingly “great” in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19). The more this is true of them, the more fit for it He will pronounce them to be. “Double honour” (1 Timothy 5:17) will willingly be rendered to such. The rule of His kingdom, in the last place, towards those unhappy ones who virtually set these commandments wholly aside. They shall be regarded as not even belonging to that kingdom at all. It is true there were some, at that time, and those in very high places also, who were doing as much (Mark 7:6-13). None the less shall the rule He speaks of be true about them; and about all those also, who, though they listen to Him, are not on a higher level than they (Matthew 5:20). So far is He, in short, from Himself wishing to destroy those ancient commandments that He will not connive at this being attempted on the part of any one else!
In conclusion, what striking combinations are visible here:—
1. Of severity and goodness.—The utterly false are altogether outside. The unwillingly weak have an inner—though not innermost—place.
2. Of the minute and the comprehensive.—The “jots and tittles” on the one hand, “heaven and earth” on the other.
3. Of deference and demand.—What respect is here paid to His predecessors! What superiority is claimed over them! To “fulfil” and surpass their words is what His words are to do! Great are they amongst men! Still greater Himself!
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 5:17-19. The unity and perpetuity of the moral law.—God’s law is like Himself—inflexible, unchangeable, and eternal. Observe:—
I. The organic unity of the moral law.—“Think not that I am come to destroy the law.” It is here suggested:
1. That the law is one.—It is a complete thing; it is a unity. You cannot take any part away without injuring the rest; you cannot relax one part without dislocating the other. As the ocean is one—a unity so made up of seas, and bays, and gulfs, and straits, that if you cast a stone into any portion, the disturbance is felt at its farthest shores—so with the law, if you touch any part, you disturb the whole. Again, the law is like the body—an organic whole, so that if you injure a limb you affect the whole system. Hence we gather that:—
2. The Bible is one.—That is, the Old and New Testaments constitute but one system of Divine truth. The law and the gospel are not separate or opposing forces. The Bible is a single and perfect body; not one member added, but the whole developed. There is a homogeneous process of revelation, communication, and verbal expression in the two divisions of the inspired volume.
3. The purpose is one.—One of God’s revelations cannot contradict or do away with the other.
II. The infallible authority of the moral law.—Delivered by the Most High Himself; written by His finger on tables of stone; placed in the ark of the covenant; bespeaking essential distinction; and occupying a position of glory and supremacy altogether unique. Therefore we consider the law:—
1. Royal.—God is the Author of it.
2. Supreme.—It cannot be improved; it cannot be annulled.
3. Certain.—It is raised above all doubts in its declaration, and verifies itself in its promises and its threatenings.
4. Final.—From its commands there is no appeal.
III. The Divine perfectness of the moral law.—The word “fulfil” does not imply imperfection, but rather implies to embody in the living form, Christ, the principles of the law; to unfold and interpret and to enshrine the same in the affection and character of men. The moral law in principle is incapable of improvement. “The law of the Lord is perfect.” It legislates for all our relations to God and the conditions of our being.
1. It is a perfect transcript of the Divine mind.
2. It is a perfect organ for Divine good.—Its meaning is the well-being of the creature, and it is altogether directed to promote his happiness.
3. It is perfectly sound throughout.—Agrees with reason and conscience.
IV. The important duty enforced respecting the law.—“Whosoever therefore shall break, etc.” There are three classes here referred to by the great Teacher.
1. “The least.”—Meaning those who are loose or lax in relation to the authority and obligation of the moral law and Christian doctrine, and who urge their own loose or lax views on others in things moral; they may be saved if otherwise consistent, but only “as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15).
2. “The great.”—They who earnestly contend for the faith and live it.
3. “The scribes and Pharisees” seem excluded. For want of spiritual sympathy and sincerity, they are shut out of the kingdom.—J. Harries.
Matthew 5:17. Christ a great encourager of good morals.—
1. He has much better cleared up the spiritual meaning of the law, whereas the Jews commonly understood it only in an external, carnal sense.
2. He has likewise cautioned us against all the causes, occasions, and inlets of sin, than which nothing could have been a greater bar against it; laying restraints on the eyes and ears, and hands, and tongue, and all our members.
3. He has more clearly proposed the benefit, as well as duty of repentance, accepting of repentance instead of innocence; which is a mighty encouragement to come off from a sinful course.
4. He has called us more off from the ceremonials of religion, and taught us to bend all our strength to the substantial’s of it.
5. There were a great many things permitted to the Jews, because of the hardness of their hearts, which kept them very low in goodness and virtue.
6. The doctrine of our Saviour is better suited to work on our hopes and fears than the law of Moses was, having added much better sanctions of rewards and punishments.
7. There is a much larger measure of grace and of the assistance of God’s Holy Spirit promised and exhibited under the gospel than there was under the law.
8. The gospel furnishes us with a much more perfect pattern of all duty, in the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, than any they had under the law.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
The significance of our Lord’s teaching.—The Pharisaic type of conformity to law was accepted without challenge as the ideal of righteousness; but one of the very first impressions created by Jesus was the impression that He was the enemy of such righteousness. Renouncing as He explicitly, emphatically, and with the utmost warmth renounced, the goodness of the Pharisees, the cry was at once raised against Him that He was destroying the law, and was Himself a libertine, and a companion of loose people. And perceiving that even in honest and unprejudiced minds, this impression was gaining ground, He feels Himself called upon publicly to repudiate the attitude towards the law which was ascribed to Him, and to explain elaborately what the righteousness which He required and exhibited really was, and how it was related to the law. And it is as one who speaks to the uppermost thought in the mind of His hearers that He says, “Think not that I am come,” etc. The word πληρῶσαι or πληροῦν means to fill up. It is used of filling to the brim a vessel empty or half-full. And hence it means to complete, to perfect. There are two senses in which a law may be completed or fulfilled.
1. By being obeyed. Thus Paul in Romans 13:8.
2. By being issued in a more complete and adequate form. In which of these senses does our Lord use the word πληρῶσαι? Hardly in the former sense, because He immediately goes on to illustrate His meaning, and His attitude to the law by citing a number of instances in which the precepts of the old law are to be replaced by precepts of His own. Besides, had practical keeping of the law been meant by πληρῶσαι, then its proper opposite would have been not καταλῦσαι but, as Wendt points out, παραβαίνειν. The word καταλῦσαι means a good deal more than practical disobedience of a law; it means to deprive it of authority and destroy it as a law. And the proper opposite of this is not the practical observance of a law, but something more, the issuing of it with authority.
Luther, then, was on the right track when he said that πληρῶσαι here means “to show the real kernel and true significance of the law, that men might learn what it is, and what it requires.” Or, rather, it may be said that it means the issuing of the law in its ideal form. It is thus that our Lord fulfils the law; He keeps and He teaches it in a form that no longer needs amendment, revisal, improvement, as the Old Testament law did, but in a form that cannot be improved, that is perfect, full. That this was our Lord’s meaning is apparent from the abundant instances He proceeds to cite, in which the old law was to be henceforth known in a higher and more perfect form.—Prof. M. Dods, D.D. See entire article in Expositor, Fourth Series, 9:70.
Matthew 5:19. The authority of the law.—It is as much treason to coin a penny as a twenty shilling piece, because the authority of law is as much violated in the one as in the other. There is the same rotundity in the little ball or bullet as in a great one. The authority of God is as truly despised in the breach of the least commandments, as some are called, as in the breach of the greatest, as others are called.—Christian World Pulpit.
Matthew 5:20. The sin of the Pharisees.
I. The good traits in the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.—
1. The Pharisees were orthodox.
2. They were eminently respectable.
3. They were eminently religious.
II. Why the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees fell short and where.—
1. Their religious life, as well as their private life, was marked by a pride fatal to true spirituality. They were proud of their sect, and they were proud of their own personal character.
2. Closely allied to this vital defect was the sin of selfishness. Phariseeism as a system would never have produced the true missionary spirit. The Pharisee wished for the prosperity of his own sect and the triumph of Israel over her oppressors and enemies, but never sought an outpouring of the Divine blessing upon all nations.
3. Equally allied with this defect was the fatal vice of formalism.
III. The principles by carrying out which we shall be able to attain a righteousness exceeding theirs, and so exceeding theirs as to merit the kingdom of heaven. Many are placing their dependence as much upon a past incident in their spiritual life, which they rightly term “conversion” as the Pharisees did upon having Abraham to their father.
1. Having uttered this warning against resting content with the blessing of regeneration, we must emphasise that change as the first essential of a true righteousness which shall exceed the formal religion of the scribes and Pharisees.
2. Another great principle is, that if any man will follow Christ, he must daily take up his cross.—H. S. Lunn, M.D.
Pharisaical and Chsristian righteousness.—
I. The defects of this Pharisaical righteousness.—The faults and the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees are to be distinguished. By their righteousness, I mean the rule of duties which they set. Their faults, like other men’s, might be personal transgressions of good rules; and we have nothing to do with them in this place.
1. The scribes and Pharisees in their interpretations of the law, contented themselves with the external part of duty, without minding the spiritual sense.
2. Their righteousness consisted in a strictness concerning the ceremonials and circumstantials of religion, with a neglect of the greater and more substantial duties.
3. They showed a zeal for traditions, which they observed with an equal veneration with the precepts of Almighty God; nay, sometimes gave them the preference.
4. When pinched between duty and interest, they stocked themselves with evasions and distinctions, whereby they satisfied their consciences in several things, wherein they would have been bound by the law (Matthew 23:16).
5. They showed a zeal for all those duties and customs which made a great show of devotion and mortification to the world.
6. They valued themselves exceedingly upon their external privileges as being descended from Abraham, as if they had been the only elect people of God, and all the rest of the world castaways.
II. What further degrees of perfection our Saviour requires of His disciples.—
1. Evangelical righteousness chiefly regards the inner man and goes about all duty with a pure eye to God.
2. It lays no great stress on ceremonials, though it uses them for decency and order, but reserves its zeal for more substantial matters.
3. It delights in the study of the Holy Scriptures; the good Christian forms his practice by that model.
4. It neither seeks for, nor admits of, any evasions or subterfuges to avoid duty.
5. It is well guarded by moderation and humility against the effects of blind zeal.
6. The good Christian believes God to be no respecter of persons, and so works out his salvation with fear and trembling.
III. The penalty upon which this higher degree of duty is enjoined.—Viz., exclusion from the kingdom of heaven.
IV. The equity of this sentence.—
1. The great corruption of the Jewish doctors in our Saviour’s days, requiring a great deal of reformation.
2. The greater advantages of Christianity beyond the Jewish religion, making it very reasonable that higher degrees of righteousness should be required of us than of them.
V. Practical inferences.—
1. We come nearest to the spirit of our Master, Christ, when by our life and doctrine we are the greatest promoters of Christian morals.
(1) Of all notions in religion, beware of those which undermine Christian practice.
(2) Good morality is good Christianity.
(3) Good moral preaching is good Christian preaching.
(4) A good moral life is one of the truest characteristics of a good Christian.
2. Let us look with a jealous eye on ourselves and examine ourselves very narrowly, to make sure that our righteousness is such as exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
3. Our Saviour’s precepts are not mere “counsels of perfection.” Let us, as a thing of infinite consequence, set about the study of this gospel righteousness, as we expect to avoid hell and enter the kingdom of heaven.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
The excelling righteousness.—What is righteousness, and how can it be attained? were the great questions which the systems of the Rabbis pressed most urgently on the attention of the people in the time of our Lord. No teacher could gain attention who did not deal with them. Indeed, the religious questioning of all ages and of all lands comes to the same thing. Jesus Christ in this Sermon has taken righteousness for His great theme and has shown us clearly:—
I. What it is in itself.—Righteousness consists:—
1. In principle within.—It does not consist in rites, and creeds, and ceremonies without, but it is the inward condition of the heart.
2. In likeness to God.—From Matthew 5:1 to Matthew 5:16 Christ shows what virtues righteousness inculcates and demands, which may be summed up in one word—holiness. Jesus Christ is the Model.
3. In moral meetness for “glory, honour, and immortality.” Observe:—
II. How it is to be attained.—
1. Historically. Of Abel it is said that he found out the secret (Hebrews 11:4). Noah became “heir of the righteousness” which is by faith. Abraham by his unquestioning obedience to the will of God had his faith counted for righteousness. The prophets teach, “Wash you, make you clean,” etc. And our Lord in this Sermon therefore recalls the spiritual conception of the righteousness of the kingdom of God.
2. Evangelically.—True righteousness begins
(1) In repentance.
(2) Attained by a living and loving faith in Christ—“The righteousness which is of faith.”
(3) Result: joy, and peace, and love. Observe:—
III. Wherein does Christian righteousness excel that of the scribes and Pharisees?—In order to understand rightly what was the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and how far that is to be exceeded by the righteousness of Christians, we need to consider:
1. Who these scribes and Pharisees were.—The scribes were the learned theorists. The Pharisees were the religious professors.
2. What was their religion?—
(1) It was speculative.
(2) Negative. Free from scandalous sins, though the heart was full of corruption.
(3) Outwardly scrupulous, but inwardly mean. They were mere machines, polished pillars, etc.
3. How Christian righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.—
(1) In its source. The heart.
(2) In its nature. Christ is our righteousness, not self.
(3) In its motive. Not “to be seen of men” that men may glorify us, but that they, “seeing our good works, may glorify our Father.”
(4) In its quality. Spiritual, not earthly.
(5) In its end. Love to God is the beginning and ending of the service, worship, and life. The scribes and Pharisees are representative men of two classes of formalists: 1st, of those who are mere theorists in their treatment of the Word of God. Their religion is technical. 2nd, of those whose religion consists in mere ceremony, dead formality, and sham; an elaborate system of mimicry, artificiality, and egotism; stereotyped routine.—J. Harries.