Matthew 5

As we begin the Sermon on the Mount, we enter into the most famous statement of the teaching ministry of the Messiah, one of several large discourses in this gospel. It is not as if the few phrases that we have received from the Lord’s mouth in the prior chapters of this gospel have been insignificant. In chapter three He indicated that it was necessary for Him to fulfill all righteousness. In chapter four we have His words against the devil in His settled determination to establish the kingdom God’s way. Towards the end of that chapter we read the powerful summary of His preaching in a call to repentance and an announcement of the kingdom of heaven. He also tells Simon and Andrew to follow Him, promising to make them fishers of men.

Each of these little statements is a weighty springboard for the display of the whole counsel of God. Yet in the extended message that begins in this chapter, we have more than a few powerful phrases. We have three chapters full of the words of Christ to us, helping us to understand the life of the gospel age for those who would be a part of the kingdom of heaven.

The opening of this message reflects on the present suffering in this age and the future reward that will be ours in the age to come. There is a glory to this, not only in the future part, but in the present trials, because of the certainty of faith. Isn’t it true that if God the Son says something is a certain way, then it is that way? He explains to us what the gospel age will be like. We should not be surprised if we feel weak and poor, if we mourn and are lowly, if we are longing for a better day of greater righteousness, if we face the challenge of seeking purity and peace in a world where these may seem rare, if we face the physical and emotional turmoil of being persecuted or just ignored.

Jesus tells us that this kind of life should not only be our expectation, we should also consider ourselves blessed when things like this happen to us and to those we love. The reason that He gives is that there is another age coming. In that age, we shall be in the kingdom of heaven. There we will be comforted. At the resurrection we will inherit the earth. We shall be satisfied with the richness of God’s provision in the age to come. Even now we experience the Lord’s mercy, and we are able to know God. But in that coming day, we shall see God, and we will be openly acknowledged to be the sons of God. Our reward will be great even in the present heaven. How wonderful will it be when we are living in the glory of the resurrection age when Christ returns?

Until that day we are to be much more interested in being imitators of our Savior than being just like the perishing world all around us. We are here now in order to be different in a good way. This holiness of life and desire for the truth and mercy of God will be good not only for us, but also for the places where we live. Though only Christ could bear the burden of our sin, He does not call us to a life of continuing in sin, but to a life of radical holiness and blessedness. He who has fulfilled the Law and the Prophets is in perfect continuity with the life of godliness summarized in the Ten Commandments. This makes Him very different from the religious leaders of His day, and we must follow in this way, or we will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

If we are using our knowledge of the grace of God as an excuse to denigrate the Law of God, then we do not understand the heart of Christ at all. Far from minimizing the common understanding of obedience to the Ten Commandments, our Lord makes it very clear that the Pharisaic way was not really a way of law-keeping, but a minimization of the true and weighty matters of the Law. Jesus was not about to overturn eternal commandments against murder, adultery, and false witness. Instead, He instructs His hearers in the fact that the Law is far more extensive and demanding upon them than they had considered. God was never impressed with perfunctory outward displays of obedience, but expected the holy motions of renewed hearts from those whom He would count to be His sons.

Not only are we required to keep the whole moral law of God summarized in the Ten Commandments, the duty of love that we have is far beyond the simple words of any statute. Does the world hate you? Love them in return. Do they slap you? They slapped Him first. Turn the other cheek. Do they make you walk a mile? They made Him carry a cross, a cross that He came willingly to bear. He says, “Follow me.” Don’t just love your friends. That is not the way of the kingdom. The King came to love us when we were His enemies.

What our Savior reveals here is that our God expects and demands from us nothing less than perfection. It is therefore a tremendous comfort for us to reflect on the fact that ultimately what God demands, God will certainly get. We first see the pleasure of God in the obedience of His Son, with whom He is well-pleased. When such a One dies a sinner’s death, we know that this death cannot be for the One who knew no sin. He must be the Lamb of God, the One who saves His people from their sins. Further, we know that the place where we are destined to go is in no way a place of sin. In that place we will truly obey in the fullest way all of the holy commandments that our Lord reveals. We will do His will by the fullness of a new power at work within us. This perfection that the Lord seeks, He will surely bring about, and we will be greatly blessed in that day when the meek in Jesus Christ shall inherit the earth.